126Disclaimer: See every chapter previous to this
Back to the Beginning
"Well, Troy, your blood-work came back fine. You are slightly anemic, but that is normal in boys your age. Perhaps drink more water in order to lessen the lethargy that may occur." The doctor nodded at his own statement and paused, glancing at his notes written in unreadable handwriting on legal paper clipped inside Troy's file. "We've also examined the results from the heart monitor, there don't seem to be any abnormalities there either."
Troy stared at him. They were sitting in the very bland space that functioned as his doctors' office. The walls were white and the window was small with empty curtain hooks perched expectantly above the frame. The desk was scantily decorated, the only sign that proved this was a working office were the stacks of manila file folders piled dangerously high in rows on the table behind the doctors chair.
"So, there's nothing wrong with me?" Troy asked in shock.
"Nothing medically," The doctor confirmed, gazing at Troy over his steepled fingertips.
"So…what's wrong with me?"
The doctor continued to gaze at Troy, his eyes seeming to read Troy's mind. He paused and narrowed his eyes, taking in a deep breath and measuring his words carefully. "Is there something wrong with you?"
Troy thought about his past semester at school and how he'd changed. How everybody had changed. Is there something wrong with me?
"Son, I have reason to believe that these symptoms you are complaining of may be emotionally stimulated. You have recently gone through a big move coming here to school and many things that had previously been normal are now turned on their head. Before I release you with a clean bill of health, I think it would be prudent for you to attend a few counseling sessions, see if we can figure out some things that chemicals can't."
"So…you think I need to see a shrink." Troy nodded though he hadn't fully digested the suggestion.
"No, I just think you need somebody to talk to."
Sharpay took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. This has to be done. Almost every college student does this, it is nothing to be ashamed of. Just pretend you are hungry to experience the college lifestyle.
She wrapped her shawl tightly around her shoulders, warding off the cold breeze and stepped out of her car onto the cracked and unkempt cement of the Desert Creek Apartment Complex parking lot.
Moving carefully on her conservative Kenneth Cole kitten heals, Sharpay crossed the parking lot and climbed the splintered wood of the handicap ramp to the front door of the management office.
She knocked three times, crossing her fingers that nobody answered. But almost as if he were waiting on the other side of the door, the manager of Desert Creek swung the door open dramatically and beckoned her inside.
"Enter, my dear girl, enter." He said loudly, gesturing to a chair in which Sharpay assumed she was meant to sit. She eyed the ripped fabric and protruding stuffing with distaste and deigned to remain on her feet.
"You have wonderful timing, Ms. Evans." The manager, Marcus according to his nameplate, continued.
"do I?" she couldn't help the trace of contempt that had risen in her tone.
"After our conversation on the phone, I took a look at what I had available and an apartment exactly to your specifications will be available."
Sharpay narrowed her eyes suspiciously. "Exactly to my specifications?" she repeated. "It just so happened to become available?"
"Oh, alright, you squeezed it out of me." Marcus said, drooping his shoulders in a magnificent show of defeat while a conspiratorial glint showed in his eye. "I liked our conversation so much, and your application seemed so desperate, I lowered the price of an apartment that is becoming available in December. But don't tell anybody about this, I don't want hoards of tenants knocking down my door because of it." He said with a wink.
Sharpay nodded her head, understandingly, though her suspicions were not completely abated.
"So!" Marcus said, perking up and clapping his hands together excitedly. "Do you want to see an apartment?"
Sharpay nodded vigorously. "Absolutely." She might as well know what kind of hell is awaiting her.
Marcus quickly grabbed the large ring of keys off of his immaculate desk and ushered Sharpay out the door.
"Right over here," he said, indicating toward a building set apart from the rest.
"Now, your apartment is on the ground floor so you're going to want to be careful about your windows. Drunk guys at nighttime tend to not like using doors."
Sharpay stumbled on a loose pebble and flailed her arms involuntarily to regain her balance, "They what?"
But Marcus was a few steps ahead of her and she couldn't be sure that he even heard her question. He just quickened his pace, apparently excited to show off her knew home.
"Now, you'll have two keys," he explained as he took one key from his giant ring of keys. "Wait, oops, not that one." Jiggling the key in the lock for a moment, Marcus decided he'd pulled out the wrong one and set to searching through the mass once again. "Aha, that's right. Green for outer doors unless in M or J."
