She was so tired. That was the thing that finally got her. Not the pain in her leg. She was used to the pain in her leg. It was the tiredness, the bone deep, soul deep exhaustion of carrying it all alone, of managing, of hiding, of showing up every single morning with a smile pinned on over a body that was falling apart so that nobody would ever have to worry about her, so that she would never ever be a burden to anyone. She was just so tired of carrying it by herself.
"The army," she said. Cole went still. "18 years," Emily said, and her voice was quieter now and steadier. The voice of someone who's decided to stop running. I was a vehicle specialist, wheeled and tracked.
I fixed things that had to work or people didn't come home. Trucks, transports, armor, generators, anything with an engine or a hydraulic line. That's where I learned to listen to a machine instead of just looking at it.
Because half the time you couldn't look. Half the time you were working in the dark or in the dust or with the clock running and no parts and no light and everything depending on you getting it right the first time. She swallowed. You learn to hear the truth when you can't see it. You learn a machine will always tell you what's wrong if you're quiet enough to listen.
Nobody said a word. Reese was standing there holding her jacket like he'd forgotten he had it. Cody had stopped halfway to the door. Marcus, who'd scoffed, who'd called her sweetheart, who'd laughed with the others at the parts girl, who thought she saw something under the timing cover. Marcus was looking at the floor with a color in his face like he wanted it to open up and take him.
18 years, Cole said softly. Eighteen years. Emily was quiet for a moment, and when she spoke again, her voice had dropped so low they had to lean in to catch it. "Last deployment," she said. Last one, we had a vehicle go down in a bad spot.
Real bad. There were people in it and there were more people counting on it. And if it didn't move, they didn't move. And if they didn't move, she stopped. Started again.
I got it running. It took a while, longer than we had, but I got it running and it moved. And everybody in that unit came home. She looked down at her own hands. Everybody but me came home.
Something came apart in that leg while I was under there. And I didn't feel it right away because you don't feel much of anything when it's like that. And by the time it was over, it was it was what it is now. The silence in that garage was total. "You saved your whole unit," Cole said.
"I did my job," Emily said. "You saved your whole unit," Cole said again slower like he needed her to hear it in his voice. "And you came home and you couldn't get the leg fixed."