The Far Away Bear (mxm)

Chapter 11: The Wolf

POV: Jaden

Valerie.

She was here, right in front of me. 

My father was a tough man, The kind of man who worked on fishing boats and went into the woods to go camping with his son on holidays. But, my father was not a bad man. He did however, have impeccably bad taste in women.

When we lost my mother, my father was heart broken. He couldn't see the woods through the trees for a long time, his sense of purpose had been swallowed up by a single bad decision that ended everything. We were all lost. But my father tried to come around for me, he tried to give me a good childhood even if it was a little intense.

You see, my father was what most would call a "self-made" man. He'd saved a drop of every penny he'd ever made, and managed to accumulate enough to afford to buy his own fishing boat and opened up a bait shop in our small town. Every profit he'd ever made was put back into some form of investment, and so, eventually, my father had managed to buy half of the towns fishing boats and cannery.

We were well off, but we didn't live like we were. We still fished, still camped, still wore our crappy jeans and dad still drove that beat up truck he loved so much.

But we weren't invisible.

People knew we were doing well, just the two of us, and they saw an opening in our family that was yet to be filled. Valerie had snuck her way into my fathers life little by little, appearing at the docks for a little air from time to time "accidentally" stumbling until he caught her. She'd bat her eyes and play the game, twisting him around her little finger.

But Valerie had a secret that only i knew, and i only knew, because i caught her myself.

It was a few months into their annoyingly frustrating relationship when it happened. One afternoon when my dad was out of the house, Valerie had shown up. She'd slipped into the kitchen through the back door, unaware I'd been sleeping on the couch that day. Valerie had been living with us for a while now, and i spent most of that time avoiding being in her company. She had been making my father happy so i stayed out of it. But, she was not mother material.

"Where are they at right now?" a mans voice, low and husky asked over the top of my couch cushion, Valerie giggling along as he pulled him toward the master bedroom "out, that old shit is  probably bringing his dumb kid out to fish again" she gagged "He stinks! you've no idea!" she laughed, voices going quieter down the hallway as i sat up from my place and stared "Just marry him and get the money, then you can come back to me and we can set off somewhere hot!"

"I'm trying, but he says hes not ready to get married yet" she groaned out "Just get him to sign the papers-" and i just about lost it.

"The FUCK DID YOU SAY!?" I stormed from the living room into the hallway, Valerie froze up in the strangers arms, his muscles on his neck clenched and pulsing as the two stared wide eyed and darkly at me. "You think you can do this?! you think you can get away with this?! GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY DADS HOUSE!" I'd never been so angry, so furious with anyone in my life before now. This wasn't who i was, but this...

My father...To be played like this...The horrific feeling of betrayal, He'd only just opened up again for me, and this is how he's treated?

Valerie concocted a series of lies, covering her own ass over and over until there was so many that even she couldn't keep track anymore. She whispered in my fathers ear, masterfully charming him.

My father. The man I'd grown to respect and cherish, The role model I'd always looked up to...didn't believe me.

"Dad, please, just try to listen to me!"