Page 106 of Have a Bear-y Little Christmas
“Those were my parents.”
“Yeah, I figured.”
She grimaced slightly, although she let out a dry huff of a laugh. “I hate how much I take after my mother.” That wasn’t really the nail in the coffin for me, but I didn’t point it out. “As I’m sure you also put together, they are not a part of my life.”
“Yeah,” I said simply. “Whatever they did, I support your decision. I know you’re not the type to do something like that lightly.”
Unfortunately, I’d spent enough time browsing Reddit while on the toilet to know that for some reason, many people had this belief that there was never a good reason to cut off family. Which was crazy to me. I was blessed with an amazing clan that I would never want to be without, but I wasn’t myopic enough to think everyone had the same luck. I wanted everyone to have a full community, but that wasn’t the case for many people.
Like Jeannie.
“I… I don’t know if I am or not.” When I gave Jeannie a concerned look, she continued. “I mean, my parents deserved to be cut off, but I’ve let so few people into my life, I can’t say if it’s a habit or not. Look what I just did with you and the girls. I’m afraid that maybe Iamthat kind of person.”
I hated that I could see her logic in a roundabout, self-punishing way. But maybe, if I presented her with enough evidence to confute that, she could be convinced to give herself a little grace.
“I know you’re not, sweetheart. But it’s your opinion that matters when it comes to this.” I drew her right back to the chair in the kitchen and settled with her on my lap. I always felt a bit more grounded with her weight on me, anchoring me to the earth, and I could only hope I made her feel the same with my arms around her. “Do you wanna talk it out? Do you want to wait until later? Another day?
“I don’t know. I haven’t really interacted with my past since Max was born. In a way, I always felt it was my own rebirth.That’s when I became Jeannie, a mom, and I fully escaped Juniper Stardust Aurora Wolfhunde and the prison she was locked in.”
I had always thought there was a story to that name, perhaps something fanciful and humorous, but that clearly wasn’t the case.
We fell quiet again, and Jeannie idly traced the veins on my hand, my palm, my knuckles, and then my wrists before she spoke again.
“I was raised in a commune. At first, I didn’t really know it was any different to how anyone else was being raised. Sure, our church services were kind of weird, and I spent a lot of time learning about our leader, but it was what I was used to. Then, they pulled me out of school in fifth grade because of all the ‘heretical’ things they were teaching us.
“And it wasn’t even the usual stuff, like evolution and the world being really old. It was things like Sex Ed, the Trail of Tears, and even some advanced math. I have a theory now that it was things our leader struggled with in school, and he really seemed to hate every indigenous race ever.”
I nodded softly, but it was like horror music was playing in my head. I had been leaning toward things like alcoholism and an emotionally abusive environment, not a fucking cult.God, it was so much worse than I thought.
“And like, that’s just what it was for a while. I made do. It helped that I was friends with the librarian we had in the commune. She was the leader’s aunt, so he had a soft spot for her even though she didn’t believe in half of his rules. She would always tell me back in her day, her brother—the previous leader—was always punishing her for speaking out. She’d been given the position as a librarian for a punishment, to isolate her, but it just made her more... her. I owe her a lot really. Without her,I probably wouldn’t have—” She cut herself off, and the look of rage that crossed over her features caught me off guard.
“You see, it was right around when I was fifteen that our dear, beloved leader started to come on to me.” I couldn’t help it; this time I did growl, my lips automatically pulling back from my teeth. Jeannie’s eyes went wide with shock, and I quickly controlled my expression.
“Sorry.” I said, and it took an awful lot of willpower to beat back the surge of violence from within my alpha. Fifteen.FIFTEEN?That was a child. A literal adolescent. How utterly pathetic and disgusting did one have to be to go after a minor?
Thankfully, Jeannie seemed to settle, and didn’t take my aggression as any sort of threat or disapproval toward her. “I didn’t get it at first, just thought maybe I wasthatgood of a kid. But then, when I did realize it was wrong, I ended up going to my parents. I thought they could tell me what to do to discourage him, or explain to me how I had accidentally led him on. Because it had to be my fault, right?” She licked her lips, and I braced myself because I knew that worse was coming. Now that I knew the beginning, and I knew the end, all I had to do was extrapolate what was in between.
“Instead, they told me that I should be proud of being recognized. They’d always told me I was special. That wasn’t really how they said it growing up, I believe they said I was weird, or that nobody’s brain worked like mine, but apparently that was close enough. Try as I might to explain to them, they never seemed to understand why it was uncomfortable or even why it was a bad thing at all.”
Of course they fucking didn’t! Now, I regretted not jumping right onto her stoop and ripping their stupid, old heads off their bodies. I didn’t like to think of myself as a violent bear, but it was clear to me now that one of the reasons Jeannie had foughtso hard to be the best mother she could be was because her own had failed her so thoroughly.
“It was at my sixteenth birthday celebration that our leader cornered me and I had to reject him. He wouldn’t back off, so I kicked him in the balls. As you can expect, that went over about as well as a triple-decker chocolate cake at a gluten-free convention.
“He didn’t tell anybody, because then he’d have to admit a little girl kicked him in the crotch, but the social ostracization was pretty instant. My parents lost their position in the church. Our rations were cut. Every night, they screamed at me, telling me I had ruined everything because I was an ungrateful child.”
I…
I had no words.
Jeannie was powerful, brave, and I’d always been impressed with her. I’d sensed there was some trauma in her past, but I couldn’t have imagined the extent of it. God, I wanted to shift and wipe out that entire commune. I wanted to hunt down her parents and?—
“I made it another six months before I ran away. I’d like to say that was that, but I didn’t really get into the best scene. I was couch-surfing, hitchhiking, going to whatever parties I could. I drank a lot. I tried some substances I didn’t like, and I made out with a whole lot of people. I was pretty damn lost for a while.
“But then I met this guy. I thought he was literally Prince Charming. Jacob Keller, a twenty-six-year-old cross-country truck driver who told me I was so mature for my age and the most beautiful woman he’d ever met. I should have known then. What kind of grown man is interested in a teenager? But at the same time, he was so much younger than our leader, it seemed appropriate.”
“You don’t have to keep going if you don’t want to,” I murmured, stroking Jeannie’s cheek with my free hand. Hertone was still full of pain and anger and everything else one might expect, but I picked up something triumphant underneath it all as well. Despite all these awful, terrible people, she had persevered. She had become a successful, amazing woman who made the entire world better just by being in it.
“N-no. It’s good to get it all out. Like it doesn’t have as much power over me anymore or something. It’s not such a secret.”
