Hey, guys! I got through the hell that was last week, though I did pass out on Friday as soon as I got home and slept through the monstrous noises my AC made the entire time, so that's something. Anyway, here's the new update! Thanks to the awesome IWriteNaked for beta'ing this for me! Also, special thanks to LuckyAsLockhart for always reminding me to update on Mondays, and to DeathCabForMari and spikeyhairgood for being generally cool people. As per usual, thank you all for reading and following/favoriting/reviewing the story. I hope you like this chapter!

Right now
I wish you were here with me
'Cause right now
Everything is new to me
You know I can't fight the feeling
And every night I feel it
Right now
I wish you were here with me

"Right Now" - One Direction

On the first day of high school, a whole week after my birthday, there are whispers and stares, and his name goes hand-in-hand with mine. I hear it wherever I go; hell, I can almost feel him here with me.

But my mind is playing tricks on me. What I feel is the absence of him, and it feels like someone is driving a sword through my chest.

Simon and Isabelle walk on either side of me, so I'm sandwiched between the two of them as they argue about the benefits and disadvantages of our lockers being on the third floor of the building. We couldn't choose the floor; the school already did that for us. We could, however, choose our lockers.

Yup.

Mine is between theirs.

I have a headphone plugged in as we make our way over to our lockers. We only have our notebooks so far, so what we really wanted to do was take care of checking our locks and everything. Once that's done, we leave our backpacks inside and make our way down. We were instructed to go straight to the school's multipurpose room for a school-wide assembly, where our schedules will be handed to us.

What a pain in the ass.

It is strange, though, to look around and see unfamiliar faces. I feel like there has been a shift, like the people that I once rolled my eyes at are now the ones that stick together. They're the ones who smile at me as I walk by them, no trace of insincerity evident on their faces. They're scared, but it's still weird.

"Hi."

I don't realize that I'm sitting next to her until she speaks. Of course, I've known her for ages, but we've never actually, you know, spoken. The truth is, I've always heard that she's kind of a bitch, and now she's here, talking to me, with her kind brown eyes and her nice-looking expression, and all of those rumors are suddenly hard to believe.

Maia gives me a smile. "Clary, right?"

"Right."

"Maia."

"I know."

She waits a beat, and then: "Excited?"

"Can't wait," I say enthusiastically.

"Right." She lets out a laugh. "I think we all feel that way."

"Not Simon." I glance at my best friend, who's currently talking to Isabelle about something that she desperately does not want to hear. "Or Isabelle. You know, I think they're both pretty fearless."

"Hmm." Maia looks at them for a second, seemingly thinking about what I've just said, before turning back to me. "I don't know. I've always thought you were the fearless one."

I let out a laugh. "Me?"

"Yeah. I don't know. You were always so badass, and you never cared what people thought. Like the last day of school last year with Jace."

I take a breath before answering her. "Yeah, well, I'm the opposite of what you thought. Sorry to disappoint."

"My only label for you wasn't fearless, you know." She means it jokingly, but still.

"What? Is emo the other one?"

She rolls her eyes. "Chill, okay? I'm not trying to attack you. I'm just saying that I think you're ballsy, and, I don't know, I'd like to hang out."

I know that Isabelle had begun talking to Maia two weeks ago, and that they'd even gone out once, but still. This is totally different. This is outrageous. Maia was known as the ultimate bitch, the slut, the tramp. And here she is, probably playing one of her cheap tricks on me.

"Isabelle told you to win me over, didn't she?"

She opens her mouth, then closes it quickly. "How did you know that?"

"Well, for one, I'm not a brainless idiot, and I have eyes. And a thought process."

Maia rolls her eyes again. "Okay, okay, I get it. You don't like me, and you think I do everything wrong."

"So we both agree that nothing good could come of this?"

"Are you always this pessimistic?"

"Are you always this annoying?" I don't face her as I say it. The truth is, my heart is turned to stone. I wish I could care—in fact, I think that maybe a tiny part of me does—but I just don't have the energy.

"I give up."

"Good."

When we were in the fourth grade, I hated her guts because she stole my best friend at the time, Aline. She hung out with me and Simon, and she was great—until Maia got a hold of her. She stopped hanging out with us after a while, and then altogether, and now I don't even know if she's alive.

I struggle with the fact that that's how things go sometimes.

I look at her and sigh. "I'm sorry I snapped at you."

"It's fine."

"Hanging out sounds nice."

"Can I sit with you during lunch, then?"

