Cody asked her hesitant if she was scared of the surgery and Emily thought about it honestly and said no. That she'd been scared of a lot of things in her life, but a doctor's table with people she trusted in the waiting room wasn't one of them. And Marcus, who'd been quiet all night, who'd barely been able to look at her since the day in the garage, finally cleared his throat.
"Emily," he said, "I got to say something."
"You don't—"
"I do. I really do." He turned his cap around in his hands. I called you sweetheart first week you worked here. Asked you for a socket and called you sweetheart. And didn't even look at you when I said it.
And that day with the coffee, you saw something under that timing cover. I know you did. I saw you see it and I called you sweetheart again. And I made you feel small so you'd shut up about it.
His voice was getting thick. You could have let me look like a fool that whole 3 days and you didn't. You could have come out and shown me up in front of everybody and you never did. You fixed it quiet and you tried to disappear. And I keep thinking if you just told me that day plain what you saw, I'd have laughed at you. I know I would have because I looked at you and I saw a parts girl.
He had to stop. He pressed the heel of his hand against one eye. "I'm sorry, that's all. I'm just I'm real sorry. You deserved a whole lot better than what this shop gave you, and I was a big part of what this shop gave you, and I'm sorry."
The bay was very quiet, and Emily, who'd spent a lifetime deflecting, minimizing, waving away, saying, "It's fine. It's nothing. Don't make it a big thing," looked at Marcus, turning his cap over and over in his hands. And she understood that the kindest thing she could do, the strongest thing was not to wave it away this time. "Thank you," she said simply.
"That means a lot. I mean it." And she let it be as big as it was.
Cole watched all of this from his chair at the edge of the circle, and he didn't say much because he was afraid of what his voice would do. But near the end of the night, when the guys were starting to drift and Cody was getting ready to drive her home, Cole walked her out to the truck himself, slow matching her pace on the crutches.