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Maryse waits until they are far enough away from the school before finally asking the question that she's been itching to ask. “So, you’re not going to tell me what happened?”
Jace pulls his jacket tighter around his body as the wind picks up, conveniently avoiding his mother’s eye contact as they continue their walk through the parking lot.
“There’s nothing to tell because nothing happened,” Jace replies with a shrug.
“Jonathan Christopher Lightwood,” Maryse snaps and Jace freezes, turning slowly until he’s facing her. “You were suspended for two weeks for fighting in the cafeteria and you won’t speak a word about why. It sounds a lot to me like something happened and we are not leaving this parking lot until you tell me why.”
Jace's face is blank, giving away nothing about what might have happened, and if she didn’t love him so much she would have to strangle him right then and there. But he’s her son and she does love him, so she waits patiently even if the crisp October air is finally starting to nip at her nose. He raises his eyes to meet hers and opens his mouth to say something but before he gets a chance, a chorus of laughter rings out through the parking lot. Jace’s eyes snap to somewhere over Maryse’s shoulders and she watches as tears spring to his eyes.
“Jace?” Maryse reaches out for her son and when her hand grabs his wrist, his eyes snap back to hers. “Sweetheart, what is it? What’s going on?”
He shakes his head and swallows audibly, wiping at his eyes with the heel of his hand. “It’s nothing. Don’t worry about it. Can we just go now please?”
Maryse opens her mouth ready to protest but Jace cuts her off before she can.
“Mom,” Jace begs, “please. Can we just go home now?”
It’s in that moment that Maryse sees the same little boy they’d taken in after the fire all those years ago. Tears on his soot stained cheeks mirroring the tears on his windswept cheeks and his eyes pleading with her. Before, he was pleading with her to save him, take him away and keep him safe and now…
“Of course.” Maryse nods and smiles tightly to keep from crying herself. “Come on. Let’s go.”
“And have you tried talking to him about it? About what happened?”
Maryse turns to her husband with a piercing glare. “Of course I’ve tried talking to him, Robert. What do you think I’ve been doing since I went to pick him up? He doesn’t want to talk about it and honestly, I’m tired of trying to make him. When he’s ready to talk, he’ll talk. Until then, we have to be patient.”
“Patient?” Robert scoffs with his hands on his hips and turns away. “I think we’ve been about as patient as we can be. He’s been suspended, Maryse—”
“I’m well aware of that,” Maryse snaps. She throws the tea towel she’d been using to dry off the dishes down onto the kitchen table. “I was the one who had to watch the footage of him tackling those two boys to the ground and beat them until a teacher had to physically remove him. I was the one who had to listen to them describe exactly what injuries each boy sustained. Including our son. He was not the only one in that fight and there is no way that he started that fight unprovoked.”
Robert turns back to Maryse and gestures to the hallway where Jace has been secluded in his room since they’d gotten home that afternoon. “Unprovoked? Everything that boy does is unprovoked. He’s always had a temper and you know that. Don’t you remember when he first came to stay? There was nothing that did not set him off.”
Her blood boils as she stares at her husband and prays silently that the divorce papers go through as soon as possible. “ That boy had just lost his parents.” Maryse moves to stand closer to Robert and drops her voice to just above a whisper, “He had just lost everything he loved. Of course he had a temper. I think we all would’ve had a temper if we were in his shoes but he is our son and I will not let you—”
“Mom.”
Maryse and Robert snap their gazes to the front door as their eldest child makes his way into their home, closing the door firmly behind him.
“Alec, dear.” Maryse puts on a smile for her firstborn and moves quickly to stand in front of him and pull him down into a hug. “What are you doing here? I thought you and Magnus were away for the week at some conference in Boston.”
Alec pulls away with a frown. “Yeah. We were. And then I got about a hundred texts from Izzy telling me that I needed to come home right now because Jace got in some fight at school. Any chance that’s what you two were arguing about just now?”
Alec’s never exactly been one to beat around the bush but ever since he’s moved out, Maryse has seen a whole new side to him. Less people pleasing and more say it like it is. It’s something she’s come to appreciate about his relationship with Magnus over the last few years.
