"If everyone could leave their essays on the desk on the way out, Dash Baxter, stay behind." Jazz said quietly, Dash frowned but sat in his seat as the class around him filed out around him. What had he done this time? He'd stayed quiet in class and not made any snarky remarks, heck, he'd even been paying attention! He rose out of his seat silently and walked up to Jazz's desk where she sat waiting for him.
"I've got my paper." Dash said filling the silence and offering it to her, Jazz narrowed her eyes and slapped it away, the unstapled sheets skidded across the floor.
"Hey!" Dash protested annoyed.
"Hey nothing. I don't take lightly to plagiarism Dash." Jazz glowered at him.
"Plagiarism nothing!" Dash snapped back picking his essay off the floor.
"Please, I heard you, you admitted publicly to ripping your essay off the internet!" She retorted standing up so fast her chair skidded backwards and fell over.
"I-" Dash began before his conversation in the library flashed into his mind. "Oh." He murmured.
"Busted huh?" Jazz said coldly.
"Hardly. This essay is all mine. Not that you care." Dash grumbled getting the last of his pages in order.
"I heard you!" Jazz snapped accusatorially.
"Yeah you heard me talking to the guys on the football team, what would they say if I'd told them that I'd been there hours slaving over that essay huh? And here I thought you were smart." Dash shouted having had enough of her accusations. Jazz stuttered at this.
"You know what? Screw this. For once in my life, I try to prove to someone that I'm not just some football player and you just throw it back in my face. Some teacher you are." Dash yelled before ripping his essay to shreds and throwing it in Jazz's face, Jazz flinched as the door practically bounced off his hinges as Dash exited the room angrily.
As Jazz marked the last paper she sat back with a sigh and eyed the little shreds of paper covering her desk and the floor around it. Biting her lip she picked up the phone.
"Yeah?" Danny's voice answered on the other end of the phone.
"Hey Danny, it's me." Jazz smiled to herself.
"Uh… hi… Jazz…" Danny greeted uncertainly, there was a pause between the two siblings, "Did you want something?" Danny prompted.
"I… I've got this one student and… I may have been wrong about him, I thought he was cheating and he wasn't. Now he's torn his paper up into tiny pieces and it's all over my floor and I feel really terrible about it." Jazz sighed.
"Don't you have friends that you could ask about this?" Danny asked questioningly, there was another long pause in which Jazz chose not to answer, "uh… never mind. So just, mark the paper. Stick it back together with tape or something, you were wrong for once, big deal. Go apologise to Dash." Danny shrugged.
"I never said it was Dash." Jazz snapped irritated.
"Who else would it be?" Danny grumbled before hanging up and turning back to Tucker.
"Who was that? Sam?" Tucker asked raising an eyebrow.
"What? No, it was just Jazz." Danny shrugged and sat up on his bed, silence fell between the two teenagers.
"Look, Danny, I'm sorry we've been fighting." Tucker sighed.
"I know, me too." Danny sighed as he ran a hand through his scruffy hair, it had grown out from what it looked like when he was younger, but it hadn't grown in any particular style just longer. As such most of it hung in his eyes and annoyed him.
"I just- you KNOW I like Sam." Tucker pointed out as he leant back on Danny's computer chair.
"I know, I'll back off okay? I don't want us fighting over this, and I'm sure Sam wouldn't either." Danny replied holding his hands up in surrender.
"Thanks man, I appreciate it." Tucker smiled as he left the room. Danny sat in silence as the door closed before rolling over on his bed and staring at a picture of the three of them, picking it up he ran his thumb over Sam's image.
"Sam…" he whimpered sadly.
"Dash." Jazz gasped as she stood outside Dash's door, in her hands she held Dash's taped up and graded essay, she leaned forward and listened to the somewhat disturbing sounds coming from Dash's room. Jazz flushed red, he sounded… busy to say the least and he certainly had company over!
"Jazz?" A voice from behind her asked, Jazz spun around to come face to face with a rather puzzled looking Dash.
"Dash! You- but I thought…" Jazz trailed off blushing an even deeper shade of red.
"Thought that it was me in there?" Dash asked with a smirk.
"I… it IS your room." Jazz pointed out.
"Roomate, duh." He laughed, suddenly Jazz felt very small, this must have been how Danny always felt around Dash she mused. Dash seemed to notice the silence and decided to give Jazz a break.
"What's that?" He asked tugging at the taped up papers.
"I- ah… your essay. I marked it anyway." She mumbled handing it over.
"What about cheating?" Dash said coldly and folded his arms.
"I… I was wrong. I jumped to conclusions and I'm sorry." Jazz apologised as she stared at the floor.
"You don't say that often do you?" Dash laughed at her, Jazz looked up at him a mixture of hurt and anger evident in her face. "I didn't mean it like that. Eesh, I'm used to being wrong all the time, that's what you get for being dumb." Dash grinned taking the papers off of her.
"You're not dumb Dash." Jazz protested.
"I am, that's why I do sports and get in on sports scholarships remember? I only studied for your class to prove you wrong." Dash snorted as he leafed through the paper.
"So now you've proved me wrong are you going to stop trying?" Jazz asked quietly.
"Maybe. Maybe not." Dash shrugged walking off, Jazz stood watching his retreating form walk along the corridor, he paused and looked over his shoulder at her for a moment before leaving and rounding the corner out of Jazz's sight. She sighed sadly before walking back to her own room alone.