Ouch… I know it’s been ages since I last updated. But to keep the introduction short, I think it would suffice, for now, to say I’ve been extremely busy and mentally overworked. And the result might actually show in this chapter. I feel like my mind’s been wandering off too much lately, like I have the attention span of a goldfish. Couple that with a severe case of OCD and you get somebody like me (finally the penname does justice to the author). Hopefully I won’t make too much of a fool of myself. I don’t want to say too much so here it is: the next chapter of “Burning”.

Early Morning Blues

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“For the last time,” Gabriella slammed her locker door shut, “nothing happened.”

“Right,” Taylor slurred, still disbelieving.

Gabriella sighed despondently, picking up her bag. She straightened her shirt out and tucked her hair back, ignoring the faces she got from the other students around her as she and Taylor started walking.

“I don’t get why you think there’d be something between us,” she said earnestly, her voice just audible over the cacophony of morning happenings.

Taylor shrugged, she herself not fully comprehending why she was pressing the issue so much. “There’s just something there.”

“Enlighten me,” Gabriella sighed sarcastically, hurrying past a few hoots and jeers from a group of football jocks. She hugged her books closer almost defensively, the raunchy behavior unsettling her.

“Well,” Taylor mumbled absently, sending death glares at the ill-composed students. Past the group, she spun back to Gabriella, who was oblivious to what Taylor had just done for her. “So you’re saying you don’t feel anything at all towards him?”

“Not the slightest hint of emotion,” Gabriella said bluntly.

“Okay,” Taylor huffed, grabbing Gabriella’s wrist and yanking her around so they were face to face, “not only is that completely impractical, due to the fact that everybody has to feel something towards another person, but–”

Taylor stopped abruptly, her tongue oddly drawn back and her mouth agape.

“But what?” Gabriella folded her arms across her chest and frowned. Momentarily, Gabriella thought Taylor had run out of comebacks and turned to continue walking. But as soon as she took her first step, Taylor spoke up once again.

“What’s that on your neck?” Taylor’s voice came in unnervingly calm to Gabriella’s ears.

Gabriella’s heart lurched. “It’s just a necklace,” she said, adding a few steps between them.

Taylor quickened her pace and caught up to Gabriella. “Nice necklace,” she intoned, clearly more astute than she was letting out.

“Thanks.” Gabriella replied, giving off a perfunctory smile.

“How come I’ve never seen it before?”

“Have we known each other for that long? Clearly you memorize every item in my wardrobe,” Gabriella retorted, heavy sarcasm laced in her tone.

Taylor shrugged, ignoring Gabriella’s apparent irritation. “I just thought it looked more recent. You know… the design.”

Gabriella sighed and wordlessly continued walking, conscious of the trouble she was in.

“We’re soaring, flying–”

“Taylor, could you please just–”

“There’s not a star in heaven that we can’t reach,” Taylor continued melodramatically, not forgetting to emphasize her point despite her lack of tune.

“Okay, okay!” Gabriella hissed between her teeth, dragging Taylor to one of the nearby and less cluttered corridors. “It was a gift from Troy. Happy now?”

Taylor nodded vigorously, her smile showcasing her satisfaction. “So does that mean–”

“No,” Gabriella cut her off sternly, “We’re not dating.” Then she quickly added, “And don’t think we ever will be. So would you please just give it a rest?”

“Fine,” Taylor huffed, following Gabriella back into the main corridor. More students were hustling about now, their classes just minutes away. Gabriella wove through the corridor traffic, Taylor trailing her.

“Why are you bugging me so persistently about it anyway?” Gabriella asked, scanning the billboards they passed, “It’s not like I ever saw him that way.”

Taylor snorted then mumbled just loud enough for Gabriella to hear. “As if.”

Gabriella grunted, frustration apparent. “You’re hopeless, you know that?”

“What?” Taylor rolled her eyes, finding Gabriella impossibly stubborn. “Are you that naive? Look at him! How can you not think that way about him?”

Gabriella shrugged, unfazed by Taylor’s implicit accusations. “I guess I’m just not a superficial girl. And besides, what ever happened to ‘lunk-head basketball man’?”

“I would have hated myself if I admitted it before but since that’s not the case now,” Taylor trailed off, almost like she was talking to herself. “He is quite a looker, you know? Blue eyes, killer smile, wonderful package…”

Gabriella cleared her throat pointedly, “physical details set aside?”

“Oh… well, the clique wars are over,” Taylor pointed out, “I’m turning over a new leaf.”

“Yeah right,” Gabriella shook her head disbelievingly, smiling faintly. “I bet that leaf has Chad Danforth written all over it.”

“Don’t–!” Taylor warned, her voice rising well above its norm. Some of the students jumped at the sound, jerking their heads towards Taylor.

Gabriella herself backed away, watching as Taylor took several deep breaths. At first, she didn’t want to say anything, the topic seeming a bit touchy. Then, in a stroke of twisted brilliance she decided to pursue the conversation to give Taylor a taste of her own medicine.

“First date blues?” Gabriella asked, masking her delight furtively.

