You Wouldn't Dare

Chapter Twelve

Its okay, cuz I know,

You shine even on a rainy day and,

I can find your halo, guide me to,

Wherever you go

- Heart to Heart, James Blunt

Once Jace was back up on his feet once again, he didn't waste a second of his time: we got right back into the vigorous training.

Maybe it was my imagination or something, but this time he seemed to want to take it slower. If it was for him or me, I had no idea.

I watched him, beginning to feel that oh-so-familiar boredom set in as he paced the length of the room... back and forth, back and forth, back and forth over and over again, his blonde hair tousled in a way that made me wonder if he really did spend twenty minutes on it every morning, or if it just naturally fell that way.

His amber eyes already had deep, dark circles ringing their undersides, and he looked like he hadn't slept in weeks.

The stance he held told me he was anything but relaxed.

"New approach," he muttered under his breath, his words becoming nearly impossible to catch. "We need to try something different this time around... maybe something that involves more core training, or-"

"Jace," I snapped, finally beginning to feel the very last of my patience fly overboard. "We've been sitting in here for half an hour. Can I leave now or what?"

Instead of narrowing his eyes like I would have expected, Jace released a sigh that seemed like he'd been holding it in for a long time.

Sitting on the floor Indian-style, he dropped his head into his hands, fisting his hair.

"I know I'm wasting your time, Fray. But the press has really been on my ass lately, and I wish they'd just leave me alone. You know what I mean? That's one of the main reasons why I never leave the house, and I don't want them asking any more dumb questions about what happened so many years ago. Why should they care anyways?"

By this point, I had a feeling that Jace was more talking out loud to himself than he was to me, and that he probably didn't want me to hear any of what had just been said.

So I pretended like nothing had ever been said.

"Okay, so maybe we should start with core training." I suggested, hoping that was the right choice. I hadn't ever done core training before, whatever that was supposed to be.

I watched as Jace just lifted his head up from his hands and stared at me, his eyes slitted. "Or... maybe not?"

He shook his head, the smirk that was starting to become one of his most familiar facial expressions making yet another reappearance.

"Yeah, maybe we should."

                        *                *                *

It took me a grand total of 26.5 seconds to realise that my great idea to core train wasn't such a great idea. Like, at all.

Core training mainly consisted of three things: Pain, pain and more pain.

Oh, and don't forget Jace yelling things at me from across the room, always forever pushing and shoving me to go harder and harder, faster and faster.

We started off with what I thought was going to be a simple exercise but actually wasn't: the plank position.

The plank was one of the worst things ever to be invented if you asked me. I held my position with my elbows centred at my chest- the only thing holding my body weight up was my forearms and the tips of my toes, the latter of which was starting to ache. Badly.