Don’t own it.

I’m not sure what I think. Review?

—

“Do you think we’re good as friends, Troy?” She swirls a finger in her tequila shot lazily, shooting him a broken grin.

“We’ve always been friends, Gabriella.” He watches as she crashes her head against the bar top.

“No,” she shakes her head vigorously, beckoning the bartender over again. “Do you think we’re good just as friends? Without being—”

He doesn’t wait for her to finish. “Yes.”

The bartender, whose dirty apron reads Joe, pours another shot.

“I don’t think so,” she says finally, cringing through the tequila.

“What do you think?”

“I think you and I can never be friends.”

“That’s kinda mean.”

“No, I mean, I think you and me have always had this—this—thing, you know—”

“We haven’t had a thing for a long time, Gabriella.”

“Haven’t we?”

“No.”

“I think we do.”

“You’re drunk,” he points out flatly. She looks away. “And high.”

“I’d think the same thing if I were sober and clean.”

“But you’re not. But you’re not, Gabriella.”

“But if I were—”

“If is irrelevant right now. If has always been irrelevant.”

She stares into space somewhere. “Since when did you get so wise?”

“Since one of us had to be.”

“I’m wise.” It’s a lame defense.

“Coming to school drunk? Snorting coke in the girls’ bathroom? Smoking joints, Gabriella? What do you even—” He can’t even be bothered anymore. When he finally speaks again, she’s ordered another shot and in the back of his mind, he wonders what tequila and tears taste like. “I don’t even know you anymore.”

“And yet,” she holds up her shot glass, “here we are.”

Something like anger and grief rumbles in his chest and his hand flies out and flips the drink from her hand. The glass falls to the floor, shattering into a million pieces. Joe the bartender throws him a dirty look, grunting something about charging it to his credit card, but he barely hears him. “This stuff will kill you,” he tells her. She just laughs.

“What are you doing here?” she says finally.

He doesn’t tell her he misses her, that the girl beside him doesn’t have hair like hers or a smile like hers. But then again, the stranger in front of him didn’t either. “Sharpay called. She asked about you.” He changes the subject.

“What did she want?”

“She’s our friend.”

“She needs to mind her own fucking business.”

“Someone needs to mind yours.”

“I’m doing fine.”

“Obviously.”

“I don’t need saving.”

“I never said you did.”

“Then what are you doing here?” The elusive question crops up again.

“You know what?” He steps off his stool. “I don’t even know.”

He’s satisfied with himself. Closure, that’s what he needs. He’s moving on, that’s what he’s doing. He’s halfway to the door when he hears her again. “I want to kiss you.”

And yet—

“It’s why you and I can never be friends. Because every time, I just want to kiss you.”

She stands there, pathetic, drunk, broken, empty, dead, inevitable and his throat tightens. He clasps onto her hand, the first time he’s touched her in months. “Come on,” he says gruffly. “Let’s get you home.”

He holds her as they stumble into the car park. “Are you crying?”

“No.”

“Yes, you are. Is it because of me?”

“No.”

“Liar.”

When they arrive home, he helps her into his bed. She sighs underneath the covers. “You smell different,” she mumbles, digging her nose into his pillow.

“Do I?”

She nods. “Did you change your cologne?”

“Yeah, do you like it?”

“Bit feminine,” she says lightly, biting her lip.

“It was Lana’s idea.”

“She’s your girlfriend now, right?” she asks, even though she’s known the answer for months.

“Yeah.”

“She must be nice.”

“She is.”

“I bet she doesn’t get drunk in bars at night.”

“No, she doesn’t.”

“I bet she hasn’t been to rehab three times.”

“No, she hasn’t.”

“I bet she’s not a fucking mess.”

“No, she isn’t.”

“I bet you love her.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

“Sorry what?”

“Sorry you don’t love her.”

“It’s not her fault.”

“Is it mine?”

He sighs. “Maybe. You’re a tough act to follow.”

She laughs. “I know.”

He strokes her forehead gently. “Go to sleep, Gabriella. We’ll talk in the morning.”

“Do you think we’re good as friends, Troy?”

“I don’t know.”

“Are we friends now?”

“I don’t know.”

“Because I want to kiss you. Is that what friends do?”

“No.”

“Then we’re bad as friends.”

He smiles. “I suppose we are.”

“Are you and Lana friends?”

“Yeah.”

“Don’t you want to kiss her?”

“I don’t know, Gabriella.”

“When we were together, were we friends?”

“I don’t think so.”

“It’s because we always wanted to kiss each other, wasn’t it?”

His chest tightens. “I guess so.”

“But we’re good as friends now?”

“Yeah, we are,” he lies.

She’s quiet for a moment. “I love you. But I don’t want you here all the time, trying to save me.”

“I’ve never tried to save you.”

