All That Money Can't Buy

Chapter Thirteen: Burning out

And so they say lord for everything a reason.
My house is haunted by rotten desire
And on my skin left the scent of indignation.
And so they say baby for everything a reason.

~ Carina Round

(Unedited)

{Clary's POV}

"Do you want tea or coffee?" Charlotte offers, standing awkwardly in the middle of her small apartment. I shake my head, even if i needed the energy for practice i doubt I'd be able to keep it down until i got there.

"Have you ever thought of moving away from NYC, or getting a bigger place maybe?" I ask, getting comfortable on her sofa. She chuckles from her kitchen, coming through with her own hot beverage.
"Is that rich language for 'your house is small'"?

Oh god did it sound like that?
"No, no not at all. Just i was wondering if maybe you wanted to move in with me." I smile as bright as possible and hope its enough but she see's straight through my bullshit
"What happened?" She takes a seat and sets her drinks down on the coffee table
"Nothing-"
"Clary, i'm not an idiot. Now what happened?"

I haven't said it out loud yet, it rests on my lungs making it incredibly hard to breathe, burns the tip of my tongue and replaces the marrow in my bones with rubber. Thinking about it so directly makes the lump in my throat cholk me till swallowing hurts too.

"Jace cheated." This secret was proving too much to keep to myself. Letting it out for a few seconds felt like a life raft for someone who was lost at sea. Sure, you won't drown but eventually you will become so cold your body will shut down on you.

"What? When?!" She moves so she's sitting on the same couch as me now, one smooth hand on my knee that pokes out from my ripped jeans.
"About a year ago, with Sarah."
"Is this back when he nearly died?"
I nod, another painful memory of story i hate talking about thanks to Jace.

"Jesus christ, when did you find out?"
"A few days ago." I gulp, we hadn't really spoken about it, just slept, or tried to sleep beside each other because moving out or into the spare room would make it all too real. It slept between us, she did. Made us keep our distance and avoid each other any other time.
I was confident Jace hadn't slept a wink since he'd told me.

"So are you guys breaking up?" She tries to ask the question casually.
Are we? Is this really it?
"I don't know, we haven't really spoken about it since he told me."
She sighs, sitting back against her colourful cushions
"If you ask me i think you should talk to him before moving out and moving in with me."

"But you and Jon-"
"Jon cheated and i was so angry i dumped him and moved out, yet i thought about him every second after. Even if Jon and Jace are very similar they're also very different."
She points out, even if they were best friends once upon a time he put our relationship infront of his relationship with my brother.

"So what, you think i should hear him out?" Charlotte nods "I always suspected there was something off about Jon even if i loved him. Jace seems to actually care when he breaks someones heart."

It reminded me of a story Alec had told me once, when he was so full of vodka he could barely tell what chair i was sitting in. One i was all to familiar with.
When the boys were in school together, before me, Jace wasn't short of admirers with half of the school at least having a crush on him, Alec included before he realised how wrong that was.

Jace had hooked up with this girl, a red head at a club downtown that he had spoken about the entire journey to their band practice the next day no matter how many times Alec hsd begged him to stop.
This red head turned out to be his best friends little sister and ended up dating a boy who was supposed to be another friend of his.
Yet even still, he cared. He cared enough to protect her even when he thought she didn't want him because he was so in love with her. Even when there should have been a million reasons for him to forget all about her, to forget that he loved her that one reason that he shouldn't was just too tempting. He thought she was the one.