HOLLAAAAAA! The bad news is, Jessa’s laptop is still ‘sploded. The good news is...by the wonders of hijacking her sister’s laptop for brief snatches of fic-typing time, and the wonders of email...we have managed to get chapter seven together!

In celebration of Kylie’s freaky genius semester results at University (a High Distinction grade average of 93 percent, yo!)...we present to you – Chapter 7!

Love,

Team KJ (Aka Kylie and Jessa-izzle).

Chapter 7: Homnawhat?

Homnawhat?

Repeat?

Had Ella just told me to ask Chelsea out? Her roommate Chelsea? Out on a date? With flowers and candy and hand holding and kissing?

Wow.

WOW.

Good thing I'd insisted she go first like a true gentleman or I would've looked like the most enormous cad on the planet. Bad enough my face was mangled -- that sort of severe rejection was likely to kill a guy.

"C-Chelsea?" I stuttered like perhaps the basketball to the face had caused lasting damage after all.

"My roommate, you dolt," Ella snapped. "I... I think you'd make a cute couple."

I was very glad at that point that Gabriella didn't have a clear view of my face because the twisted expression on it was making my nose throb painfully.

Why the fuck was this happening to me?

I had been seconds away from asking a question that had been on the tip of my tongue for three goddamn years! It had taken that long to snowball my courage...

Impaling myself on the sundial in the courtyard seemed like a top notch plan right then. Why would Ella force another girl upon me if she had any interest at all in being more then friends?

She wouldn't.

And I could suddenly feel my heart sink down somewhere beyond my lower intestine... Ew.

"Are you serious?"

Please let this turn out to be some sick and poorly timed joke at my expense. Chad is going to jump out at any minute and laugh his ass off on our dorm room floor while I cry hysterically, right? Right!?

"Of course!" she chirped, shifting into a sitting position next to me, picking at a hole in my bedspread. I swear it didn't have little basketballs on it...

Fuck, I already felt cold without her snuggled into my side. Fucking Chelsea and her fucking existence.

"Um... why?" I croaked out.

My brain wasn't exactly letting me process real thoughts, let alone form them into intelligent commentary.

"You, um, both like basketball and she's a nice girl... with pretty hair," Gabriella replied at length. "Please, Troy? For me?"

Life was so fucking unfair. If anyone else were begging me to date someone who wasn't Ella, I would have chuckled heartily and downright refused. Irony reared its ugly head that day. If there was one person in the whole world whom I couldn't refuse, it was Ella. All she had to do was bat those long eyelashes at me and I'd be on my knees before you could say "Troy Bolton has no balls"... and she fucking knew it too.

When I failed to reply, Gabriella pressed the issue. "Come on, Troy. She knows Kobe Bryant! You could like... double date with him and stuff..."

Okay, lesson number one? A double date is not a way to convince a male to do something. And lesson number two? How shallow did she think I was? Like I would really -- with all my good manners and finesse -- be so easily won over with promises of comradeship with famous... basketball... players... extremely famous and talented basketball players... that you've looked up to since you were five...

Snap out of it, Troy!

I might have pondered the possibility for two whole seconds. I am only human, you know, no matter what crazy shit that girl in my high school Biology class cooked up. She had half the class convinced I was actually some sort of cyborg -- a government experiment gone wrong -- programmed only to play basketball. It took me almost the entire year to figure out why people were constantly staring at me; I was too busy studying Gabriella's luscious body from my seat behind her instead of the notes the teacher wrote on the board. Biology was the memorable class in which I discovered the valuable information that if I tilted my head at just the right angle, I could see her bra through the armhole of her top.

Oh, the crucial things you learn in high school.

"Again I ask the question -- are you serious?"

I simply did not want to acknowledge that this was going down and I could see it was starting to irritate my best friend, her sympathy for my injuries fading with along my hope of things ever going my fucking way.

"And again I say emphatically -- yes," she said snippily.

