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I didn't sleep for nearly as long as I'd hoped.

In fact, when I lifted my head and looked at my alarm clock, I almost thought that the power must have gone out sometime during the night and thrown all the electronics out of whack, because it couldn't possibly be 8:30 a.m. I'd gotten to sleep at around 3 a.m., so this was ridiculously early. In fact, I slept later than this when I hadn't been through a traumatic ordeal and been awake over half the night.

And I couldn't even roll over and go back so sleep, because the moment I became conscious, my head was hit with a deluge of memories, thoughts, and feelings. A lot of them were centered around annoyance and anger, directed mostly at Jace Wayland. His words from the hospital kept replaying in my head, making me feel like my skin was burning. Eventually I gave up on trying to sleep and dragged myself out of bed, emerging into a Saturday morning.

Honestly, I don't think I'd ever been awake to see that time of day on a Saturday before. It was a little disorienting. My mom was already gone for work. I found a note from her on the refrigerator that read, You don't have to come into work today. We'll talk later. –Mom

We'll talk later sounded ominous to me, but I guess I couldn't have hoped that our laughing fit last night would make everything all better. It had certainly improved things, though.

Now I just needed to think up a really clever joke for Simon.

I didn't want to stay in the house, so I walked over to Simon's apartment. Only when I was standing outside his building did it occur to me that he was a late sleeper, too, and likely wouldn't be up till roughly nine in the evening. Waking him up and making him extremely grumpy would not help the three-hour-long explosion he probably had planned for me. But I was already here, and I had promised to come first thing in the morning, so I buzzed up to let his mom know I wanted in.

When I reached his door, his mom flung it open before I could knock and pulled me into an unexpected hug. "Oh, Clary, we were all so worried!"

I was getting tired of hearing that. I gave her a smile, knowing I probably looked as bad as I had last night—minus the bloody clothes, at least—which made my next response all the more unbelievable. "I'm fine, Mrs. Lewis. Thanks for your concern."

"Simon's asleep in his room," she said. "I could go and get him for you. You just take a seat right there and I'll—"

"That's all right," I said quickly, not wanting her to fuss over me. I just needed normality, not special treatment. "I'll go and wake him up. I'm a professional." I strode down the hall to his bedroom, thought about knocking, and then decided it was pointless and let myself in.

Simon was sprawled across his bed, one foot hanging off the edge. He'd fallen asleep in his clothes, and his glasses were askew on his face. He looked so blissfully peaceful in his sleep—too bad it would be spoiled the second he opened his eyes to find me standing there. The peace would turn to rage pretty quickly after that.

I considered just making myself comfortable and letting him sleep, but he was bound to find out, and it would piss him off to learn that I'd been sitting on his floor watching him. Not only was that creepy, but it would be a waste of valuable time he'd probably set aside to scream at me.

I reached over and gently removed his glasses, placing them on his bedside table. Sure, it might have looked like a tender gesture, but it was mainly a precaution—if he couldn't see, he couldn't take a swing at me.

Taking a deep yoga breath to brace myself, I shook his shoulder timidly. He let out a muffled little snort and buried his face in his pillow.

"Simon," I hissed, not quite sure why I was whispering. "Wake up."

He mumbled something that I couldn't make out and one of his hands came up to flap weakly at me, trying to fend me off.

"You asked for it." I jabbed my fingers into his sides. Sometimes Simon can be stubborn and extremely hard to persuade, but he cannot stand for long under the ancient torture of tickling. It is one of his gravest weaknesses.

Just as I suspected, he bolted straight up in bed with a shocked cry, his head whipping back and forth to see who had just assaulted him in his own bed. He squinted at me, one hand groping for his glasses on the bedside table. By the time he'd shoved them on his face, he had to have already known who I was. Hard to miss the bright red hair, even when you're almost legally blind.

I expected his face to turn red and for him to leap to his feet and start gesturing passionately with his hands, as he always did when giving a really good lecture. But instead he just folded his arms across his chest and fixed me with an appraising look.

"Are you okay?" I asked, studying him with worry. "You do know this isn't a dream, right?" I waved my hand in front of his face. "I'm actually here. Feel free to get it all out of your system."

"I'm not going to yell at you," Simon said. He snorted at my surprised expression. "I want to hear what happened last night. All of it," he added. "No leaving anything out."

