Burning Sky // Alec Lightwood ➰

Guilt.

He is taken aback for a moment and just stands there looking at me.

"Well, I'm not gonna just sit by and watch you waste this opportunity." His voice is calm, controlled but his eyes are pleading me.

"Everyone seems to be forgetting that Alec chose to marry Lydia. Nobody forced him." I say and throw myself at the bed next to him.

"Because you broke his heart." Adam points out and turns towards me, grabbing my arm forcing me to look at him.

"You have to do something."

I place my hand on his palm and gently push it away from me.

"I can't barge into their wedding. I told you, I can't do this with Alec."

I want to. So fucking much but I just can't. I won't know how to live with myself if I do. I can't do this to her.

Adam's face has become red from desperation and he buries his head in his hands for a moment. The sight of him like this is breaking my heart but I can't do what he is asking me to do.

He shakes his head not looking at me.

"Stop being so damn afraid!"

I am surprised by his sudden outburst, I didn't think he was going to push it this far.

How do I explain it to him? How do you tell your brother that you don't want to be with someone you want more than anything because you feel obliged to your dead sister? How can I be so fucked up?

"It's not just fear." I whisper, praying he won't hear me.

He does.

"Then what?" I look up at him ready to tell him to forget about it but I stop.

A look in his eyes tells me he knows what I'm talking about. Maybe I'm so desperate for him to understand me that I imagine things, but I could swear he knows.

"Guilt." I wait for his reaction, for anything indicating that he thinks I'm crazy.

He just lowers his eyes to the ground. I don't know what to say or what to think.

"Do you remember Amanda Bidley?"

His question catches me off gard and I look at him with a questioning look.

My mind drifts to the girl who used to be my best friend when I was 12. The girl I had spent so many nights with talking and laughing and crying. The girl I completely shut out when May died.

"She came back to school this year." Adam informs me but I already knew that.

Of course I knew that. I had spent most of the year trying to avoid her. Hoping she has forgiven me but not wanting to find out.

I am confused though as to why she has suddenly become part of our conversation.

"I'm in love with her."

I freeze.

Adam 's expression is pained, decided but pained.

"What?" I feel like I'm loosing my balance so I lean on the bed.

How could he feel something like this and not tell me. However, maybe I always knew her return would result in this. Amanda had a crush on Adam since forever. And he started noticing her too towards the end of our friendship. I just wish he had told me.

"Yes. We started talking again and one thing led to another and we have been in a few dates."

He looks at me like he is ashamed and I don't know if I'm more angry or sad with what I'm hearing. He went out with her on dates, not one but many, and I had no clue.

"How could you hide that from me?" Hurt must be visible in my voice because he flinch.

"Just listen please." He says and stops to look at me for a moment. I can't help but nod, gesturing for him to sit next to me. The bed shifts under his weight and I move in order to be able to look at him.

"I fell in love with her. But then I stopped calling her, and texting her and I ignored her at school, I ignored her calls..."

Confused I shake my head at him. His eyes fall on me and for the first time in a while I notice how tired he looks, I notice the black circles underneath them and I feel terrible.

"I felt guilty." His statement takes me by surprise but at the same time it doesn't. "I felt like I shouldn't be falling in love when May didn't have the chance to, and neither did you back then."

The relief that washes over me when I hear him voice the thoughts they've been racing through my head for months now is so big that a few tears make their way down my cheeks.

"Anyway, then this happened and for the first few months she was worried and see kept calling but after a while she gave up. She texted me that she got the message and didn't want to see me ever again. So I understand. I just don't want you ro make the same mistakes with me. You deserve to be happy more than anyone I know."

There is a silence for a while as we both cry and search for what to say.

"You should have talked to me about it."

I don't blame him though. I should have understood something was going on. As always I was so caught up with heat was happening to me that I completely neglected Adam.

"You are getting Amanda back!" I exclaim, standing up. "You are going to call her right now and..."

Adam's sarcastic laugh interrupts me. "And tell her what? Hey sorry I blew this thing up but at first I fell guilty and then my mom got kinda kidnapped and there were these demons, you know how things work..." i place my hand on his shoulder to make him stop.

"No to all of that. There must be a good excuse..."

Adam looks up at me furstrated. He knows there isn't. I haven't seen him in so much pain in a while that I don't know what to do with myself other than hug him. He sighs into my hair and holds tight onto me. When he pulls back he has a mischievous glint to his eyes.

"Sky, I love you more than anything but if you waste even another minute here instead of getting the love of your life back, I will make sure to murder you with my own hands."

I groan loudly, removing myself from him and backing on the wall.

"I can't do this. Not now. I can't just walk in and interrupt his wedding, have you seen how many people are in there? There is no way I will survive that, I'll probably faint mid way..."

Adam aproaches me and places his hands on my shoulders shaking me.

I hadn't even noticed I was pacing back and down.

"You. Are. Spiralling." He stretches each word in order to make me listen to him. I take a deep breath, and swallow hard.

"Get your ass and get dressed now. Isabelle left a dress for you right? "

I take a look at the dress hanging on the closet and shake my head.

"You clearly weren't listening."

He nods, releasing me and moving towards the closet.

"Oh I was, I just completely ignored you. Alec is going to get married and will be stuck with Lydia forever and you will regret not doing this for the rest of your life. And I don't know about you but I would prefer risking it, risking humiliating myself, getting rejected, than think about it years from now, miserable and regretting every choice I've ever made."

I don't know if it's his words that persuade me or the fact that the buzzing from the hall has increased and the arriving has stopped which means time is pressing me, but I just nod and take the dress into my hands.

I'm doing this.

Adam screams "finally", kisses my cheek and bolts out of the room to let me get dressed.

Holy shit, I am doing this.