"So let me get this straight... you want me... to go out with Chelsea... your roommate... on a date?"

The word 'date' passed through my lips like a hideous curse word.

Gabriella shifted then from snippy to downright pissed. "Jesus, Troy! I think that basketball knocked some screws loose in that head of yours!"

It was so not the time to be turned on by her passionate rage but my body didn't really take that into consideration. I'm happy to report that there was only minimal drool, though I wasn't so lucky with the actual staying on track in our conversation.

"Troy? Troy!?" she demanded after a minute of silence.

"Right! Uh... Chelsea..." I said, stalling for time.

There had to be some way out of this? Why did Ella feel the need to beg so insistently on her roommate's behalf? Why did I have to love her so Goddamn much when she could never be mine, at least not in the way I wanted?

Staring into her eyes, which at that precise moment put me in mind of a defenceless little baby deer in the woods that I would be killing if I didn't adhere to her request, I didn't have a prayer. The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them. Anything to make my Ella happy.

"If it’s that important to you, El, I'll do it," I said.

I'm not really sure how the sentence managed to leave my mouth without my authorization but there it was, out in the open. I'd given Ella my word and I'd never gone back on my word where she was concerned. Never. The feeling of dread seated deep in my gut told me that I was probably going to regret this more than the time I shaved off Chad's eyebrows the day before prom and Taylor set all my boxer shorts on fire on my front lawn. My mom happened to side with Tay in that little scenario so I had to use my own money to buy new underwear. I'll never fully grasp the female obsession with the prom. It’s a fucking dance!

"That's... great!" Ella squeaked. "Chelsea will be so excited."

Something was off about her voice, but she rose from the bed to grab me more M&Ms, preventing me from seeing her expression. When she turned around again, a huge smile was plastered in her face. Talk about adding insult to injury. She was actually happy that I would be going on a date with someone else.

I'd never felt more miserable in my entire life.

Except maybe when I accidentally killed Ella's pet goldfish and she didn't speak to me for two weeks, three days and six whole hours...

Naw, this was worse than that.

Jesus fucking shit fuck holy shitting fucking shit.

There he was, Troy Bolton, laying on the bed in front of me – shirtless and looking like a wounded puppy (albeit one with a swollen purple nose) – and I could no longer formulate a coherent sentence. I had just asked him out for the blonde vixen I liked to call my roommate.

And he had agreed.

Fuck off. He could have at least had the decency to scoff, roll his eyes, and claim that he would never date Chelsea Fitzpatrick in a million years – not if he was force-fed a whole bottle of Tabasco sauce, and she was the last glass of milk on earth.

But stupid Troy and his stupid nice-guy-ness had to go and be all...nice-guy-ey.

Anyway. My work here was done. Chelsea had gotten her wish, Troy was set to run happily off into the sunset, and my life was over.

All in a day’s work.

I felt like a bit of a super hero really. That’s always the way their lives seemed to go – they fixed everyone else’s problems and misfortunes, but never really did anything for themselves. I wonder if Captain Planet ever felt like me – so busy making everyone else’s lives great that his love life sucked ass.

Hey maybe I could be Sailor Moon – or one of the Sailor Scouts! The new kid on the sailor-block, who went around matching making everyone but herself.

Wonder what they’d call me? Sailor...Pluto? Yeah, that’d be right. Name me after the planet that isn’t even a real planet.

Sailor Non-Planet.

Sailor Loser.

Fail.

Suddenly, the sight of Troy laying there in all his shirtless glory made me wanna hurl. I mean, not in the way that he suddenly developed scabies all over his (semi-naked) body and started to smell like a rotting corpse – no, it was more the fact that this god-like creature was laying there looking up at me with this adorably confused expression while I paced his bedroom, and I wanted him so bad like, in an ‘I want to jump your bones right now’ fashion, but I knew I couldn’t have him. That was the thought that had my stomach churning like a washing machine on spin cycle.

