All the things they said about her were true...she was a meddler, nosy, a suck-up and a teacher's pet. It's not like she wanted to be those things—well okay, she didn't think there was anything wrong with showing an interest in other's well-being, in being involved in their lives, or in trying to make a good impression with teachers!
But Jazz did wish sometimes, that she could relax a little. That deadlines and due dates and GPAs would float out of her mind as easily as they did her peers. She envied them sometimes. Sure, she achieved more, but was it because she was actually more deserving, more intelligent, more hardworking? Or just because she had a nagging voice in her brain that wouldn't let her do anything other than obsessively work towards maximizing achievements?
The thought of wandering around the mall aimlessly, or sprawling on a couch somewhere chatting about nothing and everything with other girls, made her skin break out in itchy, painful hives. All those empty, meaningless hours wasted that could be spent making sure the next AP History exam came back with an A+ and not an A, or God forbid, an A-.
Even when her homework was done and triple-checked, her mock exams aced over and over, her idea of "relaxing" once she was free from those nagging deadlines, was to catch up on the latest research in psychology and neurobiology, or reading college-level textbooks to try and get a leg up on the future competition.
Any potential advantage couldn't be allowed to slip from her grasp. They had to be seized. It was honestly, exhausting at times.
Author's note: Jazz is one of my favorite characters. But her extreme commitment to overachieving and her total lack of friends (as far as we can tell) always seemed to hint to me that things were not all hunky-dory with her. A bad thing with certain problems like OCD, perfectionism, and being a workaholic is that they can give the outward markers of success, so the person seems to be doing *better* than other people. Kind of like how quiet kids are always seen as "well-behaved" when sometimes there's bad reasons for why a kid is extremely meek or quiet.