I haven't said it to anyone since Renee, he said. So, I need you to understand. It's not something I says easily. It's not something I say to fill space, she waited. I love spending time with you, he said.
Not just on the train, not just in the hard moments. I love being around you. I love who I am when I'm around you. And I think he stopped. Darted again.
I think I'm done pretending I don't. Emily looked at him for a long quiet moment. Marcus Hayes, she said. What took you so long? He laughed.
An actual unguarded full laugh. The kind he didn't produce often enough. And Emily smiled at the sound of it. The smile of someone who has been waiting to hear a specific thing and is very glad she finally did. He held out his hand.
She took it and they walked to the car in the December cold. And nothing about the parking lot or the hospital or the ordinary machinery of the afternoon had changed at all. But everything in the way that everything changes when two people stop resisting the obvious was different. The weeks that followed were the best Marcus had experienced in 3 years. He did not make the mistake of expecting them to be uncomplicated.
He was 34 years old and he'd been through enough to know that life did not reward the assumption of uncomplicated. But they were good. Genuinely daily evidence good. Emily started coming over on Sunday afternoons. The first time it was to return a book Marcus had lent her.
She stayed 3 hours. Amara showed her every fish in her new tank purchased and assembled two weeks prior. 12 gallons, five fish named after characters from Amara's current favorite book with the gravity of a curator presenting a major collection. Emily asked questions about each one with total seriousness, which Amara read correctly as respect, and which sealed the arrangement between them more effectively than anything Marcus could have engineered. She asked about Gerald specifically.
Amara told Marcus after Emily left. Not just which one is that? She asked about his personality. Gerald has a personality. Gerald is shy.
Amara said with some offense. Anyone who spends more than 5 minutes watching the tank knows that. I've spent considerable time watching that tank. You don't watch the right way. She picked up her book.
Emily watches the right way. Marcus stood in the kitchen and thought that Amara had without intenting to just offered Emily Carter the highest possible endorsement. It was on a Tuesday morning in the second week of January when Devo pulled Marcus aside before the morning briefing and said without preamble. There's talk. Marcus looked at him.
What kind of talk? The kind that happens in the breakroom about you and Emily Carter. Devou kept his voice even. Johnson in logistics mentioned he saw you two leave the building together last Thursday. We share a train.
He mentioned it was not in the direction of the train. Marcus was quiet. I'm not here to tell you what to do. Dvu said, "I'm here because you should know it's being talked about before it becomes something. The company has a policy on.
I know the policy. Do you need to look at it? We're not in a position that violates the policy." He paused. We're not in the same reporting chain. There's no supervisory relationship.
I checked. Devo looked at him for a long moment. You checked. I checked when? November.
Devuse absorbed this. November. He repeated. You checked the HR policy in November. I'm a thorough man.
Marcus, you were falling for this woman in November and you were already. Dear stopped, shook his head slowly. Then I have never in my life seen a man do more background research on a feeling before he allowed himself to have it. I have a daughter, Marcus said. I don't get to just I have to think about everything.
I know. Devou put a hand briefly on Marcus's shoulder. But you also have a life, not just responsibilities. A life. Marcus held his gaze.
I know that now. Good. Devou dropped his hand. Then stop worrying about the breakroom. The call came on a Wednesday at 6:30 a.m. Marcus was still in the apartment running 3 minutes behind his system, which almost never happened when his phone rang, and he saw Emily's name, and his stomach dropped before he answered because 6 3:00 a.m. was not a train schedule text, was not a photograph she'd taken the day before, was not any of the ordinary morning things they'd built between them.
Emily, he said, "It the way you say someone's name when you already know." Her voice was very quiet. He's gone. A pause early this morning. It was They said it was peaceful. He went in his sleep.
Marcus sat down. He was standing in his kitchen and he sat down on the floor because that was what his legs decided. And he pressed the phone to his ear and said, "I'm coming. You don't have to. Emily, Marcus, you have Amara.