Glee: Back to the Top (the third book in the Glee series)

Chapter 8: Nearly Famous

"He likes Julie?" Marley said as she and Unique rounded a corner and saw Stefan watching her talk to Jake and, now, Dan.

Stefan: Break it down. Ay-oh. Come on. Ay-oh. Ay-oh. You singing to me baby in my head right now. Ay-oh. Ay-oh. Come on. She'll be screaming out when it all goes down...

"Shana's not gonna like this..." Unique said, thinking about how much she'd been trying to hide her discomfort at Shana swooning over the new kid.

Stefan: Just leave with me now, say the word and we'll go. We can go... I'll be your teacher. I'll show you the ropes. You'll see a side of love you've never known. I can see it going down, going down...

Although Unique was just thinking about Shana, Marley couldn't help but giggle at how lame Stefan was. She couldn't believe how intimidated most of the school was by his good looks, athleticism and money when he really had no brains and apparently, no luck with the ladies either. At least, not with the one he wanted.

"Let's go to class," Marley told Unique through her giggles, dragging her friend along with her.

"I'll meet you in a bit," Unique decline. "I have to go do something first." Instead of following Marley towards their final class of the day, Unique walked in the opposite direction, looking around for Shana. When she finally found her, she said, "You need to get over Stefan, stat."

"What?" Shana responded, confused. "Why would I—"

"Just skip the part where you question me or fight me on this," Unique insisted. "He likes someone else. Not you. I'm sure you're very desperate for love because you're used to going around and partying and sleeping with whatever guy turns your way but—"

Shana looked back at her blankly for a second before smiling incredulously and saying, "Oh my gosh. I can't believe you're so jealous that you'd—"

"Jealous?" Unique stopped her. "No, no, honey. Stop. Please. Unique is not jealous."

"Maybe not of a relationship but of the lack of attention I've been giving you," Shana insisted. "I can't imagine what it must've been like before me. Nobody giving you any attention..."

This made Unique angry. "Forget I tried to help you," she said, turning around. Before she left, however, she turned back and said, "Oh and by the way, you aren't the only person in the world capable of liking me."

She made her way to her next class and left an equally upset Shana to go her own way. 

***

"Hey, ready?" said Jake as he walked up to Julie at their lockers again after school. She nodded and joined him towards the choir room.  "I have a question for you," he said suddenly as they walked into the hallway where the choir room was.

"Shoot," she said.

 "I joked about us going on dates to distract you the other day," he began. "But, uh, what if I wasn't completely joking? What would be so bad about you and I—"

"Jake..." she sighed, stopping in the middle of the hallway as he did the same. "I want to make things work with Ryder, okay? He and I aren't over and he's obviously going through something that I'm trying my best to understand and... It just wouldn't be right to bring you into it in that way."

Jake nodded. "For the record," he said. "You deserve better than to latch on to someone who doesn't appreciate you." He walked into the choir room and she followed, truly affected by those last words more than she thought she would be. 

When everyone was in the room, Sam clapped his hands together once, loudly, and said, "We have one person ready to do a song by the artist they are representing this week. Shana, go ahead."