Chad, Jason, and Zeke were hanging out in front of their homeroom on Wednesday when they spotted Troy advancing. They looked the other way assuming he was just going to class but were startled to find Troy right there when they turned around.

"Hi," Troy managed to get out, feeling more nervous now than he had even been with these three. "Look, I know we had a rough summer, but I want to try to talk this out."

Chad couldn't believe his ears. "You want to talk this out? A rough summer? Troy, were you there at Lava Springs with us? Oh wait, you weren't. There was, however, a new and supposedly improved Troy Bolton there to cement his scholarship and admission to U of A, completely oblivious to his friends who would have liked to have done the same. What makes you think that any of us want to hear anything you have to say?"

Troy clenched his jaw, not liking where this conversation was going. "I understand why you guys are mad, I know I behaved poorly this summer. I've been thinking about it a lot this past week especially, and I can see where you guys might be upset," Troy said, looking at his three former best buds and teammates.

"Might be?" Zeke asked, stepping in before Chad could say anything. "You changed the way you dressed, you changed your priorities, you took interest in one of you best friend's crushes, and you broke the heart of an innocent bystander who was in your way apparently from achieving your dreams of being a star basketball player in college. Captain, you haven't the slightest idea of how I or any of us feel."

"Well maybe I could if you guys would just talk to me instead of getting all defensive and hostile here," Troy returned, feeling his own anger return. "I know what I did was wrong, but don't you guys ever think about the future and your dreams? Do you ever think about making them a reality?"

"Every day," Jason spit out. "We all have dreams of going to college, to play for the team, to do well and have a professional career, whatever we choose. Every single one of us does, not just you."

Chad nodded his head in agreement and said, "Listen Captain, I don't think any of us here are open to anything else you have to say right now. It's clear you are slowly starting to see what you have done, but none of us are ready to hear what you are about to say. If you thought you were going to get lucky with us and get us on a good day so that miraculously we would forgive you, I hate to tell you, but it doesn't work that way. You have lost our respect and our friendship, both things none of us here or our friends give freely. I suggest you go inside class and sit down with your girlfriend before more damage is done out here."

Troy took one last look at the three guys and nodded his head before heading into the classroom and sitting down next to Sharpay. He didn't acknowledge her as he took his seat though as his mind was full of what just happened with Chad, Zeke, and Jason, the three guys he thought would always be there for him. 'Have I changed that much? Why wouldn't they even listen?' he wondered to himself, leaving that train of thought as Gabriella and Ryan entered the room holding hands again. He could handle the hand holding but not what it caused - a replay of their kiss to run in Troy's mind for the millionth time since the dance. Ryan took his usual seat behind her and immediately started playing with Gabriella's hair, which made her giggle. If he could have, Troy would have let out a scream that would have been heard throughout the school from all of his frustration. Having seen everyone so happy lately without him and having been told by his ex-best friend that he wasn't welcomed so to speak to them made Troy so confused. 'Have I really lost my friends and myself in this whole process?'

As he stared longer at Gabriella's smiling profile as she talked to Kelsi who was right next to her, Troy understood finally why her being with Ryan hit so much harder than he had expected. 'Their first kiss, the kiss I never had with her,' he thought to himself, closing his eyes as the realization hit him. 'That kiss between Ryan and Gabriella has pained me so much because I never did get to kiss Gabriella, not once, during all those months. The moments had always been off or we were always interrupted by something. Now I'll never get to share that experience with her.' His anger gave way to his misery as he dwelled on this revelation, not happy with the spectator role he had taken in Gabriella's life now, no longer her leading man.

"Troy, hello! Can you stop spacing on me already?" Sharpay asked, hating the fact that he was zoning again.

Troy looked over at Sharpay and realized something else. 'I don't care for her, not the way I care for a certain brown-haired girl with sparkling brown eyes and an adorable smile. That's why I never thought twice about kissing Sharpay in the past weeks, it didn't mean anything. What am I doing?' he wondered, looking at Sharpay but not really focusing on her.

"TROY BOLTON! I swear if you do not snap out of it this instant, I will slap you out of it!" Sharpay screamed, causing the rest of the students in the class to look their way, including the gang.

Troy blinked and rolled his eyes at her dramatics. "Sharpay, can you cool it? Geez," Troy got out, embarrassed as he saw that everyone was staring their way. "Sorry everyone."

Eventually, all the students return back to their own conversations, which left Troy to face Sharpay about her hissy fit. "Troy, all I want is for you to be here with me if you are going to be with me. I know that you have all these things on your mind, you told me, but I want you to be able to be interactive and not just a trophy boytoy," Sharpay stated, not caring enough to see the look on Troy's face. She instead was busy filing her nails.

