Every ounce for years. And even now on the floor in pain with everything finally out in the open. Her instinct wasn't to ask for help. Her instinct was to apologize for being seen.
Cole had spent his whole life in a world that talked about loyalty and brotherhood and having each other's backs. He had it tattooed on his skin. He'd said the words a thousand times. And he was looking right now at somebody who had actually lived it, who'd lived it harder and quieter and with less thanks than anybody he had ever met, and who thought she had to keep on living it alone because the world had taught her that her pain was hers to carry and nobody else's.
Not on his watch. Not one more day. He reached out and he put one big scarred hand over both of hers gently. The way you'd hold something you'd finally understood the worth of. And he looked her dead in the eye. And when he spoke, his voice was rough with something he wasn't going to bother hiding.
"Emily," Cole said, "You listen to me now and you listen good." She went still. "You've been carrying this by yourself because you got it in your head that's the way it's got to be.
That your trouble is your trouble and nobody else's. That asking for help makes you a burden." He shook his head slowly. "You had that exactly backwards.
And I'm going to tell you why. Where I come from. The real version of where I come from, not the movie version. You don't let somebody who'd fix your bike on a busted leg crawl off alone to hurt in the dark. That's not a burden.
That's the whole point. That's the only thing any of it was ever supposed to be for."
Emily's eyes filled and this time she couldn't blink it back. You saved a man's life today, Cole said. You saved mine. You did it for nothing, expecting nothing. And you were going to walk back to that counter and never say a word.
His jaw worked. Well, I'm saying a word. I'm saying a lot of them. That fight you gave up on two years ago, the paperwork, the appeals, all of it. You're not fighting it alone anymore.
You just picked up about 40 of the most stubborn, most connected, most pain in the neck people in this state. And every single one of us has got your back, well, whether you like it or not.