hey. sorry, my family and i got covid and my brain and body are fucked right now. enjoy the chapter.
Clary hadn't thought there could be a more awkward ride on the back of his motorbike than the first time she had ever ridden with him. And then the ride to his parents place had happened, and that had been horrific, and there had been a few turns that he had taken that hadn't been as smooth as they usually were because she was awkwardly holding herself away from his body, and she thought that was the most awkward ride that was going to happen.
But now this was happening, and it was terrible.
She wanted to cry.
She wanted to sob.
She wanted to collapse somewhere in the corner of a dark room where she had walls at her sides to comfort her with the fact that there was something solid supporting her, and hidden where no one could see or hear her.
But she had to hold herself together, at least until she got back to her home. So she had forced herself stiffly onto the back of the motorbike that she had loved getting on behind Jace up until a few weeks ago. It had always been dangerous and scary but it had been exhilarating, and Jace had always handled it with such care and precision and certainty. Now, she just felt on edge and uncomfortable and...Horrible. She felt horrible.
When they got back to her place, Clary was pushing her ass up the seat and beginning to lower her feet before it had even stopped. Her legs were shaky, but not from riding the bike, like the first couple of times that she had gotten on, but this time from anger. She pulled off the helmet and thrust it toward Jace, already releasing it before he had gripped it and it fell a little, forcing Jace to stumble forward to grab it. Clary turned around and made for the house, but Jace managed to get off his bike and grab her arm.
"Let me go," Clary managed to bite out, and she was proud that her voice remained steady.
"Clary, I..." Jace's grip on her arm loosened a little, but not enough for her to pull away unless she began tugging at it and making a scene right there on the sidewalk.
"I really don't want to talk right now," Clary told him, still facing her house, away from him. Jace let out a frustrated noise at the back of his throat and Clary felt her anger flare up again, because he really didn't have the right to be pissed off here, and her head jerked up to look at him properly, but then she saw his face. He looked completely torn, and confused, and...And he looked apologetic, his gold eyes a lot dimmer than they usually were, and his lips turned firmly downward.
"I'm so sorry, Clary," Jace whispered, and he sounded like he meant it. Clary swallowed hard, and her fingers clenched into fists, forcing herself not to relent, not to back down, because she deserved time and space to process everything that had just been thrown at her.
"You knew," she uttered. "You knew this whole time." Jace met her eyes and nodded, even though it looked as though it physically pained him. "And everyone else—everyone else knew as well."
"Clary, I never meant for it to get this far," Jace began.
"Everyone else knew," Clary managed to get out again, her voice getting louder, almost at normal volume now. "Isabelle and Alec—it's no wonder they didn't like me!" She thought back to all the dirty looks that the siblings had given her, and now she knew why. Her father was the reason that their brother was in jail—at least from their point of view. "But Maia and Magnus..." Clary felt tears spring to her eyes at the mention of the two. "I actually thought that they liked me."
It sounded silly and naive, but it was true.
"I just knew that all of this was too good to be true," Clary muttered, blinking rapidly to clear the blur of tears. "You guys are all so fucking scary and rough and intimidating and shit, but you guys love each other so much and it just felt like—like I could be a part of that. And I should have known shit like that just doesn't happen!" Jace's fingers finally loosened enough for her to whip her arm away from him. But she didn't storm up to the house, her chest heaving as she dragged in breaths that she didn't realize that she needed. "And then with Maia and Magnus—that...It just felt real!" And that was what really stung.
She thought they liked her.
She thought Jace liked her.
"They do!" Jace insisted. "I do!" Jace added as though he could read her thoughts. "That's why I wanted you to hear all of this! That's why I wanted to be honest about it!" Clary pursed her lips together and she couldn't help but notice how out of character Jace seemed right now, standing in front of her and looking at her pleadingly.
But she was angry and she was overloaded with information and she...She felt betrayed.
"Clary?" Came a call from behind Clary and she blinked as she looked over her shoulder. Jocelyn was standing in the driveway, wearing a white linen dress with her bright red—clearly recently dyed to hide the greys that were beginning to come through—hair streaming over her shoulders, a glass of wine was clasped in her hand.
