Hey guys.

Sorry, another sad one shot, because I'm going through a tough time right now and I'm just having a very very hard time writing about happy things because I'm not happy.

Sorry, ICanExplain, but in a way this is my way to vent, and it makes me feel a lot better when I'm able to write about something that is happening to me. It's nice to get the support that I need right now. I actually am writing a happy story, like it's in progress, but I'm also not very good at writing about happy things because I'm more of a sad/angst person. :P Sorry. The happier one will hopefully be out this week sometime, if I can get it finished and beta-d on time.

Anyways, thank you to my beta, rippingbutterflywings for beta-ing this and yeah. I appreciate you reading all my mopey stories lately.

Tell me what you guys think. Thanks.

Clary POV

I miss the days when everything was easier. When I used to play Red Rover and tag with my friends at school, or when finding out if my crush like liked me was either sending a note that said check yes or no or having my best friend go and ask for me while I hid in the playground waiting for him to deliver the news back to me.

I miss the days when things such as 'selfies' and 'lol' and Facebook and Instagram didn't exist. I miss the days when I didn't have a cell phone, when I didn't care about what everyone else thought of me. I miss when I did what I wanted because it made me happy and I didn't care what everybody else thought about it. I miss the days when I didn't care about being skinny or tan or clean or smart. I was myself and that's all that matter at that time.

I miss the days when I would drink water from a hose and play in the sprinklers. I miss the days before I had to lug my textbooks from school to home only to go back to school. I miss the days when I got all the attention. I miss watching Shrek with my dad before he moved to Texas. I miss the days when I felt loved.

My father has been making things hard on me a lot more lately.

My dad divorced my mom when I was two years old, forcing us to move in with my grandma where we slept on her pullout couch for close to six months.

He remarried a woman with my mother's same name. This woman had a daughter who was already in middle school by the time she was introduced into my life. She hated me because I stole her attention. But then again, her mother hated me too. I'd spend days over there while my mom worked, and then she'd pick me up after her shift so I could spend my nights with her. My dad worked during the days, aso most of the time I'd be left alone with his new wife. I remember a time when I fell off the swings in his backyard because the daughter, Sarah, had pushed the swing harder than five-year-old me could handle. I fell off and hit my nose of a broken pole that was stuck in the ground. Sarah left me there, laughing as she walked into the house, while I laid on the ground and cried, blood trickling from my nose. Eventually, my step mother came outside and yelled at me for crying so loudly while she was napping. She picked me up and plopped me down on a chair in the corner for being "bad." My mother yelled at my father that night for allowing this to happen. He didn't see how much "trouble" I got into because I wasn't the child of his new wife's dreams.

There was another time when I rode my tricycle too far down the block because I was following my step-sister. I got put in the closet with the door looked for what seemed like hours until my grandpa came over from across the street and saved me. He had a fit about that one and screamed at my father that night too, because my former stepmom was a witch to me about something that wasn't even that big a deal.

A few months later, my half-sister Lindsay was born. I saw her the day she was born and a couple of other times while she was still in the hospital, but I haven't seen her since. She turns nine in October and I bet she doesn't even know I exist.

About a month after Lindsay was born, my father divorced that woman and moved to another house in town. I went over there to stay every other weekend. Most of the time he'd just sleep the whole time I was over there.

I remember one time, when I was five, I got hungry in the middle of the night, and my father had broght me a piece of pizza. Being five years old, I couldn't eat the whole thing, so I put it down on the floor next to my bed. Several times that night, I felt like a spider was jumping on me, and back to the wall, probably trying to the pizza. I told my dad, like, three times, and eventually he locked his bedroom door so I couldn't get in.

The next morning, we found a spider on the wall, next to my bed, and he made me kill it because he was too afraid of it. What would've happened if it'd been a burglar?

I remember the night he told me he was moving away, too. That night, I'd thought it was a joke, that he just joking with me, but he wasn't. A few weeks later, I walked out of the airport crying because I didn't know when I'd seen my daddy next.

Turns out the next time I'd see him would be later that year at his sister's wedding. I remember running back and forth between the bride's room, where all the ladies had been getting ready, and the room where the groom and groomsmen were playing video games. I don't really remember much after that.

The next time I saw him after that was three years later, after I'd turned eight. He was here for four days that time, and I cried hard the day he left again.

It's been five years since I saw him last.

When I was eleven, he got remarried… and didn't tell me about it. I found out a year later… from my grandma. I wasn't supposed to find out until he told me, but my grandma let it slip. Or so I thought then.

I'd spent two hours yelling at him over text message because he couldn't be bothered to call me and make me feel better. And, even then, his way of apologizing was saying, "Hey, why don't you come down to Texas for a week?" And, to me, that's not an apology. That was one part of the conversation that stuck out to me. The other part was when he said, "I just couldn't find time to tell you." I'm the only daughter of his that he actually talks to, and he couldn't find five minutes out of his day to tell me, "Hey, I have something I want to tell you. Do you have a sec?" I would've said, "Oh yeah, sure, Dad. What's going on?" And he could've said, "Well, I wanted to tell you that I remarried. I really love her and I think that you'll really like her a lot." I could've replied with, "Dad, that's great; I'm glad you found someone you can be happy with." That's all it would've taken.

But now, in present tense, he's coming home for Christmas. And it's tearing me apart. I haven't seen him in five years, and, in those five years, he kept a major secret from me. He lied to me for a year. What am I even supposed to say to him?

My mom is going to be kicked out of the normal Christmas routine with his family because he'll be there, and I am forced to see him. Which means part of my Christmas will be spent with the asshole of a man called my father, when really all I want to do is spend it with the woman who raised me by herself. But he can't even stand to be in the same room as her. And it sucks! Because she is my mother, and my role model, and she's helped me through all the tough trials I've had in my life. She has been one of my best friends in the whole world, and she loves me unconditionally. Even when I screw up. I can't say that about him. I know he doesn't love me. I know he doesn't care for me as much as a father should care for his oldest daughter.

He missed seven of my birthdays. He missed my first year of middle school, and he missed my screw ups and the yelling at's and groundings I got for misbehaving. He missed my report cards that show all A's. He missed the times when I struggled to make friends, and when my life seemed like it just wasn't going to get better.

And now that my life is finally better, he's coming back to send away everything that's held me steady for the past five years. It's making me anxious and it's making my life a lot harder than it needs to be. I hate him for the way he'd treated me. I hate him for leaving. I hate him for not loving my mom and making things hard on her. I hate him for not loving me. I hate him for leaving two little girls in the harshness of the world, without a daddy to fight off the bad for them. I hate him for never calling and rarely texting. I hate him, in all. I hate him.

But I guess we all have daddy issues.

Thanks guys. Tell me what you think. All of this is true and has happened to me.

-Jace loves me.