Too relieved and grateful to him for not drilling into me, I readily relayed everything about last night. At the beginning, when I mentioned Jace, his face darkened, which prompted me to skip over the part where he mentioned that he was "supposed to get me back" at the party. I felt a little guilty about that, having promised to tell him everything, but I didn't think I needed to give Simon a reason to hate Jace even more.

I hated him enough for both of us.

I also may have skipped over the part about how the police may or may not suspect me of being the one responsible for wounding Jace. It seemed like too much to take in so early on a Saturday.

"Why didn't you call?" he asked once I'd finished with the story. He looked hurt, which made me feel even worse. "Didn't it occur to you that we were freaking out, because you suddenly dropped off the face of the earth?"

I studied my hands, my face hot with shame. "It really didn't," I said honestly. "I was so exhausted and scared and confused and…" I shook my head ruefully. "Guess it's useless to give excuses. I should have called."

He was silent for so long that I had to peek at his expression. "Are you going to start screaming yet?"

"No," he said wearily, slumping against his pillows. "It's too early to scream." He rubbed his hands vigorously over his face. "Why did you come so early anyway? What time is it?" He caught sight of the clock and groaned. "Clary, you're going to be the death of me."

I laughed, and even though it came out sounding a little choked, it made him smile, and I could feel the slight frigidity that had lingered in the room melt away.

As soon as we emerged from his room, his mom dragged us to the table and nearly force fed us scrambled eggs and bacon. She seemed delighted that Simon was up early enough to eat breakfast; he didn't look too put out either as he eyed the spread in front of us.

"I've got to say, Clary," he said in a serious voice as he swallowed the handful of bacon he'd shoved into his mouth, "I'm impressed with you."

"Why?" I asked, looking at my plate and pushing my eggs around with my fork.

"That must have taken a lot of self-discipline to save Jace's life like that. It would have been a struggle for me not to shove in a knife of my own." Then he laughed, and I forced myself to smile, even though I didn't find it the least bit funny.

I'd always thought that I hated Jace Wayland. Logically, I should hate him even more after last night—after what I went through for him, only to have him taunt and call me names in return. But if I truly hated him, would I have helped him at all? I couldn't imagine letting anyone bleed to death in an alley, no matter how awful a person they were—and Jace wasn't even that bad, all things considered. It hadn't been an option, finding him out there hurt and semi-conscious, and then just walking away, leaving him there. No decent human being would do that.

So why did I feel like I had just gotten a disadvantage in the war we'd been having since ninth grade? I'd saved his freaking life—not exactly revenge for whatever he'd been planning to do at that party.

It didn't matter, I told myself. If I could help it, I wouldn't have to deal with Jace anymore. Impossible as it sounded, maybe I could try out ignoring him for once, turning up my nose when he tried to get a reaction out of me. Why did I even bother with someone like him?

Next time Jace got knifed in the gut, I wouldn't be there to save his sorry butt. That much I could be sure of.

The weekend passed way too quickly.

My mom was still considering whether or not she should reward or punish me for what happened Friday night; by Monday, she settled on making me go to school, even though I begged to stay home, for just a few days. Even though she tried to make it seem like a punishment, she looked at me sympathetically and pointed out that Jace wouldn't be in school anyway, unless he was a mental patient—which didn't really reassure me.

Jace wasn't the only one that worried me, though. Knowing my school, no secrets could be kept, and news like this would get around fast. Isabelle, who was one of the monarchs of gossip, would probably spread it around personally until every person in the school was aware of what went down on Friday. And, knowing my luck, she'd probably paint me as the criminal who had jumped him in the alley.

It probably didn't help that I had a history of antagonizing him—stealing his seat in history and pouring coffee on his head and all of that unforgivable stuff.

I stayed close by Simon's side on Monday, keeping my head down. He walked protectively beside me, shielding me from the stares of the other kids, who, surprise, surprise, knew all about what had happened. Some of them whispered about me or pointed, while others just openly stared. I hoped this would all blow over in a few days, but that seemed unlikely.

People had been avoiding me for the most part until I got to fourth hour. One of the cheerleaders—the ones always giggling and batting their eyelashes at Jace from afar—stalked up to me from where I was sitting in the back of the room, minding my own business. She was glaring at me like I'd just committed some horrible, personal crime against her. She got right in my face and, with every pair of eyes in the class fixed on us, snapped, "Stay away from Jace, Carrot Top. If you hurt him again, you're going to be the one in the hospital."

