Author's Note: This is my first fanfiction. Well, at least my first one in English. As you might notice while reading, English is not my mother-tongue, but I have this idea in my head for a long time now already and I really wanted to try realizing it. So comments like 'your English is so bad' are unnecessary. ;) Maybe you have fun reading it. I know I had fun writing it.

The Girl Next Door

By jewel2502

Chapter One: Heartbroken

Troy Bolton was sitting at his messy desk in his room thinking about everything but the trigonometry homework lying in front of him. He has had another awful day at school, because since he and his girlfriend of six months, Mackenzie, broke up, life wasn't the same anymore for Troy.

Eight days ago everything was still amazing in Troy's life. He enjoyed being the most popular guy in school, being the captain of the East High Wildcats Basketball Team and most importantly, spending time with his girlfriend Mac.

"Hey man, what's up?" Asked Troy's best friend and co-captain Chad Danforth at a Wednesday morning in the hallways of East High when he tried to give Troy their standard morning handshake.

But Troy didn't even bother to look up. Shoving his hands in his jeans pockets, he strolled down the hall without saying a word to his best friend. Chad immediately followed him and when he reached him, he tugged him on his shirt and pulled him into the boys' restroom.

Without even trying to get himself out of Chad's grip, Troy annoyingly followed him into the big white-tiled room.

"Tell me what's going on, Troy," said Chad without hesitation. He was worried about his friend, because he normally wears a 100 watt smile 24/7 and seeing him all sad and moody, made Chad realize that something bad must have happened.

Troy sighed pulling a stray of his dark blonde hair out of his face. "It's Mac…"

Chad looked into Troy's eyes trying to encourage him to keep speaking. Mac was Troy's one and only – his everything. All he ever talked about was her, so maybe something bad happened to the blonde head cheerleader.

But before Chad could even finish his thought, Troy started talking again. "She - she just broke up with me, Chad." Chad's jaw literally dropped while Troy's back was sliding down the wall until he hit the floor. He covered his eyes with his hands trying to prevent Chad from seeing the small tears that were running down his face.

Chad sat down next to his friend not really knowing what he should do now. "But why?" Was the first question that came into Chad's mind. Mac and Troy were THE couple of East High. Everybody was sure they would become Prom King and Queen, there was no doubt about it.

Troy took his hands off his face looking at the shiny floor they were sitting on. With a short sigh he whispered: "I have no idea."

Drawing little circles on the paper he was intended to write his homework on, Troy caught himself staring into nothing, thinking about that one day of his life that changed everything. Since last Wednesday Troy was walking through the school like a ghost ignoring all the smiles the girls always give him and the handshakes the boys offer him.

He even called in sick for basketball practice, because he couldn't stand looking at his ex-girlfriend in the gym who was practicing her routines with the cheerleading squad.

He only went to school because his mom made him to. 'Your grades shouldn't suffer just because you have trouble with some girl,' his mother said, not even slightly knowing what this girl really meant – and still means – to him.

"Troy honey, you should really eat something," said his mother Amanda, who opened the door to his room quietly. Fact was, Troy hasn't eaten properly in a few days which caused him to loose all his energy and made him want to lie in his bed all day.

"Why, mom? I'm really not hungry and I don't care about your fucking food," replied Troy in an angry voice. Amanda was already used to this tone of her son's these past few days and just ignored the bad language. She knew her son was suffering a big heartbreak, but out of her own experience she knew that it was for the best that she forced him to keep going to school, to spend some time with his friends, not loosing the social contact.

Amanda just nodded and sent a light smile towards her son who still sat there with gritting teeth. She was about to close the door again, when she remembered why she came up to his room in the first place.

"Ehm Troy - one last thing." Her son looked up to meet her eyes. "The new neighbours just moved in next door and I invited Clara and her family to dinner tomorrow night. They seemed very nice and they have a daughter your age. Maybe you can show her around later." Amanda knew she couldn't expect an answer from her son, that's why she just quietly closed the door behind her and sighed, making her way down to her husband and daughter again.

Troy knew his mom was only worried about him not eating and all, but why did she have to invite some strangers over for dinner Friday night, when she knew he was feeling like crap? Shutting his math book, he took off his light blue jeans and the green adidas shirt he was wearing and laid himself into his comfortable king-sized bed. It was only eight pm, but Troy didn't feel like staying up any longer. Sleeping would prevent him from thinking about the break-up constantly and that's everything he wanted right now.

If only he could fall asleep. Everything that happened over the last days was rummaging in his head and keeping him from sleeping tight and calm as he normally does.

'Awesome,' was all he could think right now. Tomorrow was going to be another sleep deprived day where he was trying to avoid his ex-girlfriend while telling his friends that he's going to be fine soon. And on top of the iceberg sat the annoying dinner with total strangers, who will probably be as boring as the Meyer's, the family that lived in the yellow painted house before that new family moved in. They had the most boring daughter ever, who totally had a crush on Troy, but he always found excuses to not hang out with her. He can't really say he wasn't relieved when the family decided to move to Texas two months ago.

And now there's going to be a new girl next door, probably as annoying and unattractive as Cynthia. Now curious, he was standing up from the bed and moved over to his window that gave him a proper view on the neighbours' house. Lights were shining through the windows and Troy could see the silhouette of a couple sitting on the living room couch watching television. From what he could see they looked like a couple his parents' age. There were still all the moving-boxes standing around in the room, which made totally clear that they just moved in. There was a wooden crib placed in the middle of the room, which let Troy assume that they've received a baby recently. This put a smile on the sad face of the heartbroken boy, the first in eight days. Maybe this dinner tomorrow wasn't such a bad idea. He always loved kids and he hoped this one would be a great play friend for his 1 ½ year old sister Lexie.

