Maya returned, counted the exercise band beside the table, and stared at her.
"Did you double your set?"
Emily kept her face neutral. "Maybe."
"Why?"
"Because I can."
"That is not how tissue healing works."
"I know how work works."
Maya folded her arms. "You are not at war with your knee."
Emily looked away.
"You do not have to earn healing," Maya continued. "You do not get extra credit for hurting more. Your job is to recover, not defeat recovery."
That sentence followed Emily home.
Cole had moved her temporarily into the small apartment above the office at Thunder Ridge because it had a bathroom on the same level and no long staircase once she was inside. Emily objected for two full days. Cole ignored her for two full days.
"My apartment is fine."
"Your apartment has seventeen steps from the parking lot."
"I can use crutches."
"Porter said avoid unnecessary stairs."
"I am not moving into your shop."
"You already did. Reese put your coffee mug upstairs."
"That does not make it legal."
"You're head mechanic. Call it management housing."
She lost that argument mostly because laughing hurt her abdomen and she was too tired to keep going.
The men took turns checking on her without acknowledging they were taking turns.
Reese arrived with groceries every Tuesday and always claimed he had purchased too much. Cody brought repair questions so absurdly easy Emily knew he had invented half of them. Marcus repaired a loose step and a sticky cabinet hinge in the apartment, then denied any knowledge when she thanked him.
Cole came by most evenings with coffee and some piece of shop news that could easily have waited until morning.
At first, Emily accepted the attention because she lacked the energy to stop it.
Then it began to frighten her.
The fear made no sense to anyone, including her.
Everything was going well. The incision was healing. The swelling was gradually improving. She could bend the knee farther each week.
The claim review had not disappeared into silence. Her job was waiting. Her rent was covered because Cole insisted her wages continue during medical leave.
She should have been relieved.
Instead, she stopped sleeping.
She would wake at three in the morning with her heart hammering as if an alarm had sounded somewhere. Nothing would be wrong. That made it worse.
Her mind searched for danger because danger was the condition it understood.
Once, Cody reached for her small toolbox to move it out of the walkway.
"Leave it," she snapped.
He froze.
"I was just putting it by the wall."
"I said leave it."
The hurt in his face lasted only a second, but Emily saw it.
She apologized immediately.
Cody said it was fine.
It was not fine to Emily.
The next day she ate almost nothing.
Reese noticed because Reese noticed things quietly now. He brought dinner upstairs, saw the untouched breakfast on the table, and did not ask questions. He simply told Cole.