As predicted, Anna told all. But it wasn't until the next day that anything was done about it.
I was finally having that kick around with Max out in the garden. He told me all about his friends at school and how Mother still wouldn't let him wear contacts at his age. It was a good time, and it was funny how it made me remember how important family was right as Father appeared and called me inside. Mother was beside him, looking squeamish. It didn't take a genius to figure out what was going on.
"We'll play again tomorrow." I promised Max before ruffling his messy hair and handing him the ball back.
When I went inside it was an odd kind of foreboding. I knew that what was happening wasn't good, yeah, but I was already resigned to it. Not quite past caring… But pretty close.
I walked between them, Mother leading us to the dining room and Father behind me as if to make sure I didn't try to run for it. I glanced over my shoulder at him, he wasn't looking at me, he was watching her.
I was the only one to sit down once the door was shut on all of us. The pair of them stood on the other side of the table. It kind of reminded me of this one time Jace and me got called to the Headteacher's office. Except now I'd done more than rig Sebastian Verlac's locker with purple paint (part of a prank-war gone wrong), and there was nobody there to take the blame with me.
"Alexander." Mother began. Her voice was far too level. It was hard to read what she was feeling. It probably didn't help having her ex there. She went into this hyper-controlled mode around him. Altogether too guarded, so it was obvious she was trying hard. "You met up with Annamarie yesterday."
Not a question. No response. I waited to see where they wanted to go with it and Father got impatient.
"Would you like to explain yourself or should we just accept Annamarie's story?" He said.
I almost flinched when he said her name. As if Mother wasn't standing right there. Her jaw seemed to set a little firmer. Angels, could I be any worse? Talk to her before you talk to your own Mother, why don't you, Alec? It's not like she's upset about being replaced or anything.
"My Tutor... Wasn't my Tutor." I said after much deliberation about if I should speak at all.
The two of them stayed unnaturally unreactive. They were so intent on doing nothing that they'd become stone-like. "And Raphael doesn't exist. Actually, no, that's another lie. He's a guy on Dumont High Field. But he's not gay and we don't actually speak-"
"Alexander..." Mother interrupted. It wasn't an angered interruption; it sounded more like she was telling me to calm down. My rambling thing was back.
"And I didn't really go to prom. I went out to dinner with Magnus." I added quickly, to make up for the useless waffling. They both shared a surprised glance at one another. When they looked back at me, I probably looked surprised too. For a moment there, it was like before all the mess.
"Dinner? Then the two of you didn't... Have sex?" Mother looked so relieved that I felt really bad about having to tell her the truth. Honesty, however, was my new number-one rule.
"...We had sex." I admitted.
The floor became very interesting to me very quickly as my face started to heat up. I didn't want to know what kind of images were going through my parents' heads. The whole situation was made a little more awkward by the fact last time Magnus had been in this room, Mother had tried to make a pass at him.
I was pretty hasty to carry on speaking before I dwelled on that for too long.
"Not on prom night, the next day. That was the only time."
She came to my side, then. I wondered what she was going to do. I wasn't expecting her eyes to look so wet when she crouched down next to me. Didn't she realise what I'd done? She took hold of one of my hands. Like I was a victim. Hardly. I told him to sleep with me. Impatient, self-assured me.
"And he turned out to have a wife you didn't know about?" Mother asked, sounding like she might just cry again. I prayed she wouldn't. There'd been too many tears in the Lightwood house that year. I nodded at her to confirm; afraid that saying it out loud might set her off. Set both of us off.
"Sick bastard." I heard Father mutter. If you ask me, more than a little hypocritical of him, but who was I to judge?
Mother judged instead with a raised eyebrow. Her ex-husband sighed.
"I've done some things I'm not proud of, Maryse, but don't you think this is worse?" He looked disgusted. It was weird that he wasn't directing his sneer towards me. I thought he would say something like 'I told you so'. I wasn't expecting a shred of sympathy. Truthfully I never imagined he'd want to talk to me about it at all once Anna told him the story.
"This is awful." Mother responded. I noted that she didn't confirm or deny how it was in relation to their situation.
"He didn't force me." I said. Just because I had to. They were getting the wrong idea about it all. Magnus never bullied me into anything. Just because I hadn't known about Camille didn't take away from the fact we'd both been consenting and legal.
"Just because he didn't do it forcefully doesn't mean he didn't make you." Father said. I was stunned. He was the type of man who didn't give out compassion easily, even before he hated me. I wasn't sure if we had some kind of understanding now or if he was just trying to convince himself I wouldn't willingly climb into bed with a guy twelve years older than me. I hoped it was the first option. "We do very stupid things for people when they make us think they're worth it."
That sounded like a dig. Not just a dig at Magnus; a dig at Anna. I wanted to ask about it but I didn't want to bring her up again with Mother there. There was already enough awkwardness in the room.
"I'm sorry for not saying anything." I said instead. It was really all I could say and it sucked to know that they wanted more than that. There wasn't anything else I could do when I couldn't go back in time. There would be so many things I'd change.
We didn't speak for much longer. Mother tried to tell me it wasn't my fault. Same old lines that Izzy and Jace had been using. Nobody I'd told seemed to think any worse of me. Not even a little.
It was good to have my family stand by me but there was something unjust about that, too. I was raised knowing that when you did things like lie - and by the angel I'd lied - there were consequences. Everybody was overlooking how bad I'd been to them with all my secrets because they felt bad for me. I felt like something bad should have happened; they felt like my upset and having to take a painkiller to sit comfortably for a couple days was enough. How could it possibly be enough?
The next surprise of the day was that before my Father left, he wrote down and gave me a change of address. I didn't know he'd moved, but I assumed that meant my ban from his place was lifted. I followed him out onto the porch. It seemed like every time he went to leave he left me with questions.
"Where has all this come from?" I asked, this time, instead of standing dumb and on looking as he drove off.
"Nobody wants to see bad things happen to their kids, Alexander." He sighed, leaning against the fence like he knew the conversation wasn't over. Things were different, now, that much was certain. He was actually going to talk to me.
"But you hated me."
"There's a part of you I don't think much of." He said grimly. For a moment I worried I'd recalled all of his spite back. "But you're still my son and I want the best for you."
I went to speak, to thank him. Or to ask him more questions, possibly about Anna and the house move, and ruin it all. I never found out which because he raised a hand to stop me.
"If this is a part of you… Fine. I can learn to live with it. But if you're going to be with men, I want him to be a good man. Good for you."
"Did you rehearse that?" I blurted. It had been fairly well worded for on-the-spot.
Father laughed instead of looking annoyed. He was unusually happy in such a way that I'd never seen him. "I did. But I meant it."
"Uh... Alec?" I heard Izzy call. She was hurrying towards the house with Simon tailing her. Today was the time for déjá-vu.
When Izzy got close enough she raised the magazine in her hand pointedly. "You're going to want to see this."
Thanks again! You guys are probably going to become completely sick of thank-yous. I'm catching up to myself as I write, at the moment. My reserve of completed chapters for speedy updates is depleting and that puts me into panic mode. Which is better than my do-nothing mode, I guess. The next chapter title is 'No Cyber-Mercy'.