So this chapter really jumps around a lot. It's not awfully eventful. Sorry ): It's mainly a filler with a little drama. I'm just trying not to rush into the plot and climax. I hate stories like that. But it will get more mysterious soon, and more secrets and stuff will come out. Review please! Thanks for all the support! (:
"And so now I have to see the new Amazing Spiderman movie!" Simon exclaimed, finishing off a long story that I only paid half of my attention to.
"Then why don't you go to the movies with Maia again? She's into all that, isn't she?" I suggested while pulling my bag full of clothes out of my locker and replacing it with books from my classes that day.
"Because she started dating someone." He leaned against the lockers and stared at me through his wire-rimmed glasses. "I'm not going alone, and we haven't really hung out since you moved here." he said, making a play on the sympathy card. I fought back the childish urge to point out that it was his fault.
"God, fine!" I groaned as I slammed my locker shut. "Let's go before Jace leaves us." I slung my bag over my shoulder and headed toward the school's exit for the student parking lot.
"Speaking of Jace, what's going on with you two?" Simon asked following behind me quickly. He caught up easily and walked leisurely by my side.
"What do you mean?" Glancing over at him, I met his eyes. We were outside, but Jace's parking spot was across the lot.
"You two haven't really talked much this week. Are you already fighting?"
I laughed and began the walk to where Jace had parked his mom's car this morning. Since Alec, Isabelle, Simon, Jace, and I were all riding to the game together, Jace's car wouldn't fit us all. So he swapped with Maryse for the day and drove her Acadia with eight seats, and she took his car to work. She, Robert, and Max were all riding up to the game together after Robert and Maryse got off work.
"We're not fighting. He's been in heavy trainer mode all week. This game is important to him. If they win, it'll be the first state championship in school history." I shrugged. "It's super important to him—and his future. It doesn't bother me. I'm happy for him."
Simon nodded his head. "Oh, well that's reassuring."
We were seeing distance away from Jace's parking spot now, and I could see Jace, Isabelle, and Alec gathered together talking. From the way Jace's shoulders were set, it seemed more like an argument, though. Jace was gesturing wildly at Alec while Isabelle pointed her finger menacingly back at him, even getting in his face at one point.
When we approached the group, I realized the black haired boy that I had mistaken for Alec was actually Sebastian. Now the fight made far more sense. "You're letting Simon come, so Sebastian gets to come too!" Isabelle ordered gripping Sebastian's arm tightly. Sebastian grimaced before he saw me and Simon draw near them.
"Hey Clary!" he exclaimed with a huge grin.
Jace stopped bickering with Isabelle and glanced over at me. "Clary," he breathed and held out his hands. I rushed over to hug him. He kissed my forehead and played with my hair before turning back to Isabelle. "Whatever, he can come." Jace growled before taking my duffel bag from me and sliding it into the trunk of the Acadia.
He pulled me over to the other side of the car, away from the others, and pulled me into a swift kiss. "I'm so glad you made it out here. If I have to listen to Isabelle talk much longer, I'm going to die." He kissed me again deeply.
"Jace! Jace, come here!" Isabelle's shrill voice shrieked loudly. Jace groaned audibly and pulled me back over to his adopted sister.
Alec had arrived, and with him stood Magnus decked out in every color of the rainbow and covered in sparkles galore. Magnus nodded at mine and Jace's intertwined hands approvingly and grinned devilishly at me. "What now, Iz?" Jace asked, exasperated.
"Alec invited Magnus to come." Isabelle tattle-telled on Alec.
"I don't care. We need to leave." Jace sighed, rubbing his forehead in frustration.
"What? Why didn't you put up a fight with Alec?" Isabelle whined angrily.
Alec, obviously picking up on Jace's mood, put his hand out and said, "I'll drive, and Magnus will sit up front with me. You and Clary can sit in the back alone." Jace dropped the keys to the car into Alec's open hand and helped me into the far backseat of the car.
