Hey, beauties :)

When Clary got home from school a few days later, dropped off at the gate by Simon, she noticed a silver BMW in the driveway. Her mothers car. The windows were all open as well, which meant that she was definitely home because the cleaners would shut the windows on the lower floor if the house was empty. Clary picked up the pace as walked toward the door, pushing it open and noting a pair of red high heels that were on the ground right inside the doorway. Essex came running over, the husky panting as she butted Clary's thigh and Clary kicked off her own shoes and scratched her fingers over her furry head.

"Is my mum home, Essie?" Clary asked as she scratched behind Essex's ears. "Is your grandma home?"

"You know I hate it when you call me that," Jocelyn came walking from the direction of the kitchen. She had a glass of wine in her hand, which was pretty common for her especially when she was home, and her nose was scrunched up. "I'm not old enough to be a grandma." Clary just rolled her eyes.

"Have you heard from Jonathan?" Clary asked as she straightened up, shrugging her bag off her shoulder and holding it in the hand that wasn't resting on Essex's head.

"Oh, so no 'how was your time away, mum'? 'It's good to see you, mum'?" Jocelyn asked as she came over and held out an arm toward Clary. Clary pursed her lips together before leaning forward to hug her mother. She was closer to her mum than her dad, but they really had never been all that close. She had been around a bit when Clary was younger, but ever since she was thirteen, she had been off on her trips around the globe.

"Hey, mum. Long time no see. Have you heard from Jonathan?" Clary asked as she gave Jocelyn a quick hug—more like a squeeze of the shoulder—before pulling back and looking at her expectantly. Jocelyn sighed long-sufferingly but she didn't say anything else as she turned and walked toward the lounge, Clary and Essex following behind her. The double doors that lead outside to the backyard were wide open as well and the three of them ended up outside at the lounging chairs beside the pool.

"No, I haven't heard from your brother," Jocelyn said as she took a sip of her red wine. "I didn't hear from you either when I was away." Clary didn't say anything, just shrugged a shoulder and looked at the glass of wine in her mothers hand pointedly.

"I'm sure you had enough to entertain yourself with while you were...Wherever you were," Clary replied idly. "Or enough to drown yourself with to forget you had children back home," she added with a mutter before clicking her tongue. Essex jumped up on the lounging chair, sitting at the end where Clary had put her bag down.

"Hows cheerleading? And how's Jordan?" Jocelyn asked, pretending she hadn't heard what Clary had said.

"Cheerleading is boring and I broke up with Jordan," Clary responded and Jocelyn jerked her head to the side.

"You broke up with Jordan?" Jocelyn repeated back to her.

"Yup," Clary nodded her head, leveling her gaze with her mothers, wishing that she had sunglasses that she could slip down onto the bridge of her nose.

"Why?" Jocelyn questioned, her eyebrows pulling together. Clary scrunched up her nose and didn't answer to begin with. She continued to pat Essex and then took her phone out of her bag, flicking through the snapchats that she had gotten from Kaelie. The girl took more photos than a professional model. "Clarissa," Jocelyn's voice was a bit firmer this time.

"We just...Don't get on that well," Clary replied with a roll of her eyes, not bothering to look up. "He's an asshole and I don't want to be with him."

"Well, that's going to make things a little tense when his mother and I catch up for brunch tomorrow," Jocelyn sighed as though this was worst possible thing that could have happened to her. Clary just ignored her as she got back up and started walking inside. She heard Jocelyn call out after her but she ignored her. Essex ran into the house after her, following her up the stairs to her room.

Jocelyn wasn't awake when Clary got up in the morning, had probably drunken herself into a coma last night because she noted a couple of empty wine bottles on the kitchen bench. Essex was already gone, picked up by the dog walker who had a key for the front door, so the house was silent as Clary got a bottle of iced, flavoured water from the fridge and then walked outside. Simon was waiting outside the gate, as per usual, and she felt a sense of relief as she got into the car next to him.

"Jocelyn home?" Simon asked, looking past Clary and up the driveway to where Jocelyn's car was parked.

"Yup," Clary pursed her lips together and didn't say anything further, and Simon sensed not to ask anything first. So he pulled away from the curb and drove down the street. Once they got to school, Simon gave her a kiss on the cheek and left to join Kirk Duplesse and Matt Charlton while Clary walked over to where Kaelie was standing. Kaelie grinned widely, waving her hand as Clary came over.

"Hey, babe," she said, jutting out her hip as Clary reached her side, bumping it against Clary's own hip. They began walking toward the courtyard. Kaelie began talking about a date she had gone on last night, with an older guy, of course, because Kaelie had little interest in guys their own age, and Clary half listened. They got halfway across the court when Jordan and a few of his friends crossed their path. Kaelie smiled at them while Clary just met Jordan's gaze with her lips in a flat line. Jordan stared back at her before looking away, although she didn't miss the annoyed expression on his face. He carried on walking with his basketball buddies and Clary clicked her teeth, turning up her nose and carrying on forward. "So I'm guessing you guys haven't made up?"

"Nope," Clary shook her head. "And we're not going to." Kaelie lengthened her stride to keep up with Clary and linked her arm through hers.

