The inspiration for this story came from I wrote this for you (pleasefindthis . blogspot . com) If you've never read any of it, I encourage you to do so. It's amazing beyond words could explain.

"And I don't want the world to see me because I don't think that they'd understand. When everything's made to be broken, I just want you to know who I am."

Iris, Goo Goo Dolls

He could hear his own blood pumping through his veins as his heart rate exhilarated to levels he had not thought possible. But Troy could not seem to set his mind on the net, therefore missing every attempt he made to get the basketball in its main destination. Groaning in pure frustration after missing what had to be the one hundred time, Troy heaved the ball across the court, smiling to himself in satisfaction as it hit the wall of the gym with a loud smack.

"You are not looking too sharp," an approaching all too familiar voice broke the silence, shoes squeaking on the freshly waxed floors. "You might want to pull it together before practices start again…double time." Coach Bolton, otherwise known as his own father, Jack Bolton, informed, fully aware that soon his team would have basketball practices twice a day; once at free period and another after school.

Troy bit his lip to avoid any kind of confrontation. It was only free period, half way through the day, he was not going to let his father ruin the rest of his day. "I am trying, Dad."

"Sometimes trying is not good enough."

Shaking his head, Troy rubbed his creasing forehead. Witnessing the motion, Jack's mouth opened in disbelief. "If you have something to say, son, get it out now."

"I do not have anything to say."

"Then wipe that look off of your face and get washed up," He said as a suggestion but really meant it as a demand.

He nodded, turning quickly on his heel to steer himself away from his father but paused momentarily, the words stinging the tip of his tongue. "You used to say the outcome didn't matter…as long as you tried. I am trying, Dad."

"Really?" Jack Bolton picked up an orange ball, the same ball that he had made his entire life about. "Try this." He aimed with perfection, stilling until he heard the sweet noise of the swishing of a basketball net. With a cocky smirk, Jack turned to his only son. "I want your mind on one thing and one thing only. Championship. Do you understand? Take anything else that is cluttering that mind of yours and discard it. It lacks importance."

His attention was deviated from his son to the wall of the gymnasium, his deep blue eyes studying the banners of previous championships that East High had won. There were none in the previous ten years. With a nod full of confidence, Jack bounced the ball beneath his finger tips once more. "It is going to happen this year. Mark my words."

Troy hated disappointing more than anything else. He shook his head. No, expectations only led to let downs. If he understood that, how come his father could not? "Don't get your hopes up too high," Troy advised with caution in his voice.

"Why not? With an attitude like that, you are bound to fail."

"If I fail, I fail with warning. But if I expect to win and then fail…I fail with disappointment," Troy tried to show his own side of the matter, hoping for some understanding.

Jack did not look at Troy directly in the face. His eyes scanned over the retired numbers that hung in jersey form on the gym wall. "P. Bolton 18…J. Bolton 25...do you see whose name is missing?" Jack asked rhetorically after reciting his own father, Peter Bolton's number and then his own. "Your name is. And it will remain that way." He let the ball fall at his feet, creating an uncomfortable silence for the both of them.

Without another word, Jack nodded as if dismissing Troy to the locker rooms, having nothing left to say.

"Don't embarrass us, Troy."

"Hey," Gabriella greeted with an breatheless voice as she slid into the seat beside Troy's. Since Sharpay sat on the opposite side of the room in their fifth period class, she had to find a way to keep her entertained the last class of the day. Troy of course was the only person who she knew that sat near her.

He replied with a nod, his iPod turned on like it always was, making Gabriella roll her eyes.

"Do you ever put that down?"

Slowly and deliberately, Troy withdrew the ear pieces, rolling the cord of the headset around his iPod, placing it carefully in is backpack. "Do you have a car, Gabriella?"

"No…"

"How about a computer? Cell phone? Something that you cannot live without?" Troy searched for a comparison.

"I have a computer…but I still talk to people," She sighed, defeated. He was stubborn. She'd been at the new school for a little over a week, having adjusted better than she had ever imagined. Gabriella was the type who enjoyed getting to know everyone and Troy made that difficult for her. Out of everyone she met, he was the one who would not stretch just that bit further and he was exactly the one that she wished would because she felt that he was someone a lot deeper than he initially let on.

Troy turned his shoulders slightly to make eye contact with her, finding her curious brown eyes to set his nervous system on fire. "I talk to people, what do you call this?"

"Has anyone ever told you that you are about as thick as a rock?"

He smiled the first real smile all day. "Maybe…but like I was saying. I bet that computer has served as an escape for you more than once."

More than you would ever know, she thought, but held her tongue.

"Now this…" Troy reached into his backpack, patting the spot where he had placed his iPod. "This is my escape everyday of my life."

"So you are really into music?"

With this, his eyes lit up like a candle. Bingo. Finally, Gabriella had found a way to make the one and only stone faced Troy Bolton, smile. This was a task that she had thought would be impossible.

"I guess you could say that," Troy played it off cool and casual, pretending to be disinterested in their side conversation.