I had to get out of there, and fast.

I stopped pacing, and started fussing about Troy, fluffing his pillows and checking he was comfortable, a fake Barbie-like smile slapped on my face as I did.

“So anyway. Yeah. That’s such good news, Troy. I’m so happy for the both of you. It’s great. Anyway. I better go and tell Chelsea. She’s gonna be ecstatic. I’ll get her to call you?”

Troy frowned slightly. “Uh...yeah, I guess – whatever...Ella, what’s going on?”

“Nothing!” I squeaked, several octaves higher than I intended. “I just really need to get back to work, ok? I’m glad you’re ok, you just get some sleep ok, and I’ll...I’ll speak to you soon, ok? Ok?! Ok. Good. Great! Ok.”

I leaned down to drop a kiss on his forehead – purely out of habit, I swear – and he grabbed my wrist, preventing me from standing upright again. Our faces were mere inches apart, his blue, blue eyes searching mine.

“Stay, Ella,” he whispered. “Don’t go...please...”

Fuck him and his fucking puppy eyes. I couldn’t succumb. I had to escape. I wanted to cry. I couldn’t let Troy see me cry.

You know when you were little, and you would have a fall or something at school and bite your lip, brush the dirt off, and get on with it...but then as soon as you saw your mom at the school gate, you’d burst into tears? That’s what I was feeling like in that room with Troy...I was in control of my emotions – just. I knew as soon as I got out of there, though, the tears would come.

I managed to tear my gaze from his, pulling my arm out of his grasp.

“I have to go, Troy,” I managed. “Really. I’ll...I’ll get Chels to call you and arrange your...date,” the word was like poison on my tongue. “Make sure you get Chad to re-freeze that ice pack, and get you a fresh one in another 10 minutes.”

“Ok...” Troy said quietly, his eyes downcast as he picked at a loose thread on his blanket.

I patted his shoulder awkwardly. “I’ll...see ya.”

I grabbed my phone and headed for the door, turning back only when I heard Troy’s voice.

“I’ll call you later, El...if that...if that’s ok?”

I swallowed, those freaking tears threatening to fall even before I got to see my mom waiting at the school gate...or in this case, Taylor and/or Sharpay.

I think I managed to gasp out a half-hearted ‘yep’ before rushing out the door, bypassing a miffed looking Chad as I exited, hurling myself down the stairs as fast as I could, and bursting out into the fresh air, gulping in lungful after lungful of oxygen as hot tears began to splash down my face.

I was such a fucking girl.

I swatted furiously at my tears, willing them away as I doubled over, clutching at my ribs as I tried to breathe deeply enough to calm myself down. Fuck, talk about dramatic. Pretty sure I was giving Shar a run for her money in the OTT stakes.

“Gabi? Gabi, are you ok, what’s wrong?”

Why does the universe hate me? Like, seriously. Could there have been any more of an inconvenient time for Chelsea Fitz-fucking-patrick to walk randomly by?

“I just....stubbed my toe,” I improvised, clutching my foot and hopping on the spot for dramatic impact. “Oooouuuuch...”

“On what?” Chelsea frowned.

“Err..Well I tripped and...kicked it on the...dirt...ouch....”

“Right. So anyway...I see you’re coming from Troy’s dorm...” she trailed off, her eyes shining.

“Yeah. He got hurt at training today. Needed his best friend,” I replied, sounding snootier than I intended.

“Oh, poor Troy!” Chelsea exclaimed with what sounded like genuine – but it so totally wasn’t, I swear – concern. “What happened, is he ok?”

“Mmm. He will be. Some TLC from his best friend and he will be fine.”

There it was again. Miss Snooty Cow of the century.

“Oh. Well that’s good then...as long as he is ok,” Chelsea replied, casting her eyes downwards.

God damn that girl, why did she have to be so sweet and innocent? Le sigh. God damn me, why did I have to be so kind hearted and generous and brilliant and nice? Le double sigh.

