A/N: Thanks for reviewing my dear readers. Carry on with the next chapter. Won't want to keep those heart skipping beats, do we? *grins
Disclaimer: Cassandra Clare owns the characters. My only rights are for the mistakes and feelings I share with dear readers. *wink
Chapter 14: Don't Change
I'm staring at Magnus's door. I'm afraid to knock and go in. I'm scared to be with him.
After what had just happened, I've never wanted to leave this place so much like I am right then.
I'm sitting on the floor.
I have nothing but the floor.
I will have nothing but the floor.
"Are you mad at me?" Isabelle asks. The first thing she says when Jace and her enters Magnus's apartment and my hands are in her grasp. I forgot how to be a brother.
"Why would I be mad at you?" I look at her through black pearls and I see years of youth crumbling for a new life. My sister is pregnant at the age of twenty one and I don't know how to help her. I can't help her.
"Look, if there's anyone I'm mad at right now," my eyes flickers to Jace and he's biting his nail like he always does whenever he knows he's wrong and I'm a heap of conflict with myself, "it's the guy who did this to you."
Isabelle gulps and Jace shifted from where he was standing, leaning and Magnus is still in the kitchen doing who knows what when I clearly need him at the moment.
"It was a mistake." She breathes out and my eyes are found by a pair of translucent golden and I know he knows that I'm aware of his regrets.
It is a mistake. Going out to party late at night, leaving Max alone with his homework while mother and father still at the company and I know right then I should not have left. They were older but who says they weren't still young?
Things went wrong and Jace's own buddy took it out on Isabelle. She was drunk that night. From what I heard, the guy had already paid the price with a few bruises and blows and broken bones and dislocated jaw, gratitude from Jace. Mother and father absolutely have no idea, for now. They even hide it from Max, telling him about a bet and Jace pretending to muddle with Isabelle's food giving the reason why she's been sick.
And all of my light feeling went to drain as the heaviness cloaks me like an old best friend.
"I'm going to be an uncle." I say softly, looking down at my sister's flat belly thinking how it would be bigger in months to come. Surprisingly, I'm not so much worried like how I expect I would be.
"But I'm not ready to be a mother, Alec. I don't know how to raise a child." Fear is so evident is her voice I just want to hug my sister and tell her that everything is going to be alright. But then I would be lying.
Nothing is going to be the same ever again.
"Simon says he wants to marry me." Her new best friend since Clary introduced them to each other. Simon Lewis-a brown-haired bespectacled scrawny guy who studies accounting and a part-time bassist for a band.
"Does he know about the baby?" I ask her.
She nods.
"That's the sole reason why he wants to marry me."
"I don't approve to that idea." Jace finally speaks and I fight for self-content. Our previous meeting was still too fresh in my memory. To make it sound irony, I can still feel the lump at the back of my head.
"Simon's a good guy." I tell him.
"I know he is but I don't think she should carry the baby." Jace says ever so calmly and I don't bother to wonder when have I lost my best friend. He's not the same anymore. None of us are.
"You're suggesting abortion?"
He nods and I could feel Isabelle shaking next to me. I fight to reach out and suddenly I feel the familiar repulse coming on to me. I hate that feeling. Magnus taught me how to hate it. Where is Magnus?
"Are you even in your right mind? What kind of person would do such a thing?" Jace doesn't seem shock at my words but Isabelle does.
"I was thinking of the same thing, you know in case you didn't want to help me." Isabelle explains and I understand why it had crossed her mind but I can't relate to Jace. He has no right to decide it that way. Even as a brother.
"Izzy, I know it's hard on you and it will get tougher but if you think running away is the answer, you're wrong."
"Says the one who took off from the house." Jace mumbles.
"Jace…"
I look at him. Finally, after so long I brace myself to look at my brother and still the same shadow stood behind him, as if proud enough to declare its existence and I curse the man who made me, us the way we are now.
"I didn't run away, Jace."
He crosses his arms and stood straighter.
"Right. You moved away." He frowns and I'm frowning at him.
"Do you have something you want to say to me?" I shift on the couch and I face him as a brother and as a friend. Isabelle got up silently and she's gone behind the walls that separate the living room from the kitchen.
