Hi, guys! It's midnight over here, so this is a quick update before I resume working/go to bed. I'm so sorry that I haven't gotten to reply to all of your reviews, but I appreciate them and will reply before the following update for sure, seeing as next week won't be as busy as this one. As always, thanks to my beta, IWriteNaked, for being so amazing and lowkey crying with me about how little this story has left! Also, thanks to DeathCabForMari, spikeyhairgood, LuckyAsLockhart, clarissadele, and clarissa adele herondale for being so bomb and patient and kind and awesome. I love all of you guys. :)

The song choice is definitely more of a "it's the perfect one to play in the background while reading," because it is, but oh well. I adore it, and you should all check it out.

Thanks for reading, and I hope you like this chapter!

But do you feel like a young god?
You know the two of us are just young gods
And we'll be flying through the streets
With the people underneath
And they're running, running, running

But do you feel like a young god?
You know the two of us are just young gods
And we'll be flying through the streets
With the people underneath
And they're running, running, running again
And we'll be running, running, running again
And we'll be running, running, running

He says, "Oh, baby girl, don't get cut cut on my edges
I'm the king of everything and, oh, my tongue is a weapon
There's a light in the cracks that's separating your thighs
And if you wanna go to heaven you should fuck me tonight."

"Young God" by Halsey

"Okay, okay." I clear my throat. "When is the world going to end?"

Siri's mechanical voice answers me a few seconds later. "As long as you keep me charged, we should be just fine."

I drop my phone on the bed and laugh quietly, my head resting on Jace's shoulder—which is shaking, as he, too, is losing his shit. Oh my God.

"Okay." Jace clears his throat repeatedly and tries to keep a straight face. "I'm naked."

"I don't understand what you mean by 'naked'. Or at least I'm going to pretend that I don't."

"Ooooh," I say. "Siri doesn't like the view."

"I'm beautiful, Siri," Jace pipes up. "Fuck you."

"Do you have a penis?" I ask.

"I can't provide the sort of assistance I think you're asking for, Clarissa."

"Well," I tell Siri, "neither can my boyfriend, now that you've insulted his penis."

Jace glares at Siri for a second before speaking again. "What's zero divided by zero?"

The one we've been waiting for.

About an hour ago, Sebastian and Lily called us, laughing their asses off, and asked us to please, please ask Siri what zero divided by zero is. Of course, we said yes, but then we decided to ask a ton of other questions beforehand, because why not.

"Imagine that you have zero cookies and you split them evenly among zero friends. How many cookies does each person get? See? It doesn't make sense. And Cookie Monster is sad that there are no cookies, and you are sad that you have no friends."

"Oh my God," I say, my eyes wide as they meet Jace's. "Why would Siri say that?"

He's trying to keep a straight face. "My heart is broken."

I give in and, of course, lose my shit. I bury my face in Jace's pillow, my shoulders shaking with laughter. I hear him laughing beside me, too, but I can't bring myself to look up. Tears pool my eyes, and my stomach hurts—that's how hard I'm laughing.

"Oh God." I wipe at my eyes. "That was fun."

"I told Sebastian he was evil for suggesting it," he tells me.

I nod. "Good."

We're in Jace's apartment. His mom and her boyfriend are off traveling in Florida, I think, so the two of us get to spend a day here. Alone. Mom knows I'm with him, too, and I glared at her when she started to protest, because she never did that with Sebastian, so yeah. Bam.

We lie down on the bed, both of us facing the ceiling. "This feels weird," I tell him.

He turns to look at me. "What do you mean?"

"Like…" I trail off as I try to verbalize my feelings. He doesn't seem to mind the wait, though I probably look like a dumbass. "Okay. I've spent the last year or so worrying about whether I'd get out of here, you know? In a really tangible sense, I mean. And I've spent all of my life wanting to do that, too, and having that motivate me. And I also spent almost four years worrying about you," I say. "Which isn't meant to, like, make you feel guilty, but it's true. I worried about so many things all the time, and things are so perfect right now, and it's weird. I've always had to fight to get to this place, and I don't know what to do now that I'm here."

