I had no idea how I'd gotten back into the house without disturbing everybody the night before. Or how I'd had the presence of mind to be quiet when I was bubbling with excitement and buzzed on wine and high on Magnus. Izzy crept into my room at seven am in her nightdress, with her hair still oddly wavy from being brushed out of its updo.

At first I thought something was wrong; my sister never got up that early. Especially not knowing we'd both had a late night. Her grin proved to me that everything was alright.

"How was prom?" I asked her in a whisper so we wouldn't wake anybody else. Izzy started giggling and had to put a hand over her mouth to keep quiet. Then she climbed to sit cross-legged on the end of my bed.

"The best." She whispered. "Simon can't dance but he was funny."

"Hold up, this sounds like boy-talk in the house." I wagged a finger at her to remind her that she was breaking a golden-rule. She pushed my hand down.

"I came in here for boy-talk. Tell me everything."

So I told her. We had to keep stopping every time she made a squeaking sound to make sure nobody had overheard but eventually she knew the whole story. By the end she was completely awestruck.

"That was like a movie. Did you just describe a movie?"

I smiled and shook my head. Unreal at it was it had all happened. Every wonderful part. I don't know why I had been worried I wouldn't have a story to tell.

"So, want to go downstairs and watch the showcase?"

I had to go get my car in the afternoon; that hadn't been part of the plan. There was no drinking at prom but there was quite a bit out with Magnus. In the end I had to say sorry and pretend 'Raphael' had snuck something alcoholic into the hall. It explained why I'd taken painkillers for a headache too.

Jace met me out to tell me all the gory details about the night he'd had with Clary. Extended more-than-Alec-ever-wanted-to-know-about-female-an atomy edition. He told me added extras about Simon and Izzy and their geek-love moments and what dumb things all our classmates did. Helen Blackthorn won Queen but ditched the King to slow dance with my cousin Aline. So not seeing that kind of sucked.

"Yeah, it was great. How was your night?"

Something about the way he asked it put me off. Jace sounded like he expected me to say something awful. I remembered the off way he'd acted towards Magnus and realised that I didn't really want to talk to Jace about him anymore. At least not until my friend dropped his attitude.

Instead he got worse.

"...Did he hurt you?" Jace said after a pause. I almost stopped the car in surprise.

"What? No!" I told him. "Why would Magnus hurt me?"

Now it was Jace who said nothing. I waited for it but he only shrugged and looked at the dashboard.

That did it.

"Okay, what is your problem with Magnus all of a sudden?" I demanded. I was getting really fed up with Jace's shit. Magnus hadn't done anything wrong. When they'd met he'd been the same fun, charming Magnus he always was and yet Jace had him pegged as some kind of horrible person.

"I guess meeting him just made it more real. I mean he's like... a cougar. Whatever the male version of that is." Jace explained. Or tried to. Because he was apparently trying to explain his reasons even though his reasons were dumb.

"He's not using me for sex, Jace," I informed him quite sternly. "We haven't even-"

"Does he want to?" Jace interrupted.

I pulled up into a random parking lot so I could look at him and not the road. The last thing I wanted to do was glance over at Jace in the heat of the moment and ram into the back of somebody.

"I want to." I stressed.

Jace rolled his eyes. Years ago I thought his eyes were the most beautiful things in the world. Now they were really ticking me off. "Of course you do." He scoffed. "That's what grooming does."

"Grooming?!" I yelled. He was going too far now. Accusing Magnus of things for no reason. I wasn't a child. "By the angel Jace I'm legal. He's not a paedophile!"

The car went deafly silent. Neither of us said a thing. Jace looked grim while I had my nails digging tiny crevices into the steering wheel. Oh well, not like I could really damage the car any more. The thing was just-about functioning as it was.

"Look," Jace continued carefully. "You asked me what my problem was. I think he's a creep."

"You know what? Fuck you." I snapped. "Magnus loves me."

"Yeah, well, you're going to think that. He's the first guy who ever said so."

The silence was back but not on purpose. My retort died on my lips. 'Whose fault is that?' I couldn't help it if I'd only fallen for straight guys before. All the guys I knew were straight. But I couldn't very well blame Jace for it either.

The fact that he would throw it back in my face, though. Like I would let Magnus do anything he wanted because I was desperate.

Alright, Magnus got his way. A lot. It was just the kind of person he was. He got his way because he knew what he was doing; because sometimes he had work and stuff and had to; because I loved him and I wanted him to have his way. I could say no at any time if I wanted to. I just didn't need to.

Jace should have got that. It wasn't all take. I got Magnus to turn his phone off, didn't I? And he skipped a huge event in his life for me.

"Alec..." I flinched when Jace tried to place a hand on my shoulder. Now he wanted to act like a friend? Well I wasn't going to be the hopeless friend to perfect Jace Wayland. Listening to him whine about the one girl in school who didn't want him because she was apparently 'the one'.

Talk about grooming? He spent months trying to make Clary warm up to him.

"Get out." I ordered.

"Alec, I didn't mean-"

"Leave!" I screamed. I almost shuddered at how much like my Mother I'd sounded.

Jace did get out of the car. He shook his head like I was unbelievable. He was the unbelievable one if he thought I was going to taxi him around. He thought I was an idiot. He thought my partner was using me.

I watched Jace go before I pulled my phone out of my pocket. There was only one person in the world who I wanted to speak to.

So grateful to everybody for following this. Thank you! It turns out I wasn't as done with writing this as I thought I was a few days ago, the ending I had planned keeps extending. It just didn't feel 'finished', so I'm still typing away.

The next chapter will be "Other".