Isabelle muttered a string of complaints as she climbed into the middle seat between Simon and Sebastian in the middle row of the car. Alec and Magnus already situated themselves in the front, and all the doors were slammed shut as Alec backed out of the parking spot and exited the lot.
I leaned my head against Jace's shoulder as he rubbed small circles on my thumb. "Simon, you're taking up too much room. Move over." Isabelle complained loudly, breaking the momentary silence in the car. Jace and I sighed in unison.
Jace shot me a smirk as Simon replied, "Isabelle, I'm squished into the door. What more do you want?"
"For you to not be taking up any space." she snapped before leaning into the front of the car and messing with the radio.
This was going to be the longest two hours of my whole existence.
I sat on the curb waiting on the rest of the gang to exit the game. The game had ended fifteen minutes ago with a viciously tough loss on our end. It was so close that it was heartbreaking, even for someone without a single athletic bone in her body; we lost by just one point.
Somehow I knew Jace wouldn't want me waiting outside the locker room, and that's why I was here, waiting on everyone else to get back from camping outside the visitors' locker room in an attempt to cheer Jace up. I didn't know Jace that well yet, but I knew that it would just set him off.
"Clary?" A voice called out my name from the darkness. Trying to locate the person to the voice, I glanced around. Sebastian appeared out of the shadows. His dark hair curled lithely by his temples and his dark eyes searched my face. He sauntered over to me and sat down beside me on the curb.
I shivered from not just the strange, new chilly air, but from a peculiar fear that came with being alone with Sebastian. "Where is everybody?" I asked as I tried to scoot away without him noticing me. Despite my effort, his eyes still shot down to my body as it moved slowly.
"Attempting to console Jace. He's pretty pissed, especially when everyone came down on him the way they did. He seemed to be looking for you though." he answered, removing the space between us again.
My nose felt frozen, and I rubbed my hands across my face to get blood to flow into my cheeks. "I figured I'd wait here for him. He doesn't seem like the type to enjoy being babied."
"Well you were right about that. He yelled at Isabelle and Alec. Simon and Magnus didn't try to comfort Jace, though, so he just ignored them. He ripped up all the signs you and Isabelle made. How can you stand that?"
The question caught me off guard, and I stared at him in surprise. "Stand what?"
"His anger. He just explodes a lot. He can't control himself. What if he lashed out and hurt you?" Sebastian grabbed my face in his strikingly cold hands. I struggled to get out of his vice-like grip. He finally released his hands, and I pulled away from him quickly, not caring if he noticed this time.
"I can stand it because I'm the same way, Sebastian. He had to hide in his house while some maniac killed both of his parents. He heard them scream in anguish and had to live with the memories of his fear of dying with them. He has the right to lose himself in his emotions sometimes. At least he still has emotions." I snapped angrily. I wasn't sure why I was angry at Sebastian. Maybe because both of his parents were probably alive and safe at home with no fear of a crazed killer coming after them. Maybe because I had moments when I lost myself in the fury and despair. Sebastian just didn't understand. "You just don't know what it's like." I whispered, turning away from him and wiping furiously at the tears forming in my eyes.
"My mom left me." he whispered in the silence that followed.
My head snapped back to stare at him on its own accord. "At least you can get your mom back. You could look for her and possibly find her. Jace and I can't do that."
"We can't do what?" Jace's voice clawed its way into the conversation before I could even see his face. He had changed out of his football uniform and was now wearing sweat pants and a light t-shirt. His blonde hair was matted to his face and was dramatically messy from wearing his helmet. His football bag was slung carelessly across his shoulders.
"Uh, I—we, um, I—" I scrambled for words as I stared back into his amber eyes.
"You two can't come to the bonfire I'm planning on having tomorrow night." Sebastian covered for me, smoothly telling a lie.
"Why can't we?" Jace's eyebrows creased together in confusion.
"Uh, I wanted to order Chinese and watch a movie together." I followed up Sebastian's lie quickly and smiled at Jace.
