Emma snorted. “Nothing motivates bravery like market share.”
“That and being right,” Nathan said. “Can you shoot concept footage in two weeks?”
She paused. “Probably seated. Maybe limited standing.”
“Then we shoot seated. We are not in the business of pretending you’re not injured.”
That sentence lodged somewhere deep in her.
Not pretending.
That had become the dividing line in her life. Before the accident, she had spent years pretending not to notice the imbalance in her family because naming it would break the system. Pretending that her mother’s approval could be earned. Pretending that Alex’s dependence was temporary. Pretending that being the reliable one was a role rather than an extraction. Pretending that love which only flowed toward competence was still love.
Now her body would not let anyone pretend around her for long.
When Sarah came by on the third Friday with Thai takeout and gossip from the neighborhood, Emma was tired enough to be honest.
“They threw me out because I interrupted the story they liked best,” she said.
Sarah set down the takeout container. “Which story?”
“That I was useful. Strong. Available. The family mule with climbing trophies.”
Sarah curled one leg under herself on the couch. She was an architect with a talent for seeing structure in everything—buildings, conversations, grief.
“They didn’t know what to do once the utility changed,” she said. “That’s not on you.”
Emma stared at the river lights outside. “I know. I just hate that I’m only now seeing it clearly.”
“People can be in a house for twenty years and not know it has termites until the floor collapses.”
Emma laughed then, unexpectedly hard.
Sarah pointed with her chopsticks. “There. That’s the sound I came for.”
Sarah had been there during all the years that mattered. The sleepovers. The high school climbing trips. The night Emma came home from her first failed relationship and swore she would never love anyone who mistook steadiness for emotional free labor. Sarah had also seen the Mitchells up close enough to know their polished surface was all negotiation underneath.
