It's August and I'm having to resist the urge to right Christmas fics already. Ugh. Enjoy, and please review!
Chapter Song(s):
Innocent – Taylor Swift
Wild Horses – The Rolling Stones
I raised my hand, tentatively knocking on Jonathan's door. There was no response. "Jonathan?"
There was an audible sigh from inside. The door cracked open, and after I moment I took it as an invitation and stepped in. The room was dark, aside from the moonlight filtering in through the gap in between the curtains. Jonathan was lying on his back on the bed, repeatedly tossing a crumpled up ball of paper up in the air, catching it, and repeating the action. "Hey." I said softly.
"Hey." He returned.
I sat in his desk chair, using my feet against the floor to spin myself from side to side in small movements.
"I'm sorry I've been avoiding you."
He shrugged. "You were dealing with shit."
"Yeah, but so were you."
This time, when the ball fell, he didn't throw it up again, fiddling with it in his hands instead. But he said nothing.
"I saw her today."
He looked over at me. "You did?"
I nodded.
"Did she tell you everything?"
"As far as I know, yeah."
"Did you forgive her?"
I stopped spinning, lifting my leg and hugging it to my chest. "No. I don't...think I can. You?"
He sighed. "No. I thought it made me a terrible person, I mean she's our mother, but..."
"Yeah. I was just so mad at her..."
"Was?" He questioned.
"Yeah. It's just...everyday for the past eight years, not a day went by that I didn't wish that she were still here with us. That she had never gotten in that car...now that I know, I see all the holes in the story throughout the years. And I just feel so stupid."
"We believed them because they were believable, Clary. And we were just children."
"All I wanted for the longest time was to have her back. And now I do, and being mad at her, hating her for what she did, it kind of feels like setting the gift horse on fire."
"Uh, I don't think – "
"I know thats not how it goes, Jonathan. I felt that this situation warranted some enhancement of the phrase. Anyways...I feel like, for years I begged to have her back and now that I do, I'm spending my time mad at her. It feels like I'm giving a big eff you to the universe."
"No, Clary. We have a right to be mad."
"But I still want her back." I whispered.
"Me too."
"She wants to be in our lives. And I think that I want that too. But with everything that's happened, how are we supposed to do that?"
He shrugged. "We move on, I guess. Put the past where it belongs; the past. And no matter what, we always have each other. Right?"
"Right." I whispered, nodding.
I kneeled next to his bed, looping my arms around his neck in the best hug that I could give from that angle. "Love you, big brother."
"You too, little sis." He returned.
The next day, I returned to school, as did Jace. I was bombarded with questions about where I had been, and he was assaulted with questions about his trip.
When Simon and Izzy questioned me again, I responded with: "I can't talk about it right now, guys. But I'm okay, I promise." Well mostly. The rest of the day passed by in relatively normal fashion. Though my world had changed so much in the past few days, the world around me had remained the same. It was an odd feeling, to say the least. While walking to Trig, the banner hanging from the an arch by the cafeteria caught my attention. PROM TICKETS ON SALE NOW! Holy shit. Prom was...three days away. Dress shopping had felt like years ago, when in reality it had only been a few weeks. As I hurried off to trig, I promised myself that I would spend the night having fun, not moping around the house as I had been. I deserved a little fun. We all did.
Isabelle was making Simon match his tie to her dress, as it turned out. I shared a secret smile with him across the lunch table. "You are wearing a tux." Maia said, jabbing a grinning Jordan in the chest with her index finger. "And I don't mean a tux shirt. The whole thing, jacket and all. If I have to dress up for this think, so do you." He lost his smile at that. Mine remained as I watched my friends around the table. Simon, Isabelle, Maia, Jordan, and the newer additions of Isabelle's brother and Jace's friend Alec, and his boyfriend Magnus. (Magnus was also making Alec to wear an appointed tie. Blue, to match his eyes, as Magnus said.) No matter what, I would always have people in my corner. And that meant more to me than they could ever know.
This chapter was really short, sorry. Kind of a filler, sorry.
