JACE IN PICTURE
*this chapter is something a little different for you guys*
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The wind blew my hair in front of my face, and I raised my hand to brush it back. I pushed my hands deeper into the pockets of my black trousers. I could feel the goosebumps on my skin whenever the breeze brushed against it.
I looked to my right, watching a single tear rolled down her cheek as she looked down at the grave in front of us. The tear fell on the fresh soil, but she didn't realise as she seemed to have blanked out everything except the piece of Earth in front of her.
I walked towards her, my hand wrapping itself around her own, diverting her attention towards me.
"It's getting late, Ivy. Everyone's gone home and your curfew's soon", I told her. She nodded mindlessly, walking up to the headstone and placing a single rose on the top. She kissed her hand and touched the gravestone for a few seconds before beginning to walk away.
"Thanks for staying, Jace", she thanked me, a broken and distant look on her face. I smiled at her weakly, wanting her to know I was here to support her.
"Don't mention it. What are friends for?", I replied, walking shoulder to shoulder with her. It was getting pretty cold, and before I knew it a few drops had started to fall from the dark looming clouds above us. We sped up our pace, not wanting to be drenched by the rain.
"Coming to mine?", she asked me. I hummed in reply before asking, "You still want me to?"
"Yeah. Needed your help with something", she told me.
Her house was silent when we got back, no sign of life anywhere. It had been a few days that Caesar had been away from his home and I could tell Ivy was finding it unbearable. She would tell me how no one was ever at home, her Dad spending most of his time working. However, it was quite safe to say she'd used her time productively, that is if you could call productive:
Sneaking into the primate shelter and meeting with Caesar every day since she was let out of prison. And after spending so much of her time there, she came across a lot of things the public would claim to be an illegal and cruel system. That naturally had Ivy dead set on exploiting them for who they really were, with me at her side coming up with a foolproof plan.
The key word being: had.
Unfortunately for that moron, she got caught before we did absolutely anything. All her plans to get Caesar free and then burning that 'shit-hole' as she called them, down to the ground were dropped faster than Rebecca Black's singing career. She was charged with trespassing, and 3 more days on her 'dumb curfew' and she wasn't allowed on the primate shelter premises for as long as the tag lasted. One could almost say she was desperate right now.
"I need to see Caesar without anyone knowing and I can't do that with this stupid tag on, Jace", she complained. "So I need you to take it off."
"You can't take it off, Ivy. That's the point of it", I pointed out bluntly, taking my jacket off and hanging it on the peg.
We walked into the living room and I sat down on the sofa. I watched her as she picked up the TV remote by habit and was about to turn it on, frowning before putting it on the table and sitting down on the sofa next to me.
"I thought this electrical shit was what you were good at? C'mon, please? I wouldn't ask if it wasn't important, you know that. Who knows what torture Caeser might be going through at that damned place, and we're just sitting here on house arrest", she said turning to look at me with a stern look.
I returned the stern look with my own before sighing. She began grinning widely in response, knowing I was going to give in to her anyways.
The things I do for this girl, I swear.
"Fine. Show me the tag", I mumbled, taking a hold of her ankle and sussing out the device for myself. After a few minutes of fumbling with it, I looked back up at her.
"It's possible to take it off pretty easily, but there's a heat sensor on this one. I'd say you have about 10-15 seconds before the alarm is triggered, sending a message straight to the system. Basically, you're gonna have to replace your own leg with someone else's", I explained bluntly, looking her in the eyes.
She snorted, nodding to herself with a slight smile on her face.
I shook my head at her, my own smile forming. Throughout my life I've met all sorts of people, but one thing's for sure, I've never met anyone as strange as Ivy. She had an innocent face but was an actual trouble magnet, making it seem like she went around looking for it on purpose.
"Okay, I've got a person", she spoke up, taking her leg off my lap. I shuffled in my seat to look at her excited face. I smiled at her, waiting for her to carry on.
"Who have you picked then?"
"Alice", she laughed. I burst out laughing at that, covering my eyes with my hands before brushing my hair back. Alice was in our classes at school and Ivy hated her guts, and by chance she happened to live next door to Ivy too.
"Why her?", I asked curiously, the grin still on my face.
"Oh come on, Jace. Her Dad's the reason why all this mess happened in the first place. And just look at her. She's pathetic. No offence by the way, I know she's your crush", she joked with me. I shoved her gently, telling her to shush.
"Just because Alice likes me does not mean she's my crush", I told her, trying to be half-serious through the laughs.
"So the high and mighty Jace does have a crush, huh?", she teased me, laughing at my deflated expression. I scoffed.
"Wouldn't you like to know", I mocked her, grinning when she punched my arm.
I wrapped my arm around her neck ruffling her hair before letting her go. She flicked me on the forehead and I rubbed the spot.
"All right, I gotta run now", I told her, standing up from the sofa.
"Okay. When are you gonna be free next?", she asked me.
"I'll be back with my tools tomorrow", I answered, saying bye before walking out the door.
