Chapter 6- James
"James what are you doing here." I say coldly. He steps forward one step, causing me to step backward. "Don't." I hold my hand up.
"Baby I came looking for you of course." He says. I feel Jace's presence behind me. "Who is this Clary?"
"James, fuck off. I told you I never wanted to see you again. That was sincere." He feigns being hurt. "But baby I wanted to see you." Jace notices my stance towards him. He walks in front of me blocking me from James.
"I suggest you back off." He says ominously. James starts laughing. "I see you found yourself a new boy toy Clary. Don't worry I'll be back for you. Laters baby." He strides away seeming very happy with himself.
I start to hyperventilate. No this can't happen. I moved away from all of this. "Clary who is he." He asks me.
"He, he- I can't." The world turns black before my eyes.
"Clary! Clary wake up!" I'm being shaken furiously. I open my eyes. Jace's face is above me, freaked out. I look around and I see I'm lying on the couch.
"How long was I out for?" I groan. The back of my head hurts very badly. "5 minutes Clary. Fuck, you scared me! Who is that asshole?"
"I'll tell you everything, I just need to get a painkiller quickly." He pushes me down again. "I'll get it." He comes back with a glass of water and a paracetamol. I rapidly swallow it.
He sits down, waiting for me to explain. "James, he is an ex-boyfriend of mine. This was when I was 13, obviously way too young, but I was kind of forced to it by all my friends. He's two years older than me, and my friends thought it would be cool. So he invited me to one of his parties, invited all my friends too. I saw no harm in it, so I went with all of them." Jace is intently listening. I continue.
"He somehow managed to get loads of alcohol, and we all drank of course. He had gotten himself very drunk, and thought it was a good idea to 'fuck his girlfriend' as he put it. I was only 13, no where near ready and I didn't even like this guy in that way. So obviously I refused. He wouldn't have any of it. He grabbed me-" I burst out in sobs. Jace reaches out for me, holding me close.
"Shh, you don't have to tell more." He kisses my head, but I push back, determined to tell my story. "No, I got to. I have to tell someone. Anyway he forced himself on me, groping whatever curves I had then. Luckily he didn't rape me then, though I wouldn't be so sure if it happened now. "
Jace interrupts me. "I thought you told me ŷou hadn't been that far with anyone." I shake my head. "Not voluntarily." I sob. But I have to continue.
"I broke up with him, but he began stalking me everywhere, showing up at my house demanding to be let in. Eventually my mom called the police. They set up an investigation but they did nothing to stop him. So instead we moved. We told no one except close relatives where we had moved to. Yet somehow he found me-" I burst out again. This time I can't stop my tears.
"Clary, I'm so sorry. I didn't know, I wouldn't have been that fast with you if I had known. I'm so sorry." He apologizes.
"It's not your fault." I say between sobs. He tightens his grip on me. He lays his cheek on my head, completely cocooning me."I'm going to kill that fucker." He says between gritted teeth.
"No Jace, you can't hurt everyone that crosses me, you'll end up in jail. This guy, James, he's very cunning. He'll find a way to get rid of you so don't give him one."
Eventually I calm down. "I've got to call my mom. She has to know." He loosens his hold on me, allowing me to reach for my phone. I make no move to get out of his lap.
I dial her number. It goes over a few times before she picks up. "Hey Clary, how are you ?" She asks sweetly. "Mom-." I sob again.
"Oh no what's wrong? Why are you crying?" She inquires freaking out. "He was here Mom. He found us."
"James? That's it honey. I'm calling a lawyer. I'm coming straight back as well." She says. I try to stop her. "No Mom, I'm fine, I'm not alone." She picks up on it.
"Who's there with you?" I'm reluctant to tell her, but if it's the only way to stop her from coming back I have to. I would want anything more in the world for her to come back, but she just can't afford it. Her boss would fire her instantly. "I'm with Jace, he's here now." Jace looks at me questioningly.
