My dear little broccolis💚💚💚
~ I have nothing to really say, except the I really hope that you will enjoy the chapter. Though, i want to remind you that this story is build around a dark theme that can be very hard to read about for sensible people. If you are one of those people, I advise you to skip the italics.
~ AND I just realised that we actually hit the 100 REVIEWS! THNAK YOU SOOOO MUCH! Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts with me, you have no idea how much it warms my heart, and how much they make me happy. And we're one follower away from the 100 FOLLOWERS. Haha.
Love, Mina💚💚💚
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Chapter 12: Slaps, Fears & Hopes (2,7K)
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Clary's PoV.
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"Clarissa," Michael calls in that sultry voice that I hate so much.
I literally freeze on the spot, knowing what's coming next. It's been like that for the last three years, I don't see why today would be any different. It's always the same sickening routine. Mom goes out for a few days to enjoy her 'girl time', and Michael drinks to forget about her absence. And when he starts to get a little too drunk, he decides to forget his loneliness on top of me.
Though he's been leaving me alone for a month now. Ever since I had my periods. Maybe because the thought grosses him out. Or maybe because he's really a sick pervert and that the thought of me not being so much of a child anymore killed the mood for him. I don't know, but I don't mind.
But now, back we are with the sultry voice that will ultimately lead to this awful moment with him on top of me. It's just depressing. And it's not like I could do anything about it. Last year, when I finally decided that it wasn't my fault and that I didn't deserve the way that creep is treating me, I tried to fight him off. Well, … that was a bad idea. I ended up with his fists bruising my ribcage (you know, that place that no one can see). And every time I tried to be 'rebellious' toward him, Michael 'rewarded' me with colourful and painful recompenses. It was never damaging to the point of going to the hospital, and it was never somewhere people could see, but it didn't hurt any less.
So now, I just wait for him to come at me because I will never give him the satisfaction of going to him when he calls me. No matter how many dinners he makes me skip, I'll never give him that. I'll never be his little lapdog. I just pray that the alcohol will be my friend and get the better of him, knocking him out before he can do anything. What else can I do?
I keep my towel wrapped around me, wishing that I had dressed faster; but there's this little hope of victory shining in me. My periods just started this morning. So he's probably going to simply turn away and go back to his bedroom like he did a month ago.
Michaels barges into the bathroom before leaning against the doorframe, his disgusting black eyes feasting on my figure as I still do my best to protect my body from his gaze. But a towel isn't that much of a good use. As he steps toward me, his eyes fall on the paper pad on the sink, and I see how displeased he is by this discovery, which makes me smile a little with hope. He will leave me alone tonight.
Apparently he noticed my victory smile, because he snaps at me: "Don't worry, we will still find a way to settle this until I can get in your pants again." And then, he proceeds his walk to me.
Once he's right in front of me, I'm already trembling like a leaf, wondering what worst he can do to me; and in a very brusque move, he yanks the towel away from me, a dark smile enlightening his face. I do my best to not look at him, because when I do, he can see the hate in my eyes, and it ends up with me having bruised ribs; but then, Michael says something that makes me snap my head up to look at him in the eyes: "On your knees."
I actually step back at those words, horrified by them. He's never ask me to do this before. I mean, he didn't say anything yet, but I'm fourteen, I know the vile order that comes after that request. He's never asked this of me! This is too much. I never thought he could make me feel even less of a something than before. This is not happening! Please. Someone. Why is he suddenly interesting in demeaning me even more?
You know what? I think I'd rather be dead than keep of feeling so belittled. I won't put up with his crap anymore!
I take another step backward, and Michael closes the little distance that I put between us with a threatening step on his behalf, telling me: "Don't start that with me! I don't feel like teaching you a lesson today. I said on your knees!"
I shake my head with refusal, taking yet another step backward, my knees meeting the unwelcome outline of the bathtub that keeps me from going further. Michael glares at me and growls: "What did you think? That I'd leave you alone because now you're supposedly a woman? I'll just need to be more careful and finish elsewhere than in your little pussy. Now, do as I say and give me what I want!"
I open big wide eyes as I understand that he will never leave me alone. He was just worried of getting me pregnant since that creep never bothered wearing protections.
