When you lost someone you cared about, it was almost impossible to remember how it felt before. When your heart broke, it actually was impossible to remember how it felt before. Or to even go back to the way things had been before. Something in your life had changed – permanently, forever. If you wanted to admit it to yourself or not, you had to deal with it.

I had to deal with quite a few things these past few days. I still was mesmerized by how many things had happened in just a couple of days. How was that even possible? My life had changed entirely. Only a few days ago I'd thought that I was just a normal, an ordinary girl, like everybody else. And then, all of a sudden, everything had changed.

And all of it had started with Jace Wayland. Though this wasn't his real name, I still couldn't bear to call him Jonathan. I still couldn't bear to think of Jace as my big brother. It was... it just felt so freaking wrong. I couldn't believe that he was my brother. There had to be some mistake. This had to be some nightmare and I still hoped that I would wake up from it any moment.

But I didn't.

Because it was real. It wasn't a nightmare. What had happened was real and I had to accept the truth. Jace was my brother. He was the son my mother had thought was lost. The son she'd thought had died in that fire so many years ago in Idris. And even though I tried to feel happy for my mother because once she would wake up – and she will wake up, I won't accept anything else – she'll learn that her son is still alive.

I had to be happy for her. But there was some part of me that just couldn't feel happiness right now. A part of me that didn't feel anything but pain, sadness, anger.

How was it possible that the one and only boy I'd ever fallen in love with was my brother? The one and only boy I would ever love. I may only be sixteen and I'd never had kissed anyone before Jace, though I still knew that what I felt for him was real. And it was special.

And that was wrong. It was so wrong. I shouldn't feel anything for him at all, except for friendship or... sisterly feelings. But I couldn't bring myself to see Jace as my brother and nothing more. Maybe I just needed time. Maybe I'd learn to ignore my feelings for him, maybe they'd even vanish completely in time.

Though deep inside I knew that it was impossible. Just like it was impossible to go back to normal after your heart had been broken.

Sighing, I just shook my head as if I could manage to shake my feelings off this way. I wished I could go back home. I lived with Luke now. Of course it was impossible to go back home – the apartment my mum and I had called home only a few days ago was gone. Destroyed. It was impossible to live there. I didn't have any other choice but to live at Luke's. And even though this place felt equally as home to me, I still wished I could go to my own room. I wanted to lie down on my bed, curl up under the thick blanket and just sleep. I wanted to sleep and forget about everything that had happened. I wanted to wake up and find that all of this had been just a bad dream. I wanted my mum to be there, awake, laughing at me for sleeping in so late.

But she wasn't laughing. And maybe she'd never be laughing again. Even though I tried to push away these thoughts as best as I could, I wasn't able to ignore them all the time. There was a part of me that was scared that she might never wake up.

What would I do if my mum never woke up again?

Swallowing hard, I started moving around Luke's apartment. He was at the hospital, like he was everyday. He wouldn't leave my mother's side. This was just as hard for him as it was for me. And maybe it was, in some way, even harder for him. He loved her. And he'd never gotten a chance to tell her.

A pounding on the door pulled me out of my thoughts. I looked up, startled. It was Simon. I'm sure it would be him standing in front of the door. Who else would it be?

My heart almost skipped a beat when I opened the door to find Jace standing in front of him, not Simon. For a moment, I just stared at him. And he stared at me. I wouldn't have expected him. Of all people, I would rather expect Alec to pay me a visit than Jace.

But there he stood. "Uhm – hi." he said and he almost sounded awkwardly. Something I'd rarely seen Jace be. He was everything but awkward.

"Is something wrong?" There had to be. Suddenly, panic rushed through me. There had to be something wrong when Jace himself showed up in front of my door.

"No. Nothing's wrong. Everything is fine, I just... well. I wanted to see you."

"Oh." There was nothing more I could say. For another moment I just stared at him before how realized how utterly stupid this must seem to him. He'd wanted to see me? But why? After the disaster that had happened when Jace and I had visited my mother in the hospital, I'd thought that Jace would rather ignore me than anything else.

"Well, would you like to come in?"

He just nodded and when he'd walked in, I closed the door behind him. I watched him, not sure what to say.

"I thought that... maybe..." Jace turned to me again. I couldn't read his face. Most of the time it was almost impossible to read Jace's face. Though sometimes these past few days I had looked at him and I'd felt what he had felt in that moment. Like when Valentine had escaped through the portal and when I had just held him.

But right now, it was impossible to read his expression. I couldn't tell what he wanted. I couldn't tell why he was here.

"I thought that maybe we could hang out together."

I looked at him, surprised. I didn't know what I had expected him to say. But I surely didn't expect him to want to spend time with me.

"Hang out together?" I repeated, frowning at him. "That sounds more like something Simon would say."

"Are you trying to insult me by comparing my glorious self to this... ordinary mundane?" He looked at me almost dramatically. I just sighed though I couldn't hold back a grin. That was the Jace I knew. The Jace I liked. Well, most of the time at least.

"You know, ordinary and mundane mean basically the same thing."

Rolling his eyes he looked at me, though he had to fight back a grin, too. For a moment things between us felt so normal. Just like they had before... well, before everything had turned into chaos.