"Well…" Gabriella toyed with the frayed edges of her notebook paper, finding that easier than making eye contact. "What kind of music do you listen to?" She bit her bottom lip in slight curiosity, wondering if he was becoming annoyed by her incessant questioning.

Troy shrugged, acting as though to think about how to answer it when in reality, the answer was tugging at his tongue. He didn't like this, not one bit. Usually, he kept to himself and that was how he got by. Now, all of a sudden, one girl is thrown into the mix and he gets flipped upside down? No, he was not going to have that. He tilted his shoulders towards her, his imploring eyes searching hers. Troy wished he could see what was so different about her. There had to be something. Sharpay even took a liking to her right away and that was something unheard of. "You know… the classics."

"The classics?"

"Some Bob Dylan…the other four fathers of rock and roll like Elvis and Chuck Barry. I have some of the Who, the Fray and some of the decent music that is out today," Troy paused to think. "There's not a lot of good music made these days, though."

Gabriella nodded, wondering how long she could keep a conversation going with him before he lost interest. She was determined to beat her time with each day she got to know him more. "Depends what genre you're listening to. If you're into the whole hip-hop scene, music is great today."

"That's not real music, Gabriella. You're not into that, right?"

"Oh, of course not," She answered quickly. Maybe too quickly.

"Mr. Bolton, Miss Montez, is there something more interesting to learn about that you would like to share with the rest of the class?" Mrs. Darbus, their homeroom teacher who also taught their last class of the day, Dramatic Arts which was required for graduation, asked with impatience.

Gabriella was fast to shake her head, but Troy just leaned back smugly, the look on his face clearly saying that he didn't care if he was disruptive or not.

"I let your tardy in homeroom at the beginning of last week slide, Mr. Bolton," She recalled, her lips thin with irritation. "I'm pretty sure you're well aware that I'm not that kind so detention, after the last bell rings today I wish to see you and Miss Montez on the Auditorium's stage. Is that clear?"

Gabriella could have choked. Never once in her life had she received a detention. From across the room she could see Sharpay sniggering into her palm, following with a "shame on you" motion of her fingers.

"As day, Darbus," Troy smiled brightly as if he were just as excited about this as she was.

"You are acting a little sour," Troy pointed out the obvious as both he and Gabriella started to clean out the backstage dressing rooms used by the drama club.

"You got me a detention, jackass."

Troy held up his hands in surrender. "Hey, you were the one with the probing questions."

"Probing? I was not probing," Gabriella said with a huff as she attempted to lift an extremely heavy box of costumes.

Coming to her rescue, Troy caught the box before it slipped from her grasp, carrying it with ease to the corner of the stage, like they were instructed.

"I could have done that myself." She began to make an attempt at moving another box.

"Of course you could have," Troy laughed and picked up his backpack, slinging it over his shoulder.

With a questioning glance, Gabriella looked at the clock. "Where are you going?"

"It's been ten minutes…I'm leaving," Troy stated as if she should have already known the answer.

"But detention just started, it's not over for another forty minutes…"

"Oh…" Troy said with a smirk, the pieces coming together in his mind like a jigsaw puzzle. "You're a virgin, aren't you?"

"Excuse me?" Gabriella asked, her voice merely a squeak.

"A detention virgin," Troy answered, approaching her from behind, his arms going around her to take the box from her grasp, lifting it over her head like it was effortless. "Get your mind out of the gutter," He joked.

"Yes, this is my first time in detention," Gabriella said defiantly, "And I'd like it to be my last so you better stay."

"If I cut, I would get in trouble, it would have nothing to do with you."

She looked up at him with her best pout, wondering if it would work on someone other than her mother. "Would you really leave me here alone?"

He chuckled, finding it difficult not to laugh at her antics. "It is your choice, either you stay or you leave with me."

She bit her lip. She did not want to risk getting in any more trouble. One detention was enough for her. But then again, she did not want to stay there alone. "Are you sure we won't get caught?"

"Hey, I never said we wouldn't get caught," Troy reasoned, "But in all likelihood, Darbus won't step a foot in here. Trust me, I would know."

"Fine I believe you."

"Good because I haven't given you reason not to, have I?" Troy asked as he led her to the emergency exit door that was located backstage.

Without uttering another word and trying to make as little sound as possible, Gabriella practically tiptoed until she was clear of the building, letting out a loud sigh of relief. Once out in the open air, she smiled cheekily, laughing lightly since she had finally realized what it meant to have freedom stripped from you…even if it was for only ten minutes. Only did she snap out of her own world when she heard the quick clicking grinding noise of a cigarette lighter.

"That could kill you one day, you know," Gabriella exaggerated disgust.

He smiled at the thought. "Unfortunately, that would take years."

"Unfortunately?"

"Has anyone ever told you that you ask too many questions?" Troy diverted the attention from him without her realizing he was doing so.

She propped a hand on her hip as they talked in the parking lot of their high school, walking towards the white truck that Gabriella knew belonged to Troy. "I would rather ask questions then live life not knowing."

He pondered this thoroughly. There was something about her that intrigued him but still, he could not put a finger on what it was. Maybe because she was someone who was new to the school and someone he has yet to figure out. Either way, he could not help but want to spend the spare time that he had with her. The past few days had been the calmest he had in what felt like years.