Then she turned and sashayed back to her cheerleader friends, who were all glowering at me. I just watched her go, speechless, not because of the threat itself, but because she had just put together several sentences to form an actual coherent thought.

Guess that answered the question on what people thought of my role in the whole ordeal.

Simon assured me that not everyone believed I had made an attempt on Jace's life. As always, the story had gotten pretty twisted while taking its trip through the rumor mill. Some people thought I'd been behind the stabbing, some thought I'd dragged him from a fifteen-foot-deep ditch after hearing his pathetic cries for help, while others decided that the police had found me curled up next to his body, sobbing my eyes out.

That last one bothered me the most. When I said so to Simon, he looked at me like I was crazy and said, "Get your priorities in order, woman. You'd rather people thought you tried to murder Jace than cry about finding his mangled body?"

I crossed my arms and scowled at the ground. "Idiots," was all I muttered, making him sigh.

On Thursday at the diner, my mom suggested the unthinkable.

"Why don't you go and visit him?"

I choked on the orange juice I'd grabbed from Mona's tray of drinks. I felt no guilt about stealing her beverages, especially after hearing that she'd gone home to bed after hearing that I was missing last Friday.

"Visit who?" I asked mechanically, already knowing exactly who she was talking about, but not quite willing to believe my mom would betray me like this.

"That boy you saved!" she exclaimed, exasperated. "Who else?"

"Mom." I carefully set the glass of juice down so I didn't crush it in my hand. I turned to face her, gripping the counter with my fingers. "I hate him."

She pursed her lips. "Hate is a strong word."

"Yeah, well, so is ugly."

"What are you talking about?"

"Nothing." I turned away again. I hadn't told anyone about what he'd said in the hospital room—partly because I didn't want anyone to pat my head and tell me I shouldn't listen to a word that mean little boy said, but mostly because I was irritated by how much it bugged me. Why should I care if Jace thought I was ugly? Answer: I shouldn't.

My mom sighed her please-don't-make-this-so-difficult sigh. "Clary, you saved this boy's life. Why should it matter if he's ugly or not?"

I almost laughed out of shock. "Mom, he's not ugly. At all. He's the opposite, actually." I inspected my fingernails, keeping my expression neutral.

"Then I don't see what the problem is."

"Do you remember the guy whose head I doused with coffee?"

"Yeah…" she said slowly.

I chewed the corner of my lip. "That would be him."

"Clary!"

"What?" I said defensively. "I can't help who winds up half-dead behind our diner!"

She shook her head angrily. "You can't just pretend he doesn't exist because you've had a few disagreements."

"Disagreements? He invited me to a party so he could humiliate me in front of everyone!" I cried.

I watched as her eyebrows drew together in concern, her anger instantly evaporating. Shoot. I hadn't meant to say that. "Is that true, Clary?"

"Maybe. I don't know. Maybe I'm paranoid," I lied. "The point is, I don't think I owe him anything else, do you? Especially not a friendly visit to the hospital."

"Don't you think he'd want to thank you?" she asked, but she didn't sound like she was going to force me anymore, thank goodness. "Saving a life is a really big deal—"

I rubbed my forehead with my fingers. "I didn't save his life!"

She put her hands on her hips and stepped closer to me. I avoided eye contact. "I don't care if you didn't stitch his stomach back together and give him CPR," she said firmly. "If you hadn't found him in that alley and called an ambulance, odds are, no one would have. And if it weren't for you, Clary Fray, that boy could be dead right now."

Hearing her say it sent a chill through me. It was freaky, imagining how much one life could depend so fully on you. If I hadn't taken out that garbage, would Jace really be…?

"Fine," I said evenly, cutting off that thought before it could run off with my imagination. "I saved his life. That just makes my point. If anything, he owes me. And I should not have to visit him at the hospital."

With that I marched away to take the order of a group of twenty-something-year-olds that had just walked into the diner, closing the conversation.

It was absolutely true, I thought, trying to squish the guilty part of me that insisted it was only common courtesy to visit the person whose life you saved at the hospital. What did I owe Jace?

Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

I'll try to get another update up soon, but I have finals this week, so it'll be pretty hectic. Grrr. Anyone else have them?

Thanks for reading!