Roommates & Soulmates

Ch25: Clary's Denial

Clary didn't understand why she'd moved closer to him. It had just been like the first time she'd seen him in class. She hadn't been able to explain to her herself why she'd stared at him. Only this was worse. She had almost kissed Jace! Almost cheated on Simon! What was her problem? Okay, he was hot, but every girl on campus knew that and Clary wasn't so shallow to be swayed by a pretty face... was she? She had just been flattered; yes, that must be it. His interest was, after all, extremely flattering. To catch the eye of the hottest guy in school never did bad things for a girl's self-esteem.

Yes that was it. Last night had been nothing, just a fluke of the moment. A small voice in the back of her mind said the black leather jacket that was currently wrapped around her told a rather different story, but she ignored that voice as she entered the cafeteria.

"Clary!" Simon said cheerfully waving to her. She was meeting him for lunch.

"Cool jacket," Simon remarked as she sat down. "I didn't think leather was your style." Clary shrugged not sure how to explain the jacket. She really should have thought this through better.

"Women's fashion confuses me," Simon said shaking his head. "You would think that was a guy's jacket."

"What can I say," Clary said trying to smile causally. After all what could she say?

"True," Simon replied. "I guess we both don't know that much about fashion." Clary breathed a little easier and blessed her boyfriend's total lack of noticing what she wore.

"Did you have fun at Eric's last night?" Clary asked.

"Yeah we got a song recorded," Simon said. "How was your night?"

"Fire alarm," Clary sighed. "Be happy you weren't in the dorms last night."

"Wow, how'd it go off this time?" Simon asked.

"Probably burnt popcorn again," Clary grumbled. "Or someone smoking in the bathroom."

"The intelligence of our generation never ceases to depress me," Simon sighed.

"I hear ya," Clary agreed. They finished eating and Simon headed to his afternoon class. Clary didn't have class until tonight so she decided to go back to the dorms.

The dorm room was already rather messy considering classes had just started back up again. Laundry littered the floor living space and Clary's charcoal, acrylic paints and colored pencils still covered her small desk from her last art project. It was definitely time to tidy everything up, but neither Clary nor Helen were the hugest fans of cleaning. In fact her roommate was currently adding to the mess. She sat on the floor in the center of the room, surrounded on all sides by textbooks and notes with a pencil in her mouth.

"Hey," Helen said not looking up from her work.

"What complicated puzzle has you chewing your pencil?" Clary asked smiling.

"What?" Helen said looking up and pulling the pencil out of her mouth. "Oh, wow." Putting down the ruined pencil Helen stood up and stretched. "Man, I wish the teachers would lay off the complicated homework until later into the year!"

Despite Clary's mantra about Jace she really wanted to talk to someone about it. Magnus wasn't the best idea since she knew all too well what his opinion was and, of course, she couldn't talk to Simon.

"Helen," Clary started as casually as she could. "You remember the fire alarm last night?" Helen was no longer looking at her complicated homework, but focused on Clary for the first time since Clary had entered the room and she quickly noticed the obvious change.

"New jacket?" Helen asked. "I didn't think you owned anything in black leather."

"It's Jace's jacket," Clary said softly. This had Helen's full attention. She crossed her arms and cleared her throat in such a way as to demand more information.