Troy Bolton ♪ Faking Smiles

06 | "i hate you"

"You know, if Troy didn't like you so much, I would think he's cute." Gabriella explains, in response to my explanation of the auditions. I rest my head on the locker next to her's and wait for her to unload her books.

"That's so gross." I groan, rolling my eyes and twiddling with the sleeve of my shirt.

She slams her locker door shut. "He has a point, you do roll your eyes a lot." She laughs, taking the lead in walking to my locker.

We pass countless of people with glaring eyes, wondering if Troy and I getting a call back was legit. Yet, I stare past them with a hard expression.

"I hate people." I mumble as we both see my locker at the end of the hallway.

"You seem to like Troy." She says looking over at me, waiting for the answer of the heavily known question.

"Not you too." I whine, desperately waiting for this horrific day to be over.

She laughs, looking down at her shoes. "I'm kidding, kinda." Her gaze lifts from her shoes to my annoyed face. "I mean, you had to have considered it, right?"

"No, I have not! He's a loser who probably just wants to play me." I insist, while opening my locker and shoving all of my books into it.

"What's this?" The brunette girl asks, picking up a folded piece of notepaper off the ground. She opens it up and reads it, her mouth dropping open. "Amelia! You have to read this!"

"What?" I ask, ripping the paper from her grasp.

Hey Amelia, it's Troy.
Meet me in the biology
room right now!

"I hate this guy." I say aloud. I crumble the paper back into a ball and throw it inside my locker.

"Wait, you're not going?" Gabriella asks.

"No, why would I?" I respond, not willing to explain my answer.

"Why!" She exclaims, shutting my locker door for me and pushing me all the way to the biology room.

As I step inside, I see a trail of rose petals leading up a staircase that I never even knew was there.

"I hate you."

"Hm?"

"I hate both of you."

——————

"Wow, it's like a jungle up here." I marvel while approaching Troy,
who is sitting on a bench that
views the whole room.

The room was filled with millions of types of plants and flowers that made the air smell sweet and look gorgeous. Not to mention it was on top of the school building, so it added a nice view.

He looks down at his shoes and smiles. "Yeah, it's almost like that cafeteria." He remarks, eyes lifting
to meet mine as I laugh at his joke, much to his suprise.

"So is this your private hideout?"
I ask, plopping down bext to him.

"Yeah, which is great because none of my buddies know about it." The dirty
blonde haired boy says, gripping on
to the edge of the bench.

"What, you don't like having tons of friends?" I sarcastically ask, turning to him waiting for an answer.

"Not all the time. Friends are fickle, and you never know if they're going to change their minds."

"I'm sure your friends will always be your friends."

"Only if we win." He answers, staring straight in front of him, not meeting my eyes.

"Hey, you will." I reassure him while resting my hand on top of his.

He moves his gaze over in my direction and laughs. "So, who knew you could sing?" He jokingly asks, pulling his hand away from mine.

"Uhm, hopefully no one." I respond and laugh simultaneously. Troy averts his gaze away from me to his shoes and folds his hands.

"Well, that's to bad for you because we're both staring in the upcoming musical." He says with his smile disappearing with every word.

Knowing to face the univetable, I ask him the no-longer-avoidable question. "So, what do you think your dad will say when he finds out?" I ask.

"You know, other people always say to my dad 'he's the basketball guy', you must be so proud." He pauses, wind running through his hair. "Sometimes I don't want to be the basketball guy. I just want to be a normal teenager."

"If it counts, I think you're perfectly normal." I acknowledge, temporarily stunned at my new attitude for Troy. Maybe it's because I feel the say way; parents always putting you down on stuff they don't want you to do or accomplish in life. "My parents always see me as the girl who doesn't care about anything, except my grades. They have this idea that all I care about is being valedictorian—which is partly true, but what they don't realize is that I actually do care about everything. Sometimes, I care too much. What I look like, what others think about me, who has a crush on me, and what others think about my talents really does affect me, just not on the surface. They just don't see that part of me because even if they won't admit it, they want me to be valedictorian, and that's enough to keep them happy."

"So, what you're saying is, be yourself?" He asks, quickly glancing at me before returning his gaze to the floor.

"Not exactly, because you should always be yourself. What I'm saying is, don't let them get down on you for liking something they never thought you would like. It's all part of what makes you, well you."

"Kind of like the audition?"

"Exactly like the audition. It reminded me of way back when, to the kindergarten days, where you were automatically someone's best friend on the first day of school because you didn't have to be anyone but yourself. And that's how I felt singing with you."

Troy opens his mouth to say something, but gets interrupted by the school bell. "I guess we should go to class." He says.

"Yeah." I respond, standing up off the bench and making my way down the stairs.

"Amelia, wait." Troy says at the top of the steps. I stop and look back up at him. "Thank you."

A smile spreads across my face and I nod my head in a notion of you're welcome. "No problem."

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awwe my lil cupcake is starting to like troy <3 !!! amelroy (comment new ship names!) is my otp.

so sorry i haven't updated in forever.
idk why but this chapter took my forever to write.