He takes my hand and places it on his chest. I feel it rising and falling every time he takes a breath and lets it go. And again. He's quiet for a while, actually; I'm assuming he's trying to figure out what to say.

"That's normal," Jace tells me. "To feel kind of restless and like you need to do something. And like you need to fight. But you get, like, this one summer of rest before you have to fight again—to get good grades and manage school and work and your social life and whatnot. So enjoy it." He nudges me. "You'll miss it when it's gone."

I move over so I can rest my head on his chest. I trace circles on his stomach. Which is very nice, by the way. Very nice. "I know. We haven't even finished school yet, but it feels like we were done a while ago."

He laughs. "True."

"But there's still finals and graduation." I sigh.

"So there it is," he tells me. "That's what you worry about."

"I don't think I care enough to worry."

One of his hands is running up and down my arm, sending shivers through me. It's kind of nice, actually. I want a billion days and nights like this, with us on a bed with low music playing in the background.

We've been together for almost two months now. I mean, we got together during the first week of April, and it's the last week of May, so yeah. And all of this time has flown by so fast, what with college crap to fill out and activities and rushing to spend time with everyone before we're separated by the end of the summer—which, coincidentally, hasn't even started yet. We graduate in two weeks—the second week of June—and I'm so beyond excited to get my diploma and get the hell out.

But I'm mostly excited that I get to be with Jace while having all of my dreams come true. I'm glad that I didn't have to give anything up. I still get to have the school of my dreams and the boy that I love. I mean, yeah, we did things kind of backwards, what with us falling in love and all before being in a relationship, but there are things we still don't know about each other.

And it's great. I love not knowing things about him. I love that he surprises me with new things, but that I can still count on the Jace that I know to be there. He's been the best throughout this summer, even though I've kept him up all night talking about how my two best friends are moving to California and I'm gonna miss them so damn much and oh my God, our little family—which he isn't even a part of, really, because he was never friends with us, but whatever—is falling apart.

But he told me that it wasn't falling apart. That the three of us—four, if Maia's included—have been friends through really tough times. And that sometimes people change, and they leave, but that he strongly believed that our friend group would stay strong through the distance and whatever else threatens to come between us.

And that was the nicest thing ever.

As for us, we tried to take it slow. We really, really did. But, after the first week, we totally gave in.

It was the night that I submitted my deposit to SAIC. He'd submitted his to Loyola two days earlier, and we'd both been waiting for my parents to get it together. It was a Saturday, and I called him, and I screamed, and I asked to go over, and he said yes, so I did, and his parents were out of town.

I showed up to his house knowing that something was going to change. That something was different. There was nothing holding us back anymore. I think we both forgot about our pledge to take it slow, because I looked at him when he opened the door and he'd never looked so attractive and amazing and I had never loved anyone or anything as much as I did him in that moment.

So I kissed him. Naturally. And he closed the door and backed me up against it, carefully and gently and far away from the handle. His lips were soft and wonderful against mine, and I think I kept forgetting to breathe. And then he took me to the bedroom, and he laid me down on the bed, and music was playing, though it was only a whisper.

I was nervous. For some really, really weird reason, I was nervous. Maybe because, even though I felt comfortable around him, this felt like more of a first time than the one I'd had with Sebastian. We took off our clothes in between kisses and awkward giggles. With shaking fingers, I took off my cardigan. And then my dress. And my tights. And Jace took off his shirt. And I helped him take off his pants.

Once we were in our underwear, I climbed onto his lap, wrapped my legs around him, and kissed him. He left a trail of kisses down my neck, stopping to suck on a few spots. I bit back moans until I couldn't anymore, and I gripped his back, probably leaving a few marks, and his lips lingered just above my breasts. He looked up at me, and, after I nodded, he took off my bra. It fell to the floor soundlessly, and then he laid me back down on the bed, and I had never felt so nervous and excited and turned on in my life.