“You always do. Joe says you’re at the bar all the time. Sitting next to the vending machine. Watching me. Protecting me. Punching guys who try to go home with me. Like Superman or something.”

He shakes his head. “Superman doesn’t try to save kryptonite.”

“I want you to move on.”

“I have.”

She smiles unhappily. “And yet, here we are.”

“That’s irrelevant.”

“Then what is relevant?”

“You.”

“I wish I wasn’t. For your sake. I wish I could save myself. For your sake.”

“That’s stupid, Gabriella.”

“I know. But I love you.”

“I wish you’d love yourself as much as you loved me.”

“That’s pretty much impossible.”

“So, where do we go from here?”

She’s silent for a long time. “Good night, Troy.”

“Gabriella?”

“I’m sleeping. Shh.”

He gets off the bed. “We’ll talk in the morning.”

She gives a fake snore from the bed.

He fights a smile. “Gabriella?”

A pillow collides with his head.

“I think I’m falling even more in love with you.”

That night, he falls into a dreamless sleep; the first time in months reality is all he needs.

—

It’s all burned into his skin.

“Another one?” Joe the bartender asks.

“Why not.”

“Where is she nowadays, anyway?” Joe the bartender is curious.

“Who?” he slurs, even though he knows perfectly well who.

“Gabriella. She was such a regular. I always enjoyed seeing her here. Good girl.”

“She got clean. She’s at Harvard.”

Joe the bartender looks surprised. “Really?”

He snorts. “I’m kidding,” he laughs. “She’s dead.”

Joe the bartender is quiet for a moment, unsure of what to say. “That sucks,” he says finally, rubbing nervously on his tattoos.

He slams down another shot. “Hit me.”

Joe the bartender makes sure the next shot is full to the brim.

“That stuff will kill you,” a voice hisses beside his ear, before a perfectly manicured hand flicks out, spinning the shot glass to the floor.

Sharpay turns to Joe the bartender. “A martini, please,” she says. “Stirred. And in a clean glass. And wash your hands first.”

While Joe the bartender hurriedly soaps up his hands, Troy turns to the blonde girl. “What are you doing here?”

Déjà vu, he thinks.

“Do you want to go home?”

He shakes his head. Not with her blood drenched all across his bathroom floor.

“Do you want to stay?”

He shakes his head. Not with her scent lingering on his seat.

“Thank you for your helpful input.”

“I kinda want to be alone right now.”

“She needed to do it, you know,” Sharpay says, with the air of one all-knowing and wise.

“Kill herself?”

“It was the only way she could outrun him.”

“Who?”

There was a long silence. “Nobody,” Sharpay says finally.

“I swear to God, Sharpay.” His threat is empty.

“She was raped, Troy.”

He doesn’t know if he’s heard correctly. “Pardon?”

But the sickly green on Sharpay Evans’ face does not match her all-pink attire well, and the next thing he knows, he’s sick all over the floor.

“You couldn’t have known. Nobody knew. The police found her diary in her room.”

Joe the bartender is pale as he almost timidly slides a martini over the counter. He pauses and as an afterthought, fills up Troy’s shot glass again.

“You couldn’t have saved her.”

He’s white, his knuckles clenching his chair so hard, he’s afraid it might snap.

“She was gone, Troy. Before all the drinking, before all the drugs—”

It’s all burned into his skin.

Sharpay doesn’t look like herself. “Say something?” she pleads.

He responds by throwing another shot down his throat, slashes flaming down his cheeks.

The silence is thick and deep. Joe the bartender is clutching a dishtowel too tightly in his hands, the tattoos on his skin looking childish.

Sharpay wipes tears she didn’t know she cried with the back of her hand. “Lana wants to know if you’ll pick her up after her lacrosse game tonight,” she says quietly.

He gives her his best you fucking serious, Evans face.

“—but I’ll pick her up,” she finishes quickly. “Are you staying?”

He shakes his head up, down, diagonally and in circles.

“Stay here,” she says firmly. “I’ll pick you up later, okay?”

And then she’s gone, and the dull lights of the bar don’t hit the sparkles on her dress like they should.

“She talked to me all the time, you know,” a voice says out of the blue. Joe the bartender looks hopeless. “She came here every night, and when she got drunk, she talked. She talked about you most, you know. Silly things. Like your first date, how your truck is ugly, how smart you were. She loved you a lot. I didn’t think it was humanely possible for one person to love another person as much as she loved you.”

He feels like choking something. Preferably himself.

“Would you like another?” Joe the bartender asks. He holds up a bottle of tequila.

“Hit me.”

As the alcohol burns against his throat, there’s a song playing in his head. It sounds so familiar, and he thinks he should remember it, but he can’t. Something about flying. Something about a star in heaven. Something like that.

But as always, the songs ends, and he’s left with nothing but tequila and tears.

—

Lights will guide you home
And ignite your bones
And I will try to fix you
-‘Fix You’, Coldplay