"Now would be a very good time to let it out. I don't want to bleed like last time." I'm being honest. I didn't care about my head. I bled elsewhere.
"It was an accident. You didn't give me a chance to apologize." Jace avoids my eyes and I keep staring at him despite the shadows.
"I know it was an accident. But accident doesn't repeat twice."
Jace let out a sigh and I'm still waiting for him to clear himself from whatever is bothering him.
"I just don't think it is right for Izzy to get married. She's still too young."
"I don't think she should get married either. But abortion won't do any good to us. Especially to her." I softly say, knowing the two could hear us from the kitchen.
"So what is she supposed to do? She's lost, Alec. You're the one who's supposed to help her." Jace glares slightly and comprehension hits me faster than my seizures.
"I will help her. For now, take care of her. I'll discuss things with Magnus." I tell him and again, he glares.
"What about me?"
My eyebrows quirk on their own.
"What about you?"
"Why won't you discuss with me? Why Magnus? We're the one involves. He's an outsider, Alec."
I gulp and I swallow and for so long, I have not tasted dust and my throats jolt at the weird taste.
"You know what, forget it. I forgot who I was talking to. Izzy!" He calls for my sister and he motions to the door. Isabelle let slip a smile at me and they were gone as fast as they had arrived.
"That went well." Magnus says, standing at the archway of the kitchen and looking at me with something I can't see through confused thoughts.
"What?" I let out.
He smiles.
I crumble.
"Well," he breathes deep and walks closer to me but he didn't sit down, "its obvious Jace is going through something. Or should I say all of you are going through something."
"I don't understand what you're saying."
He laughs.
I stay in pieces.
"You remind me of Max sometimes." He says it in a tone of general, like something usual he always let out in a casual conversation and yet I don't know why something snapped.
I see white rods and I'm gripping my own hands and I feel familiar hands holding my head. They hold me, keeping me in places but he doesn't know I'm too far shattered inside.
Max is not like me Max is not like me Max is not like me
I'm breathing hard and he's as calm as usual. His smile is gone but he held no distraught in his expression and I'm still fighting for each beating moment.
"Can I let go?" He asks me and I wanted to say never.
"Don't say things like that. My siblings are nothing like me." I tell him instead.
His frowning and he looks angry and disappointed and he lets go of my face I'm melting from cold loneliness I've never felt since I met him. I feel distant.
"Why do you care so much? I thought I'm the one that matters, Alexander." He whispers and he slowly pulls back.
"You matter the most to me, Magnus."
"And yet you still think that way. Why can't you see what I see? The version of you that I love?" Magnus looks at me and I don't know what he seeks from my eyes so I close them tightly shut only to open them to see him no longer kneeling in front me.
"You can't keep doing this to me, Alec. I can't keep telling you who you're supposed to be what you're supposed to look like. I don't want to create you. I want to love you for who you're really are."
He stops and he inhales and I think it takes much more effort in him to keep talking than for me to keep listening. I think I'll always listen.
"Why won't you let Isabelle marries Simon? He's a good guy, you said it yourself and I know for god sake that anyone who knows Simon knows how much he cares of your sister." Magnus says.
"I don't think she's ready." I rasp out and I don't know why my throat feels dry.
"Or is it you? From my opinion it's you who's not ready, just as you are in our relationship." Magnus stares at me and I didn't avoid his gaze this time.
"I've wanted to propose to you for so long but every time I look at you, I still see the old you. Even for a bit I know they leave scars deeper than I've given you kisses. That's what's been holding me back. But for how long, Alexander?"
I'm silent. Quite. No answer. Not for him, not for me. I forget how to speak. I forget what words do. I forget what actions symbolize. I forget who I am.
"I can't keep this up." Magnus turns around and he walks straight into his, our room and I remember getting up from the couch only to end up halfway towards my lover and now I'm sitting on the floor, hugging my legs close to chest.
I wonder if what he said was true. I wonder if I've been that mean to him. I wonder what I'm supposed to say what I'm supposed to do.
Above all, I'm scared at Magnus for once in my life.
Because I came think that if I could change because of him, what if I've changed him? And all for the wrong reason?
Yay. We're down to the last flashback and progressions will follow suit after the next chapter. Let me know what you think, as always my faithful reader! :)