"Ten Months of Bliss"
Chapter 10
by TehFuzzyPenguin
Disclaimer: The only thing Disney has that I want is a DVD of Beauty and the Beast. Alas, I don't own that, either.
May
----
Sharpay woke up with a start, her leg jerking in the middle of her dream. Maybe she was trying to run from something. She blinked and looked at the clock. It read ten minutes past getting up, and she groaned.
Ryan burst through the door. "Happy Birthday, Sharpay!"
Sharpay gave him the finger. She rolled over and closed one eye, squinting at Ryan in the early morning sun. She hated Daylight Savings Time. "I hate Daylight Saving Time," she said in greeting.
"Come on, you have to pack for Lava Springs," said Ryan, smiling widely. "Mark's already over."
"Why is Mark coming?"
"Isn't Chad coming?" Sharpay sat up and rubbed her eyes.
"Yes," she said. She frowned. "But I invited Chad." Seeing Ryan's all-too-cheerful face, she gave up and turned to get off the bed. "Where did we go last night?"
Ryan frowned, trying to remember as well. "I don't know."
Sharpay nodded. "Well, at least I don't have a hangover." She raised her eyebrows. "Oh," she said. "Kelsi was there." She smiled. "Oh, Kelsi."
"Always with an aspirin and a glass of water," Ryan added. "I just want to pack her up and take her to Charleston with me."
"Please Ryan." Sharpay waved a hand and tried to stand. She failed and fell off the bed. "Fuck," she cursed from the floor. She continued, "Kelsi's coming to Tisch. And you're leaking happy all over the place." Managing, with the help of sheets and blankets, to stand upright, Sharpay said, "I'm going to take a shower."
"Hurry up!"
"I'm going to take a shower."
"Mark is already here, we want to go!"
"I'm taking a shower now."
----
Chad rolled his window down and stuck his hand out. Sharpay said, "Careful. Don't want to get pulled for a DUI." Chad did a few dips with his hand anyway.
He said, "It's like...one in the afternoon. No one's drunk this early."
Sharpay rolled her eyes. "Unless it's high school kids coming from prom." She rolled her window down, too. "Where were we last night?" she asked over the sound of air whipping through her car.
"Jason's," Chad said. Sharpay drummed her fingers in recognition. "What is this?"
"What?" Chad thumped the stereo. "Hey," said Sharpay. "It's Regina Spektor. Don't knock it."
"She's singing about Oedipus Rex."
"What?"
"Oedipus Rex."
"What?"
"Oedipus Rex!" Chad yelled.
Sharpay smiled. "Bless you," she said, and Chad hit his head against the back of the seat. "Look. I'm inviting you to my country club for our after-prom vacation. There will be parties. And cake. It's my birthday."
Chad closed his eyes.
Sharpay sang, "I can cry if I want to," and smiled again. "It'll be fun," she said. "The pool is hella. West High is having its prom tonight, we can sneak in—"
"Oh god no," Chad groaned. He squeezed his eyes. "I don't ever want to hear 'It's poppin' again."
"It's called 'Lipgloss,' Chad. We don't have to go if we don't want to, it's not our prom."
Chad flipped the door lock off and on. "What do you want to do for your birthday?" Sharpay resisted the urge to insist on crashing the West High prom.
"Swim. Sleep. Get a good round of pool in—" Her Blackberry went off, and she reached behind herself with one hand, trying to find it in her purse. "Felton—just—got—pool tables—Chad, help?" Chad turned and got the Blackberry for her.
"It's Ryan," he said, and handed it to her.
"Hello?" Sharpay shifted the Blackberry to her left hand and steered with her right. "Ryan—seriously?" Chad could hear a fast-paced babble coming from the earpiece. "Okay. All right. Was it your fault? I don't care if—was it your fault? Are you going to get a ticket? Okay. Fine. I'll pick you up. Yeah. No, I figured. Okay—I'm hanging up, Ryan. I am. I'm hanging up right now." She hung up.
Chad said, "I thought you were left handed."
"I am," Sharpay said. She searched the sides of the road for small streets she could turn off on.
"You're steering with your right hand."
"...And you're scared, I know." Sharpay found a dirt trail on her left and turned onto it, getting ready to do a three point turn. "Ryan just got in a wreck."
Chad raised his eyebrows. "Oh god," he said.
"He's just so talented." Sharpay took a deep breath, and pulled back out on the main road, headed in the opposite direction. "Fantastic present, isn't it?"
Chad grunted. Piano music filtered through Sharpay's speakers, and Regina Spektor started singing about Samson. He wondered what the name of the woman who'd cut his hair was.