"Sharpay, listen, I think we need to…" Troy started only to be interrupted by her.

"We need to make plans for this weekend, right? I totally thought ahead of you Troy. Friday, we are having dinner with Daddy and the family. Won't that be great? I think he may even invite some of the University of Albuquerque booster club members, but then again, it may just be family. He mentioned he had a surprise for you that you'll love though," Sharpay revealed. "You're coming right?"

"Right," Troy responded, abandoning his original thought. "Fancy dinner I am assuming?"

"You bet," Sharpay confirmed. "Wear that navy blue suit with the light blue shirt and tie I bought you last weekend, okay?"

"Sure Sharpay," Troy answered back, thankful Ms. Darbus took that moment to enter the classroom and start discussing homeroom announcements.

At 4 PM, Troy walked out of the gym, having freshly showered and changed after a workout, and headed towards the library for his normally scheduled tutoring session. Gabriella was already seated at their normal table but was talking to another girl she looked friendly with. They had just started to laugh about something when Troy approached the table.

"Hi," he greeted, interrupting the laughter.

Gabriella looked up and saw that Troy had come after all. She wasn't sure after what she heard went down with Chad, Jason, and Zeke if he would. "I guess I'll talk to you later, Audrina. Seriously, think about what I said about him, might change your mind!" Gabriella said to the other girl before she left the table.

"New friend?" Troy asked.

"Yup," Gabriella replied, trying to get herself back in the tutoring frame of mind. "All right, so we made a lot of progress with Physics last week and on Monday. Do you want to tackle that English paper I know you have due by next week?"

Troy sat back and just looked at Gabriella with a smile. "All right, have you been spying on me, Gabriella?"

"No, we just get copies of assignments from teachers every week so we know what the students are working on. It gives us a slight chance to get a little more prepared to help if we know what we are working with," explained Gabriella. "So, English paper?"

Seeing Gabriella was all business as usual, Troy nodded his head. "I have a rough draft here, let me pull it out."

Gabriella studied the rough draft for a few moments as Troy watched her read, making marks here and there. She had bitten her lip in concentration as she was focusing on one area in particular, going over and over it, focus evident on her face. Troy enjoyed this moment since he could just watch her and study her face again, for the first time in a while. 'She really is so amazing, what have I done?' he thought as he sees her move on to the next page. 'Have I lost her for good?'

She finished the paper and flipped back to the first page. Gabriella looked up to start talking about the rough draft but found that Troy had been staring at her the entire time, warm emotions evident in his eyes. 'Those all too familiar, loving, blue eyes,' she thought to herself before forcing herself away from that train of thought. "Troy, you ready to go over this?" Gabriella asked, snapping him back to reality.

Troy nodded his head and forced himself to start taking notes of what she was saying. He questioned her on a few parts but she explained it flawlessly, making it clear that she knew what she was doing and that he had made a complete mess of his paper. By the end of their session, Troy's paper looked completely different, marks everywhere, but Troy didn't mind. He knew that there were improvements needed to be done and he could see where she saw the errors. Troy looked at Gabriella gratefully as he knew she saved his grade completely on this one. "Thanks Gabriella, I appreciate it," he said, smiling at her again.

Gabriella found herself smiling back. "Just my job. It was nice reading your work again, kind of reminded me of old times when I did this at your house," she revealed, instantly regretting that trip down memory lane. "So if you make those changes to the paper, I'm sure you'll be in great shape, especially when you add the last quarter that is missing. Great ideas, Troy."

He nodded and started packing up his things. Troy saw that Gabriella had gotten up and knew this was his chance. "Gabriella," he said, causing her to stop from leaving the table. "Do you have a moment so that maybe we can talk?"

Gabriella eyed Troy warily, not knowing if it was so wise to have a personal conversation with him. 'You know you want to,' Gabriella thought to herself. She nodded her head. "Just for a few moments."

Troy felt a grin spread on his face as he picked up his bag and Gabriella went to retrieve hers. They walked out together and found they were walking in the direction of their spot, Troy's secret spot on the roof. Once there, the two were silent, neither knowing exactly what to say in this moment until Troy took the first step.

"Gabriella," he started, finding his voice was a bit husky. "I think I understand why none of you talked to me the rest of summer and now. I was a jerk, I focused only on myself and what I needed. In the process, I lost the best things in my life, my friends, and especially the love of my life."

She quickly looked up at him, studying his blue eyes to see the truth in them. "What brought this on?" she shakily asked.

