Jace's POV.
I couldn't keep Clary out of my mind. I tried going for a swim, doing some push-ups, sit-ups, jumping jacks. I felt like I had all this extra energy I needed to burn. She was really affecting me more than normal. It was already pretty hot out, but I just needed to go for a long run, that always seemed to help clear my thoughts.
Clary moved to our town the summer between her sophomore and junior year. She was in the same grade as Izzy, and a year behind me and Alec. Izzy and Clary both tried out for the cross-country team and had a lot of summer practices. They got close really fast. I use to pick Izzy up from practice and I'd see Clary. I thought she was beautiful from the first time I saw her, and there was definitely something about her, something different from other girls. She was brave, and competitive, it was evident in the way she pushed herself on the track. She wasn't a fool. She wouldn't put up with my shit. She called me out every time I said something witty or one of my cheesy lines. She didn't swoon every time I smiled at her. It was unsettling to say the least.
Then, about a week before school started, Izzy decided she wanted to throw Clary a huge sixteenth birthday party. Mayrse loved to throw parties, and Izzy wanted Clary's birthday to be special. Izzy went overboard though, which she always did and invited just about all the single 'decent' (as Izzy put it), junior and senior boys. The house was crawling with testosterone. Clary was always a bit shy around guys. It was so cute; she would blush just about as soon as a guy would talk to her. She got so overwhelmed at the party and left. Not that I had noticed, but I went outside to try to find Alec, he used to sneak outside and smoke when he got stressed, and that's when I saw her.
Clary was walking around the garden all alone smelling all of the flowers. She had on a pretty sundress that Izzy had put her in and high heal shoes. She looked so beautiful and innocent in the moonlight. I quietly walked over towards her and took a seat on the ground not far from her in the garden. I watched her flow through the landscaping pausing to smell all of the different flowers as she quietly hummed. As she got closer to me I didn't want to scare her so I just said her name softly. She looked down at me with the biggest doe eyes. She looked so frightened.
She relaxed when she realized who I was, and she smiled at me. 'Sometimes you have to stop and smell the roses' she told me. I didn't know what to say I was awestruck. I was the one that was supposed say some line to make her speechless. Without hesitating Clary came over and took my hand off my knee and asked me if I wanted to smell the sweetest flower. This garden was in my backyard and I never came out here except to chill will Alec while he smoked. I never smelled any of the flowers. I didn't say a word I just let her lead me over to a rose bush filled with large open peach roses. 'The peach roses smell so much sweeter than the red ones. I don't know why anybody buys red roses.' Her voice sounded like a soft wind chime.
She leaned down towards a single peach rose and closed her eyes while she took in a deep breath and held it for a moment. Her whole face light up. She looked so peaceful. She let the breath out and opened her eyes and gestured towards the flower with a slight tilt of her head. I found myself leaning down to the exact same flower and copying what I had just watched her do. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath of the flower. I held the scent. I'm not a big flower guy, but it was very sweet, a very nice smelling flower, as flowers go. When I let my breath go and opened my eyes she was staring at me so expectantly. I chuckled 'It was a very nice smelling rose.' She looked at me like she was looking into my soul. I wanted to look away, but those beautiful green eyes held my gaze. I didn't want her to see me like this, so vulnerable, so unguarded. I couldn't help myself. I didn't know what she was doing to me.
'That which we call a rose, by any other name would still smell as sweet.' She was quoting Shakespeare. Who does that? I was at a loss for words. I just stood there staring at her. She laughed softly. It hurt my pride. Girls didn't laugh when they looked into my eyes, they fainted. This was so odd for me. She was still holding my hand in hers. It looked like a child's hand holding an adult's, her hands were so small. I just shook my head gently at her, unable to speak and unable to look away. What was she doing to me?
'Eyes, look your last! Arms, take your last embrace! And, lips, O you the doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss.' Again with the Shakespare. I couldn't think of a quote from Shakespeare to save my life. I wasn't going to win her over with poetry that much I knew. Her voice range in my ears, 'embrace', 'kiss'. She was standing so close to me, looking right at me, still holding onto my hand. I pulled her into me and wrapped my arms around her. I pressed my lips to hers gently. I was shocked when her arms reached up and around my neck. I half expected her to get startled like a gazelle and bolt. I pressed my hands against her back and deepened the kiss, parting her lips with my own. She ran her hands into my hair holding my face close to hers. It felt right. It felt more right then any girl I'd ever kissed, any girl I'd ever slept with. This felt natural, like breathing. As I pulled away from her I kept my arms around her. I couldn't risk staying out in the garden with her like this, but I couldn't let her go just yet. If Izzy found me she'd kill me for sure, but I just wanted to hold her and never let her go.