"Delilah," Sharpay said, not bothering to wait for him to ask.
"Huh?"
"Samson and Delilah. But that's not what the song is about." Sharpay smiled. "God, today's going to be great."
"Your brother just got in a car wreck."
Her smiled fixed itself on her face. "It's going to be fucking awesome."
----
Chad eyed Ryan's sandwich as they sat down in the Lava Springs dining room. "Quite a sandwich you got, man," he said. Ryan smiled down at it.
Sharpay said, "You would eat after that."
"After what?" Ryan asked, his mouth about to descend on the crust.
"After almost getting me killed," Mark grumbled from the other side him. Ryan turned, and Mark smiled back innocently, biting a chip. Chad looked down at his slice of pizza and shrugged, picking it up because he didn't really care about Ryan's sandwich as long as he got food.
"I still don't get it," Chad said around too much hot, melted cheese. "How exactly did you hit someone?"
"I got hit," Ryan said, as though he'd explained and corrected it too many times. "I got hit."
Sharpay speared a tomato with her fork and said, "I don't get it, either. Please, Ryan. Enlighten us." Ryan sighed, took a bite, and chewed exaggeratedly as he took the salt shaker, the pepper shaker, and his fork and knife.
"Okay," he said, lining up his knife and fork parallel to each other. "Pretend this is the road, and the knife is the yellow line. I'm in the left lane, trying to turn left to get on the road that will get us here."
"You're explaining this using table utensils," Sharpay muttered. Chad rolled his eyes in accordance, and tried to make sense of Ryan's diagram.
"I'm the salt shaker," Ryan went on, ignoring Sharpay, "And the pepper shaker is the other car. This big black woman—no offense."
"None taken," Chad reassured.
"This big black woman is driving a peeling, beat up, about to die Buick." Ryan placed the pepper shaker. "She's turning right, to go in the opposite direction that I'm facing. I want to turn left. So I'm waiting, waiting, waiting, listening to some Imogen. All of a sudden, she's over the yellow line." Ryan pushed the pepper shaker with his pinky. "She's coming at me head-on, and I can't really go anywhere because hello, this is my lane. Boom, car explodes." He clinked the pepper shaker with the salt shaker.
Mark took this time to interject, saying, "The airbags went off. The fucking airbags went off. And then the lady pulls across the road—" He took the pepper shaker and pushed it over the fork. "Into the gas station, and her entire loud family gets out and starts yelling at us—like it's our fault."
"Exactly." Ryan took a definitive bite of his sandwich and let Sharpay and Chad squint at the table. Sharpay looked at Chad with her eyebrows raised, and he raised his back.
Mark said, "What I don't get is why we're celebrating Sharpay's birthday today."
"It is my birthday."
"That's not what it says on Facebook," Mark insisted.
"Oh god," Sharpay sighed. "My Facebook isn't right. It's such a big deal."
"It is her birthday," Ryan said. "We're celebrating mine the day after tomorrow. So we won't steal each other's thunder."
Chad frowned. "That shouldn't make sense," he said. "It really, really shouldn't."
"Oh god," Sharpay sighed. "Chad's part of the family now."
Mark jumped up and threw the water in his glass at the wall. "Opah!" He sat back down and looked confused. "That's just the Greeks, isn't it?"
"Yeah," Ryan said, and raised his hand to get more water.
"What do you want to do after lunch?" Chad asked Sharpay. She shrugged.
"Oo," Mark said, "Let's go swimming! C'mon! Can we?"
Sharpay looked at her almost empty plate of salad. "I just ate, Mark. Swimming after this is not going to fly."
"But—"
"Not going to fly, Mark." She smiled at his disappointed face. "Darling. I love you, and I know the pool is great, but I am not swimming."
Chad yawned mid-bite. "I'm going to sleep," he announced. "After we finish eating."
"I'm down for a nap," Ryan said.
"I hate Daylight Saving Time," Sharpay muttered, which everyone took to mean that she was sleeping, too.
"I want to swim."
"Eat your food, Mark."
----
Chad's phone rang. Sharpay rolled over, and her hand hit his chest. She groaned, and wished his ringtone was anything but the standard telephone ring that pierced her eardrums. She lifted her limp hand and let it hit his chest again. "Chad," she half-whined.
Chad reached out blindly and caught his phone under his elbow on the side table. After several seconds of fumbling, he managed to flip it open. "Hello," he groaned.
"Hi, Chad?" He frowned, unable to recognize the voice. "It's Kelsi."
"Oh," he mumbled. "Hi, Kelsi. What's going on?"