“You need to call Troy,” I told her simply.

“What? Why? OH!” she finally caught on as I stared pointedly at her. “Oh my gosh, Gabi – really?! Thank you SO much! Oh my gosh, oh my gosh – I don’t know how I can ever repay you! Thank you, Gabi! Thank you!”

She flung herself at me, hugging me so tight I thought I would explode. Hey, that wasn’t such a bad thought...exploding as opposed to living right then.

I wonder what they would have put on my grave stone.

Here lies Gabriella. She exploded. Haha, Gabriella, haha.

Or maybe...

Here lies Gabriella. She exploded after the greatest self-sacrifice known to man.

Ha.

‘Here lies the cynical bitch’ works as well, really.

I managed to pat Chelsea awkwardly on the back before peeling her from me. She appeared to have frozen on the spot in some dream-like daze. I waved my hand quickly in front of her face and she didn’t even flinch. Unable to deal with the fact she was daydreaming about MY boyfriend...I mean best friend...I backed away slowly, before taking off at a full speed sprint in the direction of Taylor’s room.

Because my best (female) friend was so obviously concerned about my mental state, she wasn’t there. Which I ascertained after almost belting down her door, only for her neighbour to come out and not-so-kindly inform me that she had left with Danielle not too long ago.

Well fine then.

I stomped up stairs to Sharpay’s room and did my yelling and belting routine until she opened her door.

“What the fuck, Geeks?” she snapped.

I didn’t even notice her new nickname-on-the-nickname.

I had found my ‘Mom at the school gate.’

I threw myself into her (rather stunned) arms, and burst into tears.

I knew the fact that I was staring intently at the knife block on the counter of our room was making Chad nervous. Who he thought I meant to stab, I'm not quite sure, but he could easily tell from my expression that I intended for violence to ensue.

"Dude... you're starting to freak me out," he said finally, skirting around me so he could sit on his bed.

I sighed, my eyes never leaving the knives as I wondered just how painful it would be to stab yourself.

"I'm such an idiot."

Chad snickered quietly and replied, "Well, I could have told you that, but what happened with Ella that made you realize this obvious fact?"

Running over the last hour of my life in my head, it felt like I was in a nightmare that I desperately wanted to wake up from. If there had been any chance at all that Ella and I could have had a thing, it was now as obsolete as Paula Abdul.

I winced as I informed him of my insane actions. "I kind of... agreed to go out with her roommate."

His reaction was pretty much exactly what I expected. No longer worried about the sharp knives, he stood up and whacked me across the head. He'd either forgotten about my earlier misfortune with the basketball or was too stunned to care.

"Are you crazy?" he demanded. "Why the fuck would you ever do that? That makes zero sense. No, that makes negative sense! It is in the negatives of sense!"

I groaned loudly -- a noise of frustration -- and buried my face in my hands. I had to pull them quickly away when the pressure on my mottled nose stung painfully and made my eyes water.

"It was the fucking eyes. They get me every time! Have you ever looked directly into them? I mean, really looked? It's dangerous, man!" I vehemently attempted to justify myself.

All my explanation warranted from Chad was a raised eyebrow and cluck of his tongue. The sound of my phone ringing saved me from more fruitless reasoning as I silently thanked whoever it was for saving me from further embarrassment. Things were rough when Chad thought you were an idiot.

"Hello?" I sighed into the receiver. Chad seemed to admit defeat and switched on the TV, returning to the video game he'd been in the process of beating that morning before basketball practice.

"Hi, sweetie!" my mother's voice chimed cheerfully through the phone.

Oh, that's just great.

"Hey, mom..." I murmured into the phone, hoping that for once she wouldn't be able to tell within five seconds that I was way off the reservation of I'm Fine Land.

There was a brief pause and then she said, "What's the matter?"

Fucking mother's intuition.