Taylor fell silent, hesitant at first to say anything. Then it became evident that she couldn’t hold silence much longer. “Everything went wrong!” Taylor stressed out, “Everything about our ‘date’, though you couldn’t possibly call it that because it was more of an egomaniacal festivity, I swear if there was a record for talking non-stop about yourself it would certainly go to Chad that–”

“Woah, hold on there,” Gabriella laughed at Taylor’s expense.

Taylor bit back a shriek, her face contorting in a hate fit.

“What happened?” Gabriella prodded further, shying her smile away from Taylor.

“It was constant Chad, Chad, Chad, Chad, Chad,” Taylor exclaimed, throwing her hands up in surrender. “Chad can do this, Chad is good at this, Chad likes this, Chad knows this… I reiterate: Chad, Chad – Oh and guess what? More Chad!”

Gabriella chuckled, “I think I get what you mean. That bad, was it?”

“You think?” Taylor huffed, her face livid. “And if he wasn’t talking about himself, he was talking about basketball – like I could be more interested.”

“I can see where you had your difficulties,” Gabriella noted with a smile, checking her watch as they neared their classroom.

“And I tried to put it nicely at the end,” Taylor continued venting, “I told him: ‘I don’t think this is such a good idea’. I guess that must’ve been a pretty harsh blow to his ego, which was probably a good thing considering how blown up it was. The thing is he wouldn’t stop bugging me about it.”

“Sounds like someone I know,” Gabriella smirked, passing through their classroom door.

“Shush,” Taylor ignored the brunette. “As I was saying, when I reached my limit, I just,” she paused, seemingly deep in thought, “well – maybe I was little harsh on him.” Taylor finished, not really looking disturbed by the realization.

“What exactly did you say?” Gabriella asked as they set their bags down and took seats next to each other.

“That his mouth was bigger than his brain and that if I heard one more self-focused word come out of that blabber of his I would personally slit his throat,” Taylor said coolly, somehow perfectly at ease with her words.

“Wow,” Gabriella said, “You really didn’t hold back did you?”

“Nope.”

“And what did he say?” she asked, watching as more and more people filed into the room.

“Nothing,” she stated simply, “He was in a daze when I left him, looked like he’d seen a ghost. He probably wasn’t expecting something like that to come from me.” Taylor said, cocking her head up a bit arrogantly.

“Did you give him any reason to?” Gabriella looked at her friend skeptically. “I mean,” she explained, “Did you let him know during the course of your date how bad it was going?”

Taylor fell silent for a moment, her mouth hanging open like she was about to say something. “I would have,” Taylor finally said, sounding a little unsure, and then she continued in a slightly more confident tone, “but he just kept going on and on… I couldn’t get a word in.”

Gabriella looked expectantly at Taylor for few seconds then decided against asking any more questions. It was quite clear to her that Taylor was still a bit worked up about the event, and that her judgment was probably clouded. In any case, their talk wasn’t going to get any more productive. She took another look around the classroom and let out a soft sigh of disappointment. Pulling out a few notebooks from her bag, she twisted her wrist to check how much time they had left before homeroom.

“So, about the science fair…” she began, flipping through her notes.

“What about it?” Taylor mumbled, looking spaced out with her head lazily propped up by her hand.

“I’ve cased several topics, all local to the Albuquerque region,” Gabriella flipped through her notebook, marking some of the pages and making short notes. “We can do things like…” she started, her voice sounding strained as she twisted around to get a folder from her bag. Opening it, she began to read aloud, “Arsenic content in local soil and rainwater–”

“The scope’s too broad,” Taylor commented passively, “and I’ve seen that done a thousand times.”

“What about energy supplementation by alternative methods?” she asked hopefully.

“Cost-wise, I don’t think it would be a good idea,” Taylor pointed out. Gabriella sighed and began scanning her notes again.

“I saw a good one before,” Taylor spoke slowly, her eyebrows scrunched together as she started concentrating more on their conversation. “I think it was: Using soil absorption rates to map probable locations for underground water chambers.”

“That would be good,” Gabriella mused, then frowned shortly after, “but it’s nearing summer and I don’t think it’s a solid topic.”

“Yeah,” Taylor admitted, letting out a deep breath, “I guess you’re right.”

For the next few minutes they continued to exchange ideas and possible topics for their project. But so far they hadn’t had any luck finding one that they could actually work on, the more popular reasons being funds and time constraint. And so it seemed after a while like their conversation wasn’t going anywhere, which was frustrating for both of them.

Gabriella was busy defending her last proposition – one that came with a sewerage study Taylor was flat out unwilling to do – when Troy came in. He took his usual seat at the front and glanced at the wall clock, registering more or less five minutes till homeroom started. Finding nothing else to do, he turned around, hoping to catch Gabriella’s attention. Much to his disappointment, she was still busy chatting away with Taylor. He tried making obvious gestures like clearing his throat loudly and greeting some acquaintances at the back which he usually didn’t do. After many failed attempts, a soar throat, and a few perplexed faces, he sighed and slumped back into his seat. Gabriella was still absorbed in her conversation.

