"Do you want something to drink?" Cole asks me as soon as he greets me.

"Uh, yeah, but you're not supposed to be having anything."

He dismissed it like nothing and grabbed a cup from the top of the bar and poured me some captain Morgan along with some coke. He knew I wasn't going to let it go though so as soon as he handed me his drink, he explained himself, "babe, Patrick forced me to do a couple of shots with him, I couldn't..."

Nope. I'm interrupting. "You're supposed to drive me home, Cole! You said you wouldn't drink tonight."

"And I had every intention not to, but you see, our scrimmage got canceled tomorrow morning, I just found out, Patrick was standing there with shots so what was I supposed to do? Miss out on having fun?"

"That's dumb, you can have fun without drinking," I remind him and then take the drink from him, "don't talk to me tonight. I'm mad at you."

He didn't really try to stop me, but before I left, I reached into his pockets for his keys so he wouldn't drink and drive.

And he just let me, which was good, I guess.

If I was the best girlfriend, I would reject this drink and sacrifice this night to drive his car and him home. But he wasn't responsible and now I'm just being spiteful, really. I don't need to drink at all. I could easily throw this drink away because I'm not even a big drinker. But he just made me so mad that I'm not going to take him home. He's going to have to call his parents, his sister or whoever and get a ride home from them. He's not my responsibility tonight and I'm not his and we'll just do our own thing tonight and I'll find my own ride. Maybe my sister can come back and pick me up.

Or maybe not since she dropped me off and then went straight home to sleep.

Whatever. I know I'm not being a good girlfriend, but he's got to learn that he can't just do that.

"What's wrong?" Morgan picks up on me being upset.

"Nothing," I sigh and sit down next to her even though I'm about to tell her what's wrong, "Cole is being so fucking annoying. If you say you're not gonna drink and you can give me a ride home, then don't fucking drink. It's not that hard. 'Oh, Patrick forced me to do a couple shots...' Fuck that shit."

"Whoa," Morgan puts her drink down and turns to me, "you're really mad?""

I put my drink down, too. "Of course I'm mad! You're drinking, Jenna's drinking, everyone's drinking and now I don't have a ride situated!"

Knowing Morgan, she's going to tell me to calm down. "Okay, calm down." Yep, see. "It's not the end of the world. Lindsay's taking me home, I'm sure she can take you home as well..."

"Fine, I'll ask her next time I see her around," I give him. I mean, what other option do I have?"

She sighs and looks around. "It honestly shouldn't be hard to find a ride."

"I know, I'm just annoyed because Cole is irresponsible and now I feel like I can't relax and have a good time because I'll be thinking about it all night."

"Well, try not to," she hands me back my drink as she picks up hers as well, "we're celebrating the end of summer which shouldn't really be a celebration, but we're seniors now and we're going to have the best time, ever. Think about that and just have fun!"

She's right. I need to just relax and have fun.

Worse comes to worse, I'll wake up my sister and have her come get me. She'll be pissed off and I'll feel bad, but she'll still come get me.

For now, I just need to relax and hang out with my friends.

But the second I tell myself to, I turn and see that Troy Bolton has walked into this party with his friend Michael and now everything's a little blurry, a little more surreal. Seeing him here... at a party... with people I go to school with, people he went to school with... it's real.

He's back in town.

And I'll have to see him everything. School. Parties. AT FREAKING HOME.

"You okay?" Morgan asks me after she notices who I'm looking at. "Did you know he was coming?"

"No," I shake my head slightly as I sip on my drink. "But I'm fine. We... things are fine. I mean, I'm not gonna get up and greet him, but if he were to come over here and say hi, it'll be fine. We cleared the air and I honestly think it's just best if we're friendly, but not too friendly with each other.

"It's gonna take some time, but you guys were best friends. I mean, can you really imagine your life without him?"

No. I can't. I really, really can't.

But I went three years without talking to him or seeing him. I can go however much longer it takes for us to get to a place where we're extremely fine with each other and we can laugh about things again.

For now, though, I'm just going to sit here and do my thing while he does his.

Which apparently is taking to Jessica Stein, who's a total slut.

"No, but it's going to take time, like you said," I tell Morgan, trying not to look over at what he was doing, "it's fine. We're fine."

"Good," she smiles at me.

But I can only look away for so long.

