They Could Care Less

8: The Math Homework

"What are you doing?" Jackson asked when he walked past one of the guest rooms.

"None of your business." Thea answered, oddly calm.

"It's my home, and you're in my home so it is my business." He sputtered back and walked in looking slightly annoyed.

"I'm doing my homework, you should try it. It can be real hell sometimes, but what's that compared to being with you."

"Oh, please. Don't come into my house and lecture me, I'm not dumb. I know how to do my own God damn homework." He sputtered and glared at Thea.

"Oh, you do? We'll see how that goes." Thea said and gave him a pencil and a eraser from her pencil case. She tore off a page from her notebook and gave it to him.

Jackson took the pencil, erase and the paper before he sat down on the floor. "Eh, what's the homework?"

"Don't you know what the homework is?" Thea asked and grinned.

"I do, I... I'm just testing you!" Jackson said and gave Thea a fake smile.

"Algebra..." Thea said and rolled her eyes. She yearned for the day that Jackson's angelic mask fell off and his parents could finally see what a devil he was behind the mask.

"Yes... exactly! And I've forgotten my textbook in school, so give me yours." Jackson demanded and stretched out his hand to recieve Thea's textbook from her.

"I'm not giving it to you. It's mine and it's not my fault that you forgot it, I need it to pass all my tests, get a degree and find a job to earn money like a normal person. You don't have to do that, you don't have to work at all. So don't come in here and order me around, it's still my book that I've bought with my own money so if you really want to do your homework, take a chair and sit down next to me."

"Why should I sit next to you, why can't you sit next to me?" Jackson asked, who refused to sit next to Thea like she had a disease.

"It's the same thing! Just sit down! If you don't, you can leave and I'll consider it as a victory." Thea said who was sure that her last sentence would make him sit down.

Jackson hated being bossed around, because that wasn't something he was used to. Jackson walked over to the small desk in the room and pulled the chair over to Thea like it was a pillow, with ease. He placed the chair next to Thea's wooden chair and sat down.

"See? That wasn't so dangerous." Thea muttered and started to solve the equations.

"Am I supposed to start with problem nineteen or eighteen?" Jackson asked who desperatey wanted to avoid a conversation with Thea.

"Eighteen." Thea answered as she started to write her answer.

Jackson quickly solved it and wrote down his answer before Thea.

"Problem fourty-five is the last one, right?" Jackson asked who was intensely and quickly writing down his answers.

"Yeah..." Thea mumbled, not paying so much attention to his words until she glanced over at his paper and saw that he was all done. She was only on problem twenty-two. She stared shocked at the paper, and forgot what he had done for a second or two.

"You're very fast at this... and good. How do you do it?" Thea asked.

"'How I do it? I've never really thought about that." He answered and put away the paper, then sat down on the bed instead.

"I suck at math. I try, but it never works out. It's just too complicated." Thea said and sighed.

"Nobody asked." Jackson said, he had caught himself slowly turning nice to Thea and instantly he had put on his bitter and evil attitude. Thea shook her head, she had put her guard up again, blaming herself for even complimenting this guy. Thea sat still and tried to solve the same problem for ten minutes. Jackson was most likely bored, he sat still on the bed and did not make a single sound. He was bored to death, Thea knew for sure but she wondered, why was he still in here? He could leave, he was done, they were not friends. Why was he still in here?