January, 20th. (Continued.)
"Mark, have you heard about Paul?"
"What, what did you say?" Mark asks. His focus elsewhere.
"I said DID YOU HEAR ABOUT PAUL?"
"What about him." Mark rolls his eyes.
Mark didn't want to have the day's happy mood spoiled by talking about him. To talk about Paul Bearer on this day, let alone just about any other was something that Mark didn't intend to do.
Whatever trouble he's got himself in, he can manage to get himself out. Mark and Jeff were happy to have the house to themselves again, and Mark wasn't at all worried or concerned about Paul's whereabouts or why he hasn't come home yet.
It wasn't even his home to begin with. It was Mark's. Mark's and Jeff's. And it was peaceful and joyful without him being around. And it wouldn't bother Mark if he never returned.
He didn't want him here in the first place. He only manplated his way in, just as he always does. He is nothing but a maniplative con artist.
Mark didn't owe that man any gratitude or hospitlatly. Paul did nothing for him when he needed him so what did Mark owe him.
Mark thought back on his family's passing. And how he had suspision that Paul had something to do with the fire. Until that was proven false during the investgation. It was determined that bad electrical wiring was the cause. But it didn't leave the back of Mark's mind for a long time. It wouldn't be something that Paul would say no, too. Mark knew that Paul was invovled with his parent's business. And knew all about the handling of the money. Mark could see Paul setting a small fire for the insuarance. Maybe, not wanting everyone to perish, that being a accident. But Mark could see him being involved somehow. But that was a long time ago, and not something to dwell on now. Mark supposesed. But it was still there. The questions. The mystery of the fire. And Mark's suspisions only grew once he was living with Paul. And seeing him as the man he truely was and still is.
"I can never recall one single good natured thing he did for me, for anyone." Mark replies over the phone.
Mark's long buried memories flashed before him.
He was a distraight, scared little boy. He was lonely and dealing with a incredible amount of grief. He needed a shoulder to cry on but what Mark recieved was a cold man, older then his own father was and who only told him to toughen up. That he didn't want to be reffered to as a sissy, did he?
Paul was nothing but unsupportive. Not a shoulder to cry on but a cold, hard stone. One that was emotionless and unmoving. And dull. If it didn't have anything to deal with him. He gave you a shrug and get over it reply. Not something that a child who just lost his whole famly needed. He had no support to give and Mark resented him for it. And since.
When you think of needed someone there during a time that is cruical to your life, you think of going to your family, but for Mark that was impossible. He had only Paul to go to for guidance. But there was no guidance to recieve. Not from that man. And Mark eventually stopped bothering him. He learned to bury his pain. He learned to do it very well, indeed.
But that was not at all why Mark loathed the man, it didn't even scratch the surface as the cause to Mark's resentment. It was the disquisting ways that Paul would mention his mother, Sarah. He would even go as far as to say that Glenn was not his father's son but his. And that Sarah and him were having an affair, she wanted to leave the drunken man she married. But then she perished alongside the fool. When Mark tried to stand up to Paul, Paul would shut him down by shouting at him.
"It's the truth. I have proof, do you want to see it? Do you? I can go get the footage. If you really want to see your mother in that light?"
Mark could never stand up to him. Even now, at times, he still found it a struggle to say no to him. Mark hated that the most. That no matter how much he despised the man, he would back down, despite that he hated him so.
"What has he done, now?" Mark asks. Probably in jail, begging to get in touch with him to bail him out. Well, he can sit in there and rot, as far as I care.
"Mark, he's dead."
Mark stood there for a few seconds. Unsure of what he just heard. He asked him to repeat it. And so he did. But it was still unbelieveable. Mark actually had to stop from choking up.
"How, how did he?"
Paul still had him in his control and maniplative hands, even now.
TBC