"Don't worry about it," Kaelie told her. "We're going to be out of here soon—just a couple of more months and then we'll be done." Clary shrugged a shoulder and didn't answer as they walked into the one of the buildings, where their form room was. Lydia was already there, leaning against the door frame with a bored look on her face. She straightened up as the girls came over, shooting them a smile which was probably meant to look sincere, but didn't reach her eyes. Lydia had been a little off for a while now, although if Clary was being honest, she had always been closer to Kaelie than Lydia. "We're just talking about Jordan," Kaelie said as they walked into the classroom and walked toward the back of the class, towards the desks that they were always in.

"Oh, yeah?" Lydia looked over her shoulder at Clary, her long blonde hair sliding like a silken wave.

"Nothing interesting," Clary stated as she leaned back in her chair, hooking one ankle behind the other and stretching them out under the desk. She breathed out through her nose and looked down at her nails. It had been a nearly two weeks since she had gotten them back filled and the bed of her nail was beginning to show. Two of the middle fingers were painted a glittery gold while the others were red, and she drummed the two gold nails of her left hand against her thigh as she waited for the teacher to come in.

"So you're not getting back together then?" Lydia asked and Clary rolled her eyes.

"No. Not that I would class that as interesting, but I'm pretty sure we would have lead with that," she retorted and Lydia turned her head to facing forward again, but Clary saw her make a face out of the corner of her eyes.

"Eh," Kaelie shrugged, shuffling around in the seat that she was in between the two girls. "It was like I was saying to Clary, we're going to be out of here soon. He's gonna do a law degree, right?" She didn't wait for Clary to answer. "That sounds boring as shit. I know it's good money, but at least you don't need to be with him through law school, that takes forever. My mum says that it's better to marry someone who already is a lawyer. Then you can just get to enjoy the rewards without going through all the tough shit."

"Your mum would say that. She's been married three times already," Lydia muttered her breath.

"And doing damn well for herself," Kaelie smirked. "Which is what all of us are going to be doing in just a few years time. None of this boring ass shit at school or the boring guys at college who just want to study all the time. We'll be married to our first husbands. Some gorgeous billionaires. We'll pop out a kid to keep them interested in us and make sure we get a good divorce settlement when we run them out of money and then drop the kids off with their nannies and disappear on our yachts and drink champagne with beautiful men oiling us up." Clary blinked at Kaelie, who just smiled widely back at her. The teacher clapped her hands at the front of the class to draw their attention and the room went quiet around them.

Right.

So that was her life.

She knew that.

God, that was all she knew.

Sure, her dad had mentioned her getting a degree, but it was really just something to keep her busy. The things that her mum mentioned were a joke, really. Fashion design, art history, fucking communications—she knew that people actually did things with these degrees, but she definitely wasn't going to be one of these people.

Because she wasn't going to work.

People like her didn't work.

And that was...Kind of disappointing? Kind of boring?

Clary wasn't sure what the word was that she was looking for, and it was strange, because it wasn't really something that she had thought about before.

Hell, her and Kaelie had joked they would find some billionarie twins and have a joined wedding and then they could dump their kids with the same nanny while they gallivanted around Europe. It was their mothers did, and it was what their mothers had done before them. It was what Clary's brother was doing right now, sort of, minus the marriage and children, and just keep the gallivanting around Europe, even though he was actually meant to be taking over the family business one day.

Clary crossed her arms over chest, glaring at the teacher at the front of the class, her lips pursed together as she breathed out heavily through her nose.

So obviously it's been a while, and there's a lot of songs that I haven't recommended! I've just decided to log into that website thing that shows your top tracks, so these are my short term top ten. 1) She - Harry Styles. 2) Radio - Lana Del Rey. 3) Living Proof - Camila Cabello. 4) Hazel - Carlie Hanson. 5) September Song - JP Cooper. 6) We Made It - Louis Tomlinson. 7) All My Friends - AJ Mitchell. 8) The Sound - The 1975. 9) Wrong Direction - Hailee Steinfield. 10) Dazed & Confused - Ruel. Bonus song would be You Should Be Sad by Halsey, which is fucking amazing, so far my second favourite of the released tracks from Manic.

There's been a lot of amazing TV shows that have recently come out; The Witcher/His Dark Materials/Watchmen/The Mandalorian. These are all amazing, incredible acting, the sets and scenery and costume design is just A+. Also Spinning Out was really good, I absolutely loved Mandy and Marcus. I love when there are strong side characters that I can fall in love with, and it had good story lines.

I've also been to a couple of concerts that were great; Greta Van Fleet, Ruel, Shawn Mendes and Khlaid. All bloody brilliant.

Now. I don't want to say much about how shit 2020 has been because we're only 14 days in and holy shit, I feel like there's a lot going on. A fucking lot. For me, what hits closest to home is Australia on fire. On the fifth of January our skies turned an apocalyptic orange because the winds changed and the smoke reached us here in New Zealand. I just want to say to everyone who is dealing with anything right now—it doesn't matter how big or small—I love you and you're not alone x

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