Emily walked out of the kitchen furiously almost knocking Conner over. He let out a sigh already knowing the situation. "Hey" he said calmly as she stomped off
"WHAT!" she snapped at him turning around.
He sighed knowing she would be difficult "I'm going to the mall, you wanna come with" he asked calmly.
She hesitated feeling slightly guilty about snapping at him "no I'm good thanks" she replied
"You sure, I'm meeting Chelsea and Nigel at nasty burger Come on, my treat" he offers trying to coax her out of her bad mood.
"You're not gonna let this go are you?" she replied with a mock sigh, glad to be anywhere but here "alright fine just let me grab my phone" she replied as she took to her room with a slight spring in her step.
"Whatever, i'm leaving in four minutes whether you're in the car or not" he said as he walked down the stairs and towards the door.
"No" she whines running faster "i know how you are you'll drive like ten feet in front of me and whenever i run you'll just gun it"
"Then you better hurry" he says with a smirk walking out the door.
As they rode to the mall Connor drove while Emily sat in the passenger's seat with her feet propped up on the dashboard, a source of never ending annoyance to Connor. "Would you not put your nasty ass shoes on my dashboard" he complains. As opposed to answering she by smirking and grinding her shoes on the dashboard.
"That's cute" he deadpans "and you wonder why you can't get a boyfriend" he says with an arrogant sigh
"Just don't want to make you jealous, gotta leave some of the boys for you" she says not looking up from her phone
"Charming" says in a bored tone reaching over and turning the air conditioner on full blast. She recoils from the cold air cutting across her ankles and puts her feet on the floor.
"HA HA, very funny" she says in a condescending tone glaring at him sideways.
"Who you texting" Connor asks
"No one" she replies flatly
"AHH clearly, that must be why you can't look away from your phone" he says mockingly.
"If I wanted you to know, then I would have told you" she says raising her eyebrows defiantly.
"I don't really care just curious" he shrugged
"if you don't care then don't bug me" she scoffed.
as they rode the rest of the way in silence Emily kept texting someone on her phone, furiously typing away with little variation in expression but Connor noticed that when she was reading every so often a small smile would grace her features before she deliberately hid it.
Connor parked his car and shut off the engine, wordlessly stepping outside before realizing that Emily was still absorbed in her phone and only jolted back to reality when he deliberately shut the door making a show of it with just short of a slam. She quickly got out of the car , stowing her phone in her pocket before following a few steps after him.
"You're distracted" he said flatly
she eyed his form and noting nothing out of the ordinary tried to play it off, "nope, just bored"
"That was a statement, not a question. is something eating you or did that philosophy class you keep skipping make you concern yourself with the crippling existential dread that permeates all of existence?" he asked rhetorically
"Just some personal stuff" she sighed
"You wanna talk about it?" he offered.
She contemplated it for a moment, Connor wasn't particularly judgy and was good at listening objectively. He also had a track record of making good decisions something she had had trouble doing as of late. she stopped walking and leaned on the shopping cart rack "it's my dad, he's gonna be in town"
"I see, have you talked to him recently?" he asked.
"I've been screening his calls, I really just don't want to deal with all of that right now" she relented. "it's not that I hate him, I can't really put a word to it but right now I can't be in the same room with him without getting angry and I don't know how to handle this" she sighed while dragging her hand down her face.
"What about him makes you so angry" Connor asked
"He's just been different from how i remember him" she replied
Connor thought this over for a moment before stroking his chin stubble "change can be difficult, and he hasn't exactly had it easy" he pondered aloud
"Neither have I" she deadpanned bitterly
"That's fair" he shrugged "all the same i think you should see him before the gap between you two gets any bigger"
"But what if i just make it worse, or if he's even more gone than he was before" she says exasperated
"then you deal with it, he's your dad and i know he loves you" Connor replied "he's just not very good at expressing it"
she pauses for a moment "let's go inside" she sighs before heading towards the large double doors
