Hey, beautiful people!
I'm back! You guys have all been beautiful and I appreciate all of your kind words. I'm feeling a lot better, although, as anyone suffering from anxiety, depression and any other lovely mental health issues, I'm taking one day at a time. Still feeling a little...Iffy, but hey. That's life.
We're coming up to the end of the year and I always take a couple of months off over Christmas/New Years. So what I'm going to do is update all my stories at the beginning of each month until I go on a break over December/January and then I'll go back to a regular schedule with two monthly updates.
Also, a few of you guys tried to help out and suggested maybe if I didn't write so many stories, I wouldn't get overwhelmed. I absolutely love that you guys are trying to help, but the amount of stories isn't the problem. My problems are outside of this little fandom world I try to bury myself in, and the thing that was making it difficult for me to enjoy posting and updating and interacting with you guys was because of a few nasty reviews that just really hit when I was feeling pretty damn shit. So, thank you! But it's okay, I manage sharing out my time on each story well, since I get inspired for different stories all the time and bounce all over the place!
Anyway, on with the story...
"I need exams like yours," Raphael let out a heavy sigh and rolled over, spreading his arms out above his head and closing his eyes. "You get to throw some paint around, make the colours look all pretty together, and then you're done!"
"Hey!" Lydia protested.
"Asshole," Clary growled, picking up one of the cushions off the couch and throwing it toward Raphael. Raphael didn't even try to duck, letting the cushion smack him right in the face and then letting out another pained groan and hitting his head on the. It was a late Thursday afternoon, and none of them had classes, mainly because most of the classes were optional at this point, because there were study groups and sessions set up to give the students time to revise for exams that were coming up.
"I'm sorry, I know that there's more to it than that, but my head hurts too much to apologize right now," Raphael replied, his voice muffled underneath the cushion.
"You literally just apologized," Clary muttered under breath with a roll of her eyes. Lydia looked down at their friend, the two girls looking a whole lot less stressed out that Raphael and Simon did, Simon sitting at the kitchen table with his head resting against his open books while Raphael was sprawled out on the ground.
"I feel like you guys have studied enough," Lydia announced, shifting around on the couch and resting her feet on the ground.
"No!" Simon cried out, his words muted against the pages of his books. "I still need to get through three more pages of this shit!"
"Oh, come on," Lydia continued as she opened up the bottom drawer from underneath the coffee table and pulled open the wooden box that they kept in there. "It's time to take a break!" Simon looked as though he wanted to make another effort to dissuade Lydia's suggestion, but Raphael already looked more awake than he had before and he rolled onto his front, crawling over to the blonde. Clary laughed at the eager expression on his face as she pulled out a little baggie of weed, and raised an eyebrow at Simon.
"You really going to sit over there, looking sorry for yourself?" She teased him.
"You're all terrible influences," he grunted as he got up from his seat at their rickety kitchen table and walked over to join them in the lounge. "At least I've already landed that internship, so that's one thing not to be freaking out about."
"You're always going to freak out about something," Clary replied knowingly. "Just remember, these aren't the final exams, if you don't get close to perfect or whatever you're hoping to achieve, it's not the end of the world." Simon made a face at her like he didn't quite believe her, but he pulled a lighter out of his back pocket and handed it over to Lydia when she started looking around for one.
"So you actually got that internship then?" Raphael asked as Lydia began to pack the weed into her little pink grinder, all cute and embellished, a present Clary had gotten the girl of Etsy a few months ago.
"Yup," Simon nodded. "The guy seemed pretty cool actually, he said that his daughter is our age, she's taking a year off University at the moment and doing some work before going back to finish her degree. Maybe that's why he was pretty relaxed about the hours and shit, it's just a couple of hours in the afternoon after classes and Saturday mornings."
"Saturday mornings?" Clary whined. "You poor thing."
"Hey, you sometimes work Saturdays at the library," Simon pointed out.
"But generally not," Clary smirked. "Because that woman loves me." Lydia Branwell's aunt, Charlotte Branwell, was the head librarian for the University's library. That meant that she was more than willing to give her niece and her niece's best friend a job, and was pretty flexible about the hours they kept. Clary knew that she was lucky, with the savings she and Simon had managed to put away on their gap year, the student allowance they got and then the small amount from the library job, they managed to get by quite comfortably, especially compared to some students.
"Okay, so now that we're all taking a break from studying," Lydia stated as she put down the grinder and picked up the bong, taking it into the kitchen to put water and ice into it. "Can we all talk about something that I feel as though we've avoided for too long?"
"Raph's blue balls?" Simon grinned as he flashed a look between Raphael and Lydia. Raphael responded by pulling the fingers at him.
"No," Lydia rolled her eyes as she came back into the lounge and put the bong down on the coffee table. "Jace."
"I really don't feel as though you've been refraining from talking about him," Clary commented with a roll of her eyes. "If that's what you've been trying to do for the past couple of months, you're doing a real shit job at it." Lydia poked her tongue out as she packed the bong and then used Simon's lighter. The room was quiet as Lydia put her finger over the carb and lit the bowl with her free hand, inhaling deeply, her long blonde hair falling around her face. When she pulled back, she held the smoke in her lungs for a few moments before slowly exhaling the thick, white smoke between pursed lips. She pushed the bong closer to Raphael and tossed him the lighter before looking back at Clary.
"Come on," she shook her head. "I honestly don't understand what the fuck is going on with you guys, and then you said you didn't know what was going on between you two, so I think that if we all put our heads together, we can figure it out." She grinned as though she had just solved the whole worlds problems.
