Well, friends, this is it. I couldn’t find a good place to cut the chapter in half, so instead you’re basically getting two in one. I LOVE this story and I love how the characters developed. Don’t be surprised if some day you see a one-shot added to this story every once in a while when I think of an idea I wish I could have put into the story.

Thank you SO MUCH to everyone who supported this story and who will continue to find this story and read it. It’s my first ever HSM fanfic and now it’s complete. You all are the best and I hope you tune in to read my future stories!

To call Sharpay, or not to call Sharpay. That was Troy’s question.

His phone had been sitting in his hand, her name selected and his finger hovering over the send button for well over a minute. Every time his finger lowered to touch the key, Chad and Taylor’s words came back and filled his head.

She’s a rebound girl!

If you really like her, you have to break it off.

What the hell did they know? They’d been dating for over two years. Neither of them had ever been in a rebound type of situation, so why was he taking advice from them? They were the poster children for a normal, properly functioning relationship. They knew nothing about the situation he was in. If spending time with Sharpay made him happy, then why would he adamantly try to stay away from her? It made no sense, he finally decided, and let his finger drop to press the button. He waited patiently while the phone rang and smiled as her voicemail picked up.

“Hello, you’ve reached Sharpay Evans’ phone, and I’m obviously far too busy to talk to you right now. Leave me a message and I’ll get back to you if I deem you worthy,” her message said. She had a tendency to change her voicemail message whenever she got bored and it wound up being different almost every time he called her.

“Hey Sharpay, it’s Troy. I know it’s been a few days since I called you. I was trying to concentrate on my finals and I’m done now. I’d like to see you before they force me out of the dorms. Give me a call.” He set the phone down on his desk and got back to packing. All of his finals had taken place during two days, which had seemed bad at the time, but now he was messing around and packing while pretty much everyone else was still finishing up. It was good for him since he had begun to realize that he’d been quite the packrat throughout the year and had a lot of sorting to do before he could pack up and leave. A whole stack of presents and notes Gabriella had given him were still stashed in his bottom dresser drawer. He had no idea what to do with those. Did he keep them as a memento to their relationship, the first big one he’d ever been in? Or did he throw them away since she obviously hadn’t meant a single word she’d written? That was not a hurdle he wanted to attempt to jump just yet, and so they sat untouched, buried underneath some socks and boxers.

Chad came in the room sighing loudly.

“What’s wrong?” Troy asked even though he already knew the answer. Chad had been stressing about his biology final for weeks and had done far more complaining about it than actually studying.

“That final violated me,” Chad groaned, throwing his backpack on the futon before collapsing on top of it, “I mean, I bent over and it took full advantage.”

“Way more of a mental image than I needed,” Troy mumbled under his breath.

“I’m sure I failed,” Chad lamented into the lumpy navy mattress and Troy just rolled his eyes. Chad had judged Sharpay plenty for her past antics, but would undoubtedly beat her hands down in a drama queen contest any day, of that much, Troy was sure. Without even acknowledging Chad’s little self-pity party, he continued to shove things into various duffel bags until he was satisfied with his daily progress. By the time he was finished, Chad had given up, realizing that Troy wasn’t going to feel sorry for him, and he was staring blankly at his computer with an empty Word document open.

“What are you doing?” Troy asked.

“I have a paper due tomorrow,” Chad grumbled, gesturing to the stack of research note cards Taylor had obviously helped him organize, “All the research is done, my bibliography is written, and my outline is set. I just have to type it out.”

“Well, I’m going to get out of your hair so you can finish,” Troy said, bending down to dig in the messy fridge for a Pepsi and deciding to be nice and get one for Chad as well. He set the can down next to Chad’s computer and patted him on the shoulder before snagging his cell off his desk and heading for the door.

“You’re not going to Sharpay’s, are you?” Chad asked, a motherly tone all too present in his voice.

“I don’t know, why?” Troy spat.

“Just remember what Taylor and I said. People don’t change that fast, Troy. Ever,” he said. Troy didn’t say anything, because he couldn’t think of a civil response to Chad’s comment. So instead, he just left and headed for the student union where he could get a taco in a bag to tame the ravenous beast that had apparently taken up residence in his stomach. As he was walking across the quad, he passed Sharpay. She breezed past him so quickly he almost missed her.

