GABRIELLA

Senior year, day seventy.

I spent five hours at the hospital with my grandma today.

She's not doing so good.

And as I was sitting there, holding her hand as she drifted in and out of sleep, it dawned on me that life is fucking short.

It's so short.

You could be here one day and gone the next.

So, the moment I stepped foot into my house, I told myself, fuck this, hopped back in my car and drove to Troy's. I don't want to go anymore days without telling him how I feel, without putting myself out there, without apologizing for how I reacted. All of it.

I parked in front of his house, thankful to see his car in the driveway, and took a deep breath as I killed the engine. I'm fucking terrified.

I'm so nervous, too.

I have nothing prepared. I don't know what I'll say. I don't know if he even wants to talk to me after all these days.

But I have to talk to him. I just have to lay it all out there.

I take another deep breath as I knock.

After a few moments of standing there, he opens the door looking beautiful as usual.

"Hi."

"Hey," he says.

"Can we... are you busy?"

He shakes his head, "um, no, I'm... by myself."

Oh good.

I mean, we could have talked outside if his parents and sister were home, but it's pretty cold out here. I don't think I would want to.

Troy opens the door wider, allowing for me to come in. I think I'm shaking. My throat hurts. I might have tears fall at any minute. I'm kind of a mess, to be honest. But I'm just so nervous and this is it. This is the moment I just lay everything out there for him.

"What's up?" He tells me as we're now standing in the living room, "you okay?"

"Not really."

"Look, I'm sorry about not telling you. I didn't... I didn't know until literally days before you guys broke up and I wanted to tell you, I did, but then..."

"It's okay," I cut him off, "honestly, it is."

He looked a little confused. I'm not sure if he thought I came to yell at him some more, but he looked taken aback.

Here goes nothing...

"It's okay," I repeat, "you didn't owe me anything. And even if you did tell me as soon as you found out, I wouldn't have even blinked an eye. I was so out of it. I was so checked out that it didn't matter. Either way, we were breaking up, so it's okay."

"Okay," he nods, bringing a hand up to the back of his neck, "well, I'm still sorry. Whether you cared or not, you didn't deserve it."

"I said there was someone else."

"What?"

"When you asked why we broke up, I said there was someone else."

He stared at me for a moment, I think wondering where I'm going with this. There was no movement.

But then he nodded. "Yeah, you did..."

"And I wasn't talking about for him," I continued, "I'm not sure you understood that. I was talking about for me. There was someone else."

"Someone else?"

I nod, feeling butterflies fly around my stomach at 100 miles per hour. This is where it all might crash and burn. This is where maybe our friendship ends. This is where I let everything out and just hope for the best. This is the moment I thought about time and time again.

Telling him that I like him and hoping he feels the same.

"I..." nothing comes out. I stop talking. I close my mouth, close my eyes for a second and regroup. I open them and see him looking straight at me. "You."

He doesn't say anything.

It feels like forever. It feels like I've been standing here for hours with no response.

Fuck.

"I'm... I just got home from seeing my grandma at the hospital. It's not looking so great. But as I was sitting there, I realized life is too short. This lady lived her life to the fullest. She never went a day without calling me to tell me she loves me. And I was thinking about that and how I'll always regret if I don't say something. If I don't embrace the truth. Life is too short. We don't know what tomorrow will bring. I don't know what I was thinking all these months being with someone who doesn't understand or get me like you. I... it's always been you and I'm such an idiot for trying to push that out of my mind, for trying to lie to myself, for trying to make myself believe that it's all in my mind. That I'm okay with just being your friend. It's not and it wasn't. I wanted you the moment after you talked to me in the office, after you offered me a drink at that party, when you walked me to class the following week, when you'd give me rides home because Chris was too drunk, when you'd keep me company during my free period... everything, Troy. I wanted you so bad but pushed it to the back of my mind every single time. I tried so fucking hard, not just because of Chris, but because I was terrified of feeling this way. I was terrified that it's all for nothing and it might be, I know you don't date, you don't do girlfriends, but life is too fucking short to not put everything out there. I shouldn't have settled for Chris because you were unavailable. I should have told you. I like you and I just had to tell you that."

Again, he doesn't say anything

I mean, I don't expect him to right away. But it's making me feeling a bit uneasy.

"I'm putting you in a weird place, I know that, I know it's awkward and probably really uncomfortable for you because you're friends with..."

"Chris is not the person I thought he was," he speaks up.

"What?"

He takes a step towards me, "anyone that would cheat on you, treat you like that, is not someone I want in my life."

That's... crazy. They're best friends!

"Gabriella," he comes a bit closer, "I don't know where to start."

"You don't have..."

"I offered you a drink at that party," Troy tells me with a nod, "I offered you a drink with every fucking intention of talking to you all night. I wanted to get to know you. And then... I couldn't. And every fucking day since, I've had to sit back and watch you and Chris together. Do you know how fucking happy I am right now? Every single fucking day I couldn't kiss you, hold your hand like I wanted to, call you up and hear about your day. I wanted to more than anything, but you weren't mine and I never thought you could be. God, Gabriella, I've been here this whole time fantasizing about this moment and it's just happened and I wish I could say more, something that would make you believe I wanted you for so long, that I wasn't sure if I could be the boyfriend you truly actually deserve so rather than try and fail, I let you go, and that you were the only girl ever on my mind worth anything, yet I can't find the words..."

"You are," I tell him, closing the gap between us, "I felt it. I felt it every time we talked, hung out, every single fucking time."

He looks at me with so much intensity.

It scares me.

In the way that he has all the power to actually break my heart in two.

No one else ever has.

Troy Bolton could wreck me. He has all of me. He has every single inch of me. I'm his if he truly wants me.

"I know how loyal you are so this whole thing never crossed my mind," I told him, "but I don't fucking care. I don't care if people talk. I don't care if it's this whole thing. I need to explore this. I need you. I want you. As cheesy as this sounds, I just want to fall in your arms after a long day and just... be there."

"I want you, too," he smiles at me, "I want all of it."

"Me too."

He gently cups my face, stroking my cheek with his thumb. "Gabriella, I love you."

I close my eyes.

It wasn't all in my mind. It wasn't one sided.

You know when you love somebody. God allows you to love somebody because He knows they love you back. And that's the case here. Troy Bolton loves me and I love him. I really, really do. I love every single thing about him. And I love how he makes me love.

"I love you, too," I whisper.

He gave me a small smile before leaning down and capturing my lips with his in the most perfect first kiss of my entire life.

I've wanted this for so long. And I have it. I have him. And he has me.

We have each other.