Present Day
The friendship I'd formed with Jace wasn't a long one. After all, it had only been two years since I'd first met him. I was sixteen; Jace was seventeen. But our friendship was strong.
We'd lasted through Jace's scattered breakdowns over his parents' death. Through changes in both of our lives, and those of the people around us. Heck, our bond had lasted through my annual "church trips," and the chaotic, emotional stress (on my part) leading up to and following them. Even the struggles of freshmen, sophomore, and the beginning of junior year hadn't been able to tear us apart.
Only one thing had been able to even minimally distance Jace from me. When Jace was sixteen, Auro, a popular modeling company, had contacted him. He grew into a teenage-fan-girl sensation in minutes. And I was stuck in high school. Of course, Jace never abandoned me, at least not on purpose.
We saw each other on the weekends, after school, on break. But ever since he left, I seemed to have become some kind of toxic specimen that nobody would touch. Nobody, except Simon.
A lot of times the bullying got to me. It could be harsh and cruel and mean and so not what I needed, but I didn't let anyone see that. They didn't know who my best friend was. And I was content with that.
Just thinking of Jace seemed to conjure him up, at times. This theory was proved when three knocks echoed throughout my whole house. I scrambled down the stairs toward the door and threw it open.
"It's time, Fray," Jace said as soon as the door was opened. One look at his mischievous smile, Izzy behind him, and something that looked a whole lot like a makeup case sent me running. "Grab her!" Jace shouted.
I took the stairs three at a time. Suddenly there was a hand on my ankle, pulling me backwards. Jace expertly maneuvered his body and mine so I was laying on my back, the stairs pressing into my skin, and Jace and my arms pinned at my sides. "It's just a party, it's not the Underworld," Jace sneered.
"Funny," I quipped. "Now let me go."
"I need to hear a promise," Jace sang. My heart was beating fast and I felt a flush creeping into my cheeks. I fiercely accredited that to the fact that I'd just charged up half a flight of stairs at top-notch speed and not to the fact that my nose was inches from Jace's.
"Not gonna happen, Heron-devil," I growled playfully.
Jace's head tipped to the side, sending a shiver down my spine. Stop, I told myself. I'm not doing this today. "Heron-devil? That's a new one," he snickered.
Out of nowhere, I twisted my wrists so that I could free them and knocked Jace – hard enough to surprise him but not enough to hurt him – on the head. It had the desired effect. Jace tipped slightly backward and I slithered out from under him. Waves of triumph coursed through me.
And then I realized what I'd done. I stared at my own hands as if they weren't even mine. Where had I learned that? I didn't watch action movies. I was out of shape. Severely so, last time I checked. So how was it possible that I could do something so…so…?
"Clary," Jace said, slowly standing, and I brushed the thought away as I remembered the current situation. "Where'd that come from?"
I spun on my heel and ran again. I heard Jace immediately spring up for the chase, but I was able to hurl myself into my room, throw myself against the door, and lock it behind me.
"Claarryy," Came Jace's arrogant whine from the other side of the door. "You never let me do this!"
"What?" I screeched. "Literally every time you ask me, I either do it because I'm great or because you physically drag me to Izzy and then restrain me! You lie!"
"You told me you wooouuld," he sang again. "And you ooowwwe meee…"
"I told you," I retorted. "when we made that promise that it entailed anything BUT this!"
I heard Jace chuckle a sinister, evil chuckle. And that's when I knew my argument had been crushed. "I bet you're scared," he stated promptly, and then stalked off to cause whatever trouble he was bound to cause next.
At first, I was confused. That was all?
Then it hit me. Jace had just – in exact words, more or less – given me a dare. He'd said I was too scared? Heck. No.
I threw open the door to find Jace leaning against the wall and smirking. His eyes were lazily closed. "Next time, I'll let Izzy put the makeup on you," I growled. A muscle jumped in Jace's jaw and if I didn't know him, I wouldn't have noticed it. I would have believed he was entirely unbothered by my threat.
I spun around and plopped down on the lowered toilet seat cover and waited for Izzy to paint my face.
0.o.O.o.0
At least an hour later, Izzy helped me stand on dangerously stringy sandals to see my reflection. The dress was white and covered in slightly random patterns of lace, a skater dress with capped sleeves and a windy skirt that just touched the tips of my knees.
Izzy had pulled my hair into a messy, loose braid that curled around my shoulder and was tied with a longer strand of my own flaming hair. My eyes were dusted a nude color with silver accents and my lips were colored a barely-there pink.