Now, I'm no Mamma's boy, but as despondent as I was at that moment, I needed much more sympathy then Chad could provide.

"Does it have to do with Gabriella?" she questioned.

How does she always know!? Did she sell her soul for magical powers when I was born?

"Maybe..." I admitted in a small voice.

"What have you done this time?"

So much for sympathy.

"Geez, Mom. Why do you always assume I've done something wrong? What if it was Gabriella this time?"

She simply laughed. "What did you do?" she repeated.

"I may have agreed to go out with her roommate..." I said, grateful we were in two different places so she couldn't strangle me.

There was an entire minute of silence -- minus Chad's shouts at the television.

"And what on Earth possessed you to do such an idiotic thing like that?"

My mother, with her previously mentioned intuition, had known about my feelings for Gabriella practically before I did. She encouraged me in my pursuit of the girl of my dreams - sometimes I wondered if my mom didn't have a crush on Ella from the way she'd run on about her. It was always Gabriella this and Ella that... between the two of us, my dad was one step away from bribing local law enforcement into putting a fine on using her name.

"Never mind that, tell me how to fix this!" I whined.

"It's not that simple, Troy," she replied.

Judging from the tone she'd adapted, my mother was becoming quickly exasperated with me.

"Come on!" I pushed. "You're a girl! You can't share the secrets of your gender with your own son?"

"No wonder you haven't snagged Gabriella yet," my mom mused. "You're damn near hopeless."

"Why thank you, mother. That's most encouraging. Great parenting skills you've got there," I bit back sarcastically.

"Troy, it’s like I've been saying all along -- tell the truth!"

I sucked air in through my clenched teeth, creating a hissing sound. Always with the honesty, that Lucille Bolton. If only she truly understood my difficult position. This matter had to be handled delicately...

Fine. Fine! I was just a pussy. My mom was privy to this fact more so then most people.

"Mom... Ella seemed happy that I agreed to go out with her roommate. Like Valium happy."

A morose sigh passed through my lips as I remembered Gabriella's wide smile. In truth, a part of me was strangely thrilled to be able to make her that happy however, the dominant part of my tiny brain was ruing the day Chelsea decided to apply to U of A.

Because this was clearly all her fault...

And was definitely in no way all my fault.

My mom made a little tsking sound -- so annoying. "Oh, honey. Gabriella is crazy about you. You can tell just by the way she looks at you."

"As a friend!" I exclaimed. I was sick and tired of everyone always pushing! "She's crazy about me as a friend."

"If that's honestly what you think then I really can't help you."

What was the point, pray tell, of being a mother if you refused to coddle your son? Whatever happened to the woman who used to call me Pumpkin and clean my laundry without griping at me for seven million years? Oh, being a kid was so much simpler. Back then chicks didn't have breasts and testosterone laid dormant, waiting to unleash its horrible powers as soon as puberty hit, resulting in lame predicaments like the one I was currently being faced with.

"Oh, darn. I've got to go, sweetie. Lisa Danforth just knocked on the door. I just called to check up on you..." There was an uneasy pause. "Whatever you do, just don't let Chad talk you into trying to duplicate the time machine they build in Back to The Future so you can go back and fix this. You remember what happened last time?"

How could I forget? Dad was almost put away for murder in the first degree when he came home to a wrecked car with his alarm clock, a piece of mom's treadmill and a Snickers bar strapped to the dashboard. Needless to say, Chad and I weren't going to NASA anytime soon. With the groundings we got, we didn't go anywhere soon.

"Mom, we were eleven. I think I have a little more sense than that now," I argued.

"And yet, here you are -- asking your mother for advice on women."

Dammnit, it sucked when she was right.

After letting me cry on her shoulder for all of thirty-five seconds, Sharpay pried me away so that she could spray some Clorox where my tear-stained cheek had been resting on the sleeve of her hot pink Dolce & Gabbana leather jacket before starting her tirade of ‘I told you so’.

