Work Text:
This summer is not going how Sharpay thought it would go.
She thought her plan was so simple, yet so genius when she had come up with it just before summer break – hire Troy at Lava Springs and get him to be her new arm candy as Gabriella disappears from East High and order is restored.
Except, Gabriella hasn’t disappeared. In fact, she’s been here, at Lava Springs, every step of the way and has thrown a wrench in every single one of Sharpay’s new plans to keep the original one on track.
She thought she had only hired Troy, but suddenly Gabriella was the new lifeguard. She would win the Star Dazzle Award as per tradition, but suddenly Gabriella wanted to compete. She and Ryan were a team, but suddenly he was friends with Gabriella. And now, when she has finally gotten the competition out of the way, Gabriella is suddenly standing in front of her, eyes blazing with fury as she tells her off.
Sharpay is the one who should be furious. She is the one who got hurt because of Gabriella. How dare she just waltz into Albuquerque and take away her place in the drama club, her perfect future trophy husband, her brother, her Star Dazzle Award?
But most of all, how dare she take away her heart?
Because, as she stares into Gabriella’s eyes, all she feels is heartbreak. Because no matter how much she tries to tell herself that her actions all summer have been to win the Star Dazzle Award or to get Troy to fall in line to complete her perfect fantasy, it’s not been about that at all. It has never been.
All it has ever been about are those feelings that Gabriella evokes in her, the ones that she can’t turn off.
Gabriella can never know. No one can ever know.
Yet, with every word that comes out of Gabriella’s mouth, Sharpay’s truth climbs a little closer to the surface, inch by inch until Sharpay doesn’t know if she can keep it in anymore.
In an effort to keep her composure and not pour out her heart, she lets her eyes stray for just a split second, away from Gabriella, and she sees Troy in the distance, obviously listening to their conversation.
It gives her all the more reason to keep quiet and not let go of her sanity, but it also suddenly makes her realize what she has done.
In her desperate attempt to keep Gabriella away from her, she has also made sure that everything came down and she has taken everyone with her. She has caused rifts between lovers, between friends, between siblings.
Good, she thinks. Gabriella is right. She is only concerned with protecting herself and she doesn’t care about the consequences. If this is what it takes to get rid of Gabriella Montez, then so be it. Then, she has won.
She tells Gabriella this – not the reasons why she won, only that she won – and the boiling point comes closer yet again when Gabriella’s facial expression slightly changes.
There’s still anger – a lot of it – but there’s also something different. Desperation. An emotion she has become quite familiar with over the past few months.
But it’s not the same desperation that Sharpay feels, not a desperation to be rid of the girl standing before her. No, Gabriella’s a desperation to understand Sharpay.
“What’s the prize here, Sharpay? Do you want the Star Dazzle Award? Is it Troy?”
She can see it in Gabriella’s eyes as she searches her face. Gabriella is a smart girl. She knows that something else is up. She just wants to figure it out what it is.
Sharpay won’t let her find out.
This is the moment where she could lay it all on the table, come clean. But what would that do? It would just make her weaker than ever before, give Gabriella – and Troy – the ammunition they need to finish her off for good.
So, even as Gabriella stares into her eyes, she crosses her arms and stares back, hoping that her stare is intimidating enough for Gabriella to back down, for her own feelings and secrets to descend down to the deepest abyss of her mind.
Eventually, it seems like it is, because Gabriella says, her voice tired, “I’m done Sharpay. This is a game I don’t want to play.”
That’s the end. It should be the end. Gabriella leaving is all she has wanted and now she’s finally got it.
“Goodbye, Sharpay.”
So why does Gabriella resolutely uttering those words make Sharpay’s heart sink into a bottomless pit?
She doesn’t want the answer to that question, but she does know that this feeling is agonizing and that she doesn’t know what to do with it. And yet again, she threatens to break and the truth threatens to emerge.
This pain is so strong and all-encompassing that she can’t help herself. She has to say something back.
Her body trembling with rage and hurt, she’s surprised that her voice remains steady and venomous as she hisses, “You think this is just some game, Gabriella?”
Gabriella’s eyebrows rise. She obviously thought, too, that this was the end. But now, Sharpay realizes it can’t be. Not like this. Because this feels an awful lot like defeat. Sharpay doesn’t like defeat.
With a sigh, she throws her hands up. “What is it then?”
This makes Sharpay pause. What is it? She doesn’t know the right answer to that question either. The wrong answer, the one that would ruin everything even further, is dying to burst out, though.
“I just needed you gone,” she admits - the most rational answer she can think of - and Gabriella shakes her head incredulously.
“What did I ever do to you, Sharpay?”
Another tiny fracture is added to the thousands already present in Sharpay’s heart when something changes in Gabriella’s voice. The exhaustion and anger is gone, replaced with a tremor of hurt and sadness.
It hurts Sharpay, too, knowing that she is the cause for that pain. Briefly, she wonders what it was all for, considering she herself got hurt nevertheless.
The truth is almost at the surface, ready to be unleashed.
Still, she keeps her head high. She doesn’t show her weakness. She will never show her weakness. Even if she thinks she can’t keep it in anymore.
“You took everything from me,” Sharpay seethes, her voice low and agonized. “You took my role, my school, my home, my brother… my heart.”
So much for keeping her temper and her secret.
As soon as those final two words out, the panic sets in as a slew of curse words run through her mind. Oh. Oh no. Did she really just do that?
Did she really just tell Gabriella Montez that she stole her heart?
Gabriella seems shocked too, her mouth hanging slightly agape and her body frozen in place.
“What do you mean, your heart?”
Gabriella’s voice is hesitant, breathless, and Sharpay bites her lip as she considers her options. She could run off, pretend this never happened, pretend that Gabriella never happened. She could make up some lame excuse that Gabriella probably won’t buy. Or she could tell the truth.
As much as it pains her, she knows that the final option is the only one. Sharpay is many things, but not a quitter.
“It was never about Troy,” she says, voice surprisingly still steady, as she stares deep into Gabriella’s eyes – those beautiful eyes that set her heart alight. “It was about you. I have feelings for you.”
Gabriella shakes her head in disbelief, breathing in and out loudly. “What? How? Why?”
“I don’t know,” Sharpay says, her voice rising now as she finally lets go of her tough façade. “I don’t know how it happened or why it happened, but it happened. I want you and I can’t have you. So I wanted you as far away from me as possible. That’s why I did what I did. That’s the truth. And if you’re looking for apologies, I don’t have them. I won’t tell you I’m sorry.”
Gabriella sighs and blinks, before turning to look at something behind her. Troy, still there, with that same devastated, shocked look on his face.
Turning back to Sharpay, she gulps and blinks a few times. “Sharpay… I don’t… I don’t know what to say.”
They stare at each other for another minute, before Sharpay scowls and rolls her eyes. “Then don’t say anything.”
It’s better that way, she thinks. She doesn’t want to hear it anyway.
And with that, head held high, she turns around and walks away, ignoring the sounds of Troy’s footsteps and the yelling between him and Gabriella as she leaves them and the wreckage she has caused behind.
She may have gotten the last word, but she can’t say she has left unscathed.
She may have avoided Gabriella’s inevitable rejection, but there’s a storm brewing that’s coming her way, a fallout that she can’t stop. Things are only going to get worse from here.
She may have achieved her original goal of getting rid of Gabriella, but she has not won.
As far as Gabriella is concerned, she will never win.