Thank you guys heaps for your reviews, I love all you beautiful individuals and your lovely words :) There's just something that I wanted to put out there. I love making new friends on here and then in turn on Facebook, I love talking to you guys, but if you add me, just let me know who you are, coz if someone adds me and we have no mutual friends, I tend to decline and block as an automatic reaction. Haha. Thank yoooooou.
It was surprising just how much different she felt with a simple change in hair color. Staring in the reflection of herself after her shower that night, she let her curls out of the bun that she had pinned them in to keep them dry, and they fell around her shoulders. The dark red contrasted starkly with her pale skin, which was more pale than it had been when she was at high school. It framed her face and it made her emerald eyes almost shine, and she thought back to Jace's comment when he had walked in the front door, and agreed.
She felt more like herself today, than she had in the past six years.
Isabelle had been right, Clary had met Jacob when she was at University, studying interior design. Things had gone south with Jace the month before school ended, and he had left for University, which should have made things easier for her to get over him, and what had happened. But it really didn't. Her, Jace and Johnathon had been inseparable pretty much since her mother had married Johnathon's father when she was twelve and the boys had been thirteen. More than once, people asked if her and Jace were dating, because of how close they were, but the thought had never crossed her mind. Not until she was sixteen, and he had kissed her as part of the whole 'sweet sixteen' package. It had started slowly, progressing until things reached a peak four months before prom, when he had asked her to go with him. And then, after everything happened, she had tried to resume her normal high school experience, but Jace had ruined all of that.
Clary was no longer interested in boys, she focused on her school work and the future, and was one minded in where she wanted to go. She graduated high school with a partial scholarship and when applying for a room in the dorms, she had chosen to go for a single one, not wanting any distractions. And she managed to do that, until her second year. She met Jacob six months before Johnathon's twenty-first, where she had seen Jace for the first time in almost three years. Things had all kind of gone down hill from there. If she had to go back and pinpoint somewhere in her relationship with Jacob where there might have been a turning point, it would probably be around then.
Clary blinked, coming back to the now, and realizing that she was shaking.
She breathed in shakily and then let it out, turning around and heading back into her room.
On Wednesday, Clary ventured back down the block to the cafe she had been to the week previous. The same lady was serving, and she looked just as rushed she had last week and Clary couldn't help but feel a bit sorry for the woman. She was older, maybe in her late forties, with natural gray streaks through her hair, and then unnatural streaks of bright red, which matched the lip stick she was wearing. She was also short, very short, but she didn't look like she was short because of age, because her posture was straight and her shoulders were squared away. Clary looked around and saw one other girl working, a younger girl with a piercing through her lip and a lot of makeup surrounding her pretty, almond eyes.
"Hey, doll face," the woman smiled at her. "What can I get for you today?"
"Can I just get an iced chocolate and...Can I get one of those savory scones?"
"Sure thing, did you want the scone heated?"
"No, that's fine," Clary handed over Jace's credit card, carefully folding the receipt to join with the other ones she had been collecting once she had paid. She turned around and walked to an empty table in the corner of the room, sitting down into the seat and flicking open the days paper which was laying there. She wasn't particularly interested in the news, in the disasters that were happening around the world. She had enough ugliness in her own life, it was too hard to take on the rest of man kinds. She looked around the cafe idly, her eyes first flicking over to an older couple who were sharing a cheesecake, and then to a young mother with her little girl. There was movement by the counter and Clary diverted her gaze to the woman coming over, a drink in one hand and a plate in the other.
"Here ya go, sweetie," the lady said, putting down the food and drink.
"Thanks," Clary smiled up at her before putting the straw for the iced chocolate in her mouth and taking a long drink. It had been a weak spot of hers since she was seven or eight, when her mother had first brought her one, and she still made the same mistake at the first taste.
She swallowed well over a mouthful and then cringed as she got brain freeze.
Clary ate through the bacon, cheese and onion scone, taking breaks to drink from the iced chocolate. She continued to study people in the room, more than once looking back to the harried woman who seemed to know most of the customers, or at least relate to them, with the way she laughed and spoke with them. Her eyes fell to a small, hand-written sign next to the counter which read Help Wanted. She finished her drink, read the Entertainment section of the paper, and then picked up her plate and tall glass and walked up to the counter.
"Everything okay, doll?" The lady asked as the bounced back to the counter from where she was filling the glass, display cabinet.
"Yeah, it's fine," Clary murmured. The lady raised an eyebrow at her, waiting for her to continue. "I don't have any references, but I promise that I'm reliable and I'm a hard worker," she said, nodding down at the little sign. The lady stopped and locked her jaw, tilting her head to the side.
"How old are you, love?"
"I'm twenty-five," Clary replied, already knowing where the womans train of thought was going.
