Jace could hear his mum rambling in his ear, but for the first few minutes, he was too stunned by the call to process what she was saying. Her words were slurred, which was pretty common for her, and it wasn't until he heard her repeating his name, over and over again, that his attention snapped back to the phone.
"Jace? Baby, I need you to come and get me," she was saying. "Baby, he left me! He just left me in the middle of nowhere! I have no money and I don't know what to do!" If she had no money, logic would dictate that she couldn't afford to get as drunk as she sounded right now, but Jace knew his mother. If she wanted to drink, she would find a way, and she always wanted to drink. "Jace? Jace —are you there?" She sounded like she was starting to whine now and Jace took in a deep breath to ground himself.
"I can come and get you, mum," he told her softly, hoping that it would calm her down. "Just give me your address and I'll come to you." There was some fumbling around and then a very familiar clink of a glass bottle falling and Jace bit back his groan of frustration. She was still drinking now, so he had no idea if he was going to get a comprehensive answer from her. "Mum? I need your address."
"I'm getting there!" Celine snapped, sounding angry all of a sudden, which Jace took in his stride, because her mood swings got even worse when she was drinking. After another moment, he heard another crash and an anger murmur from his mother before she came back properly on the phone. Jace bit down on his lower lip as he waited for her to speak. "I'm at a motel...Happy Isles Motel," she told him and Jace pursed his lips to stop his groan. With a name like that, it was probably flea infested and cost fifty bucks a night.
"I don't know how far away that is, mum, but I'll —"
"What do you mean?!" She was snapping again, her mood swinging back to furious. "It can't be more than half an hour out of the city!"
"I'm not in the city, mum," Jace replied, keeping his voice even.
"What do you mean?! I just saw you the other week!" She continued, although she sounded more confused now, rather than angry. Jace couldn't contain his sigh this time and he lifted his hand to his hair, tugging at the strands. It was a bad habit that he had had when he was younger, pulling at his hair to the point where sometimes he would rip it out when he got particularly stressed.
"Mum, I've been gone for months. I haven't lived at the apartment for months. I moved to Los Angeles," he told her slowly. Celine was quiet for so long that he pulled the phone way from his ear and looking at it to make sure the call hadn't ended.
"Why are you in Los Angeles? Who's out there?" She demanded. "Why did you leave our apartment?! That's our home!"
"I thought you were gone, mum," Jace told her evenly. "You were running off with your newest guy and you said that you were getting married." So it sounded ridiculous in his head, the fact that he thought that this situation was ever going to end up any different from the situations that he had found himself in in the past. His mother was never going to settle down with the way she was now.
She changed what or who she wanted every few minutes and nothing was more important to her than a bottle of vodka.
"Well, he left me," there was a wobble in her voice and Jace inwardly sighed, because he knew what was coming next. "He just left me, baby, can you believe that?" There was a whine in her voice and she sounded as though she was on the verge of crying. She probably would break out the water works as well, she was good at that. It was either shouting and screaming and breaking things when she was drunk, or it was crying and blame and guilt, and they both ended with her passing out, usually after throwing up anywhere except the sink or toilet. "You're the only one that doesn't leave me, Jace—I need you to come and get me!" The whine was gone and she was starting to sound angry again.
"I said I'll come and get you, okay?!" He couldn't help that his voice came out a bit harsher than he intended it to. "It'll just take me a while."
"You better get here soon," Celine sounded as though she was moving away from the phone and there was the clink of glass bottles coming together, she was probably fishing for more alcohol. Jace didn't even want to think about what the mini bar tab was going to be, because he didn't doubt for a moment that it would be completely empty of any tiny alcohol bottles. "Because I don't have the money to pay for another night after tonight, and I have to be out by eleven o'clock tomorrow." And with that, she ended the call.
Jace lowered his phone from his ear, fingers clenched so tightly around the device that it actually squeaked under the pressure, his knuckles white. He shut his eyes so tightly that stars of coloured exploded behind the lids and he felt a wave of nausea wash over him.
He had left New York to get away from his mother.
But she was still his mother.
He couldn't just leave her in some old motel.
She didn't have a car so if she was getting anywhere, she would need to take a bus or a cab, and he doubted that she would have fare for that. And the place that she had named, he had no clue where it was, it could be in the middle of the nowhere, just like she said, and it might be somewhere where there weren't regular buses.