“This doesn’t concern you, Alec,” Robert barks, his attitude getting the better of him like always.
Maryse sees the fire in Alec’s eyes as he moves around her and steps closer to his father. He towers over Robert now, making the older man look smaller than he really is.
“Like hell it doesn’t,” Alec snaps. “Jace is my brother and he’s hurting. You can yell at him all you want but that’s not going to help your case. If he doesn’t want to talk to you, then he’s not going to talk and there is nothing you can do to change that.”
He doesn’t even give Robert a chance to respond before he’s storming off down the hallway and into Jace’s room, slamming the door shut after him.
Robert is gone by the time Alec comes back to the kitchen where Maryse is waiting, a cup of tea in her hands.
“How is he?” she asks when Alec takes a seat at the kitchen table.
Alec sighs. “He’s been better, but I think he’s going to be okay. Sore and embarrassed for sure but he just needs time. I know you don’t like it but a few weeks off from school might be what’s best for him.”
“I just wish I knew what was going on inside that head of his,” Maryse says, taking a seat across from Alec and setting her cup down in front of her. She keeps her eyes on the steam rising from the cup, afraid that she won’t be able to keep it together if she looks her son in the eyes.
“He’s seventeen, Mom,” Alec laughs. “You’re never going to know what’s going on inside his head. Not unless he wants you to.”
She nods and rubs at her forehead to try and calm the pressure building behind her eyes. “I know, I know. I just…he’s been going through so much recently with the breakup and his grades have been slipping, and now he’s fighting. I just don’t know what to do. I’m his mother and I have no idea how to help him.”
Alec places a hand on top of hers and squeezes. When she lifts her head to meet his gaze, he’s smiling at her. “You’re helping him by giving him time. There’s nothing you can do right now but wait. When he’s ready to tell you what’s going on, he will. I promise. All that you can do is be ready to love him and care for him without exception. Just like you’ve done for the rest of us.”
Maryse sees the look in his eyes, the same one he gave her when she told him about her and Robert’s divorce, and she feels tears spring to her eyes. She swallows past the lump in her throat and brings her free hand up to cover her mouth as she lets out a small sob. With her eyes closed, and her hand holding tightly to Alec’s, Maryse weeps silently.
The first few days of the suspension go by slowly, with barely a word spoken between mother and son. Jace doesn’t even leave his room for the first day–at least not when Maryse is looking–and by the second day, she only sees him when he comes to get the food that she’s set out on the table for him. She smiles when he meets her eyes and every time, he drops his gaze and retreats back into his bedroom without a sound.
Max and Isabelle drop by a couple days later, against Robert’s wishes, and Maryse is glad that her children care for each other so much that they would defy their father. It had been hard for Jace when he’d first come to live with them and by the time he’d finally started to settle in, Maryse had found out that she was pregnant with Max. Jace took it harder than she’d thought he would and after a few shocking outbursts, he revealed why. He’d been scared that they’d want to send him back now that they had a new baby on the way.
Maryse remembers holding an eight year old Jace in her arms as he cried and assuring him over and over again that he wasn’t going anywhere. He was their son now and she wouldn’t give him up for anything. When Max was born, Jace was the first to hold him and Maryse watched as he fell in love with his baby brother. They’d been inseparable ever since.
“Mom?” Max asks as he and Isabelle grab their coats from the back of the couch. “Is Jace going to be okay?”
“Of course he is, baby.” Maryse zips the front of Max’s puffer jacket. “He just needs to rest for a while, that’s all. But he’s going to be okay. I promise.”
Izzy hugs Maryse from the side and Maryse kisses the top of her daughters’ head.
“Clary said she tried calling him but he wouldn’t answer,” Izzy says once she steps away from Maryse. “I tried too, but I got nothing.”
Maryse looks over at the remains of Jace’s phone in a pile on the kitchen table and winces. “There was a bit of an incident.” She walks her two youngest to the front door. “One second he was checking his messages and the next, that poor thing was in pieces all across the kitchen floor. Tell Clary he’ll talk to her another time, okay? Once he’s feeling up to it.”