"Sure."

"MAIAAAAAAAAAA."

The sound of her name comes from the back of her seat. I whirl around to find her boyfriend, Jordan Kyle, giving her a kiss on the cheek.

"Jordaaaan," she whines. "You know that I don't want you to be loud."

"Mhmm. Totally hearing you. Okay, I have to go, babe. I love you, and I'll see you later." He gives her a quick kiss on the lips, which has people yelling "oooooh!" in less than a second, before sauntering off to his section in the room. He's a junior, so he sits across from us, with a whole aisle separating our sections.

"Sorry about that." Her cheeks are red. "He's...loud."

"It's none of my business. But he is."

I watch as she smiles. She looks like she wants to say something, but the principal, Mrs. Herondale, begins speaking, and so we all shut up and listen as she welcomes us to the school and wishes us a great school year and talks about the high expectations she has and how a great class is leaving but one equally as great is joining the school. Blah, blah, blah. I space out at some point, leaning my head on Simon's shoulder.

"Hey." He nudges me. "Let's go get our schedules."

I realize that I must've drifted off. "Hmm?" His words catch up to me. "Yeah. Okay."

I don't say anything to Maia as we stand up and look for the table with our last names. There's A-E, F-J, K-M, O-T, and U-Z. Our tables are adjacent to one another, but I stand in mine alone while they, Lewis and Lightwood, stand together in theirs.

Soon enough, a lady is in front of me, sitting behind the table, and barking out, "Last name?"

"Fray," I reply, looking around nervously.

"Clarissa?"

I nod and bite my lip. She hands me my schedule, and I move aside. Simon and Isabelle are still in line, so I move towards the exit and look at my schedule.

Homeroom: Mr. Starkweather
English I
Algebra I
Snack
World History I
Economics
Spanish I
Lunch
Biology
Ceramics I

I opted to take PE next semester. In hindsight, it was a terrible mistake, but I just keep on going. My first period is English I, which is on the very first floor.

I hurry to my locker, grab my bag, and make my way down the stairs. We have shorter periods today because of the assembly, but still. I make my way into the classroom, only to find four other people there.

One of them being Simon.

I breathe out in relief and sit next to him. The desks, which are more like tables, are arranged so that we sit with a partner.

"Give me your schedule," he says, holding a hand out. I give him my slightly crumpled piece of paper with a sheepish look. He ignores the paper's current state and looks at the two.

"We have English, Spanish, and biology together."

"That's a comforting thought," I say. "Do you have a picture of Isabelle's?"

He does. After comparing ours, I see that we only have Algebra I and Econ together. I don't have a single class with my two friends together.

"This sucks."

"I know." He gives me a sympathetic look. "Pretty sweet, though. Starting high school."

"You're such a dork." But it is exciting. I give him a smile, roll my eyes, and turn to face the board. Two more people have rolled in, and the teacher is working on something at her desk. She looks at us, and then at a stack of papers on her desk, and then she looks at the time, clears her throat, and walks over to the front of the classroom.

"Hello, everyone. We're missing a few students, but they're probably making changes to their schedules. I'm Mrs. Herondale, and I'll be your English teacher this year. Today will just be an introductory class, in which I'll be handing out the syllabus, getting to know you, and giving you a bit of...well, an introduction, I guess, to the course."

As promised, she begins to hand out the syllabus, which includes a description of the course, the reading selections for the year, the units and themes that will be discussed, and the classroom rules.

"You need to hand this in with a signature from both you and one of your parents by Friday," she says, returning to the front of the room. "Firstly, we must discuss the classroom rules."

As we go through the list of DON'Ts, kids begin to groan. No eating food. No arriving late without a written excuse. No makeup work when absent unless one brings a written excuse—a medical one, that is. I don't really see what the big deal is, except the food one is kind of breaking my heart, but I'm thinking that I'll learn how to deal. Probably. Most likely.

After she's done discussing the syllabus, she realizes that we still have fifteen minutes left, so she moves a desk to the front of the classroom and sits on it. "Okay, so I'm gonna go through all of you again. Tell me your name and the name of a book you like."

I can practically feel the eye rolling all the way over here. Simon's first, and then it's my turn.

"I'm Simon," he says from beside me, "and I love Dracula."

I fight the urge to smile as the teacher compliments his choice and lands her eyes on me. "I'm Clary," I say, "and I like Harry Potter."

