I sighed as I walked down the crowded halls. Jocks chatting up cheerleaders, stoner guys exchanging illicit materials with a quick slip of the hand, drama club students poring through scripts. Nothing new; nothing exciting. Everyone here sort of stuck
/to their roles in the typical school hierarchy. At the bottom, I admit, was me: Gabriella Montez.

I mean, nobody outright hated me; I wasn't bullied. I was just the quintessential nerd who sat at the back of the class and answered all the questions correctly. I preferred books to people more often than not, and found solace in the library rather than
/the hustle and bustle of the cafeteria. I didn't mind, most of the time. It was just the way things were. It wasn't like I was new to being alone.

Bringing myself out of my thoughts, I walked into homeroom and slinked quietly to the back of the class, where I had been sitting for the past 2 months of junior year. Tucking my unruly dark locks behind my ear, I self-consciously pulled my dressdown.
It had shrunk in thewash last week and I hadn't realized till it started riding up this morning on my walk to school. It wasn't ludicrously short, but it was shorter than I was used to, only reaching to my mid thigh rather than reachingmy
knees as usual.

A shriek at the front of the classroom forced me to look up, and I laughed quietly to myself. Chad Danforth had just accidentally knocked his basketball onto Sharpay Evan's desk and she looked like she was about to unleash fury on him.

"Man, Chad's really fucked up this time. Ice Queen will never let him live." Someone whispered to me. To me. Whipping my head to my right, I saw Troy Bolton leaning towards me, the ghost of a smile on his lips. I was shocked; why was he talking
/to me?

Troy Bolton was one of those people who was lucky enough to have found his place in life in high school. He was the hotshot basketball player who everyone knew was going places. And, just to top it all off, he was gorgeous to boot. Tousled brown hair,
/a lean body that you just knew was packed full of muscle, and these vibrant blue eyes that made me (and probably every other girl at East High) melt. It was more than that though. He was in almost all my AP classes, so he must have been pretty smart
/on top of everything else.

"Oh… I, um… yeah." Such an eloquent answer; I couldn't believe it. Why was Troy even talking to me? We'd been in the same homeroom for the 2 months since I transferred here, sat next to each other every morning, and he'd never said a word. I didn't get
/it.

"You're Gabriella Montez right?" Troy whispered to me. I nodded, looking at him quizzically.

"It's nice to finally talk to you. I thought we'd get through this entire year not saying a word to each other." He quipped. I couldn't help myself – I smiled.

"Yeah," I said. "I guess we never really noticed each other, right?"

"Wrong." he looked straight at me. "I noticed you the second you walked in here the first day of school."

Instantly, I felt a blush creep onto my cheeks and I looked down, fidgeting with the ring on my finger. Taking it on, then off, then on again.

"So" Troy started, but never got to finish. Our homeroom teacher, Ms. Darbus, glided into the room, and every noise in the room died down. She had instilled fear in us from the first day of class, and no one dared talk while she was in the room unless
/she'd said it was fine.

After that, the 30 minutes of homeroom consisted of a dry lecture on the use of cellphones in class, and before I knew it I was hurriedly packing up my things, ready to go to bio. Without a glance in Troy's general direction, I bolted. He was probably
/too busy with Chad and the rest of his basketball friends to have really noticed anyway.

Why today, I couldn't help but wonder. Why had he decided he wanted to talk to me today? I didn't know, but whatever it was, I was happy. I turned and watched from across the hall as helped a shy freshman boy find a classroom. Troy seemed nice, like
/he actually cared about other people. And with that thought, I chalked up this morning's happenings to his nice guy tendencies and put it behind me.

Halfway through bio, horror struck me. My ring! I had been playing with it all of homeroom, and I couldn't find it now. Tears stung my eyes – I couldn't lose that ring. It meant everything to me. I'll just go to homeroom during lunch and look for it,
/I told myself. It wouldn't have disappeared. For the rest of class, I couldn't concentrate. I tapped my foot, anxious to look for my ring; once the bell signaled the end of bio, I rushed to the other side of school, maneuvering my way through the
/throng of students more skillfully than I ever thought I could.

