I feel like I should be whispering this message, but because I'm typing that isn't possible. The reason for this feeling is that I'm typing this part in class, and the entire room is silent, and it's kind of weird. But, you probably don't care, so on from my creepy class, to my infinitely creepier story that for some reason you all seem to like. Drop a review when you finish! Thanks! Enjoy!

Clary:

Two days after my horrifying conversation with Death, where he had made me kill innocent children to save Jace, I was standing in front of the door to my house, having returned here after the diner, waiting for the bus to come to take me to school.

Where I was going to have to see Jace. I don't know how I was going to stand looking at his golden face when I knew it was only there smiling because I had chosen to let children die in his place.

I shuddered out a breath, looking around the tiny house as I waited.

When I had gotten home from the diner, I had been to busy trying to hold myself together that I hadn't had the time to worry about my father being home. Then, when I had opened the door to see no one in the house, and felt relief that I hadn't even known I was waiting for, I began noticing things off with the house.

To start, everything of value, however small that value was, had been cleared out of the house, including the silver frames that had stood around the last pictures of my brothers. I had picked up the pictures from where they were, and once I had changed into the ripped black jeans and red and green checkered flannel that I was wearing now, they had gone into my pocket, the one right on top of my heart, and they were still there now.

After that I had noticed that there was no more food in the tiny kitchen that I had spent so much time in cooking meals for my father. And I mean none. There was nothing. Least of all the beer that my father, if you could even call him that, so dearly loves.

As I had been noticing this, the note scrawled on a grease stained post it had gone unnoticed by me. But, once I walked past the little table that we ate at, it was hard not to notice.

Picking the note up, I had had to squint to make out what the words said. But they were undeniably written in the handwriting of my deadbeat dad.

The note said: I'm done with you freak. Don't come looking for me, I won't do anything for you. You can have the crappy house.

So eloquent, as my father had a habit of being. Note the sarcasm.

But it was all I needed. Upon further investigation, I had seen that my father truly was gone, all of his clothes cleared out of his brown room, along with the duffel bag he kept open on his floor as a threat that he would leave me whenever he felt like it. I hadn't really ever thought that he would follow through on that threat.

It would seem I was wrong.

But, as my father had been so kind as to give me the house, and since he hadn't found the stash of money that I had hidden from him, I got to have some fun, making my new house more… me.

It was Saturday, so I had time to do what I wanted to do too. So without wasting time I got to work.

First I found the tool kit, and went outside to see what could be done. The shutters on the windows were all hanging askew, so I took out the hammer and some nails and fixed that first, until they were all in their proper places on the sides of the windows.

Stepping back I realized that other than the shutters and the color of the house, there wasn't much wrong with it. But there was a whole lot wrong with the vines snaking up the side of it, and the weeds that had become overgrown in front of the house.

So that become my next task, trying to fix the dismal landscaping. Luckily, the ivy hadn't latched onto anything as it made its way up the side of the house, and I was easily able to pull it off and put it into the large trash bags that I had brought out.

The weeds weren't so easy, and by the time I was done and had trimmed the shrubs too, the sun had begun the second half of it's journey.

The outside of the house almost looked good. But the color was just so, so bad. It, like just about everything in the house, was brown.

And even though the house was super small, it was still two stories, and there was no way I would be able to paint it alone, even though more people could probably finish it in the next few hours. The house really was ridiculously small.

The color would have to wait.

I went back inside after putting the weed filled trash bags out by the curb for the garbage truck.

This time I also used trash bags, cleaning up all of the beer bottles, and the broken pieces of glass from them, and the empty food wrappers, and chicken buckets. Basically, everything that could and should be thrown away was.

Then those bags also went out to the curb.

At this point, the sun had begun to set, but I wasn't anywhere near done. The next thing I wanted to do was paint the inside of the house. All of it, as little of it as there was.

But I didn't have a car, and the nearest paint store was miles away. So I called Simon.

In a few minutes his van had pulled up and I was hopping in. "Thank you Simon, Izzy," I said as way of a greeting to my new friends in the front seat.

"No problem Clary. We're just glad to see you doing better. You scared us," Simon replied, backing out of the driveway and heading to the paint store.

"Yeah. But now, we're ready to help you do some painting!" Izzy added, cheery as ever.

I was stunned. "What? You're really going to help me?" I asked, still shocked. I hadn't been expecting anything other than a ride to and from the paint store.

"What are friends for?" Was Simon's response. If we hadn't been in a car, and he hadn't been driving, I would have tackled him into a hug.

"Thank you both so, so much." Both of them just waved the thanks off, saying that it was nothing, or that it would be fun.

When we arrived at the paint store, I took out the money that I had been hiding. It wasn't as much as I had liked, but I had been saving for years, and it was more than enough for me to buy some paint cans and a few new decorations for my new house, and still have enough left over to buy food for myself until I got a job.

But I started with some paint cans. Since all the ceilings of the house were still a clean white somehow, and all of the walls were either tan or a dirty white, I didn't need to buy primer, which was good, because I was on a budget.

I got two cans of cornflower blue, since that was what I wanted many of the rooms to be colored, and I also got a can of sunflower yellow, which was light enough to be pretty and make the house look bigger, but dark enough to go over the tan. I also got a can of a lighter teal, for the bathroom and my father's old bedroom. Then I grabbed a few trays to hold the paint, and three rolling brushes, along with three normal brushes for the edges, and paid.

It had costed less than I had expected, but it still took a considerable sum out of my saved up money. But it would be worth it.

So we drove back to my new home, and laughing and joking like old friends, Simon, Izzy and I began painting as the stars came out, and didn't plan on stopping until it was done.

*Hiding behind a couch* Please don't hate me! I took a really long time to do this, because honestly, I just didn't have the right inspiration. And then I went to BookCon, and it struck! So here I am, a day later, finally posting! Till next time (which will hopefully be soon)! Bye!