"So do you want to... hang out a little?"

"Yes. I think I'd like to."

For another moment we just stood there, looking at each other. I still couldn't believe – or I didn't want to believe – that Jace and I were brother and sister. It just didn't seem possible. The way he looked at me and the way I craved for him to touch me, to hold me in his arms... No. Stop it. I couldn't think about things like that. It would make all this even harder to bear.

"So. What do you do when you... hang out with people?"

"Well. First of all, I don't hang out with that many people. I only hang out with Simon."

"That explains quite a lot."

I shot him a look, though I didn't say anything to that. Instead, I just went on, "But when I hang out with... people, we just watch movies or stuff like that."

"Watching movies. Okay. Got that. What kind of movies do you watch?"

"Uhm." I wasn't sure if I could tell Jace. It's not that I was embarrassed for the kind of things I liked, but still. He was Jace. He made fun of everything. "I like to watch animes," I said. Jace frowned at me. He didn't seem to have any idea what an anime was.

"We could watch one, if you like."

"Sure. Why not?"

It was strange having Jace in my room. I haven't just expect him to be in my room. Ever. Though it felt nice. Maybe I just wanted to enjoy it as long as it would last. I knew that this wouldn't happen often. In fact, I was pretty sure that this would be a once in a lifetime thing. Jace and I couldn't be friends. It couldn't be like it was with Simon.

Jace sat on my bed. "So. What are we gonna watch?"

"I only have a few DVDs here at Luke's since all my stuff was destroyed when Valentine send the Ravener demon to our apartment. But I think I'll have one that you're going to like. It's called Ranma ½ and it's about a guy who can turn into a girl."

"That sounds quite appealing to me." I heard the sarcasm in Jace's voice. Shaking my head, I could hardly push back a grin. "It's funny. You'll see."

When I'd turned the DVD player on, I sat beside Jace on the bed, though I was careful not to sit too close to him.

It was hard to concentrate on the anime. I couldn't help but watch Jace who seemed quite fascinated by it. At least he seemed to be paying a lot more attention to it than I did.

Sighing, I tried to keep my mind off certain things. Things like how close he was to me. All I'd have to do was stretching my hand out to him and then I could touch him. I couldn't allow myself to think about him in this way. I couldn't allow myself to want to touch him.

It wasn't just that it simply was not right.

It was sick, even. It was forbidden to think about your brother in that way.

"It is quite funny, actually. Though I don't really understand what you and the Mundie like so much about that stuff. Isn't it quite childish?" Jace had pulled me out of my thoughts and right now I was pretty grateful for that.

"No it's not!" I shot him a piercing look. "Okay, there are some mangas and anime that are more kid's stuff. But there are a lot which are pretty violent and there are even... uhm..." I'd stopped myself before finishing the sentence. But now Jace's eyes were on me, curious. "What are there even?"

I sighed, shaking my head. "Well, you know – kissing scenes and... stuff like that." Stuff like that. I couldn't even bring myself to say the word "sex" out loud in front of him.

"Stuff like that?" he repeated, raising an eyebrow. "And you're reading or rather watching stuff like that? By the Angel, Clary, you're not as innocent as you look, aren't you?" I know that he was making fun of me and I felt embarrassed.

Without thinking about him, I smacked him on the arm. "Do not make fun of me!"

Laughing he put his arms up in resolution. "I am not making fun of you. Why would you even think that?"

Sighing, annoyed with his witty comments, I just wanted to shake my head, though I couldn't help but laugh either. "You're an idiot."

"I've been called worse."

He looked at me again and up until this very moment I hadn't realized how close to each other we were. Jace must have gotten a lot closer to me in the last few moments. I could almost feel his arm touching mine. And I couldn't look away from him, even though I tried to. I tried so hard.

"That wouldn't surprise me at all." My voice came out as nothing but a whisper. For a very long moment, we just looked into each other's eyes. The anime was forgotten, no one of us paid any attention to it anymore. In that moment, nothing else seemed to matter anymore except him and me.

I just couldn't look away from him. And I didn't want to.

He bent closer to me and before I could even think about what was happening, his lips brushed mine, just slightly. It felt like a touch of a feather on my skin. And still it was electrifying. He kissed me and it was the sweetest of kisses.

I wanted more. I wanted to kiss him more passionately, more fiercely.

I started to wrap my arms around him. But before I could manage to, Jace had pulled away from me. He stood up, looking at me, startled and even frightened. Like he couldn't believe what he'd just done.

"I'm sorry," he said and the expression on his face changed. There was no more feeling to it. His expression looked like it was made of stone. "I shouldn't have come here. It was stupid of me to think that... To think that it would work. It was a mistake. I won't bother you anymore."

"Jace don't..." I started to get up, but he just shook his head. "No. Don't. I have to go now. It's probably best if we don't see each other."

He turned around, leaving my room. I stayed where I was, way too shocked to stop him. When I heard the door close behind Jace, I couldn't hold back my tears anymore.

Right now, in this very second, I couldn't be as strong as I wanted to be. And I was sure that life would never, ever get better again.

That was the life I'd gotten and all I could do was try to bear with it.