Once I got to Ms. Darbus's empty classroom, I ran to my desk and started to search around it. It wasn't on the desk, wasn't on my chair, wasn't in the drawer compartment of the desk. Nowhere. I sighed as I crouched under the desk; what a shitty way to
/start the week. Admitting defeat, I stood up, on the verge of tears. Trudging my way to the library, I found myself lost in thought, remembering when I had gotten that ring.

"Mama, have you seen the book I was reading?" I called from the bathroom. It was a warm summer night and I wanted nothing more than to curl up with my book on the balcony.

"No, mija, I haven't, but could you come down here please" she asked me. I walked to my mom's room and flopped down on the bed, rolling around on it. My mom chuckled softly and pulled me upright, told me to sit up straight.

"Even when we're having alone time, you criticize my posture." I teased. She had gone to charm school as a kid, and was forever lecturing me on my posture and my etiquette.

"Someone has to." She shot back. She was in a good mood today, playful and motherly rather than her usual self.

"I have something to give to you," she told me, standing up and gliding towards the ornate dresser on her side of the room. I followed her, intrigued. I love when she gave me stuff; her jewelry was awesome. She opened the drawer and picked out a box. Cartier. I gaped – she never gave me stuff this expensive, it was usually just a trinket here or there.

"Your dad," she started, "gave me this when you were born. He told me that I'd given him something so precious that I deserved to remember it with something beautiful."

I trembled as she handed me the red box. She smiled at me, her dark eyes twinkling. When I opened it, I gasped. The love ring; my mom had barely ever taken this off when I was a kid.

"Are you sure?" I whispered. She slipper a finger under my chin, tilting my head up so she could look me in the eye.

"I have never been so sure, mija. You have it, remember me when you wear it. Never take it off okay?" I nodded, touched that my mom had given me something so special.

"Gabriella!" someone was calling out to me. I turned around, rudely brought back to the present, and was surprised to see one Troy Bolton running down the hall to catch up with me. I wasn't the only one surprised. Everyone turned around, staring at me,
/and I withered under their intense scrutiny. Looking down, I waited for Troy to catch up as I turned into the library.

"Hey," he looked at me. "I've been looking for you."

"H-Hi" I stuttered. Why does he turn me into a blushing, bumbling idiot? Oh, this is just embarrassing.

He rubbed his neck, looking down for a second. "You dropped your ring in homeroom." He said. "I've been trying to find you to tell you I have it."

"You do?" I perked up instantly "Can I have it back please?"

He chuckled. "Sure; it's in my locker, and I've got to get to class now. How about you meet me at my locker after school and I'll give it to you? It's locker 414, right by Mr. Milner's class." Before I could say anything, he turned and walked away, his
/jeans riding low on his hips.

Waiting for the day to pass was torture. I couldn't wait to get my ring back, and yes, I couldn't wait to see Troy again. My crush on him was building fast – I'd never felt like this before. When the final bell rang, I tried to play it cool, making my
/way first to my locker to put away the books I didn't need and not rushing towards locker 414 like I really wanted to.

"Gabriella?" I turned. Taylor McKessie, a sort-of friend from the Scholastic Decathlon, smiled at me. "Do you think you could stay for a little while today to help us understand Le Chatelier's Principle?"

"Sure" I smiled at her. Taking a leap that I hadn't really thought through, I said "If you're free this weekend Taylor, I'd really like to hang out; maybe we could have a sleepover? You can invite anyone you want."

She looked surprised, like she couldn't believe that I'd broken the barrier I myself had put up between us. But just like that, she smiled at me.

"Sure," she said. "I'd love to. Me, Sharpay, and Kelsi were planning on grabbing dinner but we could rent some movies and order pizza at your house instead."

I beamed, a genuine smile spreading across my face.

"Great!" I looked at her. "I'll meet you at the chem lab in like 10 minutes, I'm just gonna go grab something if that's ok."

She nodded and made her way down the hall, whilst I walked towards locker 414. When I got there, Troy was leaning up against it, fiddling with his phone. He looked up as I approached, grinned at me and turned to open his locker.

I smiled timidly and shuffled my feet as I waited for him to hand me my ring. Finally, he got his combination right, reached into his locker, and pulled out my ring. Relief coursed through me as he wordlessly handed it to me, watching my reaction. I put
/it on, savoring the feel of it.

