{Jace POV}
I followed my mom and Clary down the ladder and to the fire, where Imogen handed us each a plate. Everyone in our village had a job: my mom was a doctor, there were people who made our clothes, people who hunted and fished and found edible plants and fruits, people who cooked the food, people who found herbs for my mom's medicines, and people who worked on the houses in the village, etc –along with people with extra little skills, like whittling or weaving. I could do pretty much everything. When I was little, I was one of those kids who could never sit still, and would destroy anything I touched just for something to do. So, my mom and the rest of the village decided to teach me everything they knew. And it worked. I was never bored because I was always helping someone or learning something new.
And because I'd expressed my distaste at the idea of Clary staying with us, I was going to have to teach her everything I knew. I could already tell it was going to be a nightmare. She'd already pissed me off earlier on the rocks with her selfish attitude. I couldn't believe my mom planned on making me put up with that shit on a daily basis. Alone.
If you asked me, I would say that Clary wouldn't care enough to learn any of things I did. She'd probably just complain about everything while I attempted to control the urge to wrap my fingers around her slender little neck, or maybe find some way to off myself. But nobody asked me. I was just a seventeen year old boy who knew everything there was to know about living on the island. I knew that was an exaggeration, as I knew there were a lot of things that nobody knew. But still . . .
I knew a whole hell of a lot.
"Jace? Is that her?" I was sitting down on one of the chairs that our village's carpenter, Robert, had made when Sebastian walked up behind me. He gestured at Clary with his chin and I looked up at her. She was standing at the edge of the circle, pushing a piece of fish around her plate with a fork, her face pained.
"Yeah," I muttered, looking down. Of course the food wasn't good enough for her. Nothing here would satisfy her. She was probably from somewhere where they had food loaded with sugar and other fake shit. Well, I figured she'd just have to suck it up and deal with it if she planned on living for another week.
"Dude, she's seriously hot." I snorted in disgust. "Should I go talk to her?"
"No, you have a girlfriend. If Kaelie ever found out that you were so much as looking at another girl, she'd bite your head off." And it was true. But, in her opinion, she could go after other guys. Like me. Whenever Sebastian wasn't around, she was all over me. I didn't understand why she thought I'd go after my best friend's girl. Even if I didn't have to see him every day I wouldn't.
"Yeah, you're right. And she's looking at me right now. So, you go talk to her. By the way, are you going to eat that?" I pushed my plate at him and shook my head.
"I already talked to her." Which wasn't necessarily a lie. But it'd been more of an argument than a conversation. But in my opinion, that shit still counted.
"Oh yeah? Did you talk her into letting you-," he said, making obscene hand gestures and pressing his tongue into his cheek. But I cut him off.
"If I go talk to her, will you stop being so disturbed?" I stood up in annoyance and walked towards her.
"No promises!" Sebastian laughed.
Clary didn't even look up as I sat down next to her. She just kept staring down at her food. "It's fish. It won't bite you," I said and she jumped like I had just materialized out of thin air.
"Yeah, thanks." She put her plate down on the ground before she brought her legs to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. I watched her as she curled around herself, wondering what she could be thinking about. Almost as if she'd read my mind, she spoke. "I don't know how you do it," she said suddenly.
"Do what?" I asked, leaning back in my chair.
"Live in the forest. I mean, I know you aren't the only one here but it still seems lonely. And boring. No offense."
"You haven't even been awake for a day. How could you know what there is to do here?" I asked defensively. I hadn't meant it to sound so mean, but it did, and I saw her bristle.
"It's an island. With nothing but trees and water. Sounds pretty damn boring to me," she muttered. I rolled my eyes.
"Yeah, well, you get used to it." She looked away from me and her shoulders slumped like they were too heavy to hold up.
"I won't," she said so quietly I wasn't sure I'd heard her right.
"Trust me," I replied without thinking, and her head whipped around again. She looked like it was hard for her to say what she was going to say, but her eyes were filled with determination, and she spoke like it would kill her if she didn't.
"How?" she asked, frustrated. "How am I supposed to trust you? I don't even know you! I still think every time I see you that you're just waiting for the perfect time to attack me. It'd be great not to feel that way but, well, I do." I laughed: I couldn't help it. "It's seriously not funny."
"It is. But only because that's how I felt for a while. Not anymore though."
"I could still attack you," she murmured, a playful tone in her voice. I sighed.
"Yeah, I'm terrified." She looked over at me and giggled a little.
"Fine, you could overpower me easily. But I'm serious. You . . . scare the hell out of me." She leaned away from me like she thought I would start swinging. Wow, she wasn't kidding, I thought to myself.
