For the first time in quite a long time, light shimmered in the corners of Evey's eyes. She turned John's words around in her head, then did it again. Then again. Although she picked up her fork again, it wasn't to eat. She twirled a spinach leaf between two tines and swept the broad greenery across her plate, softly collecting vinaigrette.
"It's not possible to love two different p..." But then she looked up from her plate at John, paled, and smiled painfully. She set her fork back down again. "I'm wrong about that," she amended.
She leaned back in her chair, finally setting her plate aside in the process, and let out a tiny breath. Her eyes were on the edge of the table. She seemed to be tracing that edge back and forth again with her gaze, as if it held all the answers in the world and only needed deciphering.
"He loves me," she admitted, wearily. "I suspect, even as the disappointment I must be, he loves me. But one can love someone and not want them, too. This is also how he feels about me." She gave up on finding the answers on the corner of the table. "But he has her, and that's enough for all of us."
In reality, Evey couldn't imagine inflicting herself on Aidan Waite now. He would have been better off if she'd died. She was nothing like the woman he'd fallen in love with. Evey didn't think she would ever be that person again. A burden to Peter. A burden to John. A disappointment to Aidan. And there was nothing she could think of to do to make herself worthwhile again - not here in a City where no one needed her.
She collected her plate and fork, and moved into the kitchen. The rest of the salad went into a small glass container with a pliable plastic lid, and the container went into the fridge. She set her dishes in the sink and returned to the table, where her glass still waited for her.
"What is it that you do when you leave here?" she asked him. Just as she could think of nothing to make herself useful, she imagined he too must feel something of the same. They shared so many things.