Her best friend, Olivia, died in The Dog in the Pond fire which left her heartbroken even though she didn't want to show it. New flatmate Kris Fisher (Gerard McCarthy), who had convinced Olivia to stand up for herself, taunted and insulted Jessica for not being a true friend to Olivia, going so far as to read to Jessica unflattering comments Olivia had made in her diary. In autumn 2006, she battled with Will Hackett (Oliver Farnworth) for the position of Editor of HCC's school newspaper. She got the position by using Russ Owen's (Stuart Manning) social anthropology research on the class differences between the Owens and the McQueens as her article, which caused Russ and Mercedes to break up for a while.