He positioned himself on top of me, his arms on either side of me. One of his knees separated my thighs, and I pulled him down, his soft lips on mine for a fleeting moment before he sucked on my neck.

"Shit," he said. "That's definitely going to leave a mark."

"That bad?" I managed to find my voice.

"Terrible."

I let out a soft chuckle. He grabbed one of my nipples and began sucking on it. I was going to lose it. I mean, I was really going to lose it. It only took one touch for me to come undone. He just had that effect on me. But there was a huge difference between an innocent touch and this. And he looked up at me, an amazingly sexy (yet innocent) look on his face, and I felt like I was going to fall apart in the best kind of way. He sucked on my other nipple, his free hand playing with the border of my panties.

Oh my God. I was going to die.

All I could do was arch my back and moan and try not to pass out. I wanted to do more, but I was paralyzed. Jace looked up at me again to see if I was okay with him taking off my panties—which, holy hell, I totally was—so I nodded. He took them off. And then he took off his boxers. And that's when I noticed that I was trembling.

"Are you okay?" Jace whispered.

I nodded. "Mhmm."

"You sure?"

"I'm sure," I said, my voice still shaking.

(Sidenote: Jace has a super great penis.)

He searched my eyes once more before nodding. He moved over me, and our lips met. He pushed a finger inside me, and I arched my back towards him, definitely wanting more. Oh my God. I thanked every force in the universe that was responsible for this particular moment. After a few seconds, Jace pushed another finger in, and he broke our kiss to see if I was okay. I could see him looking for something in my eyes.

I grabbed the back of his neck with one of my hands and pull him down. I needed him to never stop kissing me. I needed him to kiss me for the rest of my life.

He pushed his fingers in and out of me rhythmically, and I felt like I was going to die. Of pleasure. Forever. This is the way I wanna go, I thought to myself, and it made me smile against our kiss. He broke apart, giving me a funny look before shaking his head and pushing his lips against mine.

He started sucking on my neck and pushed another finger in, the movements getting faster. I was going to die. I arched my back and wrapped my legs around his waist. Hell, I wanted to return the favor. But there'd be time for that.

I think that he was nervous about what I would and wouldn't be comfortable with, because, when he took out his fingers, he reached out to get a small towel that had been lying on his nightstand, and he cleaned his fingers. Oh my God. I wanted to scream at him that I didn't mind if he did anything with that. At all. Whatsoever. But it was kind of cute, how nervous he was.

He looked at me, and I looked at him, and there was a deep sense of understanding between us when we locked eyes. He reached over to take a condom from his nightstand, and I bit my lip and stared at the ceiling until I felt the bed shift, indicating that he was done putting it on. He positioned himself on top of me again, brushed my hair away from my face, and kissed my neck, and then my jaw, and then, finally, my lips.

And then he was inside of me. It'd been awhile since I had sex, so I felt a little bit uncomfortable when he first went in, and I told him to wait a second before he moved again, which he did, and then it felt amazing, because we fit together perfectly. And also because, oh my God, I wanted him. Right then and there. He didn't move for a second; he searched my expression for doubt or regret or something. When he didn't find a single negative thing, though, he started pulling himself out. And then pushing himself back in. At first it was slow, hesitant, but then, as I arched my back towards him and wrapped my legs around him again, he got the hint that I really very much needed him to speed the fuck up.

And, oh my God, did he ever.

It felt like heaven. He felt like heaven. I was panting and moaning and saying "oh my God" about a billion times, because, oh my God, it was amazing. He was amazing. I knew that he slept around, and so, of course, he had more experience than I did, but I didn't know that it shaped him up to be this good.

Still, though. I'm not a very vocal/loud person when it comes to sex. I made sure he knew that I was pretty much dying of enjoyment—moaning, gripping his skin, arching my back more and more, thrusting back whenever I managed to remember that, yes, I could move—but I didn't, like, scream or anything. I wanted to, but I'm naturally pretty quiet, so I just closed my eyes and clung to him.

And it was the best sex I ever had.

Let me know what you think!