The only quote I could remember came to me, and it happened to be from Romeo and Juliet. 'Parting is such sweet sorrow.' I felt like an ass as the words tumbled out of my mouth. This was not me. I was not that guy. I did not quote poetry. She beamed back at me. I couldn't help but smile just as widely. 'That I shall say good night till it be morrow.' She said the last half of the quote and she left the embrace of my arms and walked back into the party alone. I sat for the rest of the part wondering what the hell just happened.
The next time I saw Clary was a week later on the first day of school. I wanted to go right up to her and take her in my arms and kiss her. I don't know why I didn't call her, but to be fair I would have had to ask Izzy for her number. I never saw Izzy coming. Before I knew it she was in my way blocking my view from Clary with this 'no way Jace Wayland' look in her eyes. I'd dated and slept with a number of Izzy's friends, but she was different with Clary. Izzy was super protective of Clary. Izzy made it clear right there 'Hands off Jace. Don't even think about it. She's too innocent for you. She wouldn't know how to handle you and you'd ruin her. You'll break her heart." Izzy could be scary sometimes and if looks could kill I'd be dead. I wanted to be with Clary so bad, but I really wasn't the relationship type. I wanted girls, had girls, didn't want them anymore. Izzy watched me go through girl after girl, and she knew I had a lousy track record. I had no idea why, but I listened to Izzy, I didn't want to hurt Clary, so I kept my distance.
I watched Clary grow-up from a young sixteen year old women to a full out hottie; always just a sarcastic remark away. I watched her date some serious losers, several of which Izzy set her up with and the rest of which Maia set her up with. Clary was a one date wonder. Nobody got more than one date with her. Anybody that so much as kissed her was worshiped as a God and most of those claims were questionable at best. Simon was her best friend since first grade, and in love with her over half his life, she never saw it. He kissed her one day at his house out of the blue junior year. He tried to see if she liked him 'like that' but he ended up with a lot of giggles and 'this feels too weird'. The next day they were back to just friends, but Simon went from loser to Mr. Popularity overnight, just by that single kiss. The biggest thing going for him was that Izzy was the one that spread that secret, he wasn't. Clary had told Izzy in homeroom and by lunch Simon was sitting at the popular table. The single action that changed his life. Clary grew more beautiful every day and always exhumed an air of undeniable innocence. To a 15-19 year old guy, she was about as close to perfection as you could think of. Half the school wanted her.
Things were harder when Alec and I went away for college last year. Mayrse and Robert were still having a hard time dealing with Max's death, and Izzy practically moved in with Clary senior year to avoid her parents. Alec and I got a place on campus together and only came home a couple times a year to visit. I never contacted Clary directly. Never called, emailed or text her. I didn't even have her email address or phone number. I was just so use to seeing her at our house for the majority of the summer and at school or over our house on the weekends during the school year. All of a sudden Clary was gone from my life and I panicked. My feelings for her that I had suppressed and pushed aside seemed to be resurfacing, but I didn't even know what I was feeling. Luckily I wasn't the only one going through separation anxiety.
Not that Clary was pining over me, but she and Alec were really tight, and she was having a hard time being away from him. She text and emailed him daily. Sending him pictures of her and Izzy and telling him how much he owed her for how much trouble Izzy was getting into. Though, Izzy really wasn't getting in that much trouble, Clary and Alec would talk for hours over the weekend catching up on every detail of life. Who Izzy was dating? What trouble she was getting into? What trouble she was trying to drag Clary into? Who she was setting Clary up on a date with this weekend? Alec and I shared a large room in one of the campus frat houses, so I would pretend to be studying on my bed, but really eavesdrop on their entire conversation. Sometimes I swear Alec knew what I was doing, but he never said anything to me about it. I went out all the time, yet he always seemed to call Clary when I was home, sometimes right after I walked in the door. I knew she asked about me at times. I'd see Alec's gaze shift to me and a sketchy answer would followed by 'I'll email you'. I didn't want to know every detail. I just needed to know she was alright.
A couple months back Alec decided to go home for a long weekend to see Clary. It's a short flight, but neither one of us really went home that often. We had just been home a few months earlier for Christmas, and I had a paper to write anyway, so I didn't bother tagging along. He came back really bent-out-of-shape. He started talking about taking the rest of the semester off, and looking onto transferring to a school closer to home. I told him he was being crazy. Clary seemed fine at Christmas. Alec is very oversensitive, he probably caught Clary on a weekend she was PMSing and they both suffered through her emotional rollercoaster. He finished the semester and after a couple weeks of craziness, he didn't bring up transferring again.
Thanks for the positive reviews! Please keep them coming, they make me want to write more!
The below quotes were taken from William Shakespeare Romeo and Juliet.
'That which we call a rose, by any other name would still smell as sweet.'
'Eyes, look your last! Arms, take your last embrace! And, lips, O you the doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss.'
'Parting is such sweet sorrow.'
'That I shall say good night till it be morrow.'