He had to go and get her.
Whatever problems had been on his mind this afternoon, they were null and void right now, because he needed to get to his mother.
Jace got on his bike, pulling on his helmet and slapping on the visor before turning on the engine. The motorcycle hummed and vibrated underneath him, and usually Jace would take a moment to appreciate the growl of power from the bike, but he barely even recognized it as he jerked the bike in a tight one-eighty and then started driving back in the direction that he had come from. Jace could feel the tension tight and coiled in his shoulders and down his spine and it felt like he was right back where he had been, a couple of months ago.
A lost kid, who really didn't have anything going for him.
He thought that he would be able to leave that behind and build up something new here, but apparently all it took was one phone call, and then was running right back.
Maybe the logical thing to do would have been to go to one of his cousins places. They knew what Celine could be like—especially Isabelle, after this afternoon—but for some reason, when he thought of who he wanted to talk to, when he thought of home, it was Sebastian and Clary's place that he steered his bike toward.
He was going to need to grab some of his things as well, if he was going to make the trip to get his mother.
Maybe all his things?
He wasn't sure.
He really didn't want to make this a permanent thing, going back toward New York, but he didn't know what kind of shape she was going to be in. And what was he meant to do exactly—bring him back to Los Angeles? To stay with Sebastian and Clary?
When Jace got back to the house, it was getting dark and the sliding door was shut. Clary was in the lounge, in a baggy hoodie and a pair of shorts and Sebastian was in the kitchen. Clary looked up to greet him when he came in, but her face dropped when she saw his face, and she straightened up in her seat. It was only then that Jace realized that his eyes were wet, and he must have let a few tears well while he was riding back here. Pure frustration, he told himself, because he wasn't sad or scared for his mother.
She brought this on herself.
Sebastian came out of the kitchen and he began talking before Jace could say anything.
"Look, Jace, we just wanted to say that we're sorry. Isabelle called and—hey, are you okay?" Sebastian seemed to see what Clary had been looking at and Jace drew in a deep breath as he looked between the two. They were both looking at him with such concern that it made his heart hurt in a different way, but he pushed that away, because he really couldn't think about that right now.
"My mum rang me," Jace stated, cursing himself for the way that his voice wobbled. "My mum rang and she needs me to come and get her. I can hear that she's drunk, and even though it's probably going to take me all night to get to her, she's still going to be drunk by the time I get there. She never has any money but she always finds a way..."
"Jace," Clary began quietly, standing up and chewing down on her lower lip.
"I just wanted to tell you that I'm probably going to be away for a few days—maybe longer," Jace continued, and he dropped his eyes, because staring at Clary's big green eyes was making it harder for him to say what he had to say. "She gave me the name of the motel and I just need to find where it is..." another thought occurred to him and he let out a sigh. "Shit, I'm not going to be able to take my bike. I'm going to need to rent one—"
"Jace," it was Sebastian who cut him off this time. "Jace, you need to take a few breaths," he stepped forward, and he reached out and put his hand on Jace's shoulder. It was a simple touch, and Sebastian only squeezed lightly, but it was comforting. It made him feel a bit more grounded and it helped him take in a few breaths and calm down his racing heart.
"What's the name of the place where she's staying?" Clary asked him, her voice soft, as though she didn't want to spook him.
"She said that it was just out of New York and that she's going to get kicked out of there in the morning," Jace felt his breathing quicken again. "I think I'm gonna have to get a flight there, it took me like three days to get here, I'm never—"
"Jace, what's the name of the place where she's staying?" Clary repeated and she moved over to where her iPad was on the coffee table.
"Happy Isles Motel," Jace answered after thinking for a moment. Clary nodded and tapped it into her iPad.
"Why don't you go and pack a bag?" Sebastian suggested. "I'll get some bottles of water, okay?" Jace wasn't too sure what the water was for, but Sebastian was right, he was going to need to pack a bag, so he nodded a few times and headed down toward his room. He heard Clary and Sebastian talking quietly after he left the room, but he really couldn't think about that right now. He pulled out his canvas bag, the one that he had brought when he had first shown up here with, and he began throwing things inside. He wasn't really processing the things that he was throwing in, but there had to be at least two outfits there, so he zipped it up and then headed back out.
