Chapter 1

Deal With IT

"YOU'RE TELLING PEOPLE THAT I DON'T WANT TO GIVE IT UP TO YOU, IT'S EMBARRASSING." I was so surprised by the amount of frustration in my voice. It wasn't my intention to be so public about my relationship problems with Sam.

We were standing in the middle of the hallway. At this point I didn't care who heard us. Sam had basically told everyone about my 'stubbornness' in the bedroom. Word had gotten around school and I had became known as the girl who wouldn't spread her legs.

"COME ON QUINN, ITS THE TRUTH. YOU LET THAT LOSER PUCK GET INTO YOUR PANTS LAST YEAR, I DON'T SEE WHY YOU'RE SO HESITANT THIS YEAR. "

I looked across the hallway to where Puck's attention averted from watching Santana stuff books in her locker and was now fully on us. At the mention of his name he looked at the ground with a guilty expression. Santana just slammed her locker door shut and whispered something in his ear, whatever she said made him laugh.

"WE'VE ONLY BEEN TOGETHER FOR A MONTH." I replied. That wasn't completely true, in reality it had been a little more than that. I wasn't ready to admit that though.

"WELL MAYBE THAT'S ENOUGH."

Seriously, trouty mouth.

Sam took a pause. He looked around the halls , as if to make sure everyone; including the glee club, who were all still standing together in a group trying hard not to stare. I knew what this meant.

He opened those gigantic lips of his."WE'RE THROUGH."

He stormed out of the hallway,bumping shoulders with Puck who was about to follow Sam outside before Santana grabbed him. Her reassuring look seemed to somehow soothe him. Part of me wanted to go over there and slap her for choosing Puck over me. Another part of me wanted to thank her. Thank her for stopping yet another fight that I would have caused , but I couldn't do either right now.

After spending a good five minutes of passing period sobbing out of humiliation in the bathroom , I collected myself and walked to 1st period English, avoiding many stares as I walked through the halls. Sam and I were sort of a big deal in the means of high school social structure. Him being a big deal to the football team and I to the Cheerios, our relationship just seemed so stereotypical. It gave people a sense of security or some sort of social normality.

"NEW SEATS" was posted on the board in gigantic letters. Our English teacher Mr. Chapman posted our seating arrangement under the document camera. My heart sunk once I saw the assignment. I was sitting at one of the back tables along with Santana Lopez. This wasn't happening right now. I knew I couldn't protest, so I just obediently sat down in my area.

When she walked through the front door , I expected her to make a big deal about the seating arrangement. But she didn't. Her eyes were focused on something else, something behind me. She just stood at the stool she was supposed to be seated at and looked with envy at something over my head. Her facial expression was completely distraught.

I turned myself on the stool to find Mike and Brittany sitting at the table in front of us. Her hand was placed on his leg and they were making out with such passion. This was no unusual sight for me, I had seen them show even deeper public displays of affection before, that was just the type of people they were. They were comfortable with showing their love for one another.

"Alright everyone, please copy the prompt on the board and then I will explain to you your directions." Mr. Chapman said turning his head from the board. "Brittany, Mike, please save it for after class" he mumbled.

Brittany broke the kiss before meeting Santana's broken facial expression. The blonde tried to give a small smile, but Santana looked like she had just been cheated on.

Anger seemed to fill her body. She shook her head and sat herself on the stool in front of me. We both copied down the down the prompt in silence, until I spoke up. She wouldn't even look at me, it was I was invisible.

Someone needed to say something.

"You know she still asks about you?" I was waiting some sort of sarcastic remark from her. She didn't even look up from her paper. "You don't talk to her anymore , do you?" She lifted her pen up from her paper and spun it her fingers for a few moments before a terrible grin spread across her face.

"Well after you decided to post my drunk love confession to Brittany online, things have been a little awkward between us." She spat out with such disgust in her voice. That was the first time anyone had ever even mentioned it. Nobody even knew I was the one who posted it all over the Internet. I was surprised she still remembered it.

"You told Puck the baby was his, okay?" I snapped back at her. I tried to keep my voice quiet, but her accusation was offensive. "I trusted you and you practically ruined my reputation."

"He's the father, dipshit ." She slammed her pencil down. Snixx had been unleashed. "He had the right to know it was his kid!"

