@ediams;
Emma doesn’t really care for much on any given day. Like today, all she wants is some peace and quiet so she can take in the details she spent the last three hours meticulously jotting down on her flashcards. But no, her father insists that now is the time to finally take up the tactic of being totally annoying. On the desk where all of her things are piled on, her iPhone vibrates incessantly, the word ‘Dad’ plain to see on the screen over a silly picture of the two of them together. It’s been stirring and stopping continuously for almost 15 minutes now, she thinks it’s insane. It’s really putting a wedge between her and getting the shit she needs to do done so with an annoyed huff, she decides to just give in and pick up.
“You know, you’d think with all of the degrees you have, you’d get the message that I don’t answer your calls because I don’t want to talk to you,” is what she says once the phone is pressed to her ear.
“Oh, I’m being stubborn? You’re being stubborn. I’m clearly expressing that I don’t want to talk to you and you keep blowing up my phone.” She rolls her eyes at the next thing he says.
“I don’t have anything to say to you,” she reminds him in case he’s forgotten. “What are we going to talk about? Your awesome wedding planning process?” She suggests in a mocking tone. “I don’t care, Dad. I really frickin’ don’t,” she admits with a heavy sigh, fingers coming up to rest on her temple.
“You just want to know how I am?” She repeats, almost incredulously. Like that’s so strange from the man who used to be the number one person in her life up until a few months ago. “I text you,” Emma defends. Barely, a voice in her head reminds. “Okay, so I barely reply but I don’t get why I have to answer every ‘how are you’ message you send me, like I’m obviously fine. Things don’t drastically change from one day to the next. Like I’m pretty sure the school is required to tell you if I die or some shit, so like, stop worrying so much,” she dismisses. It’s not easy having her dad be one of the people she pushes away, but it’s something Emma feels is necessary now considering the state of their relationship.
She doesn’t know how long they go on for, what she ends up complaining about, or how she goes from irritated muttering to raising her voice. It’s almost as if she blacks out because of all of the emotions coursing through her in her teen rage. She realizes how irrational she sounds when she speaks to her father sometimes but she’s so adamant about being the hostile teenager her father accused her of being the night he brought Broadripple up to her that she just commits now solely to spite him.
“Look, I’ll answer your frickin’ texts to let you know I’m alive, just stop calling me, okay?” Emma doesn’t even wait to let him finish before she presses her thumb to the screen and ends the call, whipping around only to have her sights land on the Debate captain staring at her.
“You know, it’s really fucking rude to listen to people’s private conversations,” she snaps, evidently still running off the high from the argument with her father.