Him and Jessica Stein? Really? I mean, I knew someone was going to pounce on him the second he stepped foot into school. He's hot. He GOT really hot and everyone's going to notice and everyone's going to pretend like they would have given him a chance in middle school and blah blah blah. But Jessica Stein? Ugh. She sucks. Literally and figuratively. And that might be a little bit too much of information, but it's the truth.

She'll hook up with any guy, drunk or not, and then go about her day, not caring who she hurt in the process. It's the worst. She's the worst.

Well, she's not the worst because she's nice and funny and occasional fun to be around, but she's just totally out there. She's what you call a slut and I hate using those words, but it's the best way to describe her, really. I have no other way.

And her and Troy are talking. She's laughing while she puts her arm on his shoulder and he's smiling at her and I'm sitting here throwing daggers.

I feel this need to protect Troy.

That's exactly how I felt when I was his best friend and he was mine.

"You know you can't say anything," Morgan catches on to what's happening here, "he'll just think you're jealous."

"But I'm not. I'm just... he doesn't know how she is."

"He'll figure it out," Morgan shrugs, "or he won't. That's not your problem. Trust me, if things were the way they were, you can totally go over there and warn him, but they're not and it'll only cause more tension. And that's the last thing you guys want. Maybe they're just talking, maybe he's not interested."

Oh please. Who isn't interested in Jessica Stein? Blond, big green eyes, nice smile.

Trust me, he's interested. But she's right. It wouldn't be good. So, I just sit back and hope he realizes it for himself.

I don't need to involve myself in that whatsoever.

Troy Bolton can do whatever he wants.

"Do you want a ride?"

I turn around and see Troy standing there offering me a ride. "What?"

He gave me a small smile as he took a step back and I took one forward, moving a bit away from some people. "I don't know. I saw your car when I left earlier and I just figured... I'm going that way, so why not?"

He's my best option, honestly. It's perfect. But I don't know if I want to leave just yet because I'm having fun with all my friends.

I turn around, see Morgan and all our friends finishing their round of beer pong and contemplate it.

To be honest, I should. I don't have my ride situated yet. It's 12:30. People are only getting drunker or they're starting to leave. This is my best bet. Sure, it might not be like it was before, but how awkward could a car ride be? Especially since I'm drinks in. I'm slightly drunk which makes things easier.

"Sure," I nod, accepting his offer, "thanks."

"Alright," he says, "um, I'll meet you in the front?"

I tell him yes and when he turns around to walk away, I head over to Morgan and tell her what's going on.

And then when I say bye to my friends, I grab my sweater and a water bottle because I'm parched and head to the front.

Troy's standing there, his keys in hand, and I wait a moment before I walk up to him. I don't know why. I'm just standing here looking at his profile view as he stares down at his phone. And I can definitely believe he became this attractive, but seeing it is so hard. He's so beautiful. And not only that, but the Troy I knew, the Troy I hope he still is, has such a beautiful heart, as cheesy as that sounds, that it makes him ten times more attractive.

It's honestly not fair at all.

I take a deep breath and prepare myself for the first time I'm ever going to ride in a car with him.

"How long have you had your license?"

"As long as I possibly could," he says, putting the car in drive and slowly pulling out of the parking space he was in, "The day I turned 15 and a half, I took my permit test and then got it when I was 16. So almost two years."

Same with me. It was just conversation, really. Also, I don't like getting in cars with people who have only had their license for like two weeks. But I feel a little more relaxed now. Wait. Did he drink anything? Is he drinking and driving? But I don't wanna bring him up and accuse him.

No, now that I think about it, every time I looked over at him tonight, which was a lot, he had nothing in his hand.

"So, who was going to give you a ride home?"

"Um, Cole," I say, hoping he doesn't really ask for details, but then I decide to just give him the gist of it, "he decided he wanted to drink tonight."

"He's not driving, is he?"

I shake my head, a little appericative of how he seemed concerned about it. "Nah, I took his keys."

"Oh," he says, like he doesn't know what else to say. Like he doesn't really want to say anything else to upset me. But at the point, my anger towards Cole is all racked up. There's no way someone else could make me more mad. "Well, I'll get you home."

He'll get me home.

Troy. Troy Bolton. My ex best friend. And the guy I thought I loved.

"Thanks," I get out before looking out the window and making it completely silent.