"Oh okay," This seems to have calmed her down."Are you sure you don't want me to come back? I'm definitely calling our lawyer though." I reassure her that she doesn't need to come back. We talk a bit more about how it is in Europe, and how I'm holding up here.
We say our goodbyes and hang up. Jace doesn't say anything. "I'm scared Jace. I don't know what he is capable of now." I reveal. He kisses my head.
"I won't let anything happen to you Clary. Ever." He promises me.
"Come on Clary let's go to sleep." He nudges me off his lap so he can stand up. He grabs my hand and leads me up. I crawl in my bed. "Is it okay if I take a shower?" I nod. He kisses me on my head. "Okay, I'll go take one quickly, go to sleep Clary." He smiles at me. I try to stay awake but soon sleep takes me over.
"Where are we going Jace?" I ask mischievously. He still hasn't told me where we are going on our date. I look out the window, the buildings disappearing and being replaced by fields. He smirks at me, still keeping his mouth shut.
I sigh. I guess it doesn't matter now that we are on our way anyway. After a good thirty minutes of driving we finally turn into a little side track. We pull up to a large barn. Jace stops the car and reaches behind him. "Here, put this on, you'll need it." He winks at me. I look in the bag. Horse riding clothes. Jace steps out of the car. "You can change in here if you want, though I'm going to change in one of the stables." I watch him walk up to the stable with his own bag.
I rapidly change in the car, constantly looking around to see if anyone was passing because Ididn't want to flash them anything. Fortunately no one passes the car. I walk up to the stables and see a horse standing in the middle. The horse is a bay colour, with a large blaze on its head. He is huge. He extends his nose to sniff me. He pulls away deciding that I'm fine so I stroke its face softly. He bobs his head up and down mimicking my strokes.
"I see you met Alfie." He smiles at me and walks up to the horse. He pats him a few times on the neck. "Are we riding this one together?" I ask curiously. I wouldn't mind riding together, but it would be nice to be back in the saddle myself.
"I didn't know if you wanted to ride your own horse. Do you?" I weigh the options. I find myself leaning towards my own horse. "Sure."
He leads me to a stable a little bit further, revealing a middle sized dapple gray horse. I open the stable door to stroke her. "That is Peppa, she is very energetic and mischievous like you." He grins at me. She has a long white mane which covers a neck full with freckles. Her face is also covered in freckles. She as well sniffs me, and immediately rubs her head on me. I laugh out loud. "I think we like each other." I smile at Jace.
He hands me her head collar and I quickly slip it over her head. Clipping the lead rope onto it I lead her out of the stable. I tie her up like Jace did with Alfie, and quickly grab a few brushes. "Do you know how to tack her up? It is English riding." He asks me.
"Yeah I did English riding, and they did learn me how to tack up." I pick up each of her hooves and pick them out. Ugh, she really leans on me while picking out. I bend over leaning my hands on my knees. "You okay Clary?" He hovers over me.
"Yeah, she just really leans on you." He agrees that she does, laughing. He finds her bridle and saddle for me, along with a numnah. He throws on the dark blue numnah and saddle for me, hanging the bridle on a peg. I try to remember how to do this all again. I start with the saddle, grabbing the girth and attaching it to the saddle. I walk to the other side tightening it. I remember my pony from my lessons used to bite whenever we tightened its girth, but Peppa doesn't seem to care much. I then grab the bridle. I bunch up all of it in one hand, leading with my other hand the bit in her mouth. I attach all the straps together. Done. I smile at my work, proud of myself for not needing any help.
Jace checks over my work, looking for anything that I missed. "All done," he smiles at me. "You need to get a hat now." He brags my hand, leading me into a room full of boots, hats, and other clothes. He looks at me, though I realize after a while he's checking the size of my head. He quickly find one that fits me. "Let's go."
He helps me get up on the horse, then rapidly and graciously gets on himself. I grab the reins as I remember. "Are your stirrups okay?" I put my heels down feeling. "Yeah they feel fine."