"Um. Sharpay's phone was off, and I figured she'd be with you, so..." Chad waited for Kelsi to continue. "Um, so, if she is with you…?"
"Yeah, she's right here. She's sleeping, though, do you want to talk to her?"
"No! No, I—um, when she wakes up, can you just tell her that I'm going to there tomorrow? Instead of tonight? I just—I have some things to take care of." She sounded out of breath.
Chad frowned. "Yeah, sure. Is that all?"
"Yeah. Yeah, Chad?"
Chad sighed, knowing that Kelsi had probably planned to add this as an afterthought. "What?"
"What are you getting Sharpay for her birthday?"
"She's right here, Kelsi, if you need to ask her—"
"No!" He heard Kelsi knock something over and curse. "Damn. I mean...what do you get for...what would you like for your birthday?"
"Halo 3," he said instantly.
"That won't work," Kelsi said.
"Look, just tell me what's going on."
"It's just—I only know how to shop for Sharpay and Ryan. And Mark. Y'know? I don't know how to shop for, like, a normal girl. I don't know what to get my other friends."
"What other friends?" Chad realized how it sounded, and tried to do some damage control. "I mean...well, um. Clothes?"
"No, not that kind—Chad?"
"What?"
"Just tell Sharpay I'll be there tomorrow."
She hung up without any warning, and Chad wondered if she'd picked that up from Sharpay. He folded his phone up and put it back on the bedside table, turning over to mirror Sharpay's position.
"What did Kelsi want?" Sharpay asked, slightly more coherent, but still reluctant to open her eyes.
"She says she'll get here tomorrow instead of tonight."
"That conversation definitely took a lot longer."
"I think Kelsi just came out to me," Chad mused, going back over Kelsi's words in his head. If he combined them with what he knew from Sharpay, it made sense.
"Oh." Sharpay settled closer to Chad. "That's nice. We'll give her a fruit basket tomorrow."
"Sharpay."
"And maybe a card."
"Sharpay."
"Okay, fine, a cake, too."
Chad laughed. Sharpay smiled against her pillow. "It doesn't bother you?" he asked.
"Kelsi's the one who will always have an aspirin and a glass of water for me without questioning why. I don't really care what bits of anatomy she likes to sleep with, nor do I believe she's exclusive to just the girly bits." He made a face above her head. "I know. You don't want to hear anymore. But no. I don't mind at all."
"Really?"
"A nice fruit basket, with a pomegranate and no mealy apples, Chad, can we talk about something else now?"
----
Sharpay, Mark, Chad, and Ryan stood on the edge of the pool, the moon reflecting broken on its surface. Mark asked, "Don't we need a lifeguard for this?"
"I thought you wanted to swim earlier," Ryan said.
"Do you want to call Troy? Cos we're not," Sharpay said, and jumped in. She shrieked. "It's warm! Fuck me, it's warm!" Chad jumped in after her.
Pushing the hair out of his eyes, he looked up at the other couple in this little adventure. "It really is," he said. "Come on."
"Chicken fight!" Sharpay commanded, and splashed Ryan's feet. He jumped back reflexively, realized his action, and took a running leap over her head to the center of the pool. "Hey Mark," Sharpay said. "Get in."
Ryan resurfaced. "God, it's warm!" Chad got out and sat on the edge of the pool. "Come on, Mark!" Ryan said.
"I really think we need a lifeguard..." Chad got up, ran around behind Mark, and barreled the boy into the water. He followed soon after, and Sharpay pushed herself up on his shoulders. "Sharpay," Mark whined, "Chicken fight? Why?"
"It's my birthday, and I want to enjoy my country club before the West High prom takes over. Get on Ryan's shoulders."
They played several rounds, with Sharpay winning most of them. From the closest ballroom, they could hear the West High people dancing. Two shadows fell over the underwater lights, and Ryan looked up from dunking Mark. "Oh," he said. "Hi."
Chad and Sharpay turned from their corner where they'd been talking.
Troy and Gabriella said, "Hi, Ryan," and stood awkwardly on the edge.
Ryan asked, "What are you doing here?"
"We were—" Troy started.
"Some friends from West High invited us, and we saw a pool on our way here, so we figured..."
Ryan looked at Sharpay, who looked at Chad, who said, "You need bathing suits."
Sharpay swallowed hard. "Um. Gabriella, do you think you can fit into mine?" Gabriella looked hopeful, but mostly wary, and Sharpay wanted to throttle her. If that was all she could act when Sharpay extended kindness...
"Felton can find something," Ryan cut in for her. He directed the statement at Troy and Gabriella. "Go to the front desk and say that the Evans family let you guys in, and he can get you anything."