As usual.
"What's going on here?" Jocelyn frowned as she looked down to where Clary was standing on the sidewalk at the bottom of their driveway, next to Jace in his faded jeans and leather jacket with it's blatant gang sign on the back and motorbike.
"I have to go," Clary told Jace, making the wise decision to end things right then and there. With her mother standing there, staring down at them with a completely confused expression on her face—verging on actual maternal concern—and with the way she was feeling, she just needed to get away from Jace.
"Wait, Clary..." Jace began, but he was smart enough to keep his voice down, because he was just going to look like an idiot, yelling after her while she pushed open the side gate and walked up her driveway, or worse, he might look like trouble, which would have the neighbours calling the police. Clary didn't hear whatever he said under his breath and even if his voice had been louder, she probably wouldn't have been able to hear over the heavy rushing noise in her ears.
She needed time.
She needed to get away—from everyone.
She needed to process everything that she had found out.
She needed to punch something, actually, she realized as she stalked past her mother and into the house.
Preferably something that she could break, something that would shatter under her hands, that would be satisfactory.
"Clarissa?" Jocelyn followed Clary back into the house, right at her back, and Essex came out of the house, trotting cautiously closer to Clary, obviously feeling the tension crackling in the air. Clary reached the stairs, without bothering to kick off her shoes, and was about to head up when Jocelyn's hand came out and grabbed her shoulder. "Clary!"
"What?!" Clary snapped, and she hated that it came out almost tearful, as opposed to angry. Jocelyn didn't say anything for a few long moments, although her hand still held onto Clary's shoulder, and so eventually Clary looked up.
"Clary...Who was that? What's going on? Are you okay?" Jocelyn asked, her perfectly arched eyebrows drawn together. She had gotten rid of her wine glass on the long shelf that stretched out under a couple of large silver photo frames that held photos of Clary and Jonathan, one of them a full family shot, all of them professionally taken with perfectly tailored clothes and big, fake smiles showing off their bright, white teeth. Clary skimmed her eyes over the pictures, noting in the back of her head how different they were from the ones at Jace's parents' house, and then she looked back at her mother. "Who was that person?" She was still asking questions. "What was he doing? He looked like he belonged to one of those gangs—he is isn't he—"
"Mum!" Clary finally interrupted her. "I can't..." she broke off, licking her lips quickly. "I honestly can't talk right now."
"Clary..." it was strange how motherly she looked right now. Clary didn't think that her mother had ever really looked this worried about her—or Jonathan. Even that time that Jonathan got into a car crash or that time that Clary had gotten so drunk with Kaelie that they had fallen through a thick glass window and head first down some stairs.
With Jonathan, Jocelyn hadn't even been around, she found out two days after he had gotten into hospital because she had been in Italy on some retreat.
With Clary, she had just gotten botox and she wasn't supposed to show expression, so she had just watched as the two girls had been helped to their feet and an ambulance had been called, tsking under her breath.
"You would tell me if you were in trouble, right, Clary?" Jocelyn asked, and there was something urgent in her voice that tugged at Clary's heart. Usually, she would just roll her eyes, or snap at her mother, or just brush it off and ignore it altogether. But after everything that she had heard today, the anxiousness in her voice made her eyes cloud with tears all over again.
"Yeah," Clary lied. "I would." Jocelyn swallowed hard and she stared at Clary for another moment before she let go of Clary's shoulder. Clary immediately turned around and walked up the stairs, her hands shaking at her sides.
When she got up to her room, instead of punching a wall like she wanted to—three hundred dollar manicure be damned—she collapsed on her bed, face down.
Her dad.
Her brother.
Jace.
Her dad.
Her brother.
Jace's dad.
Max.
Jace.
Her dad, her brother, Alec, Isabelle, her dad, Jace, her brother, Magnus, Maia, her dad, Max—
The first tears burned down her cheeks and then dissolved into the pillow underneath her. Then the next tears came, and they began soaking through the pillow faster and faster until the material was thick with dampness and it was pressing back against her face, and even then, she was nowhere near done.
if you have nothing nice to say, please don't say it
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