"I guess after talking to Chad, Zeke, and Jason, well not even talking to but getting scolded by them in some ways, I got to thinking about how things used to be and what my life was like when I had all of you. Now, well now I just have myself," Troy revealed, sitting down on the bench next to Gabriella. "It also hurts all these weeks not even talking to you besides tutoring and seeing you with another guy. Gabriella, have you even realized that we never shared a true kiss in our relationship? I don't know what it's like to feel your lips on mine, but I'm jealous of Ryan, who clearly does know. This isn't where I wanted to be in my senior year at East High, alienated from those I hold closest to me."

"Well Troy, I don't know what to tell you but that you did this to yourself," Gabriella responded, knowing this was the time to open up her mind and heart to him. "When you started bailing on the guys to play with the college team, when you were late to dates or blew me off all together for Sharpay and her family, those are the moments when we realized we no longer knew you. You changed so drastically this summer, at a pace none of us saw coming. It's like the Evans family just had to dangle this scholarship in front of you to get you to do whatever Sharpay wanted, even breaking my heart."

Troy watched as a few tears slipped down Gabriella's face and reached out to wipe them away only to have her jerk back and wipe them away herself. "Gabriella, I didn't mean any of it. I admit, I got wrapped up in my future, completely, but I didn't want a future that didn't have you or the guys in it."

"Maybe you should have thought of that before you did what you did," Gabriella got out, some anger in her voice. "Now, as nice as it is to hear that you are realizing all this, I don't know if any of us can see you the same way. How do we know the real Troy is back for good and not on a special appearance role right now? Speaking for myself, I cannot handle an episode of falling back in love with you only to have the new Troy come back out and break my heart all over again."

"You talk as if I did all the heartbreaking here this summer. If I remember right, it was you, Gabriella, who broke us off!" Troy exclaimed, not enjoying the feeling that everything was his fault. "You were the one that walked out on me that night and gave me back the necklace. It was you who never called after that, sending me messages that you were just not that interested anymore. What was I supposed to think when you never came back?"

Gabriella found her temper rising at these words. "So now it's my fault that you turned into such a complete jerk?" she asked. "Sorry to break it to you Troy but you did that all on your own before I left Lava Springs. As for not contacting you, I was waiting for the old Troy to come back, the one who would have shown up on my balcony to apologize and the one who would have called to check to make sure I was okay. Yes, I did break up with you but it was only after you showed me clearly that I was no longer one of your priorities. You had better things on your mind apparently, the scholarship, your golf job, and Sharpay. And speaking of, if you were so heartbroken over us, how could you go out with her?"

"How could you go out with Ryan?" Troy challenged. "This isn't just a one way street here Gabriella, and I refuse to take the entire blame."

"This is exactly what I am talking about. You don't take any blame! This new person you have become is all mighty, just like Sharpay, and isn't capable of making any mistakes, any bad calls that he will admit to. Troy, as much as I had hoped that you had changed by now, I can see you clearly haven't. The guys won't talk to you because you blew them away with your change, just as you did the rest of the gang. You were so loving, and caring, and always there for everyone and then, well you became this guy who didn't care who he hurt as long as he got his precious scholarship. Well guess what! You got your scholarship, you've got your friends on your new college basketball team, and you've got the girl that fits that image. To me, it looks like you won already," Gabriella got out, feeling the words had poured out of her mouth before she could check them.

Troy stared at Gabriella for a few moments, never having had such a huge argument with her before. He could see the anger in her face and body language but he also saw the sadness that resided there as well. "Gabriella, this isn't how I wanted this all to go," Troy said. "I wanted to bring you up here to tell you that I still care about you, possibly even love you. Even though you may think that's not true, it is. I've realized how sad my life is without you to share it with. Sharpay doesn't mean anything to me, not compared to you."

Gabriella turned her head to look at him, tears shining in her eyes again. "Troy, why did you have to say all this now? Why after all this time, when I've finally moved on? I want to believe you, my heart is breaking to believe you, but I can't, not when I have fresh memories of what you have done and who you have become. You will always be my first true love, and us being apart will never erase the memories we have together, but I can't trust my heart in your care right now. I hope you understand," Gabriella replied, leaning over and kissing Troy on the cheek gently. "A huge part of me wants us to be together, is praying that we will end up together someday, but I can't see it happening right now, not with the way things are. Like I said those long weeks ago, maybe someday we will be together again, but just not right now. It wouldn't be good or fair for either of us. Good-bye Troy."

Troy felt his throat tighten as Gabriella grabbed her bag and stood up to leave. She turned his way one last time before sadly waving and heading downstairs. Troy stayed up on the roof for another hour, thinking of everything they just said, replaying his fight with the guys, plotting out what events happened to lead him to where he was now. 'What do I really want?' he wondered when he found himself in the same position he was just after Gabriella had left. 'Which life path do I want to choose?'

Next Chapter
Back to the Dream Page