“Sharpay!” he shouted out at her. She turned and looked at him carefully, sizing him up. Then, in her typical over-exuberant way, she came running towards him.

“Troy? Troy Bolton, is that you? Oh my god, it’s been forever since I’ve seen you,” she said, acting as if they were long-lost friends reunited. He sighed and accepted the playful slug to the shoulder she gave him.

“Still riding high off your acting final?” he asked.

“No, just pissed off at you for avoiding me the last few days,” she sassed, “So now you can buy me dinner to make up for it.” He muttered something resembling “Yeah, yeah” under his breath as he innocently placed a hand on her back and guided her towards the Union.

“I’ve been busy, Sharpay. And you were the one who told me to call you if I had time,” he pointed out.

“Well yeah, but that obviously meant that I wanted you to call me,” she laughed, “We’ve been having a lot of fun hanging out and you kind of had me worried.”

“Sorry,” Troy said, “I aced all of my finals, though. That should mean that I’ll get a 4.0 this semester, which has never happened since 1st grade, I believe.”

“Good for you. I guess you just didn’t want me around distracting you, right?” she asked.

“Yeah, something like that,” Troy said, and with that, she launched into a story about how someone had started to do the dialogue from the wrong play in the middle of their acting final. He watched her talk animatedly, a truly effortless feat for her, and her words kept fighting their way to the forefront of his mind. She had been expecting him to call her? Weren’t they just friends hanging out when they had a chance? And now she wanted him to buy her dinner? Whenever they’d gone out to eat together, they’d always paid for their own food. What was so different now? It was his punishment for not calling her? He tried not to let Chad’s warning resurface, but there it was, pounding over and over in his ears the entire time they made their way to the Union.

Troy found himself practically inhaling his food while Sharpay ate hers at a much more respectable speed. If she was aware of Troy’s unease, she surely wasn’t showing it. In fact, she looked as comfortable as ever sitting there talking to him while eating her dinner out of a little Doritos bag with a plastic fork. Troy just figured it was one more thing he could add to his list of things he never thought he’d see Sharpay do.

“So, when are you leaving?” she asked.

“Dad’s coming with the truck in a few days so we can load everything up and go back home. Then, it’s back to Lava Springs on Monday, but I’m sure you already knew that,” he smiled. She nodded.

“Yes, of course Mom and Dad told me. But I won’t be there to keep you company this summer,” she told him, “I’m doing two different community theater performances this summer so I’ll be busy. Mostly just in during the afternoons to work on my tan, I think.”

“Oh, I thought you were going to be around all the time like the last two summers,” he said, “Oh well. I guess I’m not there to socialize. I’m there to work, right?”

“That’s right, mister. And don’t you forget it,” she laughed. He smiled back at her and felt some of his nerves start to dissipate and made the decision to punch Chad very hard in a location yet to be determined as soon as he got back to the room. Chad and Taylor and their meddling had actually affected him and the way he looked at Sharpay, and that was well worth a retaliation. And since Taylor was a girl and he couldn’t, and wouldn’t, hit her, Chad was going to have to deal with it.

They tossed their garbage into one of the cans by the doors and headed out into the rapidly darkening evening. It took Troy several minutes to realize that Sharpay was leading him in the direction of her sorority house. They chatted the whole way up the stairs and she waved and nodded to her sisters that she passed, but once they were inside her room and the door had shut, the polite look on her face was gone. In its place was one of pure, smoldering lust and her lips were on his before he could fully process what was happening.

“I’ve been wanting you for days, Troy,” she breathed in his ear as her fingers worked to unbutton and unzip his jeans, removing them before anything else.

“You could have called me, you know,” Troy said in between kisses, his hands sliding under her black tank top and peeling it up and eventually off. Her bra joined it on the floor a few seconds later and Troy backed her into a wall, his mouth latched onto her left nipple, working it with his tongue until she was clutching to his shoulders for support.

