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I've got to admit, I never expected to actually say any of those things to the real Jace. I promised Simon I would try to get him off my back, but when I looked into Jace's mocking, beautiful golden eyes, the resolve left me and I was as shy as ever.
But then one day as Jace was calling to me from across the diner—Waitress! Have you gotten my refill yet or not?—it hit me.
Why did I need to be shy around Jace? I kept quiet so that I wouldn't annoy people, get on their bad sides, or make a bad impression. I already hated Jace, there was no way I could get even further on his bad side, and it was a little late to be worried about bad impressions. And Simon was right—if we let ourselves be pushed around like we were, then we didn't really have that much dignity to speak of anyway.
What did I have to lose?
Feeling strangely detached from my body, I walked over to his table. His friends were snickering together, which probably meant Jace was planning something.
"What can I get you?" I asked mechanically.
"A new waitress?" Jace suggested with a wicked smile. His friends sniggered like immature gorillas.
I opened my mouth but thought fled as I looked at him. Why did he have to be so annoyingly attractive? I hate you, I thought fiercely. I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you. You are not attractive. You are a self-centered jerk.
"Shut up," I said, so quietly he probably didn't hear me.
"What was that?" He leaned toward me, still smirking. "Didn't catch it."
"I said, shut up," I repeated, so loudly that the other diners looked up in surprise and stared at me. I hadn't meant to say it so loudly, but at least it had the desired effect. Jace looked at me as if I had just slapped him in the face. I had never, not once, talked back to him. I'd never shown any backbone of my own. And here I was, finally telling him the two words that countless people before me had probably longed to say but never had.
I felt brave. I felt strong. I felt wonderful.
"Leave me alone, Jace Wayland," I said, managing to drop my voice. "Or I swear I will shove this fork so far into your forehead it'll stick in your brain."
His stunned expression melted into another little sneer. "Did the Wizard finally grant you a brain, Clarecrow?"
"Clary!" My mom's sharp voice made me cringe. I should have known she would hear me yelling. I gave Jace a look of death and then turned to march off. His friends started snickering again but I didn't turn back to look, even though I instantly worried that it was about me.
Their snickers grew to roars and, bizarrely, mooing noises as I walked away, face hot, to be told off by my mom.
I didn't find out what the source of their laughter had been until later. Simon came to help me close up as he sometimes did, and stopped dead, staring at my back with his mouth open. Before I could say anything, he snatched something off my back-a piece of paper. He stared down at it with a little grimace, looking as if he'd rather keep it to himself.
"Give it to me, Simon," I said, holding out my hand and trying to use my newfound assertiveness to my advantage.
"There's nothing to see," he said weakly, reluctantly handing it over as I continued to glare.
I unfolded it and stared. In big, bold letters, it said, "Will Moo for Free Milk."
"Is that an innuendo or something?"
I crumpled it up and chucked it across the room. "Those—those—!"
"Jerks," he finished.
I kicked the wall, which was a mistake because I had taken off my too-tight shoes, so I only succeeded in crunching my toes. Cursing, I sat down at one of the stools at the counter and rubbed my foot, fury swirling around inside me.
"They've never done that before," Simon said, shaking his head in disbelief. "Not even in ninth grade."
"I swear they are digressing intellectually the older they get," I said through gritted teeth.
"Tell you what. In ten years, you and I are going to go and see him when he's living in a box on a corner of Manhattan, and we'll laugh about it." He slung an arm around my shoulders and I leaned into him, managing a laugh.
"I told him to shut up today," I said, allowing myself a small smile.
His mouth fell open. "You—you told—Clary! I'm so proud!" Laughing, he threw his arms around me, practically crushing the air out of me.
"Let go! Can't breathe!" I gasped, and he released me, doing a little dance in the middle of the empty diner.
"Keep it up!" he whooped. "Don't let him get his bearings back! Back him into a corner and Spam him!"
"Spam him?" I repeated, arching my eyebrows.
"Yeah, it's this thing in video games, when you take an enemy and—"
"All right. I'll take your word for it." I waved my hands to cut him off, unable to bear another long story about his adventures on Xbox Live.
At school the next day, I was fully prepared for Jace's wrath. But I don't think he was prepared for mine. I'd lain awake a long time last night, thinking about the note he'd taped onto my back and letting it feed my anger until I'd worked it into a good boil. When I woke up the next morning, sleep-deprived and cranky, the anger was still there. And I was pretty eager to see that shocked expression on Jace's face again.
I marched into school rather than slunk in. I didn't keep my head down and I didn't avoid everyone's eyes. A few people seemed to notice the changes in me and watched me curiously, although I was still too uncool for them to approach and actually talk to. What a thought!
I didn't have my first two classes with Jace, so I sat bouncing impatiently in my seat for almost two hours, not paying much attention to what the teacher was saying and thinking about that immature note, and the laughter of Jace and his friends as I walked away from their table wearing it.
Finally third period history rolled around, and I stopped halfway to my desk in the back of the room, an idea forming. I was one of the first ones in the classroom since I'd fast walked without making a stop at my locker. It was probably the first time in my whole life I'd ever been eager to see Jace Wayland.
It was probably a stupid idea, but I turned on my heel, walked to the middle of the room, and sat at the desk Jace had gone to painstaking measures to reserve for himself, going as far as scratching his name into the top. It was strangely symbolic for me; this was how I'd first gotten him to hate me, and now we'd come full circle. This time, I would not be fleeing to the back of the room fighting tears.
I imagined our positions switched, with him sniffling in the back row with red eyes, and I had to fight back laughter at the thought.
Students trickled into the classroom; a few of them appeared to be whispering about me. I couldn't blame them. It wasn't every day Jace's punching bag plopped down in his Throne of Magnificence. Finally, just before the bell rang, he walked in with two of his friends, both of whom were laughing at something no doubt ingenious he'd just said. Then his gaze fell on me, and his smile vanished. There was fire in his eyes as he walked over to me. The rest of the conversation going on in the room cut off as everyone turned to watch.
Jace stopped in front of my desk and crossed his arms over his chest, staring down at me with the smallest of smiles on his lips. It reminded me so much of my first day here, when I'd first met him, when he'd humiliated me in front of everyone. I usually tried not to think about that day, but now it came back full force, fueling my anger.
"You're in my seat." His friends guffawed, obviously remembering the first time he'd said that to me.
"Am I?" I said pleasantly, keeping my eyes locked on his, even though my fingers were trembling a little.
His smile faded just a bit. "Yeah. So get out."
I sank farther down into the seat without taking my eyes off his. "I'm pretty comfortable right here."
He leaned forward with his hands on the desk, and my sense of déjà vu grew even stronger. His face was level with mine. It wasn't often I saw him look serious; usually he was smirking. But he was starting to get pissed off. I could see that pretty easily.
"You really want to start something, Fray?" he asked quietly. He'd never called me by my last name before; it was always something ginger-related.
I leaned closer, furious with myself for the way my stomach fluttered at our close proximity. Our faces were just inches away, a fact that might have made me incoherent not long ago, but now my head was clear.
"I think I do," I said, just as quietly.
His gold eyes narrowed and he opened his mouth to say more, or maybe just to curse me out, but Mr. Tasker, our teacher, walked in at that moment, calling in his sharp voice for everyone to take their seats. Not even Jace disobeyed someone as scary as Mr. Tasker, so with one last cold look at me he resigned himself to the back row.
I was on cloud nine for the rest of the day.