I squeeze the horse and she walks forward without any problems. We follow this trail around the woods, walking next to each other. Occasionally we trot. At first I had problems getting back into the rhythm, bouncing up and down on the poor horse. However I grew more accustomed to her rhythm, now able to stand and sit between her strides. Jace laughed at me when I nearly bounced off of her.
After 20 minutes of walking we neared a long inclining path, perfect for a long canter. I halt. "What?" Jace turns his horse around. "Can we have a canter?" I pout.
"Do you feel comfortable on her?" He asks. I nod excitedly. "Okay, but shout if you need to stop. You go first." He gestures.
I click with my tongue telling the horse to go and slightly squeeze. She transitions into a trot. I wait a few strides, I look behind me. "You ready?" I ask. He nods.
I squeeze with my heels and she immediately goes into canter. The canter turns into a full out gallop. The wind on my face is so strong it almost hurts. Tears come out of my eyes, unwillingly, from all the wind. I look behind and Jace has turned into full race mode. "I'll race you!" He shouts, though almost unaudibly over the winds. He pushes his horse to go faster, as do I. I lean forward into a racing position, making myself more aerodynamic. It feels as if we are flying, but the hooves beating on the floor still makes me believe we haven't left the ground.
We near a corner so we are forced to stop. We were well in front of Jace and his horse. I pat her neck and hug her. "Well done Peppa." I smile at Jace.
"That was amazing!" I shout at Jace exhilarated. He smiles at my happiness. "Glad you liked it."
After cooling them down for a good 10 minutes we allowed them to eat. "Are you excited for the camping trip?" I ask.
"Yeah sure, it seems fun, what about you?" Peppa walks off to a better bit of grass so I have to talk louder. "I'm looking forward to it." I smile.
After letting them eat and talking we head back home. I grab the bag full of clothes out of the car, this time changing in one of the stables. Changing in the car led to bumping everything around me.
Jace is waiting against the car back in his usual dazzling clothes. His daywear is normally black jeans with any colour t-shirt, covered by a black jacket. His hair however is flat against his head, not in its usual hot unruly disarray. I laugh, he looks ridiculous. "What?" He looks confused.
"Your hair. It's flat, not very charming I must say." I grin. He quickly runs a hand through it. "Better?" I nod, biting my lip. Damn he looks hot when he does that. I shake my head getting rid of my thoughts and walk to the other side of the car.
We are driving back to the city, the number of buildings increasing as we drive in more. "How's Izzy?" I ask. He grimaces. "Not talking. To me." My brow furrows.
"What why?" Maybe I should talk to her to see what's going on, but then she hasn't spoken to me since Sunday. "She's angry that I punched her boyfriend."
"Who, Simon? Are they finally dating?" I ask surprised. When I talked to her on Monday she was still trying to work it out. "Yeah that fucker. I don't know if they're dating but she sure acts like it."
"Jace! Just because he insulted me doesn't mean I'm not his friend anymore, try not to call him that please." I tell him, causing him to grimace even more. "Can we go to your house? I'd like to talk to Izzy." I continue.
He doesn't say anything but heads for his house anyway. It seems that Simon has now become a touchy subject. I would love for us to be friends again, I miss him more than anything. But if he keeps thinking like that about Jace, about us, I don't know if we can become friends again.
He pulls up in front of his house. "You can't not talk to each other. You live in the same house, plus you can't stay at my house forever." I tell him. After all they're siblings. He nods and jumps out of the car. I follow suit.
We step inside, when he calls for Izzy. "Jace?" She comes running down. "Oh hi, Clary, how are you?" She runs up to me, enclosing me in a hug. She backs up and bites on her lip. "Simon is here." She whispers. Crap.
He wals down slowly but stops in his tracks when he spots Jace. "He won't punch again, right Jace?" Jace flinches. I see her gripping his arm painfully hard. I laugh. "No no, I won't." He squeals.