"And you have no job references?" The lady was skeptical.
"I had a job in retail when I was in high school, then I got a partial scholarship to University, and I only worked six months at a bar during my second year," Clary told her. "I know that it's not much, but it looks like you're kind of desperate." She looked over her shoulder at the cafe, where several tables still had dirty dishes and the waitress was no where to be seen—probably on a break.
"Why didn't you work when you left Uni?" The woman pushed, understandably.
"I got married, he didn't want me to work," Clary said shortly, not wanting to go down that path. The womans eyes dropped to her left hand, which was pointedly bare. "We're not together anymore." She considered her for a moment, taking in a long breath before finally nodding over to the cluttered tables.
"Consider today your trial run," she said.
Clary grinned, the widest she had in a long time.
"What do you mean 'you got a job'?" Jace squinted at her.
"Exactly that," Clary rolled her eyes at him. "I don't want you to pay for my stuff, I don't want to freeload off you. I don't know..." she sucked in a sharp breath. "I don't know how long I'm going to be here, and I'm not going to be a burden on you! Besides, I like working! I like doing stuff, and being useful, and I don't just want to sit around the house doing nothing all day." Jace sighed, rubbing a hand over his forehead. "I don't see the big deal!"
"The big deal is that if you have a job, more people are going to know you. More people are going to know your face—if you want a job so bad, I can find one for you. A low key one—"
"This is low key!" Clary snapped. "It's a tiny cafe with two employees!"
"Clary—"
"Fine!" She finally shouted, jumping off the couch and facing him, head on. "If you don't want me to take it, I won't!" She stormed past him, making a beeline for the stairs, but not before Jace saw the glisten of tears in her eyes and the shaking of her hands. He growled under his breath and spun around so that he was facing the sliding doors. They were closed, but the curtains were still open, looking out over the darkening backyard. It was just after six, and Clary had been bouncing when he had arrived home, so proud that he had found a job.
She had surprised him, and in turn, he had flipped.
Really not the best reaction.
He took a deep breath, calming himself down before following her up the stairs and down to her room. Her door was shut, and he considered knocking before he heard the sound of her crying through the wood. Jace licked his lip before pushing open the door and taking her by surprise.
"God, Jace, it's called privacy," Clary sighed, ducking her head so that her hair fell around her face, and swiped at her cheeks.
"Clary, I didn't mean to shout at you," Jace said, coming over to sit down on the mattress next to her. She shuffled away slightly, and he let her. They definitely weren't in any place to be getting all touchy feely, and he could respect that. "The thing is, you get a job, you need to give them your social security number. That can all be traced, and given your husband is a cop..."
"She offered to pay me under the table," Clary mumbled.
"Oh, well...That's a start," Jace replied. He pursed his lips and decided to try another tactic. "But why do you want to work there?" He tilted his head forward, unable to stop himself from reaching out to tug at a strand of hair that was stuck to hair with her tears. She flinched slightly at his touch, but he felt her relax as she tucked it behind her ear. "You almost wanted to do something colorful—it made total sense when you went into interior design. If you want a job so badly, why don't you look further into that?"
"I just want a job," Clary murmured. "And like you said, it has to be low profile."
"I'm sure I could find someone—"
"Jace, just don't," her voice sounded really tired all of a sudden. "I'm happy with the waitressing—"
"Why?"
"Jace," she shot him a look. "You're helping me enough. I found a job by myself, and if I want another one, I'll look for it. Besides," she played with a thread on her duvet. "It's the first job I've had in about five years. It'd be good to ease myself back into it."
"Five years?" Jace frowned at her. "But you weren't studying and it's not like you had kids at home to look after; why didn't you work? Because you always liked beign busy."
"Jacob didn't want me too," Clary bit down on her lower lip. "And what Jacob wanted, he got." He saw her expression close down and decided that was as far as he was going to be able to push her today. He nodded and stood up.
"Congratulations about the job," he murmured. He reached out and touched her hair one last time, flipping a strand between two fingers before heading to the door, leaving her alone with her thoughts.
Now two things that have made me feel all happy this week...The first thing would be the fact that after almost three years of begging, my hubby finally let me get a kitten! I'm a cat person, he's a dog person, it's been a point of contention for a while. Haha. But then when we got to the SPCA, he fell in love with another one, so we ended up taking two home! So the new editions to our family are Han and Leia—yeah, yeah, we're Star Wars nerds.
The second thing is GallaVich. OhmyGOD, GallaVich. So if one of you guys out there aren't watching Shameless then I'm completely disappointed in you. I support both GallaVich teams, and I do hope that Lip and Mandy get back together. But Ian and Mickey. Ian and Mickey just kill me every time. They are such an incredible, unconventional couple and they just get me in the feels every single time.
