The woman, Dearu said, abandoning the pretense. Emily, when are you going to stop acting like what's happening between you two is just a commuter friendship? Marcus focused on his own panel. It's complicated. What's complicated?
Everything. He exhaled through his nose. She's going through something serious with her father. I'm not trying to to what? Be there for her. to make something about me when she has enough to deal with.
Devou put down his tool and turned to face Marcus fully, which was his signal that what was coming next was not going to be gentle. Marcus, listen to me. I have known you for 9 years. I was at Renee's funeral. I watched you hold Amara with one hand and shake hands with every person at that reception with the other.
And I watched you not cry until you thought everyone had gone and I was still in the parking lot. He paused. You have been alone for three years, not because you had to be, because you decided that needing someone was a kind of weakness. Because you decided that the work of being a father was all the self you were allowed. Marcus' jaw tightened.
That's not strength, Dro said. That's just fear with a better name. The word sat in the air between them. Marcus turned it over. He wanted to reject it.
He assembled several arguments against it. He looked at each one carefully and found that it was weaker than the one before. And by the time he'd gotten to the last one, the last one had nothing left in it at all. She lost her mother when she was 16. Dear said more quietly now.
Did you know that? Marcus looked up. How do you know that? Because I talked to Ranata in HR who knows Emily who mentioned it once. He shrugged.
I pay attention. He picked his tool back up. She lost her mother at 16. Now she's losing her father and she's been choosing every single morning to get on a train and sit next to a man who understands what loss feels like from the inside, not just theoretically. Actually, he paused.
You think that's a coincidence? You think that's just a commute? Marcus said nothing. She chose you. Dvau said before you chose anything.