Tone of Deceit
Disclaimer: I own nothing
A/N:
Chapter 3 (Curiosity Can Kill)
Jade waited outside of Sikowitz's classroom to speak with him about an upcoming assignment. His door was slightly open, stuck on the doorstopper, and he was speaking with Principal Eikner. While they had their meeting, Jade penciled in and reviewed notes of her own investigation.
Each point was bulleted and written in shorthand. She guarded her notebook with her life because she wanted to make sure no one knew what exactly she was doing. The only one really in on her investigation was Cat, because she was just as curious. Robbie had no vested interest anymore, which Jade could hardly blame him for.
"Do you have any potentials?" Eikner's voice questioned from within. Jade furrowed her brow at her notes, studying each bullet with feverish thought. One of the crucial highlights was Trina and the unknown circumstances surrounding her anger. "Aside from the one group?"
"Her sister is dating my nephew, I'm trying not to antagonize him." Jade lifted her head slowly, arching an eyebrow at Sikowitz. "He already thinks something's wrong, and I can't simply send him back to his parents right now."
"Not asking that, Erwin." Jade shook her head slowly and tapped her pencil on her lips. Just what could have set Trina off, she pondered. It was more than Robbie and the guys, she was sure of that.
No, Trina was almost always around, even without being a student at Hollywood Arts any longer. No matter what, no matter where, Jade could feel Trina's fiery gaze from afar. Even when they were at Mr. Sikowitz's home during his sleepover game, she was sure Trina was there somewhere.
"No Erwin, we have a quota to fill. Every teacher, and you've got the lowest scores. That's not exactly good, you can be more productive than that-I know you can."
Jade growled, annoyed that the men's voices were distracting her own thoughts. They weren't speaking loudly, or even at a normal tone of voice; but it was still loud enough for her to hear. "I think the kids have done fine. Last month? Courtney?" Eikner grumbled a bit and Jade turned her head to the side.
Perhaps they were discussing grades, but Courtney hadn't even been attending the school long. That was, if they were talking about Sinjin's sister. They only met her one time, and then never heard from her again. "You were lucky, Erwin; but also desperate. Do you have anyone in this class to show aside from the ones you feel aren't ready?"
"Sure. I can still produce for you. I'll show you I'm not washed up."
"I hope not. For your sake. Otherwise, you're going to end up looking sloppy as hell. Do you know what happens to the sloppy, lazy ones?"
"If anyone looked sloppy, Eikner, it'd be the guy that walked in here and left my damn door open while talking work." Jade looked up from her notebook once more, her lips separating momentarily as she heard the principal utter a curse. "You knocked my doorstop in between the frame and the door."
The two men grew closer and the door swung open. "Miss West?" Eikner stared at her with enlarged eyes. "Working on homework?" She looked back down to the notebook and gave an affirmative nod.
"Yeah, just going over some notes for this thing I'm researching. I was waiting to speak to Mr. Sikowitz about something." Eikner's eyes lit up and he flashed a smile to the teacher.
"By all means, I'm done here. Get to work, Mr. Sikowitz, or I'm taking away your coconut milk." The man scurried away and Jade turned to her teacher, furrowing her brow.
Sikowitz looked at her calmly at Jade and laced his fingers together before bringing his palms to rest upon his stomach. "So how can I help you? Do you need help with an assignment?" Jade glanced at her notes once more and shook her head.
"No, I just wanted some advice." She walked into the classroom with Sikowitz in tow, her mind still fully on the Vega family. "What do you do when you have a friend that seems to be hiding something from you?" Jade turned around and watched her teacher stride casually across the room.
"Sometimes it isn't necessary to know everything about each other, a little unknown is healthy."
"I know; but I mean like they're hiding their entire being." Sikowitz raised an eyebrow at her and the corner of his lip curled and twisted for a moment. "Almost like they are not who they say they are, and they won't let us know anything about them."
"Okay?"
Jade flipped her notebook closed and paced around a nearby desk. "Like, take Trina." Sikowitz curled a finger over his chin and narrowed his eyes, his lips fell into a thin, flat line. "Before, she always acted like a crazy psycho obsessed with fame and stardom; but now she comes across as angry, protective of her family and stern. Watchful, almost."
"People have a tendency to change. Perhaps something occurred to change her from behaving one way to behaving another."
She threw her arms out in frustration. "Yet no one will let us know about her past." Sikowitz closed his eyes and let out a sigh before smiling at her warmly.
"Jade." He walked towards her and set a hand on her shoulder. "Sometimes there are things that we hold in our past that we don't wish to put out there. Things that we hideaway for our own sake, because if we hide those things away, they cannot hurt us any longer…everybody has those things, and it could be possible that Trina has something similar in her past as well."
Jade moved to her usual classroom desk and fell into it with a defeated sigh. He was right, there was no questioning it. If Trina was this way because of some bad event in her past, it would explain how quick to anger she was towards the boys. "I wonder if someone did something to her. She only shows real anger when Beck, Robbie or Andre start messing with her. Other than that, just protectiveness…"
"How can you tell she's protective?"
"Because she's literally always around." Jade shrugged and Sikowitz raised his eyebrows high. "Like no matter where we are or what we're doing, if Tori's nearby, you can bet Trina's watching." She curled her fingers over her knees and scoffed. "In fact, even talking about Tori, I can almost feel Trina breathing down my neck!"
She reached up and scratched the back of her neck, chuckling at the thought of the woman causing an itch to arise there. "Well, from what I've seen of her, it would appear family is highly important to her. How has she displayed anger towards the boys?"