“Well, I hate to say it but if you’d just let me intervene wh...”

“Interfere,” I corrected, only to be ignored by Sharpay.

“If you’d just let me intervene when I wanted too...oh, two or three years ago...you pair would be having hot sex in the back of his rusty old truck by now.”

I couldn’t help but wrinkle my nose. “Shar, if I was having hot sex with Troy I’d imagine it would be somewhere much more comfortable – and hygienic – than the back of his truck.”

Sharpay placed a hand on my shoulder and gave me a sympathetic look. “Honey, beggars can’t be choosers.”

I groaned in frustration. “Sharpay. Please. This is my hour of need. If ever there was a time for a sympathetic bone to kick in somewhere in your body, it would be now.”

“Gabriella. Please. You just asked out your best friend – whom you are desperately in love with – for your room mate – who you have known for all of five minutes. You don’t need sympathy. You need a psychiatrist.”

“Shar. Hour of need.”

“Gabs. Three years of idiocy.”

My emotional state obviously couldn’t hack the truth. I burst into tears. Again.

Sharpay rolled her eyes and patted me awkwardly on the back.

“It was horrible, Shar,” I sobbed. “He’s lying there all bruised and confused and fucking adorably sexy and I’m just a hot mess, blabbering on and raving like a lunatic, and I don’t even know what was going through his mind....but if he was really opposed he would have just said no, wouldn’t he – like, this is Troy – opinionated and stubborn – he would have said no if he really didn’t want to go on the date, so...oh god, he must really want to go on the date! Oh god he’s secretly in love with her and I didn’t even know. This is totally what he’s been waiting for!” I wailed, my sob-wracked rambling completely spiralling out of control. “My best friend fell in love with my roommate right under my nose and I didn’t even notice!” I cried. “My life is...OUCH, WHAT THE FUCK?!” I exclaimed, clutching my cheek – which was probably already bright red and possibly even swelling.

“Finally she shuts the torn pocket she likes to call a mouth.”

“Shar, that hurt!” I exclaimed, rubbing my still stinging cheek.

“Yeah, and your fucking ridiculous whining was hurting my ears. Listen. You screwed up. You need to fix it.”

I sighed, dabbing at my eyes (which were puffing up faster than could even be provoked by the death scene in Moulin Rouge). “I don’t know, Shar. Like I said – Troy could have said no. He must want this date....and I want him to be happy.”

“Oh for crying out loud, stop being so fucking noble. Look. Here’s the deal. Every time Troy so much as glances sideways at you he looks like he wants to rip your clothes off and do you on the pavement. And don’t even try to say you wouldn’t go along with it, because you’ve wanted his babies ever since we met. Now, because there’s no way in hell I could tolerate your incessant moaning from now till the rest of eternity, I am going to offer you a suggestion.”

Ignoring her sarcasm, I silenced my sniffles to hear her out.

“Ok. Here’s what he do. We call the government – the President’s direct office line preferably. We tell them Chelsea is a terrorist who plans to attack the White House. It’s fool proof. We’ll need to plant evidence on her, of course...and maybe even some cocaine while we’re at it...” she added thoughtfully.

“Sharpay,” I said, completely deadpan. “That would never work.”

“True,” Sharpay replied distantly. “We’d probably need to stash some marijuana in her underwear too.”

“Marijuana in her underwear. Of course. Now why didn’t I think of that myself?” I asked sarcastically.

Sharpay sighed. “Well, there’s always our back up plan.”

“And that is?” I sat up, listening intently – anything was worth a try.

“I could use Daddy’s connections and organise a hit man.”

Yes, Sharpay.

Because serving twenty to life for being an accessory to murder is exactly what I need right now.

Le fin. Stay tuned for The Date. Although with the Lappy McLappyless sitch...we can’t promise when that will be! But thanks for sticking by us, you guys are awesome! Thanks so much for all the reviews! Let us know what you thought of this one!

Kylie and Jessa xox