My silence to Jace was going on 10 days, as I had taken the weekend to think things through about what my mom had told me. It was true, I was miserable without him. As I walked into our business class, my intentions were to talk to him and try and fix things between us. I took a deep breath, sitting down next to him. He barely glanced up, clearly tired of trying to talk to me.

"Jace." I hadn't uttered a word to him in 10 days, and it felt strange.

"Yes, Clarissa?" He barely looked up from his phone. I cringed, he only called me by my full name when he was mad at me.

"Can we stop doing this, please? I don't want to fight anymore." I watched as he ran a hand through his blonde curls, looking at me with a hurt expression.

"You didn't talk to me for 10 days. What changed?" I flinched at his harsh tone, but refused to let him stop me from trying to fix things.

"I'm apologizing for the way I've been treating you. I was upset about what you did, and I didn't know what to do." I risked a at glance at him, his golden eyes staring into mine. I held my breath, as I waited for him to consider my apology.

He stared at me, struggling to phrase his next question. "Are you going to ask me to quit the band?" He deadpanned, and I bit my lip at his harsh tone. I had fantasized about this conversation going differently, more towards the idea of him begging for my forgiveness and planning on quitting the band that day. But deep down, I knew better. Music was a huge part of Jace's life, so I would have to hide my feelings about the band and my brother for now. I couldn't lose him over this.

"No." I answered, shifting in my seat. "I'm not going to tell you what to do."

"Do you want me to quit the band?"

"No." I said, gripping the pen in my hand so tight my knuckles were white.

"You're a terrible liar, Clary." His glare had softened to a wary look, and I shrugged, trying to act as if I were truly okay.

"I just want us to be okay." I insisted,

"You're a real pain in my ass, you know." He grumbled, giving me a half smile I so desperately needed to see. And with that response, I knew I was forgiven.

"Alright class, today we're going to divide into your business groups. You need to choose a company that has had a recent downfall or scandal, and do a presentation about it and propose a solution." Our professor went on to discuss the rubric, and I groaned at the thought of a group project. At least Jace would be with me, but we needed another person.

"Hey, Jace." Someone whispered from behind us, and Jace turned around as Kaelie, the blond girl from a few weeks ago leaned towards him. The smell of her vanilla perfume made me want to sneeze. Did she like smelling like dessert? "Want to be in a group together?"

Jace looked at me, and I carefully shaped my face into a neutral smile. I glanced around, everyone around us had mostly divided up into groups. We needed a third person, and it would be awkward to say no but not be able to find someone else. Great.

"Uh, sure. This is Clary, Clary, this is Kaelie. I guess we have our group." Jace smiled, and she practically melted. She eyed me curiously, probably wondering about the nature of our relationship. I didn't want to give her the satisfaction of knowing it was in her favor.

"So nice to meet you. I didn't know you and Jace knew each other, he's never mentioned you." I smiled sweetly, surprising myself with my pettiness. What was wrong with me? She smiled back, exposing her super straight, white perfect teeth. I leaned away.

"I'm sure. We've met up a few times, but you know how that saying goes. Don't kiss and tell?" She shrugged, and I looked up at Jace, but he refused to meet my stare. I didn't have a response to that, my mind was reeling that he hadn't told me about meeting up with her. I guess I hadn't exactly given him a chance, and he sure hadn't been lonely the past week I had been ignoring him.

"Anyway, now that we've all met, we should think of companies to choose from." He said, eager to change the subject. Kaelie eagerly started chatting about a cosmetics line that was exposed for chemical testing on animals, while I tuned her out and thought about how much easier it would be if I weren't hopelessly in love with my best friend.

"Well, this project doesn't look to bad." Jace said, Kaelie had finally left us alone after class. I sighed, sipping my hot chocolate and clutching it in a desperate attempt to warm my hands as we walked to our cars.

"Yeah." I mumbled, hardly hearing him. All I wanted was to curl up in bed with Netflix and Diet Coke and erase the whole morning from my mind.

"Clary." He stopped, and I did too, looking up at him in confusion. "What's the matter? I thought you weren't mad at me anymore." He looked hurt, and I shook my head, offering a weak smile.

"No, I'm fine. I'm not mad at you." I didn't even want to think about him and Jonathan's band right now. "I just- uh, didn't know you and Kaelie had a past."

Jace had the decency to look uncomfortable, looking up at the cloudy sky. "Oh uh, yeah that was nothing. We've just been hanging out lately. She's really nice." He looked at me, his eyes searching mine for a possible explanation for my behavior. I couldn't give him one. "Is this why you're acting weird?"

I blanched. "No, of course not!" I exclaimed, stopping at my car. "Nothing's wrong. I'm fine." I desperately needed to change the subject. "What are you doing now? Do you want to hang out?"

Now he was the one who looked scared. "Shit, I would but...I have band practice." He eyed me warily, probably waiting for me to explode. I felt like it, but kept my cool.

"Oh. Right. Okay, I'll see you tomorrow then." I hurriedly got into my car, sighing with relief when he walked away to his car. Yeah, I was being real cool.

