Herondales love but once

chapter 2

Tessa was unable to meet his eyes. She glanced down at her pale, un-gloved hands and laced so tightly together that it seemed to be causing her pure physical pain. "I thought you couldn't be crueler than you were on the roof that day. I was wrong. This is crueller."

Will was frozen. She didn't believe him? She couldn't really think that. He shook his head from side to side slowly, denying the possibility. "You ... don't believe me?"

"Of course I don't believe you. After the things you said, the way you've treated me-"

"I had to," he said. Tessa turned away as though she couldn't bear to look at him. "I had no choice. Tessa, listen." She took a few steps away from him but Will knew that this was his only opportunity to explain this to her. He rushed to her side and cautiously held her arm to prevent her from leaving. His eyes burned from unshed tears. "Please listen," he cried out desperately. "Please," he repeated, his voice barely a whisper. Tessa please stay. I need to explain.

"Tessa." Will bit his lip. He ran his hands through his jet-black hair. "What I am going to tell you I have never told another living soul but Magnus, and that was only because I needed his help." He paused. "I have not even told Jem." Will took a shuddering breath. "When I was twelve, living with my parents in Wales, I found a Pyxis in my father's office."

Tessa's stormy eyes widened marginally. "A Pyxis? But why would your father keep a Pyxis?"

The words spilled out of him. "A memento from his Shadowhunting days? Who can guess? But do you recall the Codex discussing curses and how they can be cast? Well, when I opened the box, I released a demon-Marbas-who cursed me. He swore that anyone who loved me was doomed to die. I might not have believed it-I was not well schooled in magic-but my elder sister died that night, horribly. I thought it was the beginning of the curse. I fled my family and came here. It seemed to me the only way to keep them safe, not to bring them death on death. I did not realize at first that I was walking into a second family. Henry, Charlotte, even bloody Jessamine-I had to make sure that no one here could ever love me. To do so, I thought, would be to put them into deadly danger. For years I have held everyone at arm's length – everyone I could not push away entirely."

It was getting too much for Will. He broke off abruptly. Tessa's eyes never left his face; it seemed as though she was searching his expression for something.

"Jem," she mouthed.

Could this conversation have taken a worser turn? Jem is my great sin. "Jem is different," he whispered instead, in a pained voice.

"Jem is dying. You let Jem in because he was already near death? You thought the curse wouldn't affect him?"

"And with every year that passed, and he survived, that seemed more likely. I thought I could learn to live like this. I thought when Jem was gone, after I turned eighteen, I'd go live by myself, not inflict myself or my curse on anyone and then everything changed. Because of you."

"Me?" said Tessa. She looked stunned. There was a hint of a smile on Will's face; she didn't know what extraordinary things she was capable of.

"When I first met you, I thought you were unlike anyone else I had ever known. You made me laugh. No one but Jem has made me laugh in, good God, five years. And you did it like it was nothing, like breathing."

In the Inferno, Hell is cold. It's covered in ice.

And his charming response: The handsome young fellow who's trying to rescue you from a hideous fate is never wrong. Not even if he says the sky is purple and made of hedgehogs. Will supressed a fond smile at the memory; she had corrected him in the midst of him rescuing her, with the air of a calm governess.

Her voice broke him out of his memory. "You did not even know me. Will-"

"Ask Magnus. He'll tell you. After that night on the roof, I went to him. I had pushed you away because I thought you had begun to realize how I felt about you. In the Sanctuary that day, when I thought you were dead, I realized you must have been able to read it on my face. I was terrified. I had to make you hate me, Tessa. So I tried. And then I wanted to die. I had thought I could bear it if you hated me, but I could not. I realized you would be staying in the Institute, and that every time I saw you it would be like standing on that roof all over again, making you despise me and feeling as if I were choking down poison. I went to Magnus and demanded that he help me find the demon who had cursed me in the first place, that the curse might be lifted. If it was, I thought, I could try again. It might be slow and painful and nearly impossible, but I thought I could make you care for me again, if only I could tell you the truth. That I could gain your trust back-build something with you, slowly."

Tessa looked at him in shock. "Are –– are you saying the curse is lifted? That it's gone?"

"There is no curse on me, Tessa. The demon tricked me. There never was a curse. All these years, I've been a fool. But not so much a fool that I didn't know that the first thing I needed to do once I had learned the truth was tell you how I really felt."

Will felt the burden on his shoulders being the lightest it had in years. He took a step towards her and thankfully she didn't move back. Her eyes were fixated on him, and they caressed every angle and plane of his face.

Softly whispering, she said, "Why me, Will? Why me?"

"After we brought you back here, after Charlotte found your letters to your brother." Biting his lip, he paused in hesitation – how would she react? "I-I read them."