“Well, when I didn’t hear from you the next day, I assumed you were just busy. But then the next day happened, and I just thought you wanted some space or something. I mean, we spent pretty much every day together there for awhile and I didn’t want to push it.” Troy wanted to hear more because he knew that if he let her keep talking, that she would probably wind up telling him her exact intentions, even if indirectly, but he knew that letting her continue would severely dampen the mood. That was an option that certain parts of his anatomy were definitely not in favor of, so he instead moved his hand underneath her jean skirt and used two fingers to shove aside the lacy fabric he found there. His fingers found her clit and worked them gently over the small, sensitive nub until she actually wrapped her arms around his neck, hugging him tightly so she wouldn’t collapse to the floor. When he was satisfied with the state he’d gotten her in, he let his hand slide out from underneath her panties and grabbed the backs of her thighs, pulling her legs around his waist so he could walk them over to the bed.

Once he had gently dropped her to the mattress, she rid herself of the rest of her clothes in a hurry while Troy did the same, his now fully hard cock more than ready to be enveloped inside her. He quickly slid on the condom he’d somehow managed to locate in his wallet and climbed on the bed between her legs, immediately lining himself up to enter her.

“Are you ready?” he asked and she nodded, raising her hed to capture his lips in hers, engaging them in a long heated kiss that lasted until he was fully and comfortably inside her.

“Oh, I missed you,” she moaned as he moved in and out of her just the way she liked. He had intended to return the sentiment, but Sharpay caught him totally off guard by pushing on his chest until he rolled over onto his back allowing her to be on top. As she swiveled up and around him, his hands gripped hard into her hips as he fought to maintain control. For Troy, time lost all meaning as they moved together in that small, increasingly hot room, and eventually he could wait any longer. He came hard, his fingers never letting go of their grip on Sharpay and he felt that she had come as well as her movements stilled and her hands moved to his stomach. Without a word, she slowly moved herself off of him and collapsed back onto the bed. Troy sat up and excused himself to go to the bathroom, and when he returned, he found Sharpay still laying there naked in the middle of her bed.

“Are you dead?” he asked, reaching out with his foot to poke her leg with his big toe.

“I’m just not quite to the moving stage yet,” she laughed. Troy looked around the room and finally realized that everything was in boxes. The pictures on her walls, the Star Dazzle Award trophies, all of it was gone. All that remained was empty pieces of furniture and, obviously, her bed.

“Are you leaving tomorrow?” he asked. She nodded and struggled herself into a sitting position.

“Dad and Ryan are coming to get me tomorrow afternoon. I start rehearsals in two days, so I kind of have to take off already,” she said. There was a significant pause before she decided to continue, “Could you stay here tonight? I would really like to spend the night with you since we don’t know when that’ll happen again.”

“I don’t know, Sharpay. I have a lot of packing to do and Chad will need me to keep him on task to write his paper,” Troy said, coming up with what he immediately realized were two of the lamest excuses he could have come up with.

“Troy, I don’t know what’s going on with you. I thought we were finally getting close, that maybe…” she started.

“That maybe what?”

“God Troy, I don’t know! Why don’t you figure it out? I’m so tired of always being the instigator, Troy. I have no idea how you feel about me, I just don’t know what to do any more.”

“How I feel about you? I thought we were just friends, Sharpay. Wasn’t that what all this was about?”

“Yes it was… at first! But can you honestly tell me that you feel nothing for me at all? We get along so well and we have so much fun together. Isn’t that what you want?” And it was at that exact moment that everything came to a screeching halt for Troy. At first she had wanted to be friends, because that was what Troy had needed. Taylor and Chad had been right about everything. Troy pulled on his jeans faster than he ever had before and grabbed his shirt off the edge of the bed, not even bothering to pull it on before going out into the hallway. He ran down the stairs and out the door, pulling on his shirt backwards and inside out before hopping on the campus bus a few blocks down. Walking all the way across campus did not sound appealing and neither did sitting on the smelly bus, but at the moment, it was the lesser of two evils.

When he got back to his dorm, it was after nine and Chad appeared to be only halfway through his note cards.

“How’s it going?” Troy asked, hoping to deflect Chad’s questions about his whereabouts long enough to get him ranting about his paper. That was the only way he might get Chad to drop the Sharpay subject for the day.

“Okay, Taylor helped me a lot with the organizing and it’s making the paper come out pretty smoothly. I knew there was a reason why I kept her around,” Chad smiled, his eyes not leaving the screen.