They watched the overdressed couple retreat. Sharpay asked, "Why would they go to two proms?" Ryan rolled his eyes and set out for the other side of the pool.
Chad asked, "How can they function after last night?"
Mark said, "They accessorize each other well."
Sharpay looked at them both. Mark shrugged. "Yes," she conceded, "they do." She swam languidly to Ryan. "I feel like I'm in Garden State," she said when she reached him.
"That would be incest," he replied, nonplussed.
Sharpay shut one eye. "Would our children be deformed?"
"They'd be so fabulous the world would explode. As great as that sounds right now."
"Why? It's such a great place." Ryan turned his head, one eye closed, and they both smiled. Sharpay asked, "What are you going to do in Charleston?"
"Go to the beach every day and get tan. And then I'd dance all night and sleep with my teachers to pass. What are you going to do in Tisch?"
"Go to a show every night and put on a show every day. I'll go star watching."
"Stars like constellations or stars like Liza Minnelli?"
Sharpay thought. "Both. Though maybe not like Liza."
"Is she still alive?"
"Very much so." Ryan looked back at Mark and Chad, who were watching two figures who were unfortunately probably Troy and Gabriella. "I don't know what I'm going to do about Chad."
Ryan raised his eyebrows. "Why? It's not like you're going to schools on opposite sides of the country or anything."
"Ryan—"
"Hey," he said. "You'll be in the best theatre program in the world. And he'll be in the best basketball program in the world. And you get that about each other, and you're perfectly okay with that, even though you know it's going to end soon. Don't let mom's...random nosiness get to you."
"It doesn't."
"I know," said Ryan, and Sharpay didn't bother asking him why he'd said that, because he looked sad, and not over Chad.
"Hey," she said. "Let's go rescue Mark and Chad and get some brownies."
Ryan pushed himself off the wall and started walking through the water. Sharpay followed him, suddenly saying, about halfway across, "Oh. We need to put together a fruit basket for Kelsi tomorrow. A good one. With a pineapple and a pomegranate and some other fruit that starts with P. A pear."
"Why?"
"It's a long story."
They approached the awkward foursome, Sharpay putting a hand on Chad's arm and the other on Gabriella's shoulder. Gabriella jumped. Ryan did the same to Mark and Troy, and they both leaned in.
"It's lovely seeing you," Sharpay said, "but we had a...long day. Ryan got in a wreck, and we're all just a little shaken by it. I think I'm going to bed now. Chad?"
"Yeah," he said. "Yeah, it was...well, have fun with your friends."
Ryan made a face of sympathy, and Mark said, "You look nice!"
They walked back to the country club quickly, grabbing towels and going immediately to the kitchens to raid the desserts. Chad found a tray of leftover brownies.
Ryan bit into one and groaned. "Mm, I've missed these."
"I've never had one," Chad said.
"Never?"
"Never."
Sharpay frowned. "God, Chad, how long have you been with us?"
"Not long," he said. "Only since the beginning of this school year."
"Oh. Oh wow, that seems like a long time ago."
Mark said, "And nothing's changed at all."
They all looked at him, Chad with a pitying grin on his face. Ryan started. "Oh my god," he said, "Mark, you're sarcastic!"
"Shocking," Mark said. "I've been around you two."
The two of them laughed entirely too long. Chad put down his half-eaten brownie and turned to Sharpay. "What?" she asked. He shrugged, and stooped down to kiss her lips.
"I just haven't done that all day. I felt off."
"Aw," she said, and stole a corner of his brownie.
"I like it here," he said.
"Of course you do. It's divine."
"Sure."
Sharpay smiled. "Well, thank you. Mm, before I forget. My cousin Jen is coming to graduation."
"Who?"
"I stayed with her over Christmas. Remember? My cousin Jen? Lives in New York?"
"Um. Yeah."
"She's great. You'll hate her."
Chad smiled tight-lipped, trying to get all the chocolate off his teeth before speaking. "Always good to know." He put an arm around her shoulder and hugged her loosely. "Hey," he said. "Happy birthday."
-end-
Dear lord, that took about five thousand years. Sorry, life just caught up with me. Ryan's car accident actually happened to a friend of mine, and was explained to me in almost the exact same way. Additionally, I think anyone who's trying to come out of the proverbial closet needs a nice fruit basket sent to himher. The ending, I know, was open and completely abrupt, but life happens that way, and the story is called Ten Months of Bliss. If you're still here, thank you so so very much for sticking with me for this last chapter. I know it was a long wait, but hopefully, it was (somewhat) worth it!
review!