Once he is certain he won't he comes down. "Hi Clary, I'm sorry. Izzy told me how bad you felt, and then I-." Izzy interrupts him. "Maybe you two should talk privately. Me and Jace will go up." She grabs Jace by his arm, leaving us together.
"Like I was saying, I shouldn't have said all of that stuff. I shouldn't have judged." His face looks forlorn. I'm not giving in just yet. "But Clary, I miss you so much, and when Jace punched me, I saw how he felt about you. Wanting to protect you. That's all I've wanted to do. I'm so sorry Clary. Please say something."
"He is so so good for me Simon, I feel safe with him. I miss you too but, if you think like that about me and him-." He cuts me off. He gets on his knees in front of me, begging.
"Clary please, forgive me, I feel so bad. I miss my best friend." I grab his hands in front of me and pull him up.
"Of course Si. I've missed you so much." I hug him hard. He quickly wraps his arms around me, nuzzling my hair. We stand there for minutes. "So how are you and Izzy." I grin. He pushes me back. "Ugh I don't know. One minute she is all for me, the next she is prancing around in front of all the boys." And like that we fall back into the old us.
"She likes you Si, she really does. She just doesn't know how to handle a relationship really." He grimaces. "Neither do I."
He stands on the first stair. "Come on, let's go find them." I follow him up. We first look in Jace's room. Empty. We then check Izzy's. Bingo.
"Hey done already?" Izzy says surprised. We both nod at the same time. Izzy jumps off the bed and hugs me. I look puzzled at Jace as I lock in on his eyes. He laughs. She then breaks off and hugs Simon.
"Why...?" I ask. "Why not? I'm happy!" She smiles widely, grabbing us both and dragging us to the bed. She jumps on the bed, sitting meditating style. "Let's talk about the school trip guys! I heard there are 9 beds per cabin, and the cabins are really small, so we have to arrange well." She grins happily.
"How do you know all this?" I ask curiously. "Oh easy, I know a few people that went last year." She gets back to her planning. She grabs a drawing pad and sketches out quickly the cabin. It definitely looks tiny.
"9 people in there? And are they not gonna care that it is boys mixed with girls?" She shakes her head. "They gave up on that a while ago. But let me get back to this, you keep interrupting!"
She continues. "Clary, tell me exactly who's coming so I can arrange you all. We don't want a fight when we get there right?" I give her all the names of the people from our friend group. "Okay that means we have exactly enough beds. Good!" She claps her hands excited.
"I can't wait!" She shouts. "Oh Clary, do you need a ride to the school?" Oh crap I hadn't thought about that. My mom isn't here for another two weeks, and to carry all my clothes to school early in the morning isn't exactly at the top of my list either.
"Yeah, I do actually." I say. "Oh well we can pick you up in the morning, be ready by 7:30!" I thank her, grateful that I don't have to walk in the chilly Sunday morning.
"Hey guys, I gotta go. My mom is asking where I am, seems like I missed dinner." Simon grins. I stand up and hug him tightly. "I missed you Simon." He puts his arms around me.
"I missed you too Clary. Bye." He lets go, kisses Izzy on the cheek and leaves. It seems like he hasn't forgiven Jace yet as he got completely ignored but if someone punched me I wouldn't either.
"Now Jace, me and Clary would love some girl talk so shoo." She waves with her hands as if she was trying to get rid of a bird.
"Okay, I'm out!" He walks out of the room, leaving me with Izzy. I'm dying out of curiosity about what happened with Simon.
"So, you and Simon huh?" She starts smiling. The heat rises up to her cheeks. That's a first! "Oh Clary, he's so good for me. We talked for a while today, properly talked. About what I want, and what he wants. We are going to try seriously plus he's taking me on a date!" She squeals. She bounces up and down on the bed, showing just exactly how elated she is.
"How about you and Jace? Have you made up?" I ask, since she wasn't very happy with Jace. "Clary, he punched Simon. He doesn't think what he did was wrong, and as long as he thinks that way I'm not forgiving him." She grimaces.
