Best Friends with Benefits

[Eight]

Goddamn, what's a boy to do?
Tryna' keep his cool while the walls fall in.
Goddamn, what's a boy to do?
Tryna' keep his cool, stood next to you.
We fell
Fell in love at the end of the world.

~ George Ezra

(2 months later)

{Clary}

I reach over and grab a handful of popcorn, stuffing them all into my mouth at once, bits flying everywhere including onto Isabelle's lap. She looks over at me in astonishment like she can't believe how unattractive I'm making myself look but I don't care, I've felt unattractive for months.

"Don't you think you should go easy on the popcorn?" She says, peering at my stomach instinctively. I shrug.
"What's a few extra pounds?" I ask the television and dig my hand back into the bowl.

She shakes her head and pulls her feet up onto the couch her head on my shoulder now.

"You're pregnant not dying. You still have to take care of yourself." I don't have to remind her not to tell anyone again, it's all I've done for the past two months. I run a hand over the very slight bump, the life inside me.

"You should tell him you know." She says like it's the first time and I roll my eyes at her intentional ignorance
"Dylan's not the dad." I tell her

"So you keep saying but the dates add up." Like somehow she would know.
"Short by almost two months so no not really." I snap then wish I hadn't, it was much easier if she thought Dylan was the father, bringing her brother into the equation would not help anything.

I hadn't spoken to him since that night with Serena in the hallway, I couldn't drop this on him, I couldn't burden him further just when he was getting his life back on track. I really couldn't when he has tried his absolute best to reconnect with me, fix things and I was too busy silently blaming him for "ruining my life".

It was my fault he has given up on me. It was my fault we were no longer friends and I had to love him from a distance.
I had begged Isabelle, begged her on my hands and knees not to tell anyone.
I could do this on my own.

So far she had been a good friend but maybe an accidental shitty sister. Something I also felt guilty about. But who else could I tell? Only Isabelle would understand how I feel.

"Whatever you say preggors." She kisses my shoulder and rises from the couch, stretching out all of her pretty, thin limbs, her hair a river of ink flowing down her back.

"I've gotta go mother hen." Pregnancy nicknames had become her new favourite thing.
"I'm meeting Alec and Jace at Takis, I'd invite you but I know what the answer would be." The 'argument' I was having with her brother annoyed her but she never said very much about it other than we were idiots.

I smile up at her that I understand and she smiles back as she slips her coat on and her favourite blue scarf.

"If I get any juicy gossip I'll fill you in of course." She zips her thigh high boots up over her jeans and clicks towards the door
"Remember," she turns to me, finger pointed "fruit, veg, vitamins. Shit that's actually good for you." It's almost a warning, like there was an "or else." Supposed to follow like shes the mother hen. She leaves with a "Love you!" Over her shoulder and finally I can relax and watch trash tv that doesn't involve fashion.