But it didn't last very long, because he spoke up after a minute or so, "how long have you two been together?"

Ughhh. This isn't what I wanna talk about. But this is what friends talk about. He's trying here. I just... I feel weird. I know he doesn't because there was nothing on his end, but on my end, I felt something for him. Something strong. I thought it was love. Maybe it was love, I don't know. I didn't have the chance to explore it. And now he's asking about my relationship and I shouldn't care, I should happily tell him about it, but it's just weird.

"Um, not that long," I say, a bit embarrassed by it. I don't really know why. I wish we were together longer so I could gush about how great he is and make him jealous or feel bad that he didn't explore something with me. "A month."

"Really?" he glances over at me. "A month?"

"Yeah," I'm a little confused by his reaction, "why?"

He shakes his head a bit as he turns on his turning signal to turn right, "no, I just thought longer. Your mom made it seem that way..."

My mom? He's talked to my mom about our relationship? Ummm. "What? What did she say?"

"Nothing much," he says, "that day you were out with him, my mom asked where you were so it got brought up and the way your mom spoke about him, we just assumed you guys had been together longer, that's it. Your mom just made it seem like you guys have been together for months or something."

"In what way?" I really wanna know.

"Your mom offered my mom some chocolate covered raisins, but when she went to get them, you guys were all out and she just said that Cole probably ate them all and mentioned something like, that boy is too comfortable around here."

That's what I thought.

My mom HATES that. She hates that it took him only a week or two to come into our home, open the fridge and help himself to what he wanted.

And I get it. I get how that's annoying. But I'm not going to fight with my boyfriend over something so trivial. I'm saving our fights for nights like tonight, you know? So I've never said anything and it bugs the shit out of my mom. Of course I offer him food, but even if I don't, he'll go into the fridge and take whatever he wants. He doesn't even ask if it's anyone's.

And yes, I completely understand where my mom's coming from so I'm not upset that she hates that whatsoever.

But why does she have to tell people about it?

Screw it. I don't even care at this point. "My mom's not really a fan of him, so it doesn't surprise me that she would badmouth him to you guys."

"She wasn't badmouthing him," Troy defends her, "not at all. I mean, if people really knew her and could read her easily, yeah, sure, you'll definitely be able to tell her dislike towards him, but she didn't come out and say all these nasty things about him."

"Oh," is all I manage to say, "well, yeah, she doesn't really care for him."

"My mom didn't like my last girlfriend," he tells me as he turns right onto another street, "I guess most people aren't good enough for their kids, you know?"

Yeah, I guess.

But all I can think about right now is that he had a girlfriend.

Troy Bolton had a girlfriend in Seattle and I had no idea. I mean, why should I? I shouldn't. All his social media accounts were private and no one really talked to me about him so how would I know? I wouldn't. But ugh. He had a girlfriend. And I don't know why I feel weird about that. I figured he'd go off and get a girlfriend, but hearing it... it's real. He rejected me, he went to Seattle and got himself a girlfriend.

I guess I'm not good enough for him, either. "Yeah, I guess so, I don't know, my mom will come around eventually."

"I'm sure she will," he glances over at me and I can see a small smile on his face.

And for the rest of the ride home, I just sit here looking out the window wondering how life would be if Troy Bolton never moved away.

Would we still be friends?

I wonder about this from time to time.

We were the best of friends. As close as people could get without the binding of marriage and without DNA connecting them. So I want to think we'd still be the best of friends and that high school shit didn't get in the way. We wouldn't have drifted apart after making a bunch of new friends in different classes. But who knows. NO, I know. I know that if he had stayed and I didn't kiss him, we'd still be the best of friends, for sure. Definitely.

Before I know it, he's pulling into his driveway and we're home.

I grab my purse, take off my seat belt and quickly open the door. I just want to go to sleep already.

"Thanks for the ride."

"Anytime," he says, "are you fine?"

I give him a small smile and grab my keys out of my purse to let him know that yes, I'm fine, I have my house keys and I'll get into my house just fine. He probably knows my parents are out of town, but my sister's here and we have the greatest neighbors who will keep an eye on us. "I'm fine."

Troy gives me a smile and kind of just stands there for a moment, I think not knowing when he should walk away.

So instead of him walking away first, I walk away.

I give him another small smile, thank him again and then head to my house.

What a night...