“By leaving me alone. Just leave me the fuck alone.”
“You have a lot of responsibility to this clan. We depend on you. We need you to be a present and fully functioning part of it.”
“I am doing my best. Right now all I can manage is to barely keep my head above water and Olivia helps with that.”
“You don’t need Olivia. You need to lean on your family.”
“Don’t feel like I’m supported much by family, Brandt. Why don’t you do us both a favor and get out of my house and back to work.”
“Because the minute I leave, you’ll have her back over here. She’s not welcome on our property. I’m warning you.”
“Then I’m not welcome on your property.”
“Don’t do this, Remi. Don’t draw your line in the sand over a convenient piece of…”
“Do not call her that! She gets me! She cares about me! She is at this point the only future I have! If you cared about me, you’d understand that!”
“I understand that you’re feeling alone and lost. The easiest most convenient answer is not always the right answer.”
“Bye, Brandt.”
“I expect you to be at work within the hour.”
Remi huffed a sarcastic laugh. “Sure thing.”
“We care about you, Remi. You’re family. We can help you through this.”
“I got things to do,” Remi said, walking away from Brandt.
“Yeah, you do. We’ve been working since 7:00 A. M.! What time are you starting?”
The only answer he got was the slam of Remi’s bathroom door.
“I’ll see you at work!” Brandt yelled. He shook his head as he walked out of Remi’s house, carefully picking his way through the pieces of wood that used to be a very nice door. “So fucking stubborn,” Brandt muttered as he got in his truck and drove away.
~~~
Remi waited only long enough for Brandt to leave his house, then he quickly changed clothes, ran his fingers through his hair and minutes later was speeding down the street he lived on. He pressed the button on his steering wheel and waited for the hands free assistant to speak to him. “Who do you wish to speak with?” a mechanized female voice asked through the sound system in his car.
“Call Olivia,” he responded.
“Calling Olivia,” the voice answered, as the sound of a ring tone sounded.
The connection barely finished the first ring and she was answering by yelling into her telephone. “I’m gonna tell you what! You are not going to just stand there and allow that man to disrespect me that way!”
“Sorry, Livi. He’s been our leader for so long that nobody goes against him. It’s kind of an agreed on thing that he leads our generation.”
“I don’t care who he is, or what he thinks he leads. He disrespected me. I will not accept that kind of behavior! It’s him or it’s me. You decide!”
“You know it’s you.”
“I don’t need this,” she grumbled.
“I know. Just calm down and we’ll work it out, okay?”
“It’s not okay! I will not stand for it and you will cut everyone who doesn’t treat me with respect out of your life, or I won’t be a part of it!”
“I know. I do know. I’m sorry for the way he treated you. It’s unacceptable and I will talk to him about it.”