Izzy knows she’s trying to keep Clary away from Jace, she can see it in the look on her daughters face, but honestly, after how Clary reacted to the breakup, can anyone blame her? That’s not what Jace needs right now.
Maryse smiles at her children as they exit the house and climb into the back of the Uber waiting for them.
Within a few hours of them leaving, there’s another knock on the front door. Maryse admits she’s only a little surprised to see who’s on the other side; Simon Lewis, in all his boy-next-door glory is standing on her front porch. He’s staring at her with wide eyes hidden behind black frame glasses, a bruise that looks to be in the latent stage of healing stretches across his lower right jaw.
“Simon?” Maryse reaches out and uses her fingers to turn Simon's head so she can get a better view of his injury. “Sweetheart, what happened?”
“Hi, Mrs Lightwood.” Simon tries for a smile when Maryse pulls her hand back but winces. “I’m sorry to bother you. Is Jace awake? I’d uh…I’d like to see him if that’s okay. Just for a few minutes. I promise. I just really, really need to see him.”
Maryse regards the teen with the same thought as her children, having known him long enough at this point that she’d like to think she can tell when he’s in the midst of a crisis. His fidgety hands and bouncing knee, the fact that he can never keep eye contact.
Maryse smiles at Simon. “Of course. I can’t guarantee that he’s up to any more visitors, but you are more than welcome to try.”
She steps aside to let him in and shuts the door behind him before stepping into the hallway and knocking gently on Jace’s door.
“Jace, sweetheart, Simon’s here to see you.”
She steps back as the door swings open, Jace running out and looking around wildly before his gaze lands on Simon. The younger boy is still standing in the front room, barely having taken a step further into the house. He stares back at Jace with eyes just as wide, tears brimming on the surface.
“You weren’t answering your phone,” is all Simon has time to say before he has an armful of the blonde teen tucked beneath his chin, holding on for dear life with his arms wrapped around Simon’s waist. Simon's hands grip the fabric of Jace’s hoodie to hold him close as Jaces body shakes with sobs. “It’s okay.” Simon lets himself cry as he kisses the top of Jace’s head. “I’m sorry, Jace. I’m so, so sorry.”
Maryse sat alone at the dining room table for longer than she would care to admit, nursing a cup of tea while she waited patiently for Simon to join her. Jace had sobbed in his arms for only a few minutes before Simon had walked him back to his room and shut the door after them. It didn’t take a genius to start piecing things together after what she’d witnessed earlier but rather than jumping to conclusions, she figures she’d just wait for Simon to find out what was really going on between the best friends.
She hears the door open and then close before Simon is returning from the hallway and taking a seat in the chair on the other side of the table. Maryse slides the other cup of tea she’d made in front of him and tries for a smile but worries it comes out more as a grimace.
“He hasn’t told you anything yet…has he?”
Maryse shakes her head. “I’ve been giving him some time before I ask again. He’s been…sensitive about the whole situation.”
Simon nods and swallows thickly, refusing to meet her eyes. “That’s because it’s about me. Well, me and him. Together.”
“I see.”
“We’ve been uh, we’ve been seeing each other sort of for the last few weeks. He kissed me after the Homecoming game but I told him he couldn’t because he was still with Clary. I hadn’t even come out to anyone besides Jace yet so I guess I was also sort of trying to avoid getting into a relationship with someone who is always in the public eye.”
Maryse nods. “That’s why he broke up with Clary.”
He laughs bitterly. “I called him an idiot for doing something so sudden and reckless like that because he had a good thing going with someone that he wasn’t going to have to sneak around with but he told me to shut up and then kissed me again.”
“And that’s why Clary’s been so awful?” Maryse inquires.
Simon shrugs and takes a sip of his tea.
“But that’s not what all of this fighting has been about, is it?”
He raises his head to finally look her in the eyes and nods. “There was a video. It wasn’t explicit necessarily but it wasn’t tame really either. My face was the only one that was clearly visible so when it was leaked, I was the one facing all of the hate. Jace wanted to tell everyone that it was him in the video too, but I convinced him not to. He had too much riding on his scholarship and I wasn’t going to let him throw it all away just because of me.”
