Thread: All to Herself (Ethereal & Father Figure)

He was not a childish man, nor a fool, and it was definitely hard to put one over on the older man that stood before her. After all, he was her Father, and it was something of a second nature to sniff out a lie. Yet this was a lie that was not given away by what she was saying, but by the fact that she was hurting for some reason. More than that she seemed deeply upset, the feelings inside of her turning from something resembling disappointment into something resembling resentment. How could he allow her to resent him? It was a question that had come up often in the last several months as she seemed more and more distant from him. Was it the boys that she was dating? Was it the fact that he was doing so much without her? Or was it the very simple fact that she needed her Father in her life and that he was paying attention to so many things that were not her, that were not what she needed from him. It was confusing, just a tiny bit to the older man, because truthfully he was very unsure what it was that she did need from him. He often wished he could have given her more. It was not as if he'd failed in any fashion, not in the slightest, but he was still a man and there were some things that made it hard to bridge the gulf between the two of them. She was his little girl, becoming a woman, and there were things he was sure that she required that he could not and would not be able to understand. He wanted to tell her how much he loved her, that he would have sacrificed and given anything for her happiness, but that often seemed to come off so trite in his mind. The kind of thing he would have said to a young child that he was attempting to comfort. It was hardly the kind of thing a father said to a teenager who probably no longer wanted to be reminded that she was his baby girl. Yet he knew deep down he had to do something to protect their relationship, to ensure that she knew he was there for her and had his full support. That kind of thought led to only one inevitable conclusion, the kind of thing which made him much more than someone she called dad...but a man who actually cared about how she felt. Watching her leave his side to scurry away was something that was heartbreaking for him just as much as anything she could have done. It was an emphasis of the distance, of the problems between them, of the silence that resonated sometimes in the house. He truly did want to leave to go and be with the woman he had been speaking with, but that was not his heart that was speaking to him, that was his lust and lust was not something that would ever pay off in the end. The only worthwhile investment was one which was done from sacrifice, giving of yourself in order to make another person happy. It was something he had drilled into her, just as much as he had drilled into her that lying was wrong. Regardless of his sexual preferences her Father was an incredibly empathic man and it was that empathy which caused him to hurt so deeply, not just in his loneliness but in realizing perhaps it was shared just as much by her. He glanced down at his phone for a moment and then back up, his long stride taking a few steps to come to the edge of the stairs and there he called down to her as she tried to leave his presence. Hey, I just...I just got a cancellation, he said, the voice hesitating for just a moment. He hadn't been intending to lie to his daughter, and even if he might be relatively good at it this was a bit more sudden than he'd anticipated. Hell, part of him didn't even know what he was going to say next. It definitely kind of sucks, but you know what? That means you we can maybe do something together instead, how does that sound? As he spoke he felt another text come through on his phone, but this time he did not even bother to look down at it. As it chimed, easily loud enough to be heard by his daughter, he moved his thumb to click it to silent and he slid it into his pocket. He meant what he said, he wanted to spend the night with Casey...and nobody else.