The Eccedentesiast

Chapter Fifty-one

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Chapter Fifty-one
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"It's been months." Michael leaned back against the kitchen island. "I'm trying, Dad, I am. But right now it's not about me, I have a daughter to take care of twenty-four seven and I'm still afraid I'm doing it all wrong."

Misha coughed through the phone. "Don't worry, it's just allergies," he rasped out.

"Mom told you to take your medicine. Don't think she hasn't been calling every day, too."

"Fuck you both!" Misha yelled through the phone before cutting the line.

Michael sighed as he looked down at the ended call.

"Good morning." Emma walked into the kitchen with a messy head of hair. "Are these pancakes?" She fully opened her eyes and stopped rubbing them to point down at the plate in the middle of the kitchen island with a tower of pancakes.

"Yeah!" He quickly stood in front of her. "I've been wanting to talk to you for a while now." He cleared his throat and rounded the kitchen island.

She sat on a stool and reached for a pancake to drop down on the plate in front of her. "About what?"

"Look—" he leaned his elbows on the counter—"it's been months, and I know you've been trying just as hard as I have to get to where you are now, so I'm willing to let go back to your apartment."

Emma perked up. "Seriously?" She smiled softly. "But you'll be alone."

The realization of that dawned on him. He looked down at his wedding ring. "I'll be okay."

𖨆

"That's exactly what you're not supposed to do!" Daniel snatched the phone away from Harden's hands. "You're the imposter, stupid. You're not supposed to tell them your name is red. Ugh!"

"I'm sorry!" Harden put his hands up in surrender. "It's confusing!"

"Nothing is confusing about this." Daniel played for him.

"Have any of you talked to Emma this week?" Gabriel stood in front of the coffee table and looked down at his phone with Emma's contact open. "Two weeks ago she said she was fine and we haven't run into her at school."

Connor shrugged and put down his book. "She told me she wanted to come back."

"To school? Is she not going?"

"Here." Connor took out a rubber band to fix his hair. "She said Michael was taking care of her."

"No shit." Daniel put down his phone. "They needed time together. They just lost someone nobody can replace."

"I-" Brian was about to say something when all their attention immediately went to the door.

They heard keys jiggling on the other side and the doorknob move.

"In position!"

They got up—but Harden—and they all grabbed random things they could find that worked as a 'weapon'.

"Oh--Okay." Harden put his feet up when Connor tried to squeeze himself under the coffee table with a nerf gun.

When the door opened to reveal Emma, they froze.