We were all sitting in the room waiting for when he walks into the room, holding a stack of papers under his arm. He throws everything onto the piano. "Alright, everyone," He says, "It's time to vote for which two songs we are going to mash-up together for sectionals." He takes the stack of papers and passes them around to each of us. The paper contains a list of five songs on them: Aaliyah 'Tell me if you're that somebody', Missy Elliott 'Lose control', Jennifer Lopez 'Get Right', Janet Jackson 'If', and Kylie Minogue 'Love at first sight'.
"I thought that since our other two songs are ballads, it would be great if our mash-up contained dance tracks," Mr. Schue says, with a forced hipster tone to his voice, "I want you all to circle which two songs you want to sing and then bring your paper up to me." Mr. Schue nods his head as everyone grabs their pen and pencil and begin writing. One by one people bring their paper up to Mr. Schue, I remain there trying to figure out what songs I want to sing, what songs express how I am feeling inside about my life, about myself. I circle two songs and run up to give my paper to Mr. Schue.
He collects all the sheets and begins counting; us all sitting there shuffling papers, whispering loud enough for people to hear, just moving around. Mr. Schue was done counting, he moves closer to us to the point where it feels like he is invading our space. He is wearing a plain look on his face, like he isn't moved or that we all voted for the wrong songs. His face changes into a fake smile. "Well," he says, "It seems we have a three-way vote. Five of you voted for Aaliyah and Jennifer Lopez, five of you voted for Aaliyah and Missy Elliott, and five of you voted for Aaliyah and Janet Jackson." He looks around the room at all us, "And one of you circled all of them." He says looking confuse.
"I couldn't decide," Brittany says, "So I circled everyone."
"Well, because of this we have to take a different route." Mr. Schue goes and grab sheets of paper and writes on them, then her walks around the room and tapes the paper onto the walls, a sheet in a different location. "Alright, I want everyone who voted for Aaliyah and Jennifer Lopez to go stand by A, everyone who voted for Aaliyah and Missy Elliott to stand by B, and everyone who voted for Aaliyah and Janet Jackson to go stand by C." People start to get up and move towards the letters, without asking any questions. I stand up and look around the room, trying to remember which songs I have chosen. I look at Santana and notice that there were only four people in her group, I walk over to her, step by step, I reach her and turn my back to her to ignore her gaze. Brittany stays rooted in her chair. "Brittany," Mr. Schue says, "You can join whichever group you want." Brittany stands and looks at Santana, I see her smiling from the corner of my eyes. Brittany then turns and walks off, to another group. The look on Santana's face switches in a second, from joy and love to betrayal and sadness.
"Alright everyone, since we have a tie I decided to do a contest out of this," he says, a dorky, odd smile on his face, "The group that wins will have that song to perform at sectionals." He walks around from each group, staring at each of us. "But the fact the sectionals is in 6 weeks, I will only give you all 3 days to come up with a routine." We stare at him, our mouths agape.
"Mr. Schue," Finn starts, "There is no way we can come up with whole routine in 3 days."
"Well, You will have to try." Mr. Schue replies, cutting Finn off. "Now there is only few minutes left before we have to leave, I suggest that all of you talk to each other and come up with a plan."
I turn towards my group to see who is in it. My eyes jump from Tina, Lauren, Blaine, and Santana. "Well," I begin, "I think it might be best if we." Santana cuts in, her voice fill with rage.
"Blaine you will come up choregraphy, Lauren and Tina you two will come up with outfits and stage props, and I will work on the lyrics and arrangement. We will meet up tomorrow afternoon and discuss further." Santana proceeds to walk out of the room.
"Wait, what about me?" I yell after her. The bell rings, and tells everyone goodbye. I follow after Santana. "Hey, Santana." I call out. I see her talking with Brittany.
"I don't know why you didn't want to join my group," Santana says.
"I went with the B group since my name starts with the letter B," Brittany claims, "I mean it was practically calling my name." I interrupt their conversation, wanting to get Santana's attention.
"Santana," I say, "I need to talk to you."
"About what?" She yells.
"About on what I am going to do to contribute, I mean you just started giving out orders to everyone like you were in charge of the group but that's not how it is going to work. We have to work together on this Santana." Santana looks at me, her arms cross. "Listen I just think we should all think up of the routine together, instead of dividing up the parts."
"Listen, Fabray." Santana says, "I don't want to work with you any more than you want to work with me. So you can drop the entire nice act, trying to be my friend. But it's alright. Our friendship is over and there isn't any chance of salvaging it. So if you don't mind I'm going to go work on the lyrics and arrangement and you can work on whatever it is you think our group will be lacking in. Alright."
Santana then reaches for Brittany's hand and they walk down the hallway, leaving me there looking dumb, wounded, hurt. Trying to keep myself from cracking.