Now everybody was staring at us with a look of concern. Brittany and Mike stopped their make out session to join in. Their nasty looks weren't all directed at me, but mostly Santana.

It was weird how these two events happened. I cheated on Finn with Puck and told everyone Finn was the father,and nobody gave a damn, in fact it's made me more popular. Guys think I'm easier to get with. Meanwhile, Santana gets all the shit. After I outed her anonymously at the end of our junior year, she was known as the hated "dyke" around the Cheerios. She had no choice but to quit. Everybody seemed to have a problem with it, except the members of the glee club. Santana soon decided to shut the world out, just like Puck did when he found out I wasn't keeping the baby. They bonded over their hatred for me. Here we were. Nearly a month into our senior year, people still hated Santana and Puck still hated me.

"Alright, since it looks like everybody has the prompt down I'll begin by explaining our assignment for this month." With the teachers loud voice, the whole classes gaze turned from Santana to the front of the room. Santana just smirked, thanks to me, she was used to the negative attention.

" Now, this will be our biggest project of the year and I'm not exaggerating when I say this assignment will either make or break your grade. With that being said, you should listen carefully to my directions. The person across from you will be your partner. You and your partner will pick an important societal concept to research and understand. This concept will be the focus of your 50 slide powerpoint that you will make, using the given rubric. To ensure that this is a team effort, there is a required workshop each of you will attend with your partner today after school. After the workshop you and your partner will have to put in hours outside of class to complete this assignment. This will go on for the next two months of the school year. Any questions?"

The whole classroom busted into chaos. Some were extremely happy, others had horrified looks on their faces. Rachel,who was sitting with Finn at another table, looked at the two of us in disbelief. This morning was off to such a rough start with Sam and I breaking up, topped off with Santana's outburst, and now this.

Rachel Berry raised her hand. "What if we feel like our partner is..." She stole a quick glance at Santana and continued. "Difficult to work with."

Good choice words Berry.

"All partners are permanent. You're just going to have to deal with it." He replied as if he'd been waiting for this question to be asked.

Deal with it?

How am I supposed to deal with working with her? Especially on such an in-depth assignment.

I looked at Santana who's foot kept tapping. Her eyes were closed. She whispered something in Spanish under her breath. As soon as her eyes opened and met mine, she got up abruptly, and left.

Mr. Chapman tried calling her name out in the hall, but all I could hear was her stiletto heels hitting the ground fast and hard.

She obviously couldn't deal with it.

I attended the after school workshop that day, just as we'd been instructed to. To be honest, the only reason I went was because I had wanted something to occupy my mind. My thoughts had been filled with self hatred. I tried to wrap my head around reasons for my break up with Sam. I felt like I couldn't blame myself for not being attracted to him. He just didn't turn me on that way.

" I don't even know why I'm here." I turned to Rachel and Finn who were sitting next to me in the library. They were working intently on finding interesting societal concepts. Unlike me, they were lucky with their assigned partners."It's not like she's actually going to show up."

"Who knows maybe she'll surprise you." Finn said confidently looking up from Rachel's computer. "I mean people change, don't they ? " He turned to his girlfriend as if he was looking for some sort of approval from her.

"They most certainly do, babe." Rachel gave Finn a quick peck on the lips. Finn and I breaking up was never a bad thing. It lead him into the arms of someone who actually loved him. I guess one good thing came out of that mess.

"By the way when do you think we're going to wrap up today?" Finn asked breaking away from Rachel. "Mike is throwing a huge party tonight. " Mike Chang, along with Brittany, both hold extreme reputations as party animals. Throwing parties was one of the things they'd do together as a couple. They both seemed to disregard the fact that we all had school the next day, but that was part of the fun.

"I was suppose to go with Sam.." I muttered. I had no energy to socialize with a bunch of drunk losers when I could be alone moping.

"It's chill, you can hang out with me and Rachel instead." Finn said with his signature dopey look. Rachel gawked at Finn, obviously objecting to party on a school night. I loved Rachel, but god she was annoying.

My phone binged before I could hear the beginning of her rant. I opened it skimming over all the missed calls from Sam, probably about the party tonight. A name I hadn't seen in such a long time popped up.

Santana: under the bleachers in five

" You're right Finn." A smile crept on my face. "People do change."