"Aw, come one, I'm not as bad as all that," I said, but I wasn't upset. I actually found it kind of amusing that she was afraid of me.
"You think so? No offense, but you're pretty strong. I mean, if you carried me all the way here and up the ladder from the beach, then it shouldn't be surprising that I'm scared of you."
"How'd you know I was the one who carried you?" I asked, shocked. She'd been completely passed out when I'd picked her up off the rocks, and I hadn't seen her eyes open once while I was carrying her. And finding out that she knew it was me made me realize how much I wished she hadn't.
"You're mom told me. Wait, she is your mom right? I mean, it'd be kind of weird for me to call her your mom if she really isn't." I laughed.
"Yeah, that's my mom. She's a little . . . out there." Clary turned her big, green eyes on me and I could see guilt and something else I couldn't put a name to in her gaze.
"She's awesome. She's so nice," she murmured, looking back down at her hands after a moment. Her shoulders rose like she was taking a deep breath before she met my eyes again. "And look. I know it seemed like I didn't appreciate everything she did for me earlier on the rocks. I did. I do. It's just . . . a lot to take in. Completely overwhelming. And, to be one hundred percent honest, the reason I didn't come back for so long is because I didn't know the way. I was embarrassed and that's why I didn't tell you that." I laughed again and she looked at the fire. "It's not funny. This place is huge and I could tell that just by looking at it. You're not the only scary thing in this place." Jeez, am I really that scary? I asked myself. I hadn't meant to be.
"Sorry, it just sounds weird to me because I know this entire island like the back of my hand. I know about places that no one else does, actually." I couldn't keep the smugness from entering my voice, and if the small shake of her head was any indication, Clary didn't miss it.
"Ah," she said. It was getting late and the fire was going down. I looked back at Clary and noticed that she was shivering in my thin t-shirt.
"You should eat," I said, looking down at her completely untouched food. My mom had only fed her soup since she got here, and I was surprised she wasn't starving.
"Not hungry." I doubted that.
"Seriously, it's fully cooked and no one around here would poison you," I laughed and I heard her sigh heavily.
"I know. But I don't . . ." She paused for a long time before she finished in a rush. "I don't eat anything that used to have a face." I stared at her in confusion for a moment before I understood what she was saying.
"You're a vegetarian?" I asked. I knew what a vegetarian was in theory but, since no one on the island had ever decided to be one, I hadn't ever really learned what it entitled.
"For most of my life. I don't care, call me weird. I don't eat anything that used to have a family or anything that could ever feel pain. That includes fish. If that means I'll die of starvation here, then so be it. But I won't change my beliefs just because they might kill me." I laughed again and she pushed me gently with her elbow. "You seem to like laughing at me, don't you?" she asked, her eyes sparkling at me in the light from the fire.
"Well, hey, you're weird," I said and she joined my laughter.
"At least I'm not scary," she shot back.
"Fair enough," I replied and she giggled again.
"Well, I'm cold. Good night, I guess." She stood up and walked away, and I stared at the fire. That was weird. I was surprised that that conversation had actually gone well. Sebastian gave me thumbs up from across the clearing, and I sighed. He'd totally blow the whole thing out of proportion even if I told him what really happened. I sat in the chair for another ten minutes before I got up and went home to sleep.
~LOTI~
The next day, Clary was still sleeping while my mom and I talked on the deck. I knew we'd actually gotten along last night, but I still wasn't exactly excited to have to teach her everything. "Mom, do I have to bring Clary with me today? I mean, she's probably still not completely better." She narrowed her eyes at me.
"Then you're just going to have to help her more, aren't you?" I sighed and looked out over the village. The sun wasn't fully up yet but everyone was already awake, almost wired to wake up at dawn. Everyone did their work early in the morning and used the rest of the day as 'leisure time'. "It looked like you guys were talking last night. Why don't you want to bring her along?"
"I don't know. Just seems like . . . like it's not something she'd want to do."
"What? Get water? Find herbs? Teach her, Jonathan, and you'll find that she might just learn to like it. And, in the process, you might just learn to like her." There was something weird in her voice, but she walked away before I could ask her what she meant. I shook my head, even though I was used to my mom and her weird, cryptic riddles that no one but her understood.
"Clary?" my mom called into the house. There was a grumbled reply and I grinned as I followed her into the house. "Clary, wake up."
"Hm?" Clary mumbled.
"Come on, it's time to get up," my mom said, shaking her shoulder. I leaned against the doorframe and watched as Clary shook her head back and forth, squeezing her eyes shut.
"What time is it?" Clary rolled onto her side so her back was to us and I laughed.
