What did John Preston know about love? He was quite possibly the worst person in this city she could have singled out to have this conversation with. And yet, who else did she have? He wasn't here to share her misery out of mutual loneliness or anything sentimental like that, nor had he invited her to his apartment for any reason outside of it being the right thing to do.
"I don't understand," he admitted, simply but without any sense of frustration. It wasn't that he thought he hadn't figured out the range and depth of the tumultuous emotions that he himself was capable of going through - he simply understood love as an all-encompassing concept that was either present or absent in a relationship, without the nuances Evey was trying to explain to him.
He made a point of not watching her as he continued eating, though it was clear that he was entertaining the possibility of a love without want, of her certainty that who she was right now could not be reconciled with the ghost of her that he had encountered shortly after he arrived, mulling over such a concept over in his head.