Measure Of Love

Chapter 1: Boring Car-Rides and Unwanted Pillow-Fights

This would definitely be the worst summer vacation ever. Not only were Jocelyn and Valentine, Clary's parents, dragging her and her little brother Max away from the city for the whole summer, but they were going along with their business partners. There was nothing wrong with Stephen and Celiné, really, nice people. They also had a daughter Sophia who was a bit younger than Max and she definitely wasn't the problem either, she was the sweetest thing. But they also got Jace and she would never spend a summer locked up in the middle of nowhere with him, even if she got paid for it. Hell, she wouldn't even go a day even if she got hundred dollars. The good part was that the feeling was mutual so he pretty much stayed out of her way and she out of his, it worked out fine. But then sometimes it didn't. They actually had used to be best friends, but that was mostly because their parents were kind of snobs and wanted them to hang out with the 'better crowd'. They had known each other since forever, their parents had been friends and working together already when they were born. Well, Jace was two years older, Clary would never forget that if he had anything to say about it. So they had kinda grew up and as much as she denied it now, she really admired him and looked up to him back then. She remembered when he started school and met new people and she wished she could go too. His friends sucked, they were mean to her because she was younger and a girl, but Jace had always stood up to her though. She had been so jealous that Jace was someone who could argue a group of stupid, stubborn 12 year olds about how they weren't above the ten year old redhead and still get respected and not picked on. At school Clary was usually just hanging on Jace's sleeve because she didn't like talking to people she didn't know. Jace didn't mind, his friends were annoyed and people Clary's age thought it was weird she hung out with older boys. Especially the girls. But when they got a bit older they were more jealous about it and the 14-15 year old Jace seemed to be a popular crush for the 12-13 year olds Clary knew. She also got more friends and this new girl moved close who was still her best friend nowdays. She kinda drifted away from Jace because she didn't want the attention he was getting or the looks the other girls were giving her. Jace didn't seem to mind being the center of everyone's attention, she had also pointed this out to him who had gotten offended and said she was just jealous and it had turned into a fight about how they were actually always bikering and shouldn't be friends in the first place and it was all because of their stupid parents and after that all the events their parents organized and nice family trips had just been awkward until they had grown into the sweet both sided hate. Their parents seemed to think it was just amusing bikering and 'teenagers get like that, don't they?' And all that crap. But honestly, Clary wouldn't mind going her whole life without ever seeing Jace's face again. Actually, she wouldn't mind at all, she would love it. Now she was 18 and Jace was 20 which meant he should be pretty much making his own decisions and apparently he very much tried. He had refused to go and so had Clary, but knowing his parents and knowing her own parents it wasn't a surprise they had been dragged along.

Clary felt a hand poking her arm and pulled an earphone out of her ear, turning to her brother who was nothing but happy about this family trip. "What?"

"Can you draw this for me?" Max asked, pointing at a picture on his comicbook of Captain America.

"Sure, but Iron Man is cooler." Clary teased him.

"No, he isn't!" Max argued immediately. "Okay, they're equally cool." He said then and Clary grinned.

"I can settle with that." She glanced at her mom at the frontseat who gave her an approving smile for entertaining her little brother who had been impatient the whole drive there.

"How long until we're there?" Max asked. Here we go again.

"Just few minutes anymore, buddy." Valentine replied.

"Yes!" Max said excitedly and packed his comicbook into his backpack. "I took flashlights so me and Sophia can go out after dark!"

"We'll see about that, okay?" Jocelyn said with a laugh.