Chapter 6
The next day, I still had not talked to Jace. I knew that he was hurt after what happened, but I could not help it. I am scared of being with him, scared of being hurt again. I did not want to go through that again. I needed to go through with it because of my mission. I was not the focus here. I did not technically need to trust him. I needed him to trust me.
I wanted him to trust me though, not just because of the mission. I was starting to really like Jace. My mind hated me for it, but I had always been one to listen to my heart more than my mind. I wondered if he now hated me. After all, he had been so nice and sweet to me over the past couple of weeks and I know that he likes me in that way, otherwise he would not have tried to kiss me twice yesterday!
But then again, maybe he is just looking for a fling. Most guys are not looking for something serious at this age. I mean, he is twenty five, almost twenty six! There was too much to hope for with Jace that I just wanted the mission to be over. At least then, I would be hoping for one less thing. Maybe I should not get my hopes up at all. I have learned that hope, too, can break a person just as bad as love.
Love and hope are similar in that way, I suppose.
I called Magnus that morning, and Magnus told me to call him or text him or something. Make plans with him and explain why I did not kiss him. To which I replied how do you tell someone you do not want to kiss them because of the way they left you before? Magnus told me that genuinely, the decision was mine to make; that is just what he thought I should do.
Which is not so crazy, and I think I could make it up to Jace.
So that resulted in me calling Jace an hour later and arranging something for that night. I told him I would pick him up, and I would pay for dinner, but it was what came after dinner that was the part I was sure would make him forgive me.
Until then, I had to figure out what I was feeling. I wanted so badly to run to Jace's house and apologize. Kiss him and make up for last night. To be honest, last night was romantic. The scene outside my apartment building and then with the candles after the storm took my power away from me.
But did I like Jace? Did I like him in the way that I could see myself possibly getting married to him in the future? Did I like him in the way that I could see myself possibly having kids with him? Did I like him in the way that I could possible love him in the future? Did I see him that way?
As I thought about it more and more, I realized that yes, I could see myself doing all of those things with him. Walking down the aisle with my arm linked in my father's, delivering to me a life with Jace. Jace, standing in his suit, smiling so wide at me and his eyes a little watery, reaching down from the alter to take my hand as my father kisses my cheek. Jace, in the delivery room cutting the umbilical cord of our son or daughter, holding them delicately as they wail, his eyes glistening with nothing but love as he looks from our child to me, pressing a kiss to my forehead as I fall asleep.
Jace, planning vacations and seeing football games with him. Sitting down in the living room after a long day at work and finally just relaxing together. Falling asleep, as he wraps his arms around me, while I listen to the steadiness of his heart beating.
I could imagine all of this. There was no one else I could imagine myself with. I sighed, feeling better than I had last night, and fell back against the couch. I still had doubts about all this. I was going to talk to him about those concerns tonight. Who knew if he even still wanted to kiss me after my behavior last night!
I sighed, running a hand over my face, and I closed my eyes. I groaned and looked at the time. I had to start getting ready for the evening in five hours, and I had to be to Jace's in six hours. I had plenty of time, and I had not slept well the night before, so a nap seemed like the perfect way to kill some time. Setting an alarm on my phone, I fell asleep, dreams awaiting my arrival.
Hours later, I stood in front of Jace's front door, knocking quietly. After a couple moments, Jace opened the door, giving a smile that did not reach his eyes.
I noticed the change in his smiles, and sighed quietly before talking in a soft tone.
"Are you ready to go?" I asked, in a cheerful tone despite the anxiousness bubbling inside my chest. He nodded, and I extended my arm, holding my hand out. He took my hand, and we started walking to the restaurant.
During dinner, Jace continued a conversation with me, and if I had known Jace that well I would have thought that this was normal. But during the laughter and the forced smiles, I knew he was confused and hurt. Honestly, the emotions shining in his eyes gave me courage for the last part of the evening.
As we finished dinner, Jace still offered to pay, but I refused and handed the waiter my debit card. He returned a moment later, and Jace and I stood up. I offered him my arm, and he chuckled, looping his arm in mine.
"I had a lovely time with you, Clare." Jace looked down at me, and I smiled at him.
"Our night is not over yet."
Jace raised an eyebrow and I grinned secretively at him. "Oh?"
