Chapter 14
At lunch I sat in the break room with my sandwich untouched, and Marcus knocked once before stepping in. He held two coffees and left one in front of me.
"Mind if I sit?" he asked.
I shook my head. He sat across from me, not next to me. He kept his blazer on even though the room was warm. The gold piping caught the fluorescent light.
"You asked yesterday why I stopped him from touching you," he said. It wasn't a question.
I wrapped my hands around the coffee. It was hot. "I remember hearing it. I was half asleep. I thought I dreamed it."
"You didn't," he said. "Jared was going to shake your shoulder to wake you. I told him nobody touches you until we knew why you couldn't stay awake. That wasn't just kindness, Maya. It was procedure. If someone's collapsed from exhaustion, you don't startle them. You check the reason first. And I was angry, not at you."
I looked up. His eyes were tired behind the stern look he'd worn in the video.
"I thought you'd fire me," I said. "That's what happens when you fall asleep on the table. Three times in a week, like he said. I thought I was done."
"You weren't the problem," he said. "I was looking at that schedule. Fifteen hundred and fifteen-oh-seven highlighted every night, same handwriting, same code. I knew Olivia was in New York because I approved her travel myself. So I knew someone here was using her name to make it look like you volunteered. Waking you fast wouldn't answer that. Reading the paper would."
He paused, letting the break room hum fill the space.
"I should have noticed sooner," he added. "Three nights is too long to not notice a gap. I sign the bonus sheets for coverage. I didn't check why coverage was suddenly perfect."
I swallowed. "I said yes though. When he handed me the cloth at the elevator and said we need you till close, I said yes. I needed the hours. I didn't ask if it was approved right."
"Needing the hours doesn't make it your fault," he said. "You didn't have a code, you didn't touch the terminal, you didn't sign that volunteer sheet. That loopy signature wasn't yours. We have your statement now, the one you wrote. Small letters, tight. That's yours. The other one wasn't."
I felt my face get warm. "I was embarrassed to write that I needed money. It sounded like an excuse."
"It sounded true," he said. "Which is why Carla kept it."
He pushed a second paper across the table toward me. It was a transfer form, but it was blank. Beside it was another paper, a stay agreement with the corrected schedule attached.
"You don't have to pick now," he said, "but you said you wanted transparent scheduling. That means you see the sheet before it's approved, you tap your own badge, and you can say no. If you stay, that starts today. If you transfer, you get days on the second floor, same pay, different manager, no history. No penalty. I will sign either."
I stared at both. For a month I'd been scared of every door about to open, every name about to be spoken. Now the choice was mine and it felt heavier than being told.
"What would you do?" I asked quietly.
He thought for a second. "I'd stay, but only if I believed the system changed. And it has. Code reset, camera on the terminal, paper locked. But you have to believe it for yourself, not because I say so."
I picked up the stay agreement. "I want to stay," I said. "But with the condition I said yesterday. I want to see the sheet before it's approved. And I want to leave at four on time when I'm supposed. No fifteen-oh-seven unless I ask for it and it's real."
Marcus picked up his pen, signed the manager line with a slow deliberate stroke, and slid it back. "Then you stay," he said. "And you leave on time."
He stood, and I stood too. He didn't touch my shoulder. He just held the door.
May you like
"Back to the floor?" he asked.
"Back to the floor," I said.