“Yeah, I’m sure that’s the only reason why,” Troy said, looking at himself in the mirror and noticing for the first time that his shirt was put on wrong. He used it as a pretense to get dressed for bed and headed out to the bathroom to go brush his teeth. When he came back, Chad had obviously decided to take a break because he was sitting in his desk chair backwards waiting for Troy to return.

“So, were you over at Sharpay’s?” Chad asked, trying to sound casual.

“Yes, I was,” Troy said, “She’s leaving tomorrow.”

“Has to get a good head start on her tan?”

“No, she’s doing a couple of community theater performances this summer to get some more experience and her rehearsals start the day after tomorrow,” Troy said, defending her even though he still didn’t think he could trust her motives of late. However, he knew for a fact that he didn’t want Chad to know that. There was no way he could ever admit to Taylor and Chad that they had been right and that Sharpay had just been trying to lure him in after all. As long as he kept it to himself, it was his own cross to bear and no one could constantly remind him that they had been right and he had been wrong.

“Oh, well that’s cool. Are you going to go see them?”

“I don’t know,” Troy laughed, “I guess so. Don’t you have a paper to write?” Chad sighed loudly.

“You’re worse than Taylor,” Chad informed him.

“Yeah, well Taylor isn’t the one who’s going to be kept up all night by the sound of your keyboard clicking. Finish your paper so we can both get some sleep,” Troy said before climbing into bed. He just lay up there hoping that Chad would just stop procrastinating and finish up already. It had still been early when he’d gone to bed, and he had been so mentally exhausted that he had hoped it would make him fall asleep. However, the sound of Chad sighing and switching from typing rapidly in Word to clicking his mouse rapidly playing Solitaire wasn’t helping matters. Finally, by some miracle, an hour after he’d gone to bed, he finally fell asleep. When Chad’s alarm went off in the morning, signaling him to get out of bed to go turn in his paper, Troy didn’t waste any time and threw his pillow at Chad’s head. Lately, that had been the only thing to get Chad up, and Troy did not want to spend the rest of the day listening to Chad whining that his paper had been turned in late.

Once Chad was out the door, Troy started mulling around and getting ready for the day. He took his time in the shower, making sure to think about only mundane things that didn’t matter. In the past, he had done some of his best deep thinking in the shower, but today, he just wanted to breeze by and maybe make an appearance at one of the end of the year parties taking place around campus. As he stepped out the front doors of his dorm building, he relished in the feeling of the warm air hitting his face. He was so absorbed in the sights and sounds of spring that he almost didn’t feel his cell phone vibrating in his pocket. Without a thought, he took it out and looked at the screen only to see that he had a new text message from Sharpay. Cautiously, he opened it.

Are we okay?

It was only three little words, but Troy had no idea how to respond. Were they okay in the sense that things would go back to the way they had been for the last few weeks? No. But were they okay in that they would probably revert back to their old mild and distant friendship? Most likely. Instead of say the wrong thing, he just decided to ignore it. In a few hours, Sharpay would be gone anyway and he wouldn’t have to worry about it for awhile. Not until he saw her at Lava Springs, at least.

A light grumble coursed through his stomach, reminding him that he was supposed to be heading to the Union to get something to eat. He redirected his path and was well on his way when suddenly, a blunt object hit his temple followed immediately by a jarring pain. Troy’s hand flew up to covered the affected area and swore under his breath.

“Oh my god, Troy! Are you okay?” he heard a familiar voice call out.

“Fuck,” he said under his breath. Of all the people in the world who could have thrown the Frisbee that hit him in the head, it just had to be Gabriella. He ventured a look over to his right and saw Gabriella and Zeke running his way. As much as he wanted to just keep walking and pretend that the entire thing hadn’t happened, they reached him before he could put that decision into action.

“Are you okay, man?” Zeke asked, reaching out to put a hand on Troy’s shoulder. Troy shrugged off Zeke’s hand and started to walk away.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” he managed to get out through his now seething anger and crimson-faced embarrassment.

“You should probably put some ice on that,” Gabriella offered.

“Oh, you think so?” Troy asked before he could stop himself, spinning on the balls of his feet to face her.

“Well, you just got a head injury, so yeah, icing it would probably be a good idea,” she snapped back.

“A head injury? You call a Frisbee thrown by either a girl or a pussy with the worst excuse for an arm I’ve ever seen something that is capable of causing a head injury?”

“Come on, man. That was uncalled for,” Zeke said.