I nodded, and we continued walking. He did not seem to know where I was taking him, and I was quite pleased by that fact. It was already beginning to get dark outside, the sun setting in the distance casting beautiful shades of blues, violets, pinks, and oranges throughout the sky. As a child, I had loved art, dreamt of becoming a famous artist. I had even tried it for a while until I had run out of cash and Magnus offered me a job. Since then, I had been focusing more on my job than on my hobby, but looking at the splendid colors dancing across the sky, fading quickly, I desired to paint the warmth of it all.
We were almost to the pavilion when Jace stopped in his tracks. "Clare?" I looked up at him with confusion dancing in my eyes, and he shook his head, dismissing his thoughts. He continued walking and I frowned slightly, but his hesitation flew to the back of my mind once we reached our destination.
I sat down on the bench I sat on that day eleven years ago when I was thirteen. Jace looked around and settled his eyes on me.
"Why did you bring me here, Angel?" His eyes were getting watery, and for a moment I was worried he was unhappy.
"This is where you opened up to me. This place is where we became friends, Jace," I said softly.
"I know," he whispered.
As we walked home that day, the storm clouds gathered above us, threatening us with its droplets. I could tell that something was on Jace's mind, but he did not say anything, only looking straight ahead of him and walking with a brisk pace.
"Hurry up, I want to get home before it starts raining," he said. I nodded and began running to keep up with him.
More droplets fell from the sky, and Jace looked up in aggravation. Seconds later, it started pouring on our heads, soaking us in a matter of moments. I smiled and Jace groaned, grabbing my arm and pulling me under the safety of the pavilion. I sat on the table top and watched as Jace paced back and forth, scowling every once in a while at the weather.
Finally, I asked what I'd been suspecting the whole time. "Is something wrong, Jace?" I asked, innocently.
"Yes! Something is wrong! I am here, sitting with you in the middle of a rain storm and we have to wait it out! I was already having a bad day!" Jace nearly shouted.
I shrunk back. "I'm sorry, I didn't know," I replied. "Why was your day bad?"
"Because some kid was making fun of me and my dead mom," he growled.
I was shocked. "Why would someone do that, Jace?" I asked.
"Why don't you go ask him Clary? I don't know why someone would do that to me. I do not know why someone would poke at me about something as terrible as that. Everybody is horrible. There is not one single good person left in this world! Not even you, little Miss Princess."
I sat up straighter, glaring at him. "I am not a princess Jace. Nobody thinks of me as a princess."
"Everybody does! Everyone at home! Alec! Isabelle! Their parents! Everyone loves you Clary. You want anything at all and everybody goes breaking their backs to make you happy! Anything you want, Clary, it does not matter with you! Because you're their princess! Poor little Clary that can't do anything for herself! That's you!" Jace yelled at me.
"Is that why you hate me?" I asked quietly, looking down at my hands in my lap.
"Of course it is! I envy you Clary! You have a loving family. A mom and a dad. You have the Lightwoods who are basically your second set of parents and you have Isabelle and Alec wrapped around your finger! I don't have that! My mother was murdered in a street one night and left there! My dad didn't want me anymore! How would you feel if the person who was supposed to love you more than anything else in the world didn't.
"How would you feel if your own father kicked you out of the house, demanding you go somewhere else? How would you feel Clary, if you kissed your mom goodnight and then had to attend her funeral, not three days later? How do you think that would feel Clary?
"And nobody gives a shit about how I feel or what I am thinking! Everybody tells me to go to therapy because talking to a random stranger would make me feel better! Nobody gives a damn about what happens to me, and I am sick of it! Everybody is afraid of me, out of fear that I will explode one day! Everybody thinks of me as a bomb rather than a person. Nobody wants to hear about the horrors I have experienced. So what am I supposed to do?"
By that point, tears were cascading down his cheeks as much as the rain outside the pavilion. His eyes were screaming sadness while his face screamed anger, and I stood up, walking towards him. His face dropped the angriness and was replaced by absolute sadness and depression. I put a hand on his arm and looked into his golden orbs filled with sadness. I brought a hand to his cheek, rubbing my thumb softly across the smooth skin, now damp with tears.
"I'm not afraid of you," I whispered.
He sobbed and fell into my arms, wrapping his own around my waist. I stood on my tiptoes and wrapped mine around his neck, and ran his soft hair through my fingers over and over again. I shushed him softly, and squeezed him tightly and he returned the pressure until he stopped sobbing. The rain had not let up, but Jace's tears had.
