Jessica flipped through the pages of the test and read through all of the questions there carefully. There were exactly 15 multiple choice ones and 10 open questions that required drawing of graphs, calculations and a lot of explanations. She would lie if she said the test was easy. They went all out with these questions, but thankfully the girl covered all of the material, so she wasn’t worried all that much. They went through everything last night and the fact that she explained some of the topics to Taeyeon made her remember the theory even more.
Taeyeon, on the other hand, was having a hard time because she couldn’t concentrate. She barely slept the night before because she was worried about screwing things up. She was never really good at tests either and she was afraid to let her teammates down, especially her girlfriend. This was so important to her and Taeyeon wanted to do her best and not be a useless member of this team, but sadly, most of the questions on this test were very difficult for her. She understood some and could maybe answer them correctly thanks to the fact that Jessica had explained some stuff to her the night before, but the graphs and problems were definitely something that she was struggling with.
Taeyeon sighed and ran her fingers through her hair. She could feel some sweat on her forehead because of the pressure. Jessica as if on cue noticed that her girlfriend was having a hard time so she turned around and gave her a warm smile, telling her non-verbally that everything will be okay. That gave Taeyeon some reassurance and so she continued on with the test.

“You have 15 minutes left!” Mr. Tim Harris told all of the teams loudly enough so they could all hear him.

Jessica heard a faint giggle coming from behind her but she decided not to pay attention to it and focus on the test. That y girl Amanda from the New York team was there, behind her, so Jessica didn’t even want to turn around and look at her.

“Oh what do we have here!” Jessica suddenly heard the voice of Mr. Tim Harris right next to her. She saw him bend down and pick up a small piece of paper from under her chair. “I can’t believe this. That a student would actually result to cheating on an elite competition like this one,” he said as he opened the paper and saw what the contents were.

“What? That’s not mine!” Jessica tried to defend herself. Everybody was now looking at her, some with concern, others with angry faces because they were so against cheating on tests, but Amanda had a huge smirk plastered on her face.

“It was under your chair. I don’t want to hear any excuses. You are disqualified from this round of the competition,” Mr. Tim Harris told the girl in a stern voice. “The rest of you continue with your test. I will give you an extra 10 minutes because of this incident.”

Jessica picked up her things and just headed out of the room. She decided not to argue because it would cause even more trouble. Before she left, she threw a death glare at Amanda, who was still smirking. That definitely sabotaged me. I can’t believe how dirty she plays.

The girl was extremely angry and just hoped that the rest of her teammates would manage to get enough points so they wouldn’t fall behind thanks to her getting disqualified.

“What a stupid that girl Amanda is...” Jessica muttered under her breath as she made her wait to her hotel room. She needed to calm down somehow, she needed Taeyeon to hug her so badly because the girl would always make her feel so much better.

As soon as she walked inside the room, Jessica immediately jumped on her bed and buried her face in her pillow, then screamed with all her lungs. That’s how she’d usually deal with the anger. She’s always scream with her head buried in her pillow every time her mother would make her mad or when she was really upset about something at school.

Then Jessica sobbed, staining the pillows with her tears.

“God, I hate this,” she just said and gripped the sheets of the bed tightly. “How can some people be so cruel...”
 

[30 minutes later]

Jessica had managed to calm down a little, but not completely, not until she knew what the results from the tests of her teammates were. She just sat on the bed and mindlessly scrolled through Facebook when she heard the door to the hotel room open, revealing Taeyeon and her other teammates, along with their teacher.

They all looked worried about her because they noticed that her eyes were puffy, indicating that she was crying. Taeyeon immediately wrapped her in a tight embrace and gently caressed her back.

“Jess, don’t worry. I’m sure we will have enough points, even though you got disqualified,” Hara told the girl and everyone else just nodded.
“I hope so. It’s all that Amanda’s fault. She sneaked that note under my chair. I just know it. You should’ve seen the smirk she had on her face!” Jessica angrily said and Taeyeon hugged her even tighter.

“We believe you, Jessica. You’ve never once cheated on anything and I trust that you didn’t do it this time,” Mr. Han said and smiled at the girl. “I talked to Tim Harris and told him that it’s probably a misunderstanding. I apologized to him, but unfortunately, he still said that you’d receive zero points.”

“It’s alright. I’m sure the rest of you managed to do great,” Jessica smiled at everyone and Taeyeon finally released her from the hug, immediately resulting in the girl missing the warmth.

“We kind of have some bad news. Mr. Tim Harris announced that the last round will be held today, in about 1 hour, so we need to prepare immediately,” Taecyeon explained and