But I stand in my position. I just don't want to keep doing it, even if I have to die. Michael stares at me for a long while when I don't move in the position he wants me in; and suddenly, without a single warning, he violently slaps me, making me fall on the floor, gasping as I reach for my cheek with shock.
He's never hit my face before. Because it would show. He's never hit me on any visible place. I look up, and he yanks me by the hair before slapping me once again, shattering away all my dreams of rebellion and standing up for myself. The first slaps still stings, and now the second is biting my cheek even more, making me feel like his hand will be forever printed on my cheek.
I wake up with a start, gasping loudly at this nightmarish memory and looking for air. But instead of curling up in a ball like I always do when I have an awful nightmare/memory of Michael and cry, I literally panic. I don't recognise the place. I don't know where I am, and it's too dark to even try to properly locate myself.
Before I can start screaming all over the place at this sudden unknown, someone next to me loudly curses and reassuringly takes my hand in theirs, and I hear tyres scratching the pavement. I realise that we are in a car, and that we pulled over. I can see through the darkness that the night is deep and the moon is high. And I don't have to turn to know who's hand is holding mine. I've felt this hand all evening on my smaller back, strangely making me feel good. I know its Jace, I just do.
I pant a little, trying to reign over my emotions, and Jace gently retrieves his hand from mine, only to draw soothing circles on my back. For a minute or two, we both stay silent, my brain still lost in the memory of that nightmare. It's been such a long time since I had this particular memory. I've endured way worst for my brain to try to remind me this little minor thing.
"We're halfway to home. I didn't bring you back to my parents because I figured that you'd want to be at your place as soon as possible," Jace explains, and I can't help but smile a little to myself.
Can this guy be any more sweet? Did you ever meet someone that thoughtful? Because I haven't. I mean, the guy ditched his family for me. Because I had this moment of weakness … I'm such a godawful person. His family probably hates me, now. They don't see him that often, and when they get to, I tagged along, keeping him home and even cutting short the time they should have spent together.
As my breath slowly becomes more regular, I start to feel a sting horribly familiar on my right cheek. A sting that I usually felt on my ribcage, but already felt a few now and then on my cheek. And something cold suddenly rushes through me. I start to recall my last moments at the restaurant, my breath going missing; and I turn my head to Jace, distancing my back from his hand as shock washes through me by what I'm assimilating.
"You hit me!?" I accuse him, my breath still gone in a far away place.
I can't believe this! I can't believe that Jace hit me! Jace who always seemed so sweet and caring. Jace hit me! I trusted him, and never thought that he would hurt me like that! But apparently I was completely wrong! I can't believe that Jace hit me!
With shallow breaths, I unfasten my seatbelt, tears blurring my vision; and with agitation, I open the door of his car, desperate to just put distance between us, even though I don't know where we are.
"You were hyperventilating, Clary. I did what I could to make you stop. I didn't want the restaurant or my parents to call the paramedics," He explains with a very steady and sure voice.
Geez! He's going all lawyer on me. He thinks that by being professional, he can sugar-coat me. But all I can think of, is the fact that he hit me. That he raised his hand high in the air, and then slapped me hard enough for me to feel the sting on my cheek.
The tears that I tried so hard to contain are now falling on my cheeks (one of them feeling them more vividly than the other). I shouldn't listen to anything coming out of his mouth. He hit me. No one can be trusted in this cruel world. Not even handsome serial killers who somehow managed to make you feel good at some point.
"You hit me," I repeat with a smaller voice, my hand still holding the handle of the now open passenger door while a small voice inside me tries to plead Jace's case.
It says that Jace would never do something like that to hurt me, and that he just reacted like any other human being would do given the situation. What would I have done if I had seen someone I know hyperventilating? Would have I done the logical thing and slap them to bring their breaths to a normal rate? Is it what Jace really did? Am I overreacting?
Or not? What if he slaps me again? Under the pretext that it was for my own good? What if Jace is even more cruel and twisted than Michael and that he's finally revealing his true colours? At least, with Michael I knew from the start. He passed from complete indifference to cruel, he never pretended to be nice and to care for me. I knew where he stood. Now, what about Jace?
