Chapter 4

Jennifer quietly cracked open the door to her apartment, squeezed herself through and silently closed it behind her, hoping against hope that her father wouldn't hear how late she was.

"Where's dinner?" He growled, his eyes fixed on the television screen.

"It'll be ready in a few minutes." She promptly made her way into the little kitchenette. It was clean. The whole apartment was clean- except for the living room where it was her father's domain. She learned long ago to let him have his space. It meant fewer rampages and yelling. She popped the tv dinner in the microwave and set the timer.

"My hand is empty." He warned. Jennifer went to the refrigerator and grabbed a beer, cracked it open and walked into the living room, placing the cold drink in his hand. He made no move to suggest she had done anything or even been in the room, just gulped his beer, draining half of it in one gulp.

As she waited for the timer on the microwave to ding, she thought about her father. On the surface, he looked just like any other every day pencil pusher. He wore a tie and went to work every morning at nine and left every afternoon at five. He wasn't a popular person in the office, but he wasn't the type to care. Still, no one would ever guess that he spent his entire salary supporting his liquid diet and only came home to belittle and beat his family every night.

The microwave beeped and Jennifer moved to the microwave to take out his dinner. She grabbed a knife and fork out of the cutlery drawer and brought the food to him along with a fresh beer. She then granted herself the freedom of escaping to her bedroom to flop onto her bed, finally allowing herself to mull over the day's long list of events.

She knew that starting at a new school would be stressful, especially in the middle of a semester. What she wasn't expecting was how far behind she managed to get, and then add on finding Kurt again after all these years and many other challenges and she felt as if she was having a barely contained panic attack all day. Worst of all, she couldn't figure out why she thought that joining the glee club would be a good idea. The only thing she could think of was that it would keep her out of the apartment, which is what she wanted, but she didn't sing anymore and hadn't even hummed a note since her mother died. It occurred to her that Kurt went through a similar situation and he would know how she felt.

Memories of Kurt flooded her memory. They were of a more peaceful and happy time, all of the memories taking place at the Hummel household. Countless sleepovers through the years, all of them, or at least all she can remember- involved them singing. She smiled, remembering the Disney movies that had to be repurchased because of all the times they watched them and wore out the VHS tapes. The two of them would sing along to the movies, learning every line and rehearsing them over and over again before finally giving Mr. And Mrs. Hummel their version of the movie, which was always better, of course.

As time went on, the Disney movies were exchanged for musicals, starting with the classic movie musicals like 'The Wizard of Oz' and 'The Sound of Music' and gradually upgrading to more stage musicals like 'Phantom of the Opera'. She remembered fondly all the times she lost out to Kurt for the role of Christine simply because his argument was that he could more consistently reach the higher notes. There was no way she could argue that, besides, she always liked the Phantom's part better.

Soon, she started to remember all the things that happened in the past to tear them apart, which slowly brought her back to reality as her thoughts worked through the chronological series of unfortunate events that happened, and then right up to the present day. She contemplated telling Kurt everything. He was the only person she could think of that would actually care, which is partly why she didn't want to tell him. Kurt had enough on his plate with school, friends, homework and a possible boyfriend. She didn't need to complicate his life any further. Besides, she had a strange feeling that Kurt needed her to be strong for him before he could be strong for her.

Her thoughts continued to carry her away and eventually she glanced at the clock and did a double take. It was a quarter to eight. She jumped off the bed and raced around her room, gathering her waitress uniform: a black skirt and a white button down blouse with long sleeves and quickly changed, putting her shoes on as she hopped around in the hallway.

"Another beer." Her father barked from the living room. She ignored him and ran out the door, down the stairs and into the street , just trying to get to work on time. She knew she would regret that decision later. Jennifer could hear him screaming even from the street, and the apartment was three floors up. She managed to make it to work with two minutes to spare. She tried to calm her breathing from the run and put on her apron. In her locker, her phone started ringing, the caller display showing that it was her brother. She bit her lip, debating whether or not to answer it. Jennifer picked up the phone and pushed talk.

"Hi Johnny! How are you?" She rushed. "Is everything okay?" The sound of her brother's caring voice came from the other end of the connection.

