Gabriella watched the rain drops trickle down the bus window as the long laborious bus ride to her first day of East High continued on. She sat at the back, all alone. She always kept her bag on her lap in the hope that someone may sit next to her. But at each school, on each bus, with the same kinds of students… it never changed. She moved in her seat and slouched down slightly to make herself more comfortable. She leaned her head against the cold, fogged window and closed her eyes, but immediately snapped them open as she felt a scrunched up piece of paper hit her in the face. She looked down to see it sitting on the always empty seat next to her. Was it an accident? Was someone aiming for her? Was she supposed to read it? Considering all of the above options, Gabriella just decided to leave it sitting next to her and closed her eyes again.

"Excuse me, is this seat occupied by that piece of paper?" a friendly voice said. Gabriella opened her eyes once more to look up at the person. My god he was…attractive. Very attractive. But wait a moment; he looked sort of familiar, like she had seen him before. Gabriella turned her head to the side to look at him from a different angle. Nope, nothing came to her. "Are you okay?"

"What?" Gabriella said quickly.

"Are you alright? You kind of seemed as though you were in a daze" he replied.

"I was" she said. "No I wasn't. Well I was, but I wasn't at the same time. I-" Gabriella squinted at the handsome boy who was just grinning at her "take a seat" she said leaning her head against the window. No point in trying to make friends or conversation with that boy. She just humiliated herself in front of –

"Troy!! Spare seat up here!" another male voice yelled out. Gabriella looked next to her to see the boy, who seemed to go by the name of Troy staring back at her.

"You look somewhat familiar. Do we know each other by any chance?" Troy said.

"Well, I always seem to embarrass myself in front of people I have never met so, I doubt it" Gabriella replied.

"Well then. I'm Tr-" he began as he held out his hand. Gabriella went to shake it but he was yanked away by a bushy haired African American boy. Troy seemed a bit take aback by his friend, so he gave Gabriella one last quick smile and went to join a bunch of guys at the front of the bus. Gabriella leaned across a bit to get a better look. They must be the jocks? Gabriella thought. Well there seemed to be a lot of them so she guessed so.

The bus came to a holt as all the school kids began to stand up and throw their bags over their shoulders. Gabriella was at the very back waiting to step off the bus. As she gradually became closer and closer to the door the noise grew louder and louder. She finally stepped out of the vehicle, only to catch her heel on the step which sent her toppling down to the hard ground. Many people laughed but no one seemed to help the poor new girl. Gabriella felt like lying there for the rest of the day covering her head with her arms so no one could ever see her again.

"Hey there, you alright?" a familiar, friendly voice said. "You seem to be falling in love with the ground". Gabriella looked up and saw that same boy from the bus. He was blocking out the sun and he looked like an angel. "Here" he said and he held out his hand which Gabriella cautiously took. "That was a pretty embarrassing fall" he said and Gabriella's smile dropped at the drop of a hat.

"Thanks" she said dully.

"On the bright side, it would have looked funny in slow motion" he added trying to lighten her up a bit. But she didn't. Gabriella just glared at him. "I seemed to have just embarrassed you more havn-"

"Yes. You have. So I might just make a quick exit" Gabriella said immediately and she walked past him, accidently knocking his bag off his shoulder. Troy just turned around to watch her leave not caring about his bag on the ground.

Gabriella walked in the large entry of East High and stopped to examine all the students and the path she would take. She decided to go straight ahead. She took a deep breath, cleared her throat, fixed her bag over her shoulder and took one step forward.

BAM!

"Oww!" Gabriella squealed as she went face down to the floor again. She looked around quickly, not too many people seemed to notice so she scrambled to her foot as quickly as she could. She ran her fingers casually through her long hair, cleared her throat one more time and took another step forward. Little by little, she was making her way through the halls with minor incidents. She got pushed by passing people a couple of times and bumped shoulders but that's it. As she was walking, she looked to her left when she hear Troy's familiar voice. She saw him nonchalantly leaning against a locker with his hands buried in his pockets talking to his mates. One of them was spinning a basketball on their finger. So they must all play basketball. Basketball jocks. Troy smiled a Gabriella, but his smile faded a little bit after and Gabriella wondered why. Did she have something on her face?

BANG!

Okay, Gabriella realized why Troy's smile dropped. Because she was headed straight for a big, BIG pole which she smacked right into. Gabriella's head was throbbing in so much pain that she thought people could see her head pulsating.

"Not much luck today then?" Troy said as he walked up to her.

"It would seem that way" Gabriella said quietly with a small smile.

"Are you alright? You seem to be tackling all these injuries very well" Troy asked.

"They aren't really injuries. The pain will pass, but the embarrassment won't" Gabriella said smiling the tiniest bit.

"Oh that's not embarrassing, much, much worse things have happened here at East High. No one would have noticed that." But Troy was just telling a white lie. That was probably the most embarrassing incident that has happened all year! "So what's your name?" Troy asked.

"You must be Gabriella Montez" a man said from behind Gabriella. "I'm principle Matsui; I'll be taking you to your home room"

"Umm, yeah that's me. Okay, that's great thanks" Gabriella said looking up at him.

"Oh blast! I've forgotten a very important meeting! Gabriella do you think you could ask a student where your home room is? Your teacher is Miss. Darbus."

"I have Darbus, I can show her" Troy said happily folding his arms across his chest.

"That's great Troy, however may I asked you to quickly patch up that sentence?" Matsui asked.