"Excellent choice," the teacher says, moving on to the next person. I listen as people list their books, from Twilight to the Bible to The Hunger Games to The Giver to Jane Eyre to Stephen King books. By the time the bell rings, we all make our way out of the classroom, and I'm thinking that English might just be my favorite class.

And I can definitely live with the no eating thing.

The rest of my morning goes by without a lot of activity. I sat together with Isabelle during Algebra I, and then the three of us had lunch upstairs in the hallway of the third floor. We sat and talked about our classes, about the people we'd interacted with, etc. I want to ask Isabelle about Maia, but I figure that now isn't the time to go into details. Whatever. It's not like Maia and I are gonna interact much.

Well.

We are having lunch together.

Fuck.

Lunch rolls around at a quick pace. We go to the cafeteria, the very cafeteria in which Jace sat a few months ago. In which I sat a few months ago. It's insane how fast things can change. The last time I was in here, I could say with absolute certainty that he'd be waiting for me at the end of the day.

I try to keep the images from playing in my mind, but there they are. The two of us, holding hands for the first time. Sitting behind the building after finals. On the floor after my finals were done, when we shielded ourselves from people and just listened to music for what seemed like an eternity.

It doesn't seem nearly long enough now.

Stop, I tell myself. I order my food and make my way over to the table where Isabelle and Maia sit. Simon is still ordering his food, so I take the seat beside Isabelle and give her a tired smile.

"Hey," I say to the two of them.

"Hey," Maia replies. "How was your day?"

I fight the urge to call her a mom and reply with a fake smile plastered on my face. "Fine. How was yours?" I don't care, but whatever. And my day had been fine—up until I remembered Jace.

Everything's gone to shit after that.

"Boring," she says, rolling her eyes. "My French teacher went in speaking nothing but French, and it was just confusing."

"I'm taking español, but that sounds sucky."

"We've had no classes together so far." Maia reaches for something in her bag—her schedule, I realize. "Can I see yours?" She waves around the piece of paper for emphasis.

I take out my crumpled-up schedule and hand it over to her, not even bothering to feel (or look) apologetic.

"We have Ceramics together!" She beams at me and hands me the schedule. "That's gotta count for something, right?"

"Totally."

Simon plops down beside Maia, giving her a smile. "Hey."

"Hi," she says.

He turns to Isabelle. "As I was saying before the bell rang, mini cupcakes are a ridiculous invention. They're only tinier cupcakes, and they're made tiny so that people think that it's adorable and more affordable."

"You guys have the weirdest conversations," I tell them.

Isabelle flashes me a smile. "Always."

After the lunch bell rings, I go to my last two classes. Biology's pretty chill, and I sit at a table with three boys: Simon, Raphael (Santiago, as in the one who called Isabelle a slut), and Sebastian Verlac, who's actually really attractive, but also a major douchebag.

I take Ceramics I with Maia, and she sits beside me in an uncomfortable, wooden stool. Our teacher's pretty chill, though, and the older students seem to be at ease around him, which makes me relax. He gives us an introduction to the course, defines the materials we'll be using, and talks about the different types of pieces we'll be doing. Our final will be a combination of a written test and a last piece, he says, and, when the bell rings, people seem to be excited about coming back tomorrow.

I meet Isabelle and Simon at our lockers. We get our books tomorrow, so there's really nothing to leave behind now, but we all find ourselves there anyway. The three of us walk downstairs. We part ways when it's time for us to walk to the bus stop, because Isabelle and Alec, her brother, take an entirely different one. Simon always comes over to my house, so the two of us walk over to my stop and wait.

"How was your day?" he asks me.

I shrug. "Fine. Do you happen to know why Isabelle's, like, forcing Maia on us?"

He frowns. "I didn't see it that way."

"I don't know. I could be wrong. It's just that Isabelle used to say that she disliked her so much, and now they're practically best friends."

"I guess I never noticed," Simon says after a beat. "But, at the same time, we're supposed to be making new friends, right?"

I've never really thought about needing more friends. I have all the friendship I need in Simon and Isabelle, and I never considered that the two of them might feel differently. I guess it makes sense, but still. "Sure."

"You're still my best friend," he tells me.

"I know." I do. It's nice to hear it, though.

"So...did you get any homework?"

"Nope."

"Please tell me we can play video games."

"Do you even need to ask?"

He grins at me, and we get on the bus as soon as it pulls over. It's always been a tradition for the two of us to play video games on the first day.

Maybe things haven't changed that much after all.

Let me know what you think! xo