"Well, I had Robbie stalk them for a little bit." A nervous chuckle fell from her lips when she watched Sikowitz give her a suspicious glance. "When she found him, she almost beat him with a metal pole and she destroyed the camera he was using to film all of them. She'd already found evidence of someone stalking them and didn't know it was him until that moment. I'd say with it being him, he probably got off lucky."
"Ignoring the criminal charge for a minute there and how you almost got one of your friends thrown in jail…" Sikowitz pinched the bridge of his nose and groaned. "Yes, I can understand how she would react that way." Sikowitz sat on the edge of his desk and crossed his legs over.
"Yeah, and then another time when Beck and the boys were getting a bit rough with her." The teacher cocked his head to the right, bent his elbow on his knee and curled one hand under his chin while stroking his cheek with his index finger.
"They were pretending to fight over her-she told them to get out of the house and they continued to try and talk to her-she pretty much beat the shit out of them." His face sank and she wasn't sure to be able to read the emotion as he bore a look of amusement and annoyance mixed together.
"Do those boys have a filter on them at all, perchance?"
She laughed.
"No."
Sikowitz picked up a coconut mug and looked inside of it, swirling the liquid by moving the coconut in a circular motion. "Have to keep an eye on that one," he muttered. Feeling as though her palms were growing clammy and moist, she started rubbing them along her pants. Sikowitz's eyes flickered up towards her and his eyebrows closed together. "I see you have an investigative nature about you, Jade. Sometimes it's far better to leave things alone than to pursue them. You could investigate something until you hit a very dangerous place that you don't want to be."
"Yeah, but-"
"Fair warning." His demeanor darkened and the shadow on the ground seemed to loom even farther from him than before. "Keep your curiosities in check before you walk yourself into the point of no return."
"What does that mean?"
"Nothing in general." He rolled his eyes. "I have work I have to attend to, Jade; so I'm sorry to rush you out, but I really must focus." She rose from her seat, feeling no more satisfied than she was when she arrived. She began shuffling towards the door, her shoulders sloped. Sikowitz's voice halted her once more and she looked over her shoulder to see him staring at her.
"When it comes to your friends, sometimes the best thing you can do is just be a presence. When they are ready to open up, they'll open up; but if not, you've not lost a friend." She turned around, opening her mouth to speak, but quickly closed it., letting him continue.
"If you continue to pry into your friend's personal life behind their back, you are at far greater risk of losing the friendship altogether and then the only difference is now you'll no longer know what you want about someone and that someone is no longer your friend."
"I understand what you're saying Mr. Sikowitz. I just can't help it, I've always had that sort of curious nature about me. Like…" She tried to think of an example, snapping her fingers in the air. "Like Sinjin and his sister." Sikowitz rolled his head upwards and his lips pressed thinly together. "Sinjin dropped out of the school and left without a word, packed up his things and hit the road. Beck was one of his closest friends and he wouldn't even say goodbye. It was after his sister vanished, so recent."
"Okay, what about them?"
"I've always wondered what happened to her." Jade raised her shoulders and Sikowitz closed his eyes slowly. "She came here from Sherwood, visiting, and then enrolled; but disappeared shortly after that."
"That's when you let the police work on a missing person's case, Jade. You are not a cop and you should not get involved in something that police need to deal with."
"But what if they're not doing anything?" Jade took a step forward, opening her arms out. Sikowitz walked around his desk, rolling his eyes slowly before reaching into a mini fridge placed on the side. "She hasn't shown up, right? So take someone like me, I can't help but to look into it just because of the mystery."
"You do love a good mystery, Miss West." That was true, for as much as she didn't want to admit, Scooby Doo was her favorite show as a kid and she loved the Boxcar Children mysteries as well as the A to Z Mysteries series back when she was younger. "No shame in that, there's no harm in a little mystery…until the penchant and lust walks you into a really bad situation you can't back out of."
She raised an eyebrow and scoffed. "I'm not nearly dumb enough to put myself in danger, I know when to stop following a hunch if I feel like it's too much for me." She crossed her arms. Sikowitz removed an opaque container from his fridge, sighing heavily before looking up. "Nothing dangerous about asking a simple question regarding someone that went missing."
"Sure." He cleared his throat and extended the thermos towards her. "Have a drink of water, Jade." She smiled, considering the offer, but before she could say anything the classroom door swung open and Tori's voice rang in her ears.
"Hey Jade, there you are." Sikowitz frowned deeply and set the thermos down as Jade turned to face Tori. Cat was standing beside her, worry etched onto her face. "We were looking everywhere for you, Cat told me you weren't answering your texts."
"Texts?" She looked to her purse and sighed. "Sorry, phone was on silent." She looked up to see Tori peering past her, towards their teacher while Cat was shaking her head slowly. Tori's expression grew tight and her brow furrowed momentarily, but it lasted for a few short seconds before her cheery face returned.
"Alright, well let's go meet up with the guys. Andre wants to show us this piece he's been working on." Tori placed her hand on Jade's back and gently guided her towards the door. Jade looked over her shoulder at Mr. Sikowitz, now seated at his desk with his arms propped up and hands folded over each other just in front of his face.
"Thanks for the advice Mr. S."
"Anytime Miss West, anytime."
Well, it would seem Jade got some advice from her teacher, if it was good advice at all we aren't entirely sure. What are your thoughts in this chapter? You think Jade may want to focus on her surroundings a bit more rather than solely on the Vega family? Maybe? Maybe not, there's nothing to be suspicious about is there?