Troy leaned against the door of his truck, his arms crossing loosely over each other while he took in long, deep hits on his cigarette. "Sometimes I think mass confusion would be an easy way to live."

Her eyebrows scrunched in question, the gesture not going unnoticed by Troy. "You should not say that though. Think about it seriously. We are young. I am only seventeen and I have an entire life ahead of me. I am unsure where I will be led and whether or not I will choose to follow and that's enough confusion for me to handle."

She spoke so easily with certainty that was enough to make Troy envy her. Gabriella had the right words to say and they were enough to make him change his mind and question his negative ways.

Gabriella leaned against his truck as well, playfully bumping Troy's shoulder with her own. "For a senior…your depth perception is way out of whack," She joked but there was some seriousness in her words. "Do me a favor?"

"Yeah?"

"First…" Gabriella took the burning cigarette from his hand, flicking it somewhere off in the distance. "We'll start there. Next, go easier on yourself, okay? Just say that you will."

His eyes changed from a lighter blue to a deep cobalt. "What makes you think that I don't already?" His tone was short like she had blown some kind of fuse.

Sensing the change, Gabriella's eyes narrowed. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah."

"Yeah, right," She said sarcastically, ready to give up the fight. He was just someone who would not open up. That was just something she was going to have to accept eventually. Her whole life, she was so used to everyone's words spilling out of their mouths for her. It was something that she considered a gift.

Troy faced her as if looking into her brown eyes would add credibility to his words. "I am fine."

Choosing not the back down, she stared back with equal force. South Pole and North Pole forcing themselves to come together…like repelling magnets. There was a tension there that neither of them could put a name to.

"You don't sound too sure of yourself. I mean, I don't like probing but I am just saying-"

Hearing her mock his word ignited a fire inside of him that he did not know was there. "I said I was fine."

She continued with her condescending tone of voice. "You know if you ever needed any kind of help-"

Troy cut her short once again. "Do I look like I need it?"

No longer beating around the bush, Gabriella nodded, studying the way that he stood, his arm propping his body up against the truck as he hovered over her, in a stance that was a little intimidating and empowering. "To be honest, yeah. You barely speak to anyone and when you do, your words are barely earnest. At least that is what I have seen," She said lightly but it was not taken that way. With Troy, every word cut to the core, sinking in so that he could feel their every meaning.

"Hey," Troy said simply, trying to shrug it off, "…you don't know me."

"And you don't know me but a stranger still has an eyesight with a clear vision and from the looks of it, you are lost Troy Bolton," Gabriella stated with confidence. "And I'm determined to figure you out, just to let you know. I'm on to you."

"What makes you think that if I really needed someone's help, I would ask you, new girl."

"I didn't. I just know a thing or two about helping people."

Troy's eyebrows rose. "Oh really?"

At this point, Gabriella wasn't sure if they were involved in a playful banter or a light argument, either way, it made her awake like the feeling of freezing cold water splashing against her face.

"Yeah, really."

He leaned in, his face only inches away from hers so that she could officially see the very contours of his face. She felt like touching him, reaching out to see if he was real. He frustrated her to no end, having been the only person that she could not figure out. Troy Bolton was an endless maze that even after such a short period of time, she found herself lost and looking for ways out, only to lead herself further into the twists and turns.

"I say…you are bluffing," He whispered and she felt his warm breath on her cheek, making her resist the urge to shiver.

"Are you afraid?" Gabriella dared to ask one more question just to see the reaction on the features of his flawless face.

"Do you want me to be?"

With that being said, he opened the door to his truck, jarring her from the deep trance that she had not even been aware that she was in. It took the jingle of car keys for Gabriella's mind to register that he was now leaving her, even more confused than she was before.

"You know, I don't like you, Troy Bolton."

"Enjoy the mass confusion," He made reference to the earlier remark with the same smirk planted on his face as if it were a permanent tattoo.

Curse him. She did not understand why he was so stubborn. That was when it dawned on her. Troy Bolton was her…in boy form. He was difficult, his head about as hard as a boulder. He believed his views were correct, and that was what kept him moving through the day. She shook her head, feeling a smile spread on her own face. She looked around at the almost empty parking lot, knowing that it truly was going to be a long second semester. The sound of an engine pulling away made her head snap to his truck, her mouth wide in realization.

"Hey! I need a ride!"

September 16th, 2009

Remember a place in time. Pick a place, any place, like a shuffled card deck, hoping that maybe the person who your thoughts revolve around, would pick the same place, too. I choose to think of the mountain house, legs dangling over the edge of the dock, clear reflections in the water below as fireflies illuminate the night. I look to the right and take in his face, not because I planned on not seeing him everyday- but simply because he was who I looked up to. I remember every line in his forehead and every color that made up the strands of the irises in his eyes. I remember, because that is all I can do. You need to stop for a moment and let it all sink in. Take some deep breaths before you begin your fresh start. That is how I did it. You can, too. If I could be there every step of the way, I would. And when the worst is over and you see a lost soul, remember that at one time, that was you. Extend a hand. Until next time,

-B