"Clary … I didn't do it to hurt you," Jace pleads again, with a very pained and hurt voice. But I still refuse to look at him, a part of me still considering going in the unknown of the darkness outside, rather than stay with him; and so he continues: "I'd never lay a hand on you that way, Clary. You have to believe me. I am not that kind of man."
I don't respond anything to that, though I am a little taken aback by the bitterness of his tone. It feels like I implicitly compared him to someone who is that kind of man, and that he feels insulted by this comparison.
Deep down, my voice of reason argues with me that I am completely overreacting. The same voice who's been arguing with me all yesterday long, saying that Jace likes me in the same way that Kaelie and Izzy say. And when I try to argue with it, the voice points out that I was the one who asked Jace to go back home, right after the slap. All my protests die before even being said, as I see that my first instincts when I felt in danger were to trust Jace.
Which proves that I am overreacting since my first reaction was to go to Jace. And so, I decide to listen to this voice for once, and close back the passenger door, breathing deeply in. He didn't do it to hurt me, I have to believe him. And actually, if the paramedics had come, I would probably be back in the Hell hole at this moment. I know that I am in hospital records since I broke my leg at school when I was five, playing hopscotch. So if the paramedics had to take care of me, they would have opened my file and realise that I wasn't Clary Fray, 19, but Clarissa Fairchild, 16.
After a couple of minute of silence, Jace's hand reaches for my face, waiting to see if I will recoil; and when I don't he gently caresses my cheek, swiping away my tears with his thumb. He waits for me to look in his golden eyes before assuring me: "I'm really sorry, Clary. I swear that I was not aiming to hurt you, nor to put you in this state of distress. I just wanted to make you stop hyperventilating."
I nod, leaning a little bit more into his warm hand, and he releases a relieved breath. Jace is not Michael. I should just stop expecting the worst of people because of Michael. After all, I promised myself to stop living in the shadows that this creep laid on me, and to not let the scars he caused to dictate my life. So I should just trust my instincts concerning Jace, not my fears.
"Your family probably thinks that I'm a lunatic," I say with a pained voice, recalling my weird behaviour with them. But Jace shakes his head no, his eyes still looking deep into mine while his brows are furiously knotted.
"Don't worry, they know when someone has a lot on their shoulders. They were just worried about Max acting like a stupid teenager around you," He assures me, and so I smile weakly, not sure of what I can reply to that. "Clary? Can I ask you what this was about?"
I frown, thinking about it; and only now, I notice that there's music echoing in the car. The song playing is Road Tripping', and I realise that I like this song more and more. It makes me feel … nice.
Jace gently moves his hand from my face to take my hand, making me swallow hardly and look up to his tawny eyes. Do I trust Jace that much to show him this side of me? He already had me cry in his arms yesterday afternoon, does he have to see even worst? Do I want him to see even worst?
"Clary?" He gently presses me, and so I tell him:
"Not now. I will tell you at another time, but please, don't make me talk about it now."
I almost expect him to refuse this to me, but Jace surprisingly gives me a small smile. He brings my hand to his lips and with wide eyes, I watch him kissing my knuckles, making the blood rush to my cheeks and I blush a deep pink. Then, he smirks at me, sitting back properly in his seat and starting the car and looking at the road as he says: "Buckle up. Because I'm still going to ask about your mad baking skills during our drive home."
I slightly chuckled, flattered by the compliment, and as Jace drives us back home, I can't help but notice that he didn't let go of my hand.
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💚Your thoughts and opinions are always welcomed💚
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~ So before some of you start to jump at my throat, I do not condone domestic violence. In any way. Now, that being said, 90% of the times, when someone is hyperventilating, the normal reaction that anyone has is to slap that person. Because the shock (physical and emotional) breaks the crazy heart ratio, and so brings it to a more normal one. It is a normal human reaction, so don't go villainise Jace.
` 1. What are your thoughts about the slap?
` 2. How do you feel about Clary's reaction to it?
` 3. What about that flashback?
` 4. And what about this step that Clary is taking into Clace?
Anyway, Cassandra Clare owns the names of the characters from the Mortal Instruments franchise, everything else is mine.
Kiss💋 Kiss💋 Bang🔫 Bang🔫.