Closing the curtains again, Troy missed the petite brunette by a few seconds who was walking into the living room of the neighbours' house carrying a newborn in her arms rocking it lightly.

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"Friday mornings are the worst," said Chad while throwing his English book onto the desk. Troy's response was a big yawn, which told Chad that Troy had spent another night without getting the needed amount of sleep. He knew his friend wouldn't be up for a decent conversation that's why Chad started forming little paper balls and throwing them at the back of the head of the person sitting in front of him.

"Hey Danforth, could you please stop with that kindergarten behaviour? It stopped being funny after the second time." Taylor McKessie rolled her eyes at the basketball boy and sticked out her tongue. "Oh, how very adult of you, McKessie," hissed Chad, referring to her tongue sticking and threw a last big ball of paper on Taylor's forehead.

"Gotcha," he said grinning and leaned back into his chair. Troy was looking back and forth between the two and giggled.

"What's so funny, Troy? I haven't seen you smiling in over a week and now my weekly fight with McKessie causes the first grin?" Troy was nodding his head. "Actually it does. I was just wondering when you'll finally have the courage to ask her out and stop teasing the poor girl." Chad's eyes grew wide. "Me and McKessie? Nah." He made a devaluated gesture with his right hand. "She's a science geek and I'm a basketball dude…besides, she's way too…"

"…smart for you." Troy interrupted his best friend assuming to know what he wanted to say.

"Yeah, that too, but I actually wanted to say 'beautiful'," confessed Chad and blushed lightly. Troy just grinned and leaned over to his friend. "You might be right about that, but a wise person told me once that opposites attract." Chad wanted to comment on that, but just when he was about to start asking Troy about that 'wise person', Ms. Darbus came walking into the classroom having her mandatory scarf around her neck.

Troy just pushed himself back into his own seat taking out a pen to at least pretend that he was listening to her and take notes.

"Before we start with today's class, I have an announcement to make, ladies and gentlemen," yelled Ms. Darbus so that even the sleeping students in the back of the room looked up. Right when she wanted to continue talking, two people came hurrying into the room holding hands almost unable to speak because of all the running.

"I'm sorry we're late…we missed the bus, said the blonde girl breathing heavily looking up flirtatiously at the big guy next to her. Troy's eyes widened when he realized who was standing in front of the class and his mood immediately hit the floor.

.

"It's alright Ms. Bennett, Mr. Jones." Ms. Darbus nodded towards the teenagers "Things like that happen, even to the captains of the cheerleaders and the football team, right?" She said with a fake smile. She knew she could have sent the tardy students to the principal's office, but Mackenzie Bennett being the principal's daughter made things a little harder. She basically got away with everything she did.

Mackenzie and the boy clinging on her arm, Jonathan Jones, were walking through the aisle taking two desks in the back of the room not unnoticed by Troy who was following his ex-girlfriend with a sad gaze.

"Mac…Mac, please wait!" Troy yelled down the hall trying to catch his girlfriend, before she moved out of the school. She turned her head abruptly causing Troy to jump back a little.

"What do you want Troy? What word of the line 'it's over' did you not understand?" She hissed at him.

Troy was looking at his feet, feeling like a little boy that just got yelled at by his mother. Softly he started to speak. "I want to know why. Why did you break up with me, Mac?"

He lifted his head just to connect his ocean blue eyes with her sparkling green ones. For a second he thought she'd put her arms around his neck playing with a stray of his hair, like she always used to do when they were standing like that in the hallway, telling him that she was just kidding and he missed April's Fool's Day. But the warmth in her eyes was totally gone when their glances connected and she immediately looked into the other direction.

"Because I met somebody else," Mac said coldly, turned around on her heels and made her way out of the school, leaving a totally shocked Troy behind.

"Mr. Bolton, are you still with us?" Asked Ms. Darbus who obviously realized that Troy was anywhere else with his mind, just not in this English class.

Troy lifted his head prepared to see the angry smile on the slightly wrinkled face of Ms. Darbus in front of him, but instead he was looking into the most beautiful chocolate brown eyes he'd ever seen. He gulped and couldn't take his eyes off of the cute girl who was shyly looking around the room feeling noticeable uncomfortable.

Realizing Ms. Darbus was still waiting for a response, Troy took his gaze away from the girl. "Yeah sure," he answered confident crossing his arms in front of himself, leaning back into the wooden chair.

"Bolton was checking out the new chick," came a voice from the back of the room. Troy blushed but nobody saw it, because everybody turned around to see a grinning Jonathan leaning against the back of his chair. He had his feet on the table and one arm was lazily slung around the shoulders of his girlfriend. "What?" He looked around the class curiously. "She's hot, who can blame him," stated Jonathan and earned a hit on the back of his head from Mackenzie.

"Anyway, class," yelled an irritated Ms. Darbus who was trying to calm down the crowd. "As I was trying to say before, you have a new classmate." She pointed at the slim girl beside her. Smiling like an idiot she introduced the new girl. "Guys, this is Gabriella Montez from Chicago. She just recently moved here with her family." Gabriella was smiling and lifted her arm to make a small wave with her hand.