A GIRL LIKE YOU. sam evans

i. NEW YEAR, NEW KID

"GLEE IS A GIANT BALL OF SUCK."

Will Schuester read aloud to the glee club, his eyes scanning over Jacob Ben-Israel's latest blog.

"Thanks for the reminder, Mr. Schue." Aria rolled her eyes.

"Okay, everyone still hates us. So what?" Kurt Hummel spoke from beside Aria, "So we're plankton on the high school food chain? Only difference now is that none of us really care."

The New Directions had lost Regionals the previous year, and Mr. Schuester wasn't letting any of his students forget it.

"Kurt's right. We're a family. They can bring it all they want. None of it is going to break us." Aria's attention was turned to Mercedes Jones as she talked.

"Okay, I'm really happy you guys have all bonded. The problem is that all of this negative stuff is keeping other students from auditioning." Mr. Schuester explained to the teens.

"Good. Why do we need new members?" Tina Cohen-Chang questioned.

"Well, since Matt transferred, we only have eleven members. And if we want to go to Nationals, if we want to beat Vocal Adrenaline, we have to go from a small rebel force to a giant wall of sound."

"Yeah, Mr. Schuester's right, you guys. You didn't see Vocal Adrenaline at Regionals. They were epic. We're going to need more voices in order to beat them." Rachel Berry stood up from her seat and walked to the front, beside Will.

Finn Hudson followed, throwing an arm around Rachel's waist, "Yeah, I'm with Rachel in this one."

Staring at the couple being all couple-y, Aria tried her hardest not to gag, which should've been surprisingly easy considering the amount of different pairings that go in and out of the glee club. The others took it jokingly, thinking she was exaggerating her disgust like Brittany Pierce had done a second ago, but her disinterest in the couple was genuine.

She didn't have anything against Finn and Rachel. In fact, she had been secretly rooting for the couple ever since Finn and Quinn Fabray has broken up a year prior. Aria was simply annoyed by all the PDA couples kept on flaunting.

But if Aria were being honest, she wasn't annoyed. She was jealous. She was jealous of the love the couple shared. She wanted that.

Aria was currently dating Noah Puckerman, but even though they were public, and the whole school practically knew about them, he always seemed ashamed of their relationship. As if he didn't want the world to know that he was Aria's boyfriend. And of course, that lead to them only being able to be a couple when there was no one around, in private places. Aria could only wish for a normal relationship.

•••

ARIA STEPPED OUT OF THE GIRL'S RESTROOM, she had changed into the 'New York' shirt that Rachel had given her a while ago. She had just put on her sunglasses when she accidentally bumped into someone.

"Oh, my, God, I am so sorry." Aria apologised, bending down to help pick up the books that had been dropped.

"No, no, it's okay." the person replied.

Aria stood back up and saw a very attractive blond in front of her. She handed him her books before apologising once more, "Here. I'm really sorry."

"And it's really okay." the blond responded before looking down at Aria's outfit, "Are you, like, a New York enthusiast or something?"

"Actually, this is for glee club. Nationals are in New York this year and we're trying to recruit new members for the new year by performing about New York." she said, "I guess people just get excited about New York."