The waitress wiped away her tears.<\/p>\n
Still trembling.<\/p>\n
The biker stayed beside her.<\/p>\n
Making sure she was alright.<\/p>\n
Across the diner\u2014<\/p>\n
the police officer cleared his throat.<\/p>\n
Trying to laugh it off.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was an accident.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nobody answered.<\/p>\n
The room remained silent.<\/p>\n
Then\u2014<\/p>\n
an elderly woman stood from a nearby booth.<\/p>\n
Her voice calm.<\/p>\n
Steady.<\/p>\n
\u201cI saw you.\u201d<\/p>\n
Another customer nodded.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo did I.\u201d<\/p>\n
One by one\u2014<\/p>\n
people throughout the diner quietly stood.<\/p>\n
Every one of them had witnessed the same thing.<\/p>\n
The officer looked around.<\/p>\n
The confidence drained from his face.<\/p>\n
Then the biker bent down and picked something up from the floor.<\/p>\n
A small body camera.<\/p>\n
It had fallen from the officer’s uniform during the commotion.<\/p>\n
The biker held it out.<\/p>\n
His voice firm.<\/p>\n
\u201cGood thing this never lies.\u201d<\/p>\n
The officer’s face turned pale.<\/p>\n
He knew exactly what the camera had recorded.<\/p>\n
The waitress stared at him.<\/p>\n
Still trying to understand why he had done it.<\/p>\n
The officer lowered his eyes.<\/p>\n
Unable to meet anyone’s gaze.<\/p>\n
Then\u2014<\/p>\n
he quietly walked over to the waitress.<\/p>\n
His voice barely above a whisper.<\/p>\n
\u201cI’m sorry.\u201d<\/p>\n
The waitress looked at him for a moment.<\/p>\n
Then simply nodded.<\/p>\n
The biker placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou never have to be afraid to stand back up.\u201d<\/p>\n
The diner burst into applause once again.<\/p>\n
Not because someone had been embarrassed\u2014<\/p>\n
But because someone who had been knocked down<\/p>\n
had been reminded she wasn’t standing alone.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The waitress wiped away her tears. Still trembling. The biker stayed beside her. Making sure she was alright. Across the diner\u2014 the police officer cleared his throat. Trying to laugh it off. \u201cIt was an accident.\u201d Nobody answered. The room remained silent. Then\u2014 an elderly woman stood from a nearby booth. Her voice calm. Steady. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":8232,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8230","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trending-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8230","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8230"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8230\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8232"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}