"I have to say," I noted. "If I was anywhere near okay with wearing makeup, I guess it would look like that." It was as close to a compliment as Izzy would ever get.
But she seemed okay with it, since Izzy imitated a fan girl at a boy-band concert and squealed at the top of her lungs. Then Izzy spent a few minutes teaching me how to walk on the barely two-inch heels, then whisked away to sparkle up her own appearance.
After a few minutes of searching, I found Jace lounging on the couch staring at the T.V. He looked up when I wobbled over and chuckled grimly. I gave him a deadly glare and kept on wobbling. I felt Jace run his gaze over me, and then he made a face.
I consulted him about it when I finally made it to the couch. "What do you want, Heron-devil?" It seemed I was still I bit grumpy about the situation he'd forced me into.
"You like that one, don't you? 'Heron-devil.' I guess it does have a nice ring to it," he laughed. He was silent for a few moments, then, "You look like an angel."
I scrunched up my face. "W-what?" I choked out. An angel? Pfft. Since when? I hated that my voice shook when I asked him this. It wasn't so much that I was embarrassed, more trying desperately not to implode in a fit of laughter.
"Except…" Jace mumbled under his breath. His eyes roamed as his hand did the same, reaching around the back of my head.
He tucked his fingers between the loops in my hair and continued to undo the knots in the braid until my hair was pooling around my shoulders.
"It seems I'm not the only one trying new things today," I remarked snidely.
Jace grew quietly thoughtful. "It's nothing new, Fray."
I was about to demand an explanation for this weirdo, out-of-the-blue compliment thingy when Izzy interrupted.
"What have you done?" she shrieked at such a harsh octave that I was tempted to cover my ears. "Ugh! I worked so hard!" she whined.
"It was - ," Jace started, but I cut him off.
"I don't like it. It makes me nervous. Like I'm being…tied down. It's not enough for me to have my face covered in a pound of crayon?" I snapped. Yes, I would have been fine, but it did make me feel restrained when my hair was tied back. As far as I knew, I could have spent enough of my life tied up.
Izzy groaned. "That's not good enough. But come on, there's no time to put it back up."
Panic settled in. It wasn't the kind of panic that started to boil inside me when I checked the calendar and knew the days were only ticking away. It was the kind of panic that - for me, at least – meant social interaction. Totally not my forte.
"W-wait! Izzy! You sure you don't want to fix my hair? I mean – Pfft – looks like crap, right?" Izzy saw right through my desperate attempt and rolled her eyes as she spun on her heel to start walking.
Jace also saw through my cover, but he decided to be a bit more generous. "Oh, don't stress, Fray. I'd say you look…mildly attractive?" His word choice sent shock waves of humiliation through me as I realized that's exactly what I'd said about him only two years before. But if Jace had known, he would have made a bigger deal of it…right? I had to tell myself it was only irony. Of course, if I didn't, it would have made this party 47 times harder to endure. "When you compare yourself to me, I mean. But if we lower the standard to, say, Rat Face? You definitely skyrocket."
Being in the irritable mood I was already in, I scoffed in a non-playful way and wasn't able to keep the sarcastic edge from my gait as I pushed past him out the front door.
"Oh, come on Clary. I'm sorry. I was just playing with you," Jace promised after shutting the door and catching up with me. It wasn't that hard, seeing as I was wobbling precariously on Isabelle's heels.
Because of this, I was forced to hold up one finger as if to say 'hold on' so I could make it safely to the car before I turned to face him.
"I know. You're fine. Parties make me moody. In addition, I haven't eaten all day, so there's that," I explained away my salty attitude with ease.
Jace took a physical step away from me. "No food all day?" he asked warily. I chuckled lightly before sliding into the backseat and waiting for Jace to slide in next to me. I didn't. I gazed at him expectantly. "Uh-uh. No way am I sacrificing myself into a confined space with you on our way to something that makes you tense in pointy heels you have gotten a lot better at controlling. I wouldn't do that even if you'd eaten four feasts already today."
I rolled my eyes but couldn't halt a laugh from escaping. He was right about the heels, though. It had taken me two years, but I'd figured out how to be safely mobile on them. Just now, I'd made quite an impressive storm-out from the living room, down stairs, in these monstrous constructions.
"Chill out. There are two other people in the car. I'm going to need a witness if I have to stab Isabelle for talking too much about how she's going to 'find me a nice young boy to dance with,' aren't I?" Jace didn't seem settled by my joking explanation, but he got in anyway, making a point to glue himself to the car door farthest from me.