"I don't like confrontations," he told her. "Especially ones between siblings. I don't like being in the middle. I just wanted it over." The last sibling confrontation he'd been in the middle of ended in Alex's death and a whole lot of emotions that he hadn't worked through with Max to this day. He knew it wasn't the same, but it was hard not to run away from any sort of disagreement the second it came up.
He was glad she was at least admitting to being irrational. "If your family is a problem that makes you act irrationally and lash out and angry, especially at me the guy who's in your corner, then you need to deal with your family issues," he told her. "I don't want you to feel like you have to lash out and get angry. I want you to be able to look at me and know that you don't have to be angry or hurt or any of that." He sighed. She was getting upset and he could see it in her eyes. He didn't want to make her upset, but he wanted her to understand his problem with her reaction.
"I want you to listen to me," he told her. "The way you reacted was uncalled for. You've got some serious family problems that are worse than I even realized or that you realize. If you're that afraid of your family, you need to take it up with them, not take it out on me. This fight isn't about what I did or didn't do, it's about you and how you feel about your family. I'm not your family, Emmy." He sighed and shook his head. "I just want you to admit that you acted ridiculously, take some blame where it's due, and then we can move on with our lives. When I do something shitty, I'm going to own up to it. You did something shitty and overreacted, you need to own up to that."