She’s finally starting to understand.
“So, you broke it off,” Maryse says. “You distanced yourself as much as you could from him so he wouldn’t be caught in the flames.”
“But then everything started falling apart,” Simon says, his voice thick and cracking. “The bullying just got worse but I made him promise he wouldn’t say anything–”
“And Jace never breaks a promise,” Maryse interjects. She knows her son too well and knows how important loyalty is to him. Especially to those that he cares about.
Simon takes a deep breath. “The day of the big fight, I tried to talk to him. To tell him that I was sorry because I could tell how much this has been hurting him. I went up to him at lunch but before I could even say anything, one of the other guys on the team shouted something at me and shoved me away. I landed on my ass and then before I knew it, he was landing on the ground right beside me. Jace was on top of him throwing punch after punch.”
Maryse reaches out to take one of Simon’s hands in her own and squeezes tight.
“Simon, sweetheart, none of this is your fault,” she reassures the teen. “You could never have predicted what was going to happen and you are not responsible for any action that Jace or anyone else chose to make. Do you understand me?”
“But what if we’re not okay anymore?” Simon asks, his voice cracking and his lip quivering. “What if we can’t be us anymore because I’ve ruined everything? I–I love him.”
She tilts her head and draws in a breath. “Oh honey, you haven’t ruined anything at all. You and I both know how much Jace loves you and I promise that you’ll be okay.”
He’s crying now, shaking his head and avoiding meeting her eyes. “You can’t know that,” Simon sobs. “You can’t–”
“But I can.”
Simon’s head whips around at the sound of Jace’s voice; the blonde teen appears in the hallway, looking worse for wear but better than Maryse has seen him look in a while. He moves slowly closer to Simon and Maryse, hands in fists at his sides.
“Simon, we’re gonna be okay,” Jace whispers as he crouches down next to Simon’s seat. “We’re gonna be fine, okay? I promise.”
Simon sniffles and shakes his head. “But you can’t know that. How can you know that?”
With a laugh that sounds more like a sob, Jace smiles and reaches up to grab the back of Simon’s neck which he uses to pull Simon’s face closer to his own until their foreheads are touching. “I know because I love you, Si.” He smiles wider at Simon’s bubbly laugh. “I love you so damn much. You are my favorite person in this world and I’m so sorry that I let all of this happen. I should have fought you about telling people. I should’ve been standing right beside you during everything and I–”
“No,” Simon cuts him off, pulling away so he can look Jace in the eyes. “No, I should never have made you make that promise. I know how you are about promises and I used it against you. I just…I couldn’t stand the thought of you going through any of that because I was stupid enough to get us caught. I love you too much.”
Jace shakes his head. “We were both stupid, alright?” he assures Simon. “Neither of us realized that anyone else was in there, but we should’ve been more careful. This is on both of us.”
“This is not on either of you,” Maryse speaks up finally. “At least not entirely. You definitely should’ve been more careful but the person who filmed you two illegally is also to blame. More so than either of you.”
“They never found out who it was,” Simon admits while wiping at his face with his hands. “Then again, I’m not really sure how hard they investigated.”
Maryse scoffs lightly as she pulls her phone out from the pocket of her cardigan. “Well then, it’s a good thing we’ve got a lawyer in the family, isn’t it?”
Jace frowns. “Mom, Lydia and Alec broke up three years ago. I’d hardly say she’s still ‘in the family’.”
“Shush,” Maryse hushes him. “She’s still part of this family and the best damn lawyer we know. She’ll find out who it was. In the meantime, why don’t you boys go get some rest. Simon, I’ll call your mom and let her know you’re staying the night.”
Simon opens his mouth to speak but Maryse cuts him off with a hand held out in front of her.
“Don’t start with me, Simon Lewis. You boys have had a long few days and both of you could use the sleep. Just make sure to stay on top of the covers, alright?”
She stands from her chair as Simon’s eyes bulge and Jace gawks, his face going red.
“Mom!”