"It's dawn. Time for work!" She sat up so fast my mom almost fell off the bed. I brought my fist to my mouth and bit down so neither of them could hear how funny I found the whole situation. I didn't think my mom would appreciate my humor too much this morning.
"You work this early in the morning? You're kidding right? This is a dream?" Clary looked at me, then my mom, back to me, and then back to my mom, over and over.
"We, which includes you, Clary, work at this time every morning. Now, get dressed and come down for breakfast." Clary looked at me like she thought we were joking, but I just grinned and turned to leave.
My mom must have convinced Clary that she was serious, because they came down the ladder a few minutes later. Clary was wearing a pair of brand new shorts and a tank top, and I noticed Sebastian staring at her like an ass. So, I grabbed two plates and walked over to her, grinning when she took the food from me.
"Completely vegetarian," I said and she smiled back.
"Thanks." She sat down and gingerly took a bite, like she thought it might explode or grow legs and walk away. I laughed at the surprised look on her face. "This is really good."
"Just because we live on an island doesn't mean that no one knows how to cook." She shrugged and took another bite. "So," I said reluctantly. "You're coming with me today."
"Oh, okay. Um, what are we doing?" I could hear the uncertainty in her voice, as well as see it in her eyes. And I could tell she didn't want to do this, didn't want to come with me to work. I bit back my irritation and decided to give her the benefit of the doubt.
"Do you know how to fish?"
"No."
"Hunt?"
"Nope."
"Do you know how to find what plants or fruit are edible?"
"Uh, no."
"Do you know which herbs are used for medicines?"
She paused for a long time. "No."
"You have a lot to learn," I muttered and she looked at me apologetically.
"Sorry, I'm from the city. I don't eat or kill fish or animals. I have no idea what would determine an edible fruit or plant or whatever. And all my medicines are already premade and packaged."
I sighed. "No big deal." We ate in silence for a few more minutes, and I started wondering what working with her would be like. Would she be helpful and attentive? Would she act like she didn't care? Did she care? I couldn't tell. I didn't know her well enough yet, and I couldn't say that idea of getting to know her well enough sounded good to me. The thought of leading her around every day until she was ready to go off by herself wasn't something I was interested in.
"How long is it going to take for me to learn?" Clary asked suddenly, startling me out of my thoughts. I looked down at her and grinned.
"Why? Do you have a date?" I laughed.
"Ha! No, but it is summer vacation where I'm from. I should be relaxing on a beach or watching TV in my pajamas. I should be going to Broadway shows every night. I should be chilling by the pool on a boat the size of an apartment building." Suddenly, the smile was wiped from her face and she pushed her plate away. She wrapped her arms around her body like she was trying to hold herself together, like she was afraid she'd shatter into a million pieces if she loosened her grip.
"What?" I asked.
"Um, nothing. Never mind. Just . . . can we go?" she replied without looking at me. Frustration surged up in me at her refusal to answer my question, but I pushed it aside.
"Sure. I guess." We handed our plates back to Imogen, and I lead Clary into the forest, away from the ocean.
"Uh, you sure you know where you're going? I don't want to get lost in the forest on top of everything else." Her voice was teasing and playful, but I could tell it was a serious question, so I decided to treat it like one.
"Yes, I know exactly where I'm going. Besides, even if I didn't and we got lost, I'd know how to get food and find clean water. No worries." I grinned to reassure her that she really didn't have anything to worry about, but I wasn't sure how well it worked.
"Yeah, sure, okay, no worries," she chanted like she was trying to convince herself. We walked the rest of the way to the river in silence, and I started telling her how to know if the water is clean enough to drink. If the confused expression on her face was any indication, it was going to be a long day.
Ooh, they're getting along! . . . Sort of. But how long will it last? ;) Read on and find out! Woo!
Okay, I have some news. I am going on vacation from August 10th to August 20th, so I won't be able to update in thost ten days. Stupid no wifi zones and road trips . . . Anyway, the point of sharing that little tidbit of information with you almsot a month prior when I'm sure you could care less, is that I have a question. Do you want me to update two chapters the week before I leave? Or more after I come back? Because I will be able to write on the trip, but I won't have access to wifi. So it's a guarenteed one extra the week before, or however many extra I finish when I get back. It's up to you, and if you don't care, I'll choose which one depending on my mood the week before I leave :P Just let me know what I should do, and I'll do it.
So there's chapter four. Hope you liked it, and I hope you guys continue to be awesome, because I'd be sad if you didn't ;D And the all the reviews and favorites and alerts and stuff just tickle my fancy like no other.