"I'm good but I miss you. How is everything there, Jenny?" Jenny watched her boss giving her the eye, she nodded to him, knowing she needed to hurry up.

"Things are good." Her voice got the high pitched tone it adopted when she was lying to her brother.

"Jenny, tell the truth." He demanded.

"I can't right now, I'm just at a friend's house. I'll talk to you about it later." Her voice remained high pitched. "I love you, have fun and don't worry about me." She pushed the end button, and threw her phone back in her locker.

Eight hours later, when her shift ended, Jennifer got a ride home with one of her coworkers like she always did. No one wanted to see a seventeen year old girl walking home alone at three in the morning. Everyone asked her why she wanted to work so badly, but she couldn't tell the truth: that if it wasn't for her income, she and her father would be living on the street and she wouldn't have a cellphone, which was the only form of communication she and her brother had. As she was walking down the hallway to her apartment building she had several more phone calls, voice mails and text messages from her brother to check. They all said the same thing. He was very worried and wanted to know what was going on, or he would cancel everything and fly home because she promised to always tell him what was going on before he left. She sent him a text message, her voice couldn't rise that way.

I'm sorry I couldn't talk to you earlier Johnny, but I'm fine. I promise. I was just very busy yesterday. Anyway, don't come home, you need to get away. All is well. Love you lots, xoxoxo Jenny.

She sighed, wishing she could just talk to someone. She couldn't talk to her brother because he was constantly threatening to ruin his career and come home just because things were bad for her. She couldn't talk to Kurt because he needed her more. She suddenly realized how lonely her world was. Johnny and Kurt were the only two people that she could potentially talk to. One was half way around the world, and the other was in his old world and she couldn't blame either of them for it.

After four restless hours of sleep, Jennifer was up again and making breakfast for her father. He stumbled into the kitchenette, still giving off angry vibes from the night before.

"Morning." She tried to pacify him. "Breakfast is almost ready." He grabbed her upper arm and swung her around to face him.

"You left me alone last night." She could smell and feel his acrid breath on her face, his grip on her arm felt like a vice.

"You know I work every Monday to Saturday night. I was running late." She tried to squirm her way out of his hold on her arm but his hold just got tighter. Her eyes started to water. "Please let me go or your breakfast will burn." Something glinted in his eyes and her heart started to hammer, that old friend Fear coming to greet her. His free hand swung back and slapped her across the face, making her see spots. If he hadn't been holding her arm so tightly, she would have gone down with the force of the slap.

"You left me alone just like your mother and your brother did. You just make sure you come back or you'll regret it." His voice was menacing in her ringing ears. She tried to fight back the tears and nodded, putting his breakfast on a plate. He sat down and she brought it to him with shaking hands. "Get out of my sight, you little bitch." He growled. She did what she was told and went to her room, where she locked the door and slid down it, letting Fear take over. She began to shake uncontrollably as the tears rolled down her cheeks, the swollen side stinging horribly. She looked in the mirror across the room and saw that her lip was bleeding. She realized her glasses weren't on her face. They must have fallen off when he hit her, which meant she would have to wait until he was gone before she could go into the kitchen and retrieve them.

Twenty minutes later, Jennifer heard her father leave for work, and five minutes of pure silence later, she decided it was safe to leave her room. She found her glasses, inspected them for any damages of which there was thankfully none, and then put them back on.

By now, her lip had stopped bleeding and turned into a tender vertical crack in the centre of her bottom lip and her cheek wasn't red anymore, just sore and slightly swollen. She hadn't looked at her arm, but she knew she would have bruises in the shape of his fingers, those were common enough. Jennifer didn't want to stay in the apartment any longer than she had to and went into her room to grab her school bag. She quickly applied a coat of red tinted lip gloss so that her split lip wouldn't stand out quite as much, put the tube in her pocket and left.

A/N: Okay, so that's one thing out in the open. I know it sounds dramatic, and maybe it is, but that's the story. I hope you like it anyway...well, not the abuse part, but the way the plot is heading. There is a light at the end of the tunnel, I promise. Also, I'm trying to make this as close to the show as possible. This will become more obvious as the story progresses. Don't forget to vote on the poll! It's important! Please review, it's my fuel. I love hearing what you think.