Conflicted (Brothers Conflict)

Chapter Seventeen

Ema returned to the Asahina household and I was happy to see that everyone was warm and receptive and welcomed her into loving arms. When I'd gotten back to Natsume's apartment I had a ton of missed calls from my dad. I had a feeling he'd be coming back for a visit to explain everything to Ema, after my text. I didn't want to deal with the blowout and asked Natsume if I could stay with him for a few days in hopes to avoid conflict with my dad. Natsume agreed after voicing his opinion on the matter. He thought I should talk to my dad and try to sort things out, but I wasn't ready. It was going to go exactly as all of our conversations went and I didn't have the energy for it anymore.

While Natsume was at work I spent my time running at the park or at the gym, even on my days off. My phone rang as I made my way to the gym, Ema's name flashed across the screen.

"Hey Em, is everything okay?" I answered somewhat breathlessly after my 10km running session.

"Evie?" Rintarou's voice caused my heart to drop into the pit of my stomach. "We should tal-."

"I'm good, thanks. Is Ema alright?" I cut him off and took off at a run again, my nerves were shot, I just wanted to run.

"Yes, she's alright, she's handling everything pretty well. Please come home Evie."

"You don't even live there." I shot bitterly before I could stop myself. Tears welled in my eyes, why the hell couldn't I talk to him without some kind of outburst, why was it so hard to talk to him? Every time I talked to him I felt worthless, like the world's biggest disappointment. It was tearing me up inside.

"You're upset. Where are you, I'll come get you and we can tal-."

"I don't want to talk!" I cried. The tears welling in my eyes that I refused to let fall were starting to affect my vision.

"Watch out!" I heard someone cry followed by the honking of a car horn and screeching tires before a strong arm lashed out catching me around the middle.

I was running at full force. From the sudden impact, whoever had tried to catch me and I went flying to the sidewalk.

"Evie?!" Rintarou panicked on the other end of the phone as I collided painfully into the asphalt of the sidewalk and skid to a stop with whoever had tried to catch me.

I swore under my breath as I felt the familiar sting of road rash on my back, shoulder and legs. The phone slipped from my grip right into oncoming traffic. People were screaming and panicking all around me. There was a high-pitched ringing in my ears blocking out the screams and traffic sounds around me. Shakily I sat up and winced at the pain in my spine before turning to see who had tried to stop me before I could stupidly run into oncoming traffic.

"You okay Boss?" The moron with the ridiculous pompadour wheezed beside me.

Had he not just saved me from becoming a human pancake, I probably would have pummeled him for the comment. "I'll live. You?"

He threw me a cheesy grin. "Never better." His gaze flit to my phone now smashed to pieces in the road, "Sorry about the phone."

"It's alright, I didn't want to have that conversation anyway." I shrugged as I got to my feet. My left leg protested the action. I chanced a glance down and saw an alarming amount of blood spilling from my calf and groaned as I realized there as a rock lodged in my leg. "You wouldn't happen to have a bandana on you, would you?"