“You know what I think is uncalled for?” Troy started, “The fact that you two think that it’s even remotely appropriate to be talking to me right now. Fuck both of you and as I’ve told you before, stay away from me.”

“Isn’t it about time for you to start dealing with it, Troy?” Gabriella asked, despite Zeke’s efforts to make her walk away.

“It’s dealt with, Gabriella. And honestly, I could care less about what you two are doing.”

“Why, because you have Sharpay now? She’s just using our breakup to get what she wants out of you. She’s only going to hurt you.”

“Since when do you care about my feelings?” Troy asked, “And for the record, I don’t care if Sharpay’s just using our breakup to be with me, because I like being with her. She’s fun, and she’s smart, and she makes me happy. If it took our breakup for us to get together, then I guess that’s just how it was supposed to be. Who cares if she took advantage of an opportunity when she had it? She obviously had a feeling way sooner than I did that we would be good together, and guess what—she was right!” Troy had no idea where the tirade came from. All of the things he had been unwilling to think, that he had been unwilling to piece together, suddenly put themselves in order. Maybe Sharpay had just been using his feeble state as a way in. She knew that he was stubbornly against being with her as a couple, and maybe she just realized that it was the only way to make him see how she really was. And maybe she had just been trying to be his friend the whole time and had finally gotten to see for herself that they were good together; years of crushing and speculation finally put to rest. He didn’t even bother to say goodbye. He just left Gabriella and Zeke standing there watching as he ran across the field like a maniac.

Sharpay was leaving. Soon. How soon, he didn’t know. The only thing he was sure of was that he had to get to her before she left. He’d chase the moving van down the street if he had to. There was just no way he could let her leave without telling her. If he waited until he saw her at Lava Springs, it would be too late. It had to be before she left.

His lungs burned as he sped his way across campus, brushing past some people and flat out running into others. He managed to scream out some apologies but didn’t pause long enough to see if he even know the people he’d just bumped. When the Tri Delta house came into view, he caught a second wind and somehow made his legs move even faster. Without even looking at the girl at the front desk, he bolted up the stairs and started pounding on Sharpay’s door.

“Hold on!” she yelled, sounding annoyed, but he didn’t stop until she opened the door. “Troy? What are you-“

“Don’t say anything. Just let me talk, okay?” he asked. She looked at him worriedly, but nodded. “My life has been crazy lately. I went from being a guy in a good but confusing relationship to a sucker who’d been getting cheated on to a complete psycho who could hardly keep from crying long enough to go to class. Almost everything I thought I knew about my life was wrong and I felt so lost.

“And then I slept with you, Sharpay. I really wish that that wasn’t how all of this had started, but it was. That night and the next morning, I started to see the real you. The person you never let other people see. I didn’t realize right away how lucky I was that you were letting me in like that. All I knew was that when I was with you, I didn’t worry about all the terrible things that were happening in my life. When I was with you, I could just be Troy. I didn’t have to be mopey post-breakup Troy and I didn’t have to be basketball player Troy, I could just be me. I had never imagined that you really wanted to know me like that, and I’m really sorry that I never gave you the benefit of the doubt before.

“But in the last several weeks, the more we got to know each other and the more time we spent together, I started to feel like I wanted to spend all of my time with you. And some people told me that I was just rebounding with you and that you were just taking advantage of my fragile state to spend time with me. And maybe at first I was just rebounding and maybe at first you were just using the situation as an in. Maybe we were and maybe we weren’t. Either way I really don’t care, because the end result is the same.”

“And that is?” Sharpay asked, her arms now wrapped around her stomach and tears in her eyes.

“That we know that we’re good together,” Troy answered, “We’re good together and you make me happy, Sharpay. And if it’s okay with you, I’d like us to be together.”

“You know what, Troy?” she asked. Troy felt his stomach flop. He had been so frantic to get to her, so desperate to tell her how he felt that he had never once imagined what her response would be.

“What?” Troy asked, already terrified of her answer.

“I used to think that I wanted to be with you,” she said, “But now, I know that I want to be with you.”

“You do?” he asked.

“Of course, you moron!” she sniffed, wiping tears from her cheeks as she laughed at him. He stepped forward and wrapped his arms around her, lifting her off the ground.

Finally, his life made sense again.

The End.