Without really realizing what he was doing, Troy just started to watch her. It was like he involuntarily slipped into a side of himself that couldn’t take his eyes off her. He watched her every motion almost obsessively, her hands as they slipped through her dark tresses twirling them near the end, her mouth as it opened to speak words he couldn’t really hear, her face as she smiled at something Taylor had just said or frowned from disappointment, and her eyes when they sparkled in the sunlight filtered through the classroom windows. He watched sub-consciously until Chad waved a hand in front of his head, the afro-haired teen turning to look in the same direction. Seeing what was there, or more appropriately, who was there, he let out a light chuckle. Chad took a seat behind the basketball captain and smirked, “Stop staring.”

Troy hastily whipped around and took the opposite view. “I-I wasn’t staring,” he stuttered, his cheeks slightly flushed.

“Sure you were,” Chad said, waving off Troy’s denial with a laugh. He leaned in closer so that nobody else could hear their conversation. “I thought you didn’t like her like that?” he whispered, feigning his surprise.

“I don’t,” Troy said loudly, not caring if he sounded defensive. He picked up his bag, and aimlessly explored its contents. “I was just… looking around,” he finished lamely, pulling out a pen and some random textbook he didn’t really need.

“If you say so,” Chad commented in a lulled tone. Troy didn’t respond, feeling like it would a waste of precious breath. In truth, Chad’s insistence was starting to annoy him, mostly because he felt like it was planting the seed of possibility into him. He felt himself thinking more and more about Gabriella and what it was he felt towards her, that same feeling he could not decipher. And the ephemeral thought that there could actually be something there left Troy confused more often than not.

Troy brushed away his thoughts like he frequently did and tried to concentrate on whatever it was he needed to do, which at that point was unknown to him. Absently, his eyes wandered to the book that he had placed on his table.

Chemistry, he read. Suddenly, something piqued him from the back of his mind.

“Chad,” Troy said warily, “What are we doing in chemistry class today?”

Chad stared blankly at Troy for a while then all too suddenly dove inside his bag for his makeshift planner. He sorted through the mass of papers he had, straightening out the crumpled pieces as Troy watched nervously.

“Troy,” Chad fretted, wide-eyed as he stared at a piece of yellow paper he pulled from the mess, “we have an exam today.”

Troy continued to stare at Chad, hoping to death that his friend had just been joking. When he finally realized Chad wasn’t, he slumped further down his chair resolutely, covering his face with his hands.

“I’m dead,” he mumbled through his fingers.

“T-There’s still more time,” Chad said, trying to be positive. “We can cram through our breaks… which gives us around… an hour.”

Troy just groaned, pulling out his notes and opening his book, making a brief note to himself that he wasn’t in the correct mindset to study. Troy knew it wouldn’t help much but there was nothing else he could do.

Gabriella and Taylor on the other hand, were as much at ease as they were on any other day. They had in fact, studied way in advance for the exam and were more than prepared to get flying colors. Their biggest problem, which others would fail to see as significant, was the undecided topic.

“What about this.” Gabriella sounded almost desperate as she read once more from her notes, “extracts from scorpion venom used to combat some diseases.”

“That sounds good,” Taylor said after a moment of thinking, nodding her acknowledgment. “We could do something like that. My mom’s a doctor so she can probably help us out on the medical terms and some of the research. But please, if we decide to go with that topic, don’t even think about making that our title. It sounds so… mundane.” Taylor cringed and added a theatrical shiver to make her point.

“Okay, okay,” Gabriella laughed, partly from relief that they actually found something they didn’t turn down. Just then, Ms. Darbus walked into the classroom, voices getting softer and chairs scraping against the floor alerting the two girls of this. Gabriella quickly placed all her notes back inside her bag and Taylor followed suit. Looking ahead, she caught a glimpse of Troy and Chad sliding notebooks and books beneath their chairs, the looks on their faces deeply worried.

And though Gabriella didn’t know what was going on, she found herself worrying for them too.

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Okay so I actually have a lot more to say. Where should I begin… well for starters, I’ve had many obstructions one after the other, the first being a couple of weeks after I posted the first chapter. I actually got an unsatisfactory grade in my creative writing class which pretty much smashed my morale. That left me unable to write for months. After that classes started getting hectic. Then news regarding the plot of the second movie came out, and I decided to redo my story so it would coincide with the second movie. Hopefully it will come out okay. The last thing that came in my way was my laptop breaking down, which was a real pain. I find it frustratingly hard to write on our desktop computer. And I don’t like anybody watching me write, that becoming a problem because our computers are right next to each other.

So after many excuses I’m here to give my deepest apologies. My only prayer is that I actually finish this story.

I just finished watching the second so hopefully I can weed all the parts of my story that wouldn’t cohere. I have to say, I actually cried in the movie… which makes me a freak of nature because I’m a guy.

Thanks to all who reviewed my last chapter. It really meant a lot. Hopefully I can gain back the confidence to write again…

…and early apologies if this chapter isn’t any good

Read and Review! (wink)