Roommates & Soulmates

Ch158: Clary's Want

"Is that what you want?" Jace said. "To break up."

"I don't know," was the only honest answer Clary could give him.

She couldn't even blame him for getting out of there, with an answer like that.

How'd this happened? It didn't quite feel real. She'd decided not to tell Jace what happened in Paris. Clary felt that it was her burden to bare, and he could be spared from it. Her plan, however, had failed miserably in the light of Jace's questions.

Then again, why had she made that decision in the first place? Had it been motivated by guilt, or love? How did she feel about Jace right now? And how could she know what she was feeling was really the same kind of love she remembered?

And then there were the other emotions she hadn't quite figured out. Clary looked down at her phone. She opened the contacts app, and started at the numbers she hadn't been brave enough to use. Julia hadn't taken her number at the airport, so it was all down to Clary to decide if she wanted to ever speak to the woman again.

It was so strange being back home. Clary wasn't quite used to it. Anything seemed possible there, but here she wasn't so sure. Clary wasn't even sure how to define it. She didn't know if she'd developed a friendship so strong that she'd mixed it up with romantic affection, or if she needed to redefine some things about herself.

Everything with Jace at the start had been so passionate, but with Julia, everything had been intimacy and affection without a single hint of passion. It was amazing how different the two situations could be even with her as the same variable in both.

Well, the cats out of the bag now, she thought. Maybe she should just try and see. She might never know what happened if she didn't try.

With a deep breath, Clary opened a new text chat from the contacts app and typed out.

'Hey Julia,' she texted. 'This is Clary.'

She hovered over the send key for a just a moment before pressing it. She had to talk, had to figure out what had happened - and who she was - before she could move forward.

After staring at her phone for a whole minute Clary remember about the time difference. It was late at night there. She shouldn't expect any kind of answer anytime soon.

And in the meantime she had work to do. Thanks to her year abroad, Clary still needed a few credits to graduate, and today she had planned to go sign up for them.

Getting her life back on track would be a great distraction from the absolute mess she'd made of her love life. Slowly, with great care and thought, Clary got dressed and ready for the day. She showered and brushed her hair before selecting her most comfortable clothes and leaving. The detailed work wasn't quite enough to distract her mind from running over everything again and again, but she couldn't think of a better distraction at the moment.

She still couldn't believe Jace had brought up the kids thing again. That hadn't even been a real fight, and they'd talked about it so long ago she'd almost forgotten about it. That had stunned her more than anything else. How important were kids to Jace? The first time they'd talked about it Jace had made it seem like a whim he'd thought of but hadn't considered. But this morning it hadn't felt like that at all. Today it seemed like a sacrifice, a great sacrifice he'd made for her that she hadn't even noticed.

Clary walked into the student center, and she was momentarily distracted from her thoughts by the task of signing up for classes in September. She only had three left that she needed since there hadn't been any credit equivalent courses abroad. She was so close to her bachelor's degree she could almost taste it.