"So you're telling me you're trapped in a group with some girl Jace hooked up with? Man, that's awkward." Simon said, shaking his head as he flicked through channels on my TV in my living room. After coming home from class, I didn't want to be left alone with my thoughts. Simon was always fun to hang out with, but he was also always too perceptive. He knew something was bothering me the moment he saw me, and I had to give him the bare minimum of details.

"It's not awkward-" I cut myself off, cursing myself for not letting it go. "I mean it is, but I don't know. The way she looks at me like I've stolen her favorite lip gloss freaks me out."

"Well, in her mind you have. But it's Jace, not lipgloss." Simon said, and I rolled my eyes.

"Simon, that doesn't make any sense. Jace is a person, I didn't steal him from her." I refused to add to the fact that technically, I knew him first. Simon would have a field day with that.

"You're his best friend. I've seen the way you two look at each other." I opened my mouth to interrupt, automatically assuming he was going to go down that road that we're in love with each other. "Let me finish. I'm not saying you're in love with each other, but you do love each other. As people. She knows that, and can sense that you mean a lot more to him than she does. Even if she hooked up with him, that doesn't even begin to compare to all the memories you guys have with each other."

I nodded, talking to Simon actually made me feel better. "You should switch to psychology instead of accounting." I grinned, and he rolled his eyes, throwing a pillow at me.

"Yeah, I can give everyone great advice on telling their friend they're in love with them."

I froze, before realizing he meant him and Izzy. "You'll tell her one day."

"Yeah, the day you and Jace get together." He laughed, and I turned away, stung. I had it coming, but sometimes I felt like I was too good at convincing people we weren't meant to be together.

For the next week, I barely saw Jace. When he wasn't in school, he was practicing with the band, or 'doing homework', which I equated to hanging out with Kaelie. We only saw each other in business class, which was spent working on our group project. That usually entailed them laughing at jokes or experiences I wasn't apart of, while I quietly did my part for the project. Things hadn't been the same since our fight. Him and Kaelie had started to rekindle whatever relationship they had while I had been busy being mad at him.

I was in Starbucks after my last final when I heard Jace's unmistakable laugh. My head jerked up from my table in the back, and I saw him laughing with Kaelie, their heads bent over something on his phone. I watched for a moment, loneliness creeping over me. He had told me he had band practice, or homework, I couldn't remember his excuse. I prayed they would get their coffee to go, and not see me, but Jace seemed to sense I was looking and glanced over at me.

Shit. I didn't have a chance to look away, so I smiled awkwardly and turned back to my laptop, trying to look busy. It was a few minutes before he approached, sans Kaelie.

"Hey." He said softly, his golden eyes scrutinizing me, trying to figure out my mood. I put on my best fake smile, hoping he would buy it.

"Hey. Where's Kaelie?" I half expected her to pop out behind him, chattering about lattes. He sat in the chair next to me, putting his coffee down on my art history notes.

"She left. We ran into each other getting coffee. What are you doing here? You don't even like coffee." He laughed, and I shrugged.

"I can do whatever I want." I said, miffed. We had barely seen each other in a week and he was concerned about why I was sitting in Starbucks?

He grinned, sending my heart racing in my chest. "I know. I haven't seen you in awhile, things have been crazy with finals and the band. Can you take a break from studying?"

"I'm done actually, I took my last final today." I answered, packing up my stuff on the table. Jace handed me his cup, and I saw he had ordered me my favorite hot chocolate.

"Lucky, my last one is on Monday."

"So what do you want to do?" I asked, as we stepped out in the cold. We hadn't spent much time alone together, a week or so was a long time for us to spend without each other. "Don't you have band practice?"

"I was actually going to see if you wanted to come along. We've barely seen each other outside of working on the group project with Kaelie." I froze, panic ensuing throughout my body. Band practice? With Jonathan? We had barely made up from our fight over it.

"Jace." I looked at the ground, sure that if I looked into his eyes I would lose my control over the sadness and anger mixing through me at the thought of how much time he spent with my brother. "You know I can't do that. It would be best if I just stayed away. I get that you're in the band, I've accepted it. But I don't want anything to do with Jonathan."

He nodded, accepting my answer without pushing me. "I figured, I just had to ask. Are you ever even going to come to a gig? I'm sure it'll be a lot more people, so you won't really have to interact with him."

"Next you're going to start telling me what a cool guy Jonathan is and how I should just give it a chance, right? Well it's not happening. Unfortunately, I know him well enough to be smart to keep my distance." I retorted, quickening my pace as I saw my car.

He stopped me, and we stood in the parking lot staring at each other. His eyes were blazing with emotion he was struggling to contain. "I need you there. Music is important to me, this band is. You're the most important person in my life, Clary. You're the only person that I need to be there."

My heart was racing in my chest, his words warming me despite the cold air. "Can I think about it?"

He sighed, running a hand through his hair. "Fine."

My heart ached, I wished I could give him what he needed and be a normal best friend, tagging along to band practices and excited for his gigs. Anger flared through me as I thought about how my brother was slowly but surely ruining everything good in my life. Despite having made up from our fight, I could see this was going to be a recurring issue.

A/N: Thank you for the follows and reviews! I'm so happy you guys like this story, it helps so much to hear feedback and what you all think.