The next morning Ivy texted me to go over to her house. I went into my little sisters room, kissing her forehead as she slept in the early hours of Sunday morning. I left the quiet house and arrived at Ivy's within 10 minutes, toolbox in hand.
Seeing Ivy in a better state than yesterday gave me a piece of mind like you wouldn't believe. Whether she thought I was a good friend or not, she was probably the only real friend I had. I know for a fact I wouldn't have been able to cope without her, my own life being too hectic for me to handle sometimes. So for that, I really couldn't have asked for a better friend than Ivy Rodman.
Sure, I had some friends here and there, but none of them turned out as fabulous as my childhood enemy.
"Feeling better today?", I asked her after setting my stuff down. I scanned her face for any dry tears, frowning when I saw bags under her eyes instead. Symptoms of intense crying were evident all over her face.
"Yeah, fine", she answered, half-smiling at me though it didn't reach her eyes at all. It was the first night she'd had away from her Grandpa, of course she wasn't all right. I shook my head at her before wrapping my arms around her. She hugged me back, laying her chin on his shoulder.
"I miss him", she whispered in my ear. My chest tightened when I heard her broken voice, not knowing how to cope with this new side of Ivy. I felt like a useless comforter compared to her when I thought back to every other time this happened, except I was always the one being comforted, not the other way around.
She was the perfect example of the 'bottling up emotions' type of person. Usually, she'd let it out through anger or physical violence, and I could only imagine how hard it actually was for Ivy to lose her Grandpa so suddenly with no one else around to be with her.
I guess she was trying to make do with what she had at the moment, which seemed to be me. And so for her, I was trying my best to give her the strongest shoulder to cry on.
"I never got to say it before, but thanks for sticking around, Jace. I would've lost my mind if it wasn't for you", she confessed to me before pulling away to look at my face. I frowned at her, wrapping my arm around her shoulders as I leaned down slightly to see her face.
"Don't be so hard on yourself, Ivy. Your hands down one of the hardest willed, most stubborn bitches I've ever met", I told her, ruffling her hair as she laughed in response, sniffling away the tears before they had the chance to show up again. And so when I was certain she was going to be okay, I went back to sorting my tools out.
"How's your mom doing? I haven't seen her in a while now," Ivy asked, changing the subject as she rummaged through my tools mindlessly.
"Same as always. New boyfriend, new highs", I sighed, gesturing for her to take a seat on the sofa.
"Mia?", she asked.
"She's growing up too fast", I mumbled.
Mia was my little sister. She was 4 years old, being born just after our parents broke up. Our mom cheated on our Dad but somehow she still had custody over the both of us. Mom turned to alcohol and drugs and had a new boyfriend every month or so. She wasn't abusive or anything like that, but you couldn't exactly give her the 'best boyfriend picker' award. The men she would bring home disgusted me. They would pick on me but I just ignored them. They didn't affect me but I knew it would be having an influence on Mia. She didn't deserve to be brought up in a home like that, and I had no intention of it either. As soon as I was old enough, I was going to leave the home with Mia and never look back.
Ivy had been helping me too. We both worked at a local coffee shop, all of her earnings going straight to my savings for my own place. I might have not made it clear enough, but at times like that I felt like the luckiest person alive to have a friend like her.
"You have way too much of an influence on my Mia, you know", I chuckled, lifting her leg on to my lap. I picked up the screwdriver, unscrewing the cover of the tag to reveal the circuit board.
"What's that supposed to mean!", she asked, faking offence but grinning widely.
"Hmm, I dunno. Maybe it's the over-confident personality, or the tendency to get into trouble 24/7. Oh and let's not forget the constant sarcasm-"
A hand slapped itself over my mouth, shushing me up. I licked the hand, laughing when Ivy scrunched her face up in disgust.
"You nasty piece of shit!", she exclaimed, laughing as she slapped the back of my head and made my head jerk forwards.
"I guess this 'nasty piece of shit' won't bother helping you get your tag off then", I teased, glad when I'd gotten her to calm down and lean back immediately.
"Aaaaand...done", I exclaimed, taking my hands off of the tag when I heard it beep.
Ivy sat there, looking at me in confusion. I raised my eyebrows in disbelief.
"IVY! DON'T JUST SIT THERE, GET RID OF IT!", I yelled at her, hearing her curse before she yanked the tag off of her leg and ran out faster than I could say cow.
"Ivy! What the fuck", I called out after her, slipping on the floor before running behind her. Bursting out through the open door and into the yard, I looked to my left to see Ivy jumping out the neighbour's top bedroom window, grinning from ear to ear as she landed on all fours before jogging up to me.
"How the fuck-"
I was cut off by an ear piercing shriek from the neighbours house, my eyes wide in horror as I looked at Ivy in disbelief. Ivy burst out laughing, covering her ears. She grabbed my arm and began dragging me away.
"Run you bastard!"
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Eyyyy how's my favourite people on wattpad doing on this fine day?
I thought I'd do a 'special' chapter, think of it as me treating y'all.
LEMME KNOW WHAT YA THINKED OKAY?