Sharpay stood confused, staring at Marcus as though he were speaking in alien tongues.
"There we are!" He trilled, finally swinging the door open. "Now, you'll have two keys. One is a master key for the building, it'll open this door to allow you into the hallway," he led Sharpay down a musty smelling hallway. The carpets were a plain brown color with many suspicious stains and the walls had been white at one point but were now a pealing yellowish color. The ceilings were poorly smoothed plaster with some watermarks distorting the shape and only one exposed light bulb was actually working.
"The other key," Marcus continued, not seeming to notice the level of disrepair his apartment complex seemed to be in, "is for your front door. You're going to want to be sure to bolt your deadlock because the door lock doesn't work. And, if I remember correctly, yours is one of the apartments where the door can just be pushed open, the doorknob being slightly unnecessary."
Sharpay didn't know if she should be more appalled at the lack of security for her apartment or at the fact that this is common for many of the apartments in her complex. Either way, she made a mental note to buy a chain lock to install.
Marcus went through the same ritual he'd just performed at the entrance to the building, pulling out his key ring, muttering to himself, trying a few keys and finally gaining access to the apartment.
"Voila!" he exclaimed, throwing his arm out wide and beaming with pride. "Welcome to your future apartment!"
Sharpay took a cautious step through the doorway and stood in the empty room, completely horrorstruck. The wall paint was peeling and discolored, the carpet was stained and there was an unidentifiable odor that seemed to emanate from the walls themselves.
"So, what do you think?" Marcus asked, his excitement wavering as he watched her silent reaction.
"Um…Well…Where's the rest of it?"
Marcus laughed, throwing his head back and allowing his entire body to shake from the effort. "Good one," he sighed, finally calming down enough to speak as he wiped his eyes from the involuntary tears that had squeezed out. "Good one, given the deal you got."
Sharpay smiled uncertainly, still looking around with distaste.
"So what do you really think?" Marcus pressed.
"Oh," Sharpay stopped, finally jerking her attention out of her own head and realizing the kind of response that Marcus was looking for. She quickly pulled some sincerity into her smile and changed her body energy from reserved to bursting with excitement as she gushed, "Oh, Marcus, It's absolutely perfect!" She then turned her back, pretending to inspect the kitchen so that Marcus wouldn't see her eye's rolling.
The apartment turned out to have one bedroom, five steps down the hallway. A bedroom that was roughly the size of her closet back home. And the kitchen and common room were almost indistinguishable from each other. The bathroom had mold and the refrigerator seemed to be leaking water. But it was going to be her home soon. And despite the level of disgusting it seemed to be at, Sharpay still felt a glimmer of pride growing in her chest at the fact that she would have a place all her own. A place that she alone was responsible for. A place that would never be tainted by the rest of the Evans family.
Troy sat in the overly colored waiting room of the therapists office. He felt as though all the color was meant to brighten him, and the rest of the patients, up but it just ended up irritating him. Pink cushions? In a doctors office? Really?
He'd been waiting in this room for forty-five minutes. He'd had to miss basketball practice because of it. And he was not happy about any of this.
"Troy Bolton?"
A blond assistant with her hair in a high pony tail stuck her head around the door.
Troy contemplated not answering, but decided that would cause more trouble than it was worth. At least this way he could get it all over and done with. Just say what the doctor wants to hear and leave with that elusive 'clean bill of health'.
Without saying anything, he stood from his seat with a sigh and shuffled toward the assistant and the doctor's room.
If he'd thought the waiting room was colorful, then this was a freakin' rainbow. All four walls were painted a different shade of yellow, the couches (yes, multiple) were purple, green and blue and the different cushions and plants and paintings set up strategically around the room were each bursting with their own color scheme. It was enough to give Troy an instant headache.
"Welcome, Troy," an airy voice said from somewhere in the middle of the room. There was so much going on in the room that it took Troy a couple minutes to be able to distinguish the doctor from the decorations.
"Please, have a seat anywhere." Dr. Gibson was a petite woman with long dark hair. She didn't wear the typical professional attire that Troy expected. She had on a suit but it was cream colored. Her shirt underneath the suit was bright red and she had a flowery scarf tied around her neck. Her oversized headband was also red and the pen that she presumably used to take notes was decorated with large peacock feathers glued to the end of it.
Troy took a few more timid steps into the room and sat down cautiously on the blue couch. Dr. Gibson immediately started writing something in her Mickey Mouse shaped notebook.