"Really?" Clary looked less than impressed as Raphael pushed the bong across the table to Simon. "That's your solution here?"
"We're all intelligent adults! I'm sure we can work this out," Lydia reached down to where Raphael's laptop was lying on the ground and put it onto the couch beside her. "This is the twenty-first century, everything's online. I think it's time to get Nancy Drew on this man."
"Or, you know, we could just move on from this. Change the course of the conversation, discuss someone elses life...Maybe not humiliate Clary..." the red head muttered, even though she knew it was useless. Lydia was already stabbing her fingers over the keyboard, and Simon was lighting up the bong, water bubbling as he inhaled deeply. Raphael raised his eyebrows at Clary and she let out a huff as she held out both of her hands for the bong and the lighter.
"You know that she's gonna follow this through," Raphael stated as Clary took a hit from the bong.
"I don't know what's got you all interested in him," she said through a strained voice as she held the smoke in her lungs before letting it out through pursed lips. "This is my business, not yours."
"What's your business is our business," Lydia sung out.
"It really doesn't work that way," Clary muttered.
"He feeds you, he lets you stay at his house, he doesn't get you to pay for weed, he gives you rides to work...And he doesn't expect anything from you?" Lydia raised an eyebrow. "Come on. There's something weird going on here, right? Like—is he gay? That's gotta be it, right?" She moved the laptop onto the couch beside her when it was her turn to the take the bong. "I mean, I tried to get with him the first couple of times we saw him at the club, and he had no time for me."
"Right. Because if a guy isn't interested in you, it's automatic to assume he's not interested in the whole female population," Simon rolled his eyes.
"But then..." Lydia looked conflicted, while Clary just looked grumpy, folding her arms over her chest. "No! He's not gay! I mean, he checks out your ass constantly. And, like—he smiles at you! Sometimes, not all the time, but sometimes. And I've never seen him smile at anyone else."
"Lydia..." Clary sighed. Lydia wasn't listening though, she was already picking the laptop back up and typing. "Look, don't you think that I've already searched him on Facebook and all that shit?"
"So he has a Facebook?" Lydia's eyes widened excitedly.
"Well, yeah, but it's totally private," Clary answered as she leaned against the side of the couch. "It's just his profile picture and a couple of tagged photos."
"Why haven't you added him?" Simon prompted.
"Because he hasn't added me!" Clary shot back, even though she knew how immature it sounded. Lydia obviously thought so, rolling her eyes, and then tipping her head to the side as she looked hard at the screen. Clary craned her neck to look at the computer screen and saw that Lydia had found Jace' profile, with zero mutual friends. The picture wasn't a great one, but it was still obvious he was attractive, and the tagged photos were of him with a couple of other people.
"All ya gotta do is add him!" Lydia wiggled her eyebrows. "Come on, he'll definitely accept. You guys are together all the time!"
"No, we're not," Clary managed to successfully wrangle the laptop away from Lydia. "Look, can we just drop this whole thing? I like whatever it is that's happening with Jace, and I don't want you guys trying to make it into something it's not!" There was clear finality in her voice, and Simon pursed his lips together as he read how upset she was on her face. Silence stretched through the room, Raphael now holding the bong in his hands and his lips twisted awkwardly.
"The situation here is way too tense for four hot adults who have weed on hand," he stated as he glanced around. Simon knew he was trying to defuse the situation, but he had a feeling that it wasn't going to work, at least with Clary. They didn't talk about Jace often, and that was mainly because of this exact reason. Sometimes they would joke about him and tease her, but at the end of the day, there was no clear cut line of who Jace was in Clary's life and she didn't like to talk about the uncertainty there.
"I'm going for a walk," Clary mumbled as she got to her feet.
"Wait, no, Clary—" Lydia called out, but the redhead was already opening the front door and disappearing outside. Lydia sighed and looked at the two men opposite her. "Shit," she muttered.
Okay! I have so many recommendations, so I apologize in advance for how long this is going to be.
Songs! Back To You by Selena Gomez. Holy shit. Words can't even express how much I love this song. Like...My heart, every time...Shit. Yes. And all the fandom videos to this song on Youtube, I'm just loving all of them, they're just incredible. Then there's Somethin' We Shouldn't Do by Chad Brownlee, Bad Company by Five Finger Death Punch, Higher by The Score, Panic Attacks by Elohim and then I Said Hi, Mess Her Up and Middle of the Night by Amy Shark. I've become completely obsessed with Amy Shark. Haha. Then there's also Sober by Demi Lovato...Which does all sorts of different things to my heart now, than Back To You. After her recent relapse, I get a little teary when listening to it...
So movie/TV series wise...Alex Strangelove - It's quirky and awkward and fucking hilarious and it made me so happy. All of the characters are just so beautiful and well-written and realistic. It's a bit weird, I absolutely cringed a few times and definitely has some areas it could improve on, but if I'm being totally honest...I think it may actually be in like my top twenty movies. It just made me feel so good. My hubby loved it as well. And then there's Jane The Virgin, which we're slowly getting through. My husband is firmly Team Raphael while I'm firmly Team Michael...Now that he's back, I have high hopes. LOL. Also I've recently gotten into Reign, and I'm in love.
Also, is anyone else watching Who Is America? Holy shit. It makes me cringe to the point where I hide my face in a pillow, but it's hilarious and chilling and I recommend to all.
Anyway, let me know if you guys have any recommendations. Leave a review, let me know what you think, because your reviews mean so much to me xx