the infernal devices: Jessa fanfic: students

“Hey, Tess, what’s up?”


She heard his voice over the phone, and had never felt more guilty in her life.

“Who’s on the phone?” Will sat across the table from her, his hair slightly tousled from the wind and the rain outside. His accent lilted nicely and politely, perfectly Will. Blue eyes stared unblinkingly at her. A wine glass, half empty, sat in front of him on the table. He twirled the glass around casually, in a manner that was probably developed from boredom, but came off more as attractive than anything else, drawing attention to his strong hands, and the delicate way in which they turned the glass in the delicate candlelight of the restaurant.

“Jem,” she whispered. Will’s eyes widened, but he said nothing.

“Tessa?” Jem seemed to think she had hung up.

“Jem, now’s really not a good time, can we talk later?” She nervously brushed away a flyaway hair back behind her ear. It was partially a strange guilt which she couldn’t quite name a cause to, and partially the unbroken gaze she was receiving from Will. It wasn’t skeptical or critical; more.... studying, than anything else.

“O-Okay,” came the voice from the end of the phone. “Bye Tessa.”

“Bye.”

“So, shall we get back to what we were speaking of?” Will completely disregarded everything that had just happened, to Tessa’s relief and great surprise.

She still couldn’t pick. She knew that her affection for Jem ran deep, but there was something about Will that was cold and intriguing, hidden behind those calculating and joke-cracking, seemingly uncaring, grey-blue eyes that were so much like the city of London on a rainy day.

Their conversation resumed, brushing over the works of Tolstoy, Austen, Bronte, and Dickens, as well as a few other extremely dated works, most published before the year of 1900. It was a passion they both shared, for classical literature, one that was rare. However, Tessa’s heart was not in it. She was beginning to wonder why she had even agreed to this: dinner with Will. With anyone else, it would obviously be a date in a romantic setting, but knowing Will, he could turn around and call her rubbish and walk away and not speak to her for three weeks the next day. Truly, he had done much worse.

...

God was she beautiful. Jem felt that statement to his very heart, making his head spin. She was beautiful, and she wasn’t his, and although he aimed to change that, he very much doubted that he could. Tessa was so smitten by Will.

Will. Will, his best friend, Will, the idiot, Will, the self-centered one, Will, the guy who sent him to hell and back on a weekly basis, always getting himself into some bad situation or harming someone’s feelings beyond repair with a careless comment.

Verlac University was in a coastal town, so from the dorms, the beach was only a mile’s walk. Tessa and Jem had been planning to come down to the beach for awhile now, but something always got in the way: Jem’s violin recital last week, and Tessa’s dinner with Will. What the hell were they playing at that? Will did love Tessa. He had told Jem so himself. But, for whatever reason, he would lash out at her on whatever occasion that he decided to. And always, it would put a little dent in the girl’s heart. Tessa never said anything, but Jem could see it, the way that it hurt her, the way that it took the sparkle out of her eye. And then, there was the fact that Tessa had, for a long time, been a lot closer to Jem than she should have been, at least for friends, and when that was combined with her on again, off again, dating system with Herondale, it was so hard to figure out that it about drove Jem insane.

Now, they sat on the dunes, and Tessa had never looked prettier. He wanted to touch her hair, run his fingers through it, down her back, to her waist... NO. Don’t think about that. He couldn’t afford to think about that, not like this. Tessa thought they were strictly friends, even if she didn’t act that way. She was wearing a tank top shirt, low cut, and torturous for poor Jem. A long skirt, partially see-through, that came to her ankles above her blue high-tops, had slight paisley patterns in the light fabric. Normally, Jem paid no attention to clothes. He was thin, and in his opinion, unattractive because of it. His hair, a strange silver color, also put him off... But that wasn’t his fault, it was just a part of... his condition. Normally, he wore jeans and whatever shirt was in reach, no matter if it had been worn seven times or once. Today, he had actually bothered with a clean button-up, not that Tessa would notice. He liked to think she might.

“You look nice in those clothes,” he said.

Tessa looked up at him and laughed slightly. “Thanks, Jem. Did you even hear a thing I said?”

“You were speaking about the sea, I do think.”

“Yes, I was, and it’s such a pretty color, don’t you think?”

“Rather like your eyes.”

He had just said that. He had just said that out loud, and now, if she didn’t already know, she definitely knew that he was attracted to her. What a fool! Just as he began to curse himself inside his head, he felt her hand brush his arm, and looked over to her. She was laughing happily to herself.
“Thanks again, Jem. You’re so full of compliments today, aren’t you?”

“I suppose,” he muttered.

The ocean roared in front of them, wind roaring. It was a bright, beautiful, sunny Saturday.

“You suppose. It certainly seems so. Maybe I ought to say something nice about you,” she said, looking him straight in the eyes. He said nothing, just looking at her. Perhaps her statement was supposed to evoke some sort of humor, perhaps not. In any case, it didn’t, and that may be the reason that the following events even took place at all.

“I really, really like everything about you,” was all she said, and then was quiet, matching his surprised silence. “Maybe that’s something I shouldn’t have said.”

“Why shouldn’t you say it?”

“Well...”

“God Tessa, shut up. No more excuses allowed, at all, alright?” She was quiet, and then Jem grabbed her by the waist and kissed her. It was sudden, something neither of them were prepared for, not even Jem, as he did it entirely on impulse. He thought, that, in all likelihood, she would push him away. The opposite happened. Her arms twined up around his neck, pulling his hair, all without breaking the kiss as their lips moved together. She moved forward, sitting partially on his lap, and even when their mouths broke apart, didn’t move. She loved the feel of his strong arms around her, even if they weren’t ripped with muscle as Will’s were. He was steady, dependable, something that she could always count on, very unlike Will. She liked that about Jem.

“James...” She couldn’t think of anything to say, but felt.. Almost as if she needed to speak.

“Sorry,” he murmured.

“No, don’t be. That was... interesting. I... I think, it’s safe to say...” She paused again. “I liked it, very much. I’ve wanted to do that for a long time, and I’m now under the impression that you did too, and I’m very sorry that I’ve held you back.”

“But, you and Will.”

Tessa felt her face pale over. “We aren’t dating. The last time we had dinner, he didn’t even touch me.”

“But you love him. And even if he doesn’t express it, he loves you.”

Tessa was silent; she truly had no adequate answer to that, and neither did Jem. For the rest of the afternoon, they stayed like that, by the side of the sea, not really doing much of anything at all.