I grab her hands in both of mine. "I'll talk to him. You guys can't keep being angry at each other, especially with this trip coming up. You'll be in the same cabin for a week which is not going to be fun if you two are fighting."
She doesn't say anything. "Anyway like I said, I'll talk to him. But let's do something fun now okay? It's been much too serious around here." I smile at her, trying to lighten her up.
Her face lights up. "Do you want to get a coffee in the park? Just us two?" She asks. I nod excitedly. She sniffs. "Clary, you stink." I laugh out loud.
"Yeah I've been horse riding with Jace, sorry." I smile apologetically. She shoots off the bed, dragging me up with her. She grabs her purse, throwing her necessities in. "Let's go."
We walk past Jace's room, she sticks her head in. "We are going for a coffee, see you later bro." I hear Jace talking faintly but I don't understand what he is saying. She turns to me smiling. "All good."
It is a five minute walk to the park, where there is a coffee stand. I get a green tea latte, along with a blueberry muffin. Izzy gets a latte macchiato and an apple pie slice. We sit down in a corner and I grab my camera out of my bag, thankful I took it with me today. Izzy stares into the distance, mindlessly sipping on her coffee. I quickly snap a picture. Her head shoots around instantly. "Did you just take a picture of me?" I nod, hiding behind my camera lens again. I zoom in on her eyes which are looking straight into the lens. I capture her long lashes, and her green eyes in perfect details. "Show me." She asks. I pull up the picture on preview and show it to her.
"Wow that's really good Clary! Can you send that to me please?" She inquires. "Yeah sure." I look around at more people, snapping pictures of them quickly without them noticing.
"Don't they mind you taking pictures of them?" I look at Izzy and shrug. "I try to be quick, so they don't notice. When they do, sometimes they are bothered by it. Other times they don't really mind, but then they pose, ruining the picture completely. I'm more interested in the vunerable, pure. Not posing and fake."
"Well I think you're really talented, you should show some to the public maybe." She suggests. "No, no, people will find out that I took pictures of them, and that won't go down well."
She shrugs, sipping on her coffee. She grabs her fork and takes a big bite out of her apple pie. "Oh it's so good." She moans. She breaks off another piece and offers it to me. Oh she's right, it's really good. I'm not normally a big fan of apple pie, but this one I really like.
I take a bite out of my cupcake, letting the flavours caress my tongue. This is really good too. I'm gonna have to come back here quickly.
"So who's Lydia? I've never met her." She says between bites. "Oh she's in my chemistry class. She sits next to me, she's very kind. We lend each other our notes, but I thought she would have fun with us."
Izzy nods. "Okay, well I look forward to meeting her." She smiles. She finishes her pie quickly. I pop the last bite of the muffin in my mouth. Hmm. She stands up, offering her arm to me. I stand up looping my arm through hers. I throw away the muffin wrap quickly.
"I like you Clary, you're a good friend." She smiles down at me. She continues. "I never really had a girlfriend, I always hung around my brothers and their friends. I had a few, but they weren't like you."
"I like you too Iz, you're a great friend." I grin. We've only known each other for 2 weeks, and yet I feel like she is such a great friend already.
We walk through the park chatting about school, friends and love. I look around enjoying my surroundings. I always enjoy a walk through the park. The serenity you find here. It is very calming. Some people find peace in people, others on their phones. For me it's nature.
We head back home as it is getting late. I hug her. "Thanks Iz, I really enjoyed that." She lifts me up, making me squeal. "Are you not going in?" She asks surprised. I shake my head. "No, I need to go home." She looks at me suspiciously but drops it.
"Can you say bye to Jace?" She nods. "Okay thanks, bye Iz!" She walks inside, waving to me before she closed the door.
I walk home hoping I won't run into James. Maybe I should have stayed, asked Izzy to walk me home. No, I must not be selfish or scared. But yet, I am both. I pull up my hoodie, hiding my face from anyone that walks past and walk home in silence, caught up in my thoughts.