'Shit!', Clary cursed under her breath, as she remembered that she was supposed to cook her Father dinner.

'Simon I'm so sorry but I have to go, Valentine wanted me home early tonight so we could um, so we could catch up on the Bachelor." Clary lamely told Simon. Clary's lies had become more and more unbelievable, as she became closer to Simon. She found it difficult to lie to her best friend, she didn't want to keep secrets from him, but she knew that it was for his and her own protection.

"Okay then?" Simon whined, "I guess I'll just stay here by myself," Simon sulked. Simon was beginning to notice how distant Clary was becoming, he wanted to reach out to her, but he knew that she would just push him away further, and he couldn't afford to loose her.

Clary gave Simon a fleeting look of sympathy, and ran out of the crowded cafe heading towards her little town house five blocks away, praying that Valentine wasn't home yet.

When she arrived home, she noticed her fathers white shitty pick up truck was already in the driveway.

'Shit', Clary thought to herself, 'maybe I can sneak in unnoticed', she silently pleaded. Clary knew this was wishful thinking, but she couldn't help it, nobody in their right mind wouldn't hope that their abusive father was asleep.

When she finally stirred up the courage to go inside, what she found was definitely not her father asleep, it was the entire content of her room tossed around the apartment, and her father was just sitting on the couch with a beer bottle as if nothing was out of the ordinary.

"What the hell do you think you're doing with my stuff!?" Clary demanded as she walked into the room, dumping the keys on the counter.

"Oh Clary, it's so nice of you to finally come home, I've been worried sick about you honey" Valentine answered in mock sincerity.

"Don't you dare call me honey, you sick psycho freak." Clary yelled walking up to her father.

Valentine stood up and towering over Clary, looking down at her, "fine you want to play dirty, that's fine by me," Valentine fumed. He then grabbed at Clary's throat and threw her to the ground.

"I could have starved to death" Valentine screamed as he kicked his daughter in the stomach, hard enough that she couldn't reply, "now make me my dinner already, and clean up all this fucking mess you made" Valentine said while walking back to his position on the couch, as if nothing had changed.

Clary stayed in that position for a long while, fearing that she might have a broken rib, but the scream of her father reminded her she needed to cook him dinner or she would be in for another belting. Clary slowly and carefully started to get up, but was stopped by a searing pain in her chest.

"What's taking you so bloody long girl, I'm starving."

Clary pushed through the pain and begun making the preparations for dinner.

When Clary had finally cleaned up all of her stuff from the T.V room, she collapsed onto her bed, falling asleep instantly still wearing her worn out jeans and sneakers.