"Tell me about your mother," I requested as he sat down on the bench where I had been sitting. I sat down next to him, and he smiled miserably as he recalled his mother.
"She was the definition of kind. That's what I remember most about her. She cared about others more than herself. She always had. I remember this one time, that there was a young boy walking alone in the streets. He could not have been more than six or seven, and it was pouring rain. She pulled over in our car, and asked him where he was going. He said home, that nobody would pick him up and so he had to walk in the rain.
"The kid did not even have a jacket, and it was freezing outside. He was wearing a ratty old pair of basketball shorts and a short sleeve shirt and all of it was just sticking to his body. He was deathly thin; his collar bone sticking out prominently against his skin. My mom looked at him sadly and told him to get in the car. From there, we went to the store, and bought him sixty dollars worth of new clothes. My mom bought him a coat and a jacket too.
"We bought him a backpack and filled it with food, so that whenever he was hungry, he would have food that he'd be able to eat. She bought him a candy bar he had been eyeing at the store and he thanked her for everything. She told him, 'I've got more than I need, and you have less than you need, and I want to give you at least what you need. But darling, we aren't done yet.'
"And from the store, she drove us to a buffet and told him to eat until he was sure he would not be hungry for a week. The way he looked at the food was beautiful. But the way he looked at my mom, was like she was God. He ran to her, wrapped his arms around her thankfully, and whispered thank you. He hugged him back, and wiped a stray tear that had escaped onto his cheek.
"He ate so much that night, more than I thought I had eaten in my life. He looked so much happier than the depressed boy we'd picked up not two hours earlier. And when he was done eating his dinner, she gave him desert, that he ate in a gulp. And before we left, she talked to the manager and got a to-go box, and filled it with foods for the next day. She told him to put it in the fridge when we dropped him off and to heat it up in the morning when he was hungry.
"So we left the buffet, and drove him home, and my mother got out and hugged the small boy, pressing a kiss to his forehead. He thanked her over and over again, and she only smiled and told him to hang in there because there were still kind people out there. She told him to make something of himself and to help someone the way she had helped him when he grew up. He nodded and promised her, before turning and walking to his front door. He turned just before he went in, and waved a small goodbye, nodding graciously to my mother and to me, before going into the small house.
"I never saw him again, but as we drove back to our home, my mother put a hand on my knee. 'The world needs a little kindness. One day, you'll be kind too,' she'd said to me. And I could not help but think about how lucky I was to have gotten such a kind soul that resided in my mother. That night, I told her that I wanted to donate some of my toys to the kids that were less fortunate than I was. She told me that it was a great idea and she and I packed up four boxes of toys, that we donated the next day," he finished, his eyes straight ahead as if he were reliving the scene he'd just described in front of him.
I didn't know what to say, so I put my arm around his shoulder and said nothing. He snapped out of his trance and looked at me sadly. He leaned his head against mine, and continued telling me about his mother and his life before I knew him. And we stayed like that, in that moment even after the rain stopped and the sun started shining.
"I want you to trust me, Jace," I told him.
"I do trust you. Do you trust me?" he replied.
I sighed. "I want to trust you. I think I trust you,"
"Why do you not trust me, Clare?"
Dark had fallen by that point, and the soft glow and hum of street lights made shadows dance in the distance. I hugged my elbows around myself, unsure of what to tell him. After thinking about it for a minute, I decided on the truth.
"I don't want you to break me again," I said in a whisper.
"I regret leaving you, so much Clary. If I could, I would go back in time and never leave. But I cannot. I want to be here for you now. I will never hurt you ever again. Please, just take a shot."
I thought about this for a moment, and he stepped closer to me, standing in front of me and taking my hands in his own. "Please, Clary. Trust me. Don't be afraid of me."
The sky above began to get cloudy, water droplets beginning to fall once again.
I sighed, and looked into his eyes, noticing he was very close to me. That gaze in his eyes from the previous night had returned and his breath was quick against my own. His eyes moved frantically between my own eyes, and I glanced down at his lips. "I am not afraid of you," I said.
The rain was falling more steadily now, unlike my heart that was beating out of my chest. Jace smiled slightly, and leaned closer to me. I could almost feel his lips against mine, and I closed my eyes, and he closed his, and I pushed my lips against his.
And we were kissing, and it was perfect.
