It has been a long time, but here I am again and I know the chapters rather sad, but I

wanted to clear some things from Jace past up.

Have Fun!

The party was really boring, at least for Clary and Jace who sat all alone by the fountaine in the backyard.
Nobody had bothered speaking to them, except Jace adoptive father Robert who had said "Hi", when he passed with a glass of champaign.
Even though Jace pretended that he wasn´t bothered at all by the attitude of his parents, Clary could see that it hurt him to be here, so she said: "Do you think someone would mind if we´d sneak of to the lovely cliff you showed me a few weeks ago?"
She saw his eyes lit up: "Since nobody seems to be glad that we´re here, I guess they wouldn´t care about us leaving either. Let me just talk to Izzy real quick."
He got up and walked over to Isabelle, who was talking to her mother.
The girl had shot them uncomfortable looks all afternoon, because she obviously didn´t agree with her mother´s attitude but wasn´t brave enough to say something either.
Jace whispered something into his sister´s ear now and Izzy nodded.
Maryse seemed not very interested into what Jace was saying or the fact that he was leaving.
Clary almost felt as if Jace waited a moment before he left, because he wanted his mother to say that he should stay, but since she did no such thing he just came over to her, looking slightly grim:
"C´mon, we´re leaving this boring ass party."

A little while later they sat on top of the cliff again and Clary was admiring the view even more than she had last time because it wasn´t an awkward first date, but just a date with her boyfriend.
Jace had said almost nothing the whole ride here and he was silent now too.

Clary was tempted to ask him what the problem with his parents was all about, but she just couldn´t do it so instead she asked: "So, are you telling me how you found this place or what?"
He said nothing for a while and looked at the sea and Clary already feared that he hadn´t heard her when he suddenly said: "It´s a very long and pathetic story, are you sure you want to hear it?"
Clary grabbed his hands and looked him in the eyes: "Of course I want to."
He smiled weakly and stroked her hand than he began talking:

"My parents and I never got along very well as you may have guessed.
You have to know that I wasn´t adopted by the Lightwoods when I was a baby but I came to them when I was about ten years old.
My parents died when I was a little kid and after that I was raised by my grandmother.
She was very nice and everything was fine but she was also very old and died soon after my tenth birthday.
I was brought to an orphanage but only a few days later, the Lightwoods turned up and it turned out that they were my godparents.
I never knew I had godparents and apparantely my grandma didn´t want me to know because she feared that I wanted to go live with them.
After I came to the Lightwoods, I felt like it was all a dream.
The house was so huge and they were so rich. My grandma wasn´t poor, but she never had much money so I never had a life like I did now.

You also have to know that back then, the Lightwoods had already three kids: Izzy, Alec and little Max.
The first few years were really cool. Izzy and Alec were like my real siblings from day one, Max admired me and I got along with Maryse and Robert, but then there came this fatal day when I was fifeteen years old.

Maryse and Robert left with Izzy and Alec to visit their grandma but I didn´t want to come and so Max did neither.
The little one was like eight years back then and of course he wanted to abuse the fact that his parents weren´t home, to do what he never was allowed to do when they were there.
One of the things he always wanted to do was swimming in the great pond that was in the backyard.
I knew because he told me once that he wanted to look whether there were mermaids on the ground.
So when we were home alone that they he were in the kitchen and went on and on about wanting ice cream and even though I knew he wasn´t supposed to have it, I went in the basement to get the ice cream.

It took me a little while because the refrigerator was very full, but still I was only gone for about ten minutes.
When I came back in the kitchen Max was gone and I thought he wanted to play hide and seek because it was his favourite game back then.
I was worried that the ice cream would melt, so I called for him several times. When he didn´t turned up I went into the living room to see if he was there and noticed that the door to the back yard was open.
I figured that he must have hid outside so I went out the door and then I saw it: He was laying face down in the pond, not moving.
I ran and pulled him out and tried to reanimate him and I called 911 and I screamed at him to come back.
He didn´t though.
The time after that was like hell.
Nobody ever said so, but Maryse and Robert blamed me for Max´s death ever since even though Izzy and Alec never did.
They were so cold and they never really looked at me again and I believed it too, that I was responsible for my brother´s death.
Then on his deathday a year later I freaked out. I´d just gotten my licencse and I drove around madly.
Somehow I stopped the car back were ours now is parked and came over here.
I never would have done it.
But I thought about taking my live at this day, right here at this cliff, but I didn´t in the end.
I sat here at this exact spot and that was when I realized that it wasn´t my fault at all.
It was an accident and it always had been.
Since then I always came back here and nobody knows."