"We found the motel," Clary told Jace as he came back out.
"How far away is it?" Jace asked, coming over to look at the iPad that she turned around and held out for him to look at.
"It's just out of Denver," she said.
"Denver?" Jace let out an exasperated sigh. "She said it was only a few hours out of the city." But it wouldn't be the first time that she had completely lost track of her whereabouts, so that shouldn't surprise him.
"It's a fifteen hour drive from here, less if we let Clary get behind the wheel," Sebastian told Jace gently, a small teasing smile on his face as he nodded over at his girlfriend, obviously trying to lighten the mood. It was then that he saw there were three water bottles, an unopened box of protein bars and a bag of chips. Jace frowned as he looked back up at the two.
"Clary drive?" He repeated back, feeling like he missed something important.
"We're coming with you, Jace," Clary stated, as though it was a given, and definitely not something that she was going to back down from.
"Uh..." Jace blinked at them in confusion.
"We're not letting you deal with this alone," Sebastian said, and he took half a step closer to where Jace was standing, reaching out and touching him lightly on the elbow before letting his hand fall back to his side. "You did that for way too long, you've got us now." Jace didn't know what to say and so he looked between them a couple of times, then swallowed hard and nodded.
Whatever Sebastian meant by that, whatever subtext he was getting at, Jace was going to have to worry about it later.
"I don't know how long it's going to take—I don't know if we'll be back for work—" he hadn't even thought about that. He was going to have to let Jonathan know.
"Jace," Clary put down her iPad and gave him a look. "It's family. Family emergencies happen. Now," she looked over at her boyfriend. "We need to get dressed and pack our own things, and then we will take my car." Jace didn't really know what else to say so he just stayed quiet, standing there and gripping his canvas bag, feeling overwhelmed but not sure how to put how he felt into words.
Clary and Sebastian left the lounge and he could hear as they walked down the hall to the bedroom, where they were dressing and packing.
Dressing and packing to come with him.
Jace blinked as he looked down at the iPad, which was still lit up on a GPS app, mapping out the fastest way from the house they were in now to the motel in Denver where his mother was. It said that it would take fifteen hours and twenty-three minutes to get there, based on current traffic.
They were willing to drive fifteen and a half hours with him to go and get a woman who had done nothing but bring misery to his life for as long as he could remember.
It made his heart heavy and his brain go into overdrive, and he had to remind himself again, that he really couldn't get too lost in his thoughts right now. First they had to get to his mum, and then he could figure out what the hell was going on between him, Clary and Sebastian.
"Alright, you set?" Clary asked as she came back into the lounge, a bag slung over her shoulder, now wearing a pair of jeans, a tank top and an unzipped grey hoodie.
"Y-yeah," Jace jerked his head in a nod as Sebastian joined them in the lounge, dressed differently himself and with a bag of his own.
"Clary's gonna drive the first few hours, then I'll go, then you," Sebastian said as he strode forward to pick up the the drinks and food that he had put on the table. "We'll take turns so that we can all get some rest and sleep." Clary hummed out her agreement as she picked up her keys from where they were on top of one of the speakers.
"Let's go," she said as she passed the two boys on her way out the house, Sebastian following close behind her and Jace brought up the rear.
My biggest recommendation this time is Sense8, which I've undoubtedly recommend before. I will never, ever get over Netflix cancelling it. It was such a beautiful, incredible show, celebrating diversity and culture and love and hope, and I'm rewatching it now, and it just...It heals my soul. So please watch it! Also, as a side note, the sex scenes are the most sensual, intimate thing in the world. Also I've recently watched Quicksand, Bondage and Derry Girls, and I recommend them all. My hubby and I binged Bondage while stoned, and it was the best experience ever. Haha. And then with Quicksand, I do want to say that there is a trigger warning, it'll be obvious in the synopsis, so just...Be warned.
In the music world, I suggest What's Up Danger? by Blackway featuring Black Caviar, Doom Days by Bastille, Can't Love Me by Novi and Tyler Blackburn and No Ceiling by Cody Simpson.
Questions - who was your favourite at the Met Gala? Mine was Ezra Miller! Closely followed by Zazie Beets and Lily Collins.
What was the last song you've listened to? 21st Century Liability by Yungblud is currently playing, so that for me!
Leave a review, let me know what you guys think x