"Thank you" I looked up at him. "So much. I can't tell you how much this means to me."

He shrugged, waving away my gratitude. "No biggie. I figured you'd be worried about it; that ring looks pretty fucking expensive. I would have freaked if I couldn't find it."

"I mean, that's not why I was worried, but yeah I guess. It just has a lot of sentimental value and losing it would mean that I had lost something really precious to me and I just…" God help me, I was rambling. I couldn't stop myself. Troy probably thought
/I was a freak and he looked ready to leave.

"Right, well, I um… I have to get to practice, my dad will freak if I'm late." Oh that's right. I forgot his dad was the basketball coach. I wonder what that was like.

Walking away, I felt like there had been a major shift in my life today. For the first time in 3 months, my dad's constant travelling and my mom's absence from my life didn't bring me down as much as it usually did. I felt lighter, better. I hadn't felt
/this good in so long.

After scholastic decathlon practice, I said goodbye to Taylor and pulled my cardigan on, ready for my walk home. My dad wanted to get me a car, but I told him that I wanted to earn it. Plus, walking helped me think, so I didn't really mind. Except today,
/about ten minutes after I'd started walking, a drop of water hit my cheek. Then another. Then another. Shit. I sighed and pulled my phone out, ready to order an Uber, only to see that my phone was dead. Hoping I wouldn't look like a drowned rat by
/the end of my trek, I started walking along the sidewalk again, my bag above my head to protect myself from the rain.

But then fate intervened. An old, beat-up truck puttered alongside me, Troy Bolton sat in the driver seat. He leaned over and opened the passenger door for me; an offering, I realized. He wanted to help. Touched, I climbed in (literally, I climbed. That
/truck is huge and I'm short) and shut the door. Troy cranked up the heater, before he turned to me.

"Where to?" he smiled at me.

"Oh um… 14 Calloran Place. You just keep going straight for a couple of miles, then take a right." I started to explain directions but he cut me off.

"I run past there all the time, so I know where it is. I'll get you there." He shot me a smile, and I melted. Could he be more perfect?

We drove in silence for a little; when he wasn't looking, I would glance at him. He had a nice profile. Long eyelashes, a straight nose, and lips so plump I wondered what it would be like to kiss them.

Stop, I told myself. You shouldn't look at him like a piece of meat. I shifted in my seat, and forced myself to make conversation.

"So, how was practice?" I asked.

"Eh" He shrugged, "It was ok. Same old, same old. I'm so sore from all the drills though." He looked at me and shuddered "we started conditioning today."

I had no idea what that meant, but I laughed anyway at the way he was acting. "Maybe try taking a warm bath tonight, it'll relax your muscles." Did I really just say that? I am so lame. I really need to work on what I say around him.

"I will. How was your practice? Scholastic Decathlon right?" I gaped. How did he even know what I did?

He saw my look and chuckled "I saw you coming out of the chem lab today with Taylor. She's all about Scholastic Decathlon, so I just put two and two together."

Oh right. "It was good. Probably not as demanding as basketball though, but I still enjoy it."

He frowned at my words "It's just as demanding. Not physically, but definitely mentally. I sure as hell couldn't do what you do, Gabriella."

I nodded, not really sure what to say. The rest of the car ride was quiet, and as Troy pulled up to my house, I smiled and turned to him.

"Thank you so much Troy. For everything today; finding my ring, taking me home. Really." I said sincerely. No one other than my family had gone out of their way to help me this much.

"No problem Gabriella. I'm glad I could help."

As he turned to start the car, I hesitated. I had to ask. "Troy" he looked up. "Why did you choose today to start talking to me? I mean, what was different?"

He smiled shyly. "I've kind of been working up the courage to talk to you for a while now. I can't tell you why today was different, but I'm glad it was. I've been a goddamn coward for two months and now I'm finally manning up and talking to you." I was
/at a loss, but before I turned to walk into the house, I said "I'm glad you did." And with that, Troy grinned and pulled away from the curb, driving off until his truck was just a speck at the end of my lane.

I smiled wryly to myself. Not such a shitty start to the week after all; I couldn't wait to see what else was in store for me.