Disclaimer: I do not own High School Muscial or any of its characters, Disney does.

Warnings: In this chapter there is some language, references to underaged drinking, and minor drug use. It is also during their senior year, but HSM 3 doesn't apply. There are also some errors that I most likely missed. They might also be out of character.

Summary: Troy had a secret that he never wanted anyone to know about, until Chad goes through his room and finds evidence that depict the dark secret that he had been hiding. Now as his life falls apart he realizes he's nothing.

This is also named after Not an Addict by K's Choice.

Laughs were shared around the room as the four boys sat around the pizza box, all of them looking at each other as the night progressed. They spent hours not doing anything of substance, just wasting their Saturday away like ignorant little boys. It wasn't unlike any other night that they had all gotten together.

Every week, they would sit around with each other shooting the shit about anything that they could think of, from Coach Bolton to their girlfriends to how school work was going. Everything was the same as it always was, until Troy got to his feet.

"I have to go to the bathroom," Troy breathed as he looked down at his friends.

"Don't take too long, we only have so much to say behind your back…" Jason laughed as Troy walked out the room.

Everything should have gone back to normal, everything should have continued the way that it was, but Chad's eyes stayed on the direction that Troy had walked away in. Jason and Zeke were still laughing with each other, inside joke after inside joke, but Chad paid them no heed. Troy had stopped during all of these parties to go to the bathroom. Curiosity would spike every time, this time was no different. No different except for the fact that he wanted to know what was going on.

"Danforth?" Jason asked as he looked over at Chad. "Is everything alright?"

Chad looked at the doorway that Troy had walked through and stood up, not taking his eyes away from there. "Ever wonder what he does in there?"

"I don't really want to think about people in the bathroom, not a hobby of mine," Zeke answered as he looked up at his friend, eyes filled with confusion.

"He drinks at every one of these parties, and liquor and Troy Bolton don't mix," Jason continued. "So chill, man. He'll be back."

Chad knew better than them. Jason and Zeke never asked questions whenever Troy did something, when they were in his room and they saw all of the journals, they never questioned what was in them. They didn't want to delve deeper into the life of their friend. They didn't want to know what was going on with him, they didn't care. Chad did care. Maybe a little too much.

"Where are you going?" Zeke asked as he looked at Chad.

"To take care of something," Chad said coldly, ignoring their false worry.

"You're not going to like what you see," Jason laughed as he took another sip of his drink. "I guarantee it."

"Because nothing is happening," Zeke rolled his eyes. "See for yourself!"

Chad walked away from them. He had analyzed the look in Troy's eyes, he had noticed how secretive he was every single time he had excused himself from his friends. Chad walked to the bathroom to see the door open, the light on. He wished that he hadn't moved closer, he wished that he hadn't looked through the door. At that moment he saw a different Troy Bolton than he had ever seen.

There was Troy standing in front of the mirror closing an orange prescription bottle.

"What are you doing?" Chad asked, his voice so thick it was overwhelming, Troy freezing in place as his voice reached his ears.

Troy's attention turned to him as he put the bottle away. "Chad? What are you doing here?"

"I could ask you the same thing!"

"It's not that big of a deal…" Troy smiled as if he knew exactly what Chad was going to say. "And it's not what you think."

"Oh and you think you know what I'm thinking?" Chad scoffed.

"Well if your thinking what I think your thinking then you think that I'm popping pills," Troy answered as he walked toward the door. "That's what you do think right? That I'm secretly a druggie?"

"Well… what?" Troy's word choice confused him to no end.

"I think that you think what I'm thinking you think," Troy walked away from the bathroom. "And I'm telling you that that's not the case…"

"Hoops…" Chad sighed as he followed him. "Tell me one thing… would you tell me id it was a big deal?"

Troy turned to him, his blue eyes filled with fear as Chad walked closer. He had the look of someone who was guilty. After all of the years that they were together, Chad wanted to think that this was a different Troy Bolton. The deeper he looked at him, the more he wanted to convince himself that this was a different boy. This wasn't the boy that he had played basketball with for years. This was not the same boy that he had told everything. This was someone else. He knew that wasn't true.

"You're not going to act like this in front of Zeke and Jason are you? They don't need to know what's going on with me. They don't need to be bothered with all of this personal crap," Troy explained as he closed his eyes shaking his head. "Chad, you know I would tell you if this was that big of a deal."

"Do I?" Chad asked as he looked at Troy.

"When have I ever lied to you?" Troy asked as he looked into Chad's eyes.

Chad sighed as he did the math silently in his head. "Never…"

"And I'm not lying now," Troy placed a hand on his shoulder. "What you saw was just something stupid, it has nothing to do with anything that concerns you. I'm not some sort of addict. It's cool…"

Chad watched as Troy walked back into the room with Jason and Zeke, seeing the two of them smile and Troy came back. They were oblivious to what Troy was doing to himself; they didn't know what was going on. They weren't there when Troy sat there in the bathroom with the bottle of pills.

Chad looked at Troy as he walked closer to them; he said that he would tell him if something was wrong, if anything was going to hurt him. He looked at Troy and saw something different, something that was haunting to no end. He had to get to the bottom of this no matter what.

"Are you alright?" Jason asked as he looked up at Chad.

Chad never took his eyes off of Troy who was avoiding his glance "Yeah… I'm fine…"

This was a hard story to write as there was a lot of trouble with me titling it. I finally decided to call it Not an Addict because it fit more than Freak. This story is also a branch off of both of my other HSM stories (Chemistry of a Car Crash and In a Glass Cage), but none of them were able to be the same story, it would have been crazyness!

But I finally got this done and I'm pretty proud of it.

So tell me how you feel? What did you think? And don't just say it was bad! Go deeper!

This story is going to turn into a strong M as well.