"Oh, well, okay then." He smiled back at me softly. "But I'm ready to leave this hellhole, so let's go home." He reached forward and grabbed my hand, pulling me up from the curb and led me into the car and away from Sebastian.
"Everyone, wake your lazy asses up! Breakfast is ready!" Izzy's loud voice reverberated through the living room. Groans ensued as four males complained loudly about it being too early.
I rolled over, feeling Jace's warm arms encircling me protectively. My emerald eyes met his liquid golden eyes, and I smiled almost shyly. I still hadn't gotten used to falling asleep and waking up with a guy yet, especially one that made your heart stop when you looked at him. He tightened his grip around me and pulled me closer to him. His lips brushed my forehead and then both of my cheeks before he lightly kissed me on the tip of my nose. "Good morning, sunshine." he whispered.
"Good morning." I mumbled back before Isabelle swatted Jace on the head with a wooden spoon.
"Didn't you hear me? Breakfast is ready." She narrowed her eyes and pointed at us threateningly with her spoon. I would imagine her using it again swiftly without a second thought.
"Did you cook it?" Jace asked as he rubbed the spot that Isabelle's spoon had met his head.
"No," she sighed loudly, "Mom did. I just grabbed the spoon as a reinforcement."
"Okay, I'll eat then." He smirked and helped me up from our spot on the ground. The living room floor was covered in pillows and blankets where everyone ended up spending the night. Even Sebastian had been allowed to sleep over. Isabelle had to beg not only Jace but Alec and her mom as well. Maryse didn't really seem to mind the company, but she seemed almost on edge around Simon, Sebastian, and myself.
When Jace and I entered the dining room, everyone had picked out seats already. Maryse took the head of the table with Isabelle and Alec on both sides. Apparently Sebastian had won out sitting beside Isabelle, so Simon slumped grumpily beside Sebastian. Magnus, of course, sat beside Alec with a heartwarming smile and glitter still adorning his slick black hair.
"Clary! Jace! Sit by me!" Max, the youngest Lightwood, seemed to remember me in a way that no other person had ever remembered me before. He patted the seat next to him which happened to be right next to Simon. I grinned back at him and took the seat he expected me to be in. Jace followed behind me and took the other seat beside Max without a complaint.
Plates full of various breakfast foods decorated the whole table. I filled my plate full of food and started eating in silence. The whole room was quiet except for the noises of spoons and forks meeting the glass plates. "So, Sebastian, where did you move from?" Maryse asked Sebastian, drawing the whole table's attention.
"New York," he replied after swallowing a bite of eggs. I couldn't help the automatic suspicion. How is it that not even a week after I moved here so did this strange boy? I tried to tell myself that I was just being silly and still thinking of the break in just five days before, but I couldn't help the raging amount of wariness around Sebastian.
"That's weird. Clary moved from there too." Magnus replied because everyone else was silent.
Sebastian raised his eyes to me and smiled wickedly. "Yeah, I know. I wish I would've met her sooner."
In my peripheral vision, I could see Jace tense up. Before Jace could throw his fork and impale Sebastian's eye or say something rude or obscene, Max spoke up. "I don't like the way you look at Clary."
Sebastian's eyes hardened as Jace laughed loudly and patted Max adoringly on the back. Maryse seemed too shocked to berate Max's behavior, and Sebastian responded before anyone else could say anything. "In what way is that?"
"Like you own her or something. So stop." Max answered before picking up his plate and leaving the dining room. Sebastian growled so lowly that I was almost unsure if it actually came from him. His eyes were darker than usual, if that was possible, and he gripped his fork so tightly that his knuckles were white.
The remainder of breakfast was eaten in silence, and when everyone cleared out of the dining room, Maryse insisted that we all go out somewhere else and let her attend to the dishes herself. We all parted ways in the Lightwood house; Simon left with a quiet goodbye to me and a long, parting glance at Isabelle who was extra cozy with Sebastian.
Magnus helped Alec pick up all the pillows and blankets from the floor, and the two of them disappeared quickly. Jace, deciding that he couldn't stay in the same room as Sebastian, pulled me upstairs to his room.
