So... it's been a while. Is it too late to say sorry? Apparently my plans of me not having a life and being able to update frequently didn't work out as well as I hoped it would. Just know that I'm trying to get up chapters as frequently as possible (just read the an). With that being said, thank you to winter's cry my amazing beta for helping me come up with this chapter. Also a huge thanks to Emma Blackthorn, Liz399, and guests for reviewing and sending me great PM's that contained great plot ideas. Well here it is:

Clary POV

It was a week since I got out of the hospital, but today was my first day back at school. And let me tell you-make-up work is a b****. That was one of the reasons I couldn't go back to school.

I wish I could stay at home longer.

At home I can at least pretend that everything is alright and that I am mentally stable. Where I can try to ignore Jon and his confession and Jace with his lies.

Are they lies?

I don't know what to believe nowadays. Is anything ever as it seems anymore?

"Clary can I talk to you" My mom asks, pushing the door to my room open, then closing it.

"Sure, what about?"

"Well as you know you have been getting a lot better and catching up with your schoolwork and soon you will have too-"

"Actually I have a little more work to catch up on for math so can I stay out a little longer?" I cut her off nervously, at school I'll face reality and have to get out of my little bubble of oblivion.

"Okay here's the thing that I need to talk to you about." She says with a... pained look in her eye. "I know that something is wrong. You used to love going to school as a little girl and now you are making up excuses to get yourself out of it. What's going on? As if I would tell her the truth. Oh mom, I mean I've just been mentally tortured since I can remember and if you think I was every excited about school then you are obviously a terrible mother.

Since I couldn't tell her the truth, that left one option, to lie.

"Mom everything's fine at school, I just genuinely feel bad and I don't want to go back there and fail a test because I'm not feeling good. Do you want my grades to suffer?" The grades thing should get to her, she always cares about them.

"Look I am your mother and I know that something is wrong do just tell me Clary!" The one time she acts like a mother is now! You have got it be kidding me!"

"It's nothing just leave it at that and leave me alone." Any sweetness was sucked out of my voice, replaced by hostility and fury.

"Young lady do not take that tone with me I am your mother and I-"

"You what? You know what's best? Just because Valentine ruined your life does not mean that you can ruin mine and you are never there when I need you so what makes you think that you can be a mother now? All you've been doing is wallowing in self pity of what he did and what makes you think that I would let you in now?" All the anger and rage that I had been feeling, all the confusion and loneliness came out, and I knew I had crossed the line.

There was the momentary peace of silence, then it all went downhill. Expecting full on yelling, a mother enraged beyond belief, I received a much worse reaction.

"I tried, I really did." The pained whisper form her mouth, hardly audible. Then she silently left, closing the door behind me with silent tears streaming down her broken face. Then the reality of what I did came crashing down.

There's two rules in our house. Don't get arrested, and never under any circumstances bring up the scum that was my father. My mom could hardly live with herself. A man who gave her two children, loved her with all his rotten heart, and he broke her. Both of them had been so in love that they had two different reactions. There was my mom who was lovestruck and everyday was a honeymoon.

Then there was Valentine. Stress got to him... and he betrayed us all. He was so blinded by love that he thought it would handle anything and last forever. He was wrong.

I still see the longing and agony in my mother's face every time she remembers him. Wishing for the man she loved to return as he once was, and the torture of loving a man who changed into something vile.

You never bring up that man in this house.

And I broke that unwritten rule.

Jocelyn POV

She was right. About every part.

The first couple years that he was gone I was nothing. Merely a shell that felt no emotions but sorrow. I hardly payed attention to my kids. I was drowning in my own self pity, and left my own children on their own.

After that I tried to get over him. But it never worked. I signed up for numerous online dating sites, trying to forget him. But I never made it out the door as it's impossible to forget someone so important no matter how hard I tried. I attempted to reconnect with old friends. But both of us had the same friends and every single one of them brought back old memories that scarred even deeper.

And it never got better. Sure I finally got my career back on track, but art was an escape. I was known for my meaningful pieces, and that's because I put everything into my art. I channeled all the frustration and solitude into my paintings. I only helped myself.

All along I never considered how this might have affected Jon and Clary. Never tried to put myself in their shows an pd think about how it would be to grow up without a father to guide them, and it was practically like they grew up without a mother.

I couldn't even recognize when my own daughter was hurting just as deep as I was. Maybe more. If I was a real mother I would have realized the signs and ensured that she could confide in me. Instead I let her drift away. That's why her words hurt. It was because everyone one of them was true.

I was a terrible mother.

And with every last breath in my body I was going to change that fact.

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