"Uhh, I have Miss Darbus" he said and Mr. Matsui gave him a pat on the back.

"See you kids later"

"Bye sir"

"See you" Gabriella said.

"So we have the same homeroom together. Fancy that" Troy said and Gabriella grinned slightly.

"Fancy that" she replied.

"So no more clumsy accidents, bumps or falls today alright?" Troy said patting her on the back which Gabriella found very nice of him.

"Let's hope" she replied.

"TROY!! HEADS!!" a male voice yelled out. Gabriella's eyes widened and Troy turned around to see a basketball coming straight at him. His hands were back in his pockets and didn't have enough time to catch the ball so instinctively, he ducked.

SMACK!

Gabriella dropped all her books on the floor and nearly fell as the basketball hit her on the side of the head, luckily it wasn't that hard.

"Oh man! I'm so sorry Gabriella I should have caught that!!" Troy said rushing to help her pick up her things.

"No, no it's fine. I just seem really accident prone today. Soon enough you will run out of people to blame" she said picking up the last of her things and comfortably placing them in her arms. Gabriella and Troy were left facing each other. "I'm sorry, but I'm really sure I've seen you at least somewhere before"

"I was just thinking the same thing" Troy said. "Well, if we do remember seeing each other somewhere it will come to us sooner or later. Now, let's go to homeroom" Troy said, following his friends who had already left smirking at the two.

They had been walking for about 40 seconds until Gabriella's phone started ringing in her bag. "Shoot" she said. She moved all her books to one arm to try and balance them there.

"Let me take that" Troy offered.

"No no it's fine I got it" Gabriella said sounding very sure of herself. She tried to unzip her bag with one hand which was very difficult, and to add to her luck her bobby pins fell out of her hair sending it cascading over her face. But wow! Troy did find that amazing!! Soon enough, the books that Gabriella was attempting to balance went plummeting to the ground. She turned to look at them, "damn it!" she whispered to herself. Her phone was still ringing and she was getting desperate that she tried to 'carefully' rip open the zipper, but instead, she broke one of the straps and the bag flung open sending everything flying everywhere including her drink bottle which leaked all over the floor. "This is not happening" Gabriella said hanging her head down in shame. She bent down to pick up her stuff but her foot slipped on the water all over the floor. Her leg went flying up, and her body went flying to the ground and she landed right on her back. "First day at East High equals tragedy" Gabriella said as she was staring up at the roof.

"First days are always a little shaky" Troy said. Gabriella got a shock when he wrapped his arms around her waist and hoisted her up off the floor – but it felt nice. "I think maybe you should stand just over there while I pick all this up for you" he said pointing to the wall. Instead of persisting to help, she just did what he said to do and stood timidly by the wall. She watched as Troy picked up all her equipment. The way he moved his feet around, how his shirt moved when he was in different positions, the way his shaggy brown hair fell over his face, the way he stared at her amused. "Hello? Is anybody there?" He asked waving a hand in front of her face.

"Huh? Oh! Yeah, I'm good. Thank you for helping me" Gabriella replied.

"Anytime" Troy said flashing a dazzling grin. "here is Ms. Darbus' class" Troy said pointing to the door closest to them. Gabriella peeked inside and saw they were all looking directly at her and all chuckling. "I think they saw everything" Troy added.

"Thank you, I sort of latched on to that" Gabriella said and just made her way in the classroom.

"You must be Miss. Montez. Our new star. That was quite a spectacle" Ms. Darbus said.

"Umm, yeah" Gabriella replied, sounding just like a mouse.

"Take a seat" Darbus said. Gabriella walked towards the back of the classroom where she saw a spare desk. As she passed each student, she heard snickers and giggles – obviously about the most embarrassing fall of the millennium a few minutes back.

"Good luck today Gabriella" Troy whispered to her.

Gabriella's POV

Name: Gabriella Ana Montez

Age: 18

First day of school: DISASTER

Well once again I managed to humiliate myself in front of possibly the whole school so many times today! It was terrible. However, I did meet a friendly jock named Troy. I don't even know his last name, but he was really nice to me throughout the day. At my old schools the jocks just laughed at me if I mortify myself constantly.

Now I have to make my way to my mum's nursery. Nursery sounds lame huh? Well I'm telling you, mum has these nurseries all over America and she's doing great! I do some modeling for the pamphlets and things and small brochures. No, this is not professional modeling at all. I wouldn't even call it modeling. It's just posing for pictures and things, mainly in gardens. They do give me outfits to wear. That's it. Nothing more.

End of Gabriella's POV

Troy's POV

There was a new girl at East High today. Beautiful, dark eyes, long dark hair. She was pretty incredible. Her name was Gabriella, I'm not sure what he last name was but she was amazing. Except for the 8 times she fell over or bumped into someone or got hit with something today. But even so, she still managed to be dazzling.

I should head off now. I'm almost finished my photographs at the Montez Nursery. Yes, I'm a photographer as well as a basketball player. I have a few hobbies. Basketball is my top one, and then comes photography. I'm just doing this small garden project for my mum, don't ask me why. But if I take some photos she wants then I do it. For my dad as well. You see they paid for this incredibly camera of mine – ever since I showed an interest they were happy to help me out.

I take kind of, revealing photos of girls and them modeling in strange and bizarre places. But NO, don't you think for one second I am perverted. It's purely art and art only. But, I have just never seemed to find the right girl – even though they are all amazing.