We lied on his bed together in silence for a couple minutes, our quiet breathing the only sound in the room. Then Jace turned and looked at me. "What were you and Sebastian really talking about last night?" he asked softly.
"What are you talking about?" I was shocked. I thought he had bought my poorly told lie. Sebastian's smooth exterior seemed to cover most of my inexperience at lying on the spot.
"You're an awful liar, Clary."
I bit my lip, trying to figure out what to say. "Sebastian was criticizing you about how you let your anger get the best of you sometimes. He asked me how I could stand it." I decided to tell the truth. It's not like Jace could get mad at me about what Sebastian was saying.
"And what did you say?" he said harshly sitting up and moving away from me. I bit back the odd feeling that it gave me. Although we were sitting in the same bed only inches away from each other, it seemed like we were suddenly miles away from each other. I could almost feel the wall Jace had built up over the years, the wall I hadn't had to deal with yet except for on my first day in Florida.
"I told him that I could stand it because I was the same way. I have trouble controlling my emotions too." I gritted my teeth when I answered. Somehow I knew something big was about to happen. The tension is the air was so tangible that it felt like I was choking on it.
"You don't think I can control my emotions?" he snapped jumping off the bed in anger.
"Well you're not really controlling them right now!" I got out of his bed too. "And I said I couldn't either, so you can't act like I was insulting you. We both went through traumatic things because of the murder of your parents and my mother."
"Don't even try to compare your little so-called painful experience to mine. You didn't have to hide in your house while your parents were both killed, tortured even. I stayed in the same spot my mom put me in for four days without even moving from a standing position. I don't even remember sleeping. You think you know pain? Try going through that. You're lucky that you only found her dead." His voice was cold and calculated. He watched my face for my reaction with the eerie hardness of a predator watching its prey.
Trying not to give him the satisfaction of seeing me cry, I bit my cheek so hard I tasted blood. "Wow," I whispered, voice shaking. "Is this what you've thought the whole time? That I didn't really lose my mom? I thought maybe you were the one person who understood. But obviously you didn't even care. I didn't suffer enough for it to be considered a painful experience, huh? That's a new low, especially from you. Screw you Jace." I turned away from him, burst out of his room, and stomped down the stairs. I am not going to cry in his house.
"Hey, what's wrong?" Sebastian asked as I rushed by him towards the front door. "Clary?" I distantly heard him call from behind me. I closed my hand around the doorknob of the door and swung it open. I could hear Jace stomping down the stairs after me, but I slammed the door behind me and ran across the Lightwood's yard, the street between our houses, and up my driveway.
As I climbed up the stairs and shut and locked the door to my room, I let out the pent up scream I'd been holding back for months. It was strangled and as soon as I let it out, I was bawling my eyes out. I fell onto my bed and sobbed from the despair and the anger. The words Jace had spat out so calmly and bitingly echoed in my head. You're lucky that you only found her dead.
But that was the thing. It wasn't true. I saw my mom's murderer. Not clearly, of course, but I saw him. We even locked eyes when I stepped into my house only minutes before my dad did. He was hunched over my mom's already dead body, whispering something to her almost lovingly. When he saw me, he seemed almost delighted. The mask he was wearing covered everything except for those dark eyes.
He stood up and moved toward me almost unconsciously. That's when I screamed and alerted my dad. The man reached for me and ran a bloody hand through my hair before turning and running out through the back of the house. I didn't tell the cops this, though. It wouldn't have helped for them to know that anyways. Dad didn't even know. I carried that secret with me, trying to understand what it meant, but I always came up with nothing.
Maybe I didn't hear my mom scream her last words, but I did see the man who killed her caress her cold cheeks softly and kiss her forehead with what seemed like an almost tender gesture. I felt his blood-slicked hands on my face and in my hair, and I had never gotten rid of that feeling since.
Jace didn't know anything. No one knew anything. I had to fight this inward battle alone with the slight hope that I didn't come out of it too deranged. Maybe it was too late for me now.