"So, Troy. Tell me about yourself."
"Umm…" Troy hesitated. ""Well, what do you want to know?"
"About yourself," Dr. Gibson repeated, writing something down in her notebook.
"Well…My name's Troy Bolton. I'm from Albuquerque, New Mexico, and now I'm going to school at Berkeley." Troy tried to keep everything as plain and boring as he could. There was no way he was going to make this easy for Dr. Crazy.
"What made you choose to come to this university?" Dr. Crazy…Gibson…asked.
"My girlfriend," Troy answered automatically.
"Interesting…" Dr. Gibson hummed, writing frantically in her notebook.
"I mean, they have a great basketball program, too. That was – obviously – a factor. And the drama department…" Troy trailed off cursing himself for answering the question honestly.
"Tell me about your girlfriend," Dr. Gibson prompted, not giving away any of her own thoughts on what Troy was telling her.
"Ex…girlfriend," Troy corrected sheepishly. "We, sort of, broke up."
"Sort of?"
"Well, I mean, we were on a break. But then she had thanksgiving with us and…well…I don't really know what's going on."
"What do you want to be going on?"
"Well, I want to be with–" Troy cut himself off before he could finish the sentence. Dr. Gibson had this weird ability to make him say something before he'd even thought about it. Something, in this case, that he didn't even know was true until it was said aloud. But he couldn't say this one out loud. He couldn't say it because he couldn't bear to make it true. "I mean, I want us to be like we used to be."
"Right," Dr. Gibson nodded, fixing Troy with a curious glance. "And how was that?"
"Happy," Troy answered, again speaking before he thought about the consequences. "I mean, both of us happy. I mean, spending time together and talking about our plans for the future."
"You know, Troy," Dr. Gibson said, her brows furrowed with a masked expression on her face. "I think we need to make this a weekly meeting."
Shit. Troy's heart sank as he internally berated himself. It's all these damn colors. They disarm you. Make you speak the truth no matter how messed up it makes you look.
Troy crossed his arms defiantly and Dr. Gibson wrote something down in her notebook. This was going to be a long session…
Sharpay stood in her closet staring at her hoards of clothing. How was all of this going to fit in her apartment? And she wondered how many kitchen appliances and pieces of furniture she could take from home without her parents noticing or caring. The coffee pot for sure she'd have to take. And some utensils and cookware. She might have to settle for plastic plates and cups. It was tacky, but it's not like anybody would see it. Sharpay's eyes fell on a few bolts of fabric she had lying in the corner and suddenly her mind started reeling with ways to decorate (read: cover up) the hideously ugly apartment. She might even be able to make it look cute. She just has to remember to smuggle some curtain rods out of the house.
Of course, she'd have to find a really good hiding…erm, storage…space for all this stuff until her move-in date.
Just then, the sound of her phone ringing interrupted her stream of excited thought and brought her crashing back to reality. Running back into her bedroom, Sharpay grabbed the phone off of the bed and glanced at the display. It was Chad. Who knew she even had his number programmed into her phone?
Pressing the green button, Sharpay placed the phone to her ear and answered, "Hello?"
"Hey, um, Sharpay?" and awkward male voice, undeniably Chad's, said from the other end.
"Yeah?"
"Hey, it's Chad."
Normally this would be occasion for Sharpay to roll her eyes, but since she and Chad were starting anew, she decided she found the exchange humorous. "I know," she laughed.
"Oh, right. Of course. Ok, well, I was just calling to let you know that I talked to my boss and he said you have an interview tomorrow at four. Bring your resume and, obviously, dress nice. But I think you've got a pretty good shot."
Sharpay breathed a sigh of relief, "Thanks, Chad. Thanks so much. You're a total life saver."
"No problem."
"Chad? Can I ask you one more favor?"
"Sure, what is it?"
"How much extra space do you have in your garage?"
Funny story: On the first day of my Sports Marketing class we had to go around the room and play that stupid introduction game that all professors think is fun. The kid next to me: his name was Troy and his interesting fact was that he turned down a full ride to one school to follow his girlfriend to our school and it turned out to be the biggest mistake of his life.
I thought it was rather ironic.
So, some friends and I went on our traditional end of summer road-trip. Good fun, less like running away this time. But it's back to real life. And schedules. And updating stories ;)
I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter. Please Review!