Remember | The Mortal Instruments AU

Chapter Nineteen: Mu Shu Pork

I was already bored.

It had been less than a day and yet I was bored. How the hell was I going to keep going anymore? What would I fill my day up with?

All of a sudden, Izzy is banging on the door- very loud. "I know you're in there Jace Herondale!"

"Of course you do, it's his room-"

"Shut up Alec," she mutters. "Okay so it didn't take much guessing but I still know you're in there! You've been sleeping all afternoon, you can't become a damn recluse! You didn't come in until late-"

I quickly jerk open the door and with a patronising voice, I say, "sorry, I didn't realise you were my mother," to which Izzy looks exceptionally shocked.

"I erm-" she begins to struggle with words.

"Thought I'd took one step forward last night and two hundred steps back?" I ask in a patronising tone because I'd already knew what she'd think when I left that table at Taki's.

Guilty, she says, "well, yes but you can't blame me. Not with the way you've been acting for months." She suddenly becomes very stern, like she's telling a five year old off for doing something wrong.

Sounds about right. I can be like a five year old most of the time.

"Sorry mom," I say in a sarcastic way which causes Alec to smirk which translated that I'd been really funny in Alec's world. "Could you two wait for me in the kitchen? I need to tell you guys something- nothing bad," I quickly say as Izzy begins to look worried again.

"Okay well... hurry up, I have better things to do than wait for you," she tries to look stern but fails this time.

"Is the better thing to do, Simon?" I smirk at myself.

"Jace-" I close my bedroom door before she could say anything.

***

You can do this, sure they'll be shocked but it'll fine. Izzy might cry... but she'll understand. Come on. Come on. Come. On. Open the door, you can do this.

I try and encourage myself to walk into the kitchen but for the last ten minutes I haven't succeeded in getting much further than holding the door handle.

Just as I'm about to start talking to myself again, Izzy swings open the door and looks startled to see me standing there, "I was just coming to see what was taking so long-"

"Yeah, sorry about that. Erm, I think you might want to sit down," I say while nodding to myself and licking my lips, a sure sign I was nervous.

"So, erm- when I left Taki's last night, I didn't come back to the institute-"

"I told you he didn't," Izzy whispers while Alec just rolls his eyes.

"He's trying to tell us something, why don't you try listening?" Now it was Izzy's turn to roll her eyes.

"I went to Clary's..." I move my hands over my face as if I was telling myself that this was real. That I had done this and I was here, telling my siblings that yes, I'd given everything up.

I run my hands through my hair, unable to stop moving, "I spoke to Jocelyn and..."

"Jace, what's wrong? What did you do?" Alec looks up at me from beneath his eyebrows, looking very worried and very sceptical.

"I gave it up," I put it simply, knowing they won't have any idea what I mean by that which is evident of their faces as they both furrow their eyebrows and scrunch up their faces. "I gave it all up- the meetings with Jocelyn," quicker than I would have thought possible, their eyebrows lift to impossibly high levels on their foreheads and their mouths hang slightly open.

"But- why- why- would you- I- what?" Izzy stutters. Alec seems beyond words.

It dawns on me that they never thought I could ever give up those meetings, that they thought I was only surviving because of them- which was true, to an extent. They had no idea that they had helped me too, and that now- after nearly two years, it was my time to give something back to them.

To give myself back to them.

To be Jace.

"I needed to, I needed to stop... living in the past, I need to... live. To live in the present. With you guys... you deserve more than me being half of who I used to be-"

"I'd say more like a quarter of who you used to be-"

"Izzy, shut up," Alec mutters with raised eyebrows.

I just smirk at the both of them, "I'd say less than a quarter of who I used to be" I say while winking at Izzy, who looks very proud of herself as she slightly lifts her chin and the way her shoulders are set. "I'm going to try, I'm not promising anything-"

"But you're trying, and thats all that matters- isn't it, Alec?" She turns to look at Alec.

"Of course it is," he slowly nods his head at me before walking over and hugging me tightly. When he lets go, he smiles and turns his head to look at Izzy, who in return walks over to me and does the exact same.

"Okay guys, thanks for the support," I say in a sarcastic tone, even though I am thankful for the support. I turn to walk away while Izzy asks, "I'm ordering food, do you want some?"

I just look at her with my eyebrows raised, as if to say of course I do, what kind of question is that? She just laughs as I walk out of the kitchen.

I rush back and grab the side of the door, while hanging on to it and putting my head around the doorframe, looking into the kitchen, "you're ordering mu shu pork, right?"

"Of course, what else?" She asks sarcastically before I return to walking towards the greenhouse.
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Sorry it's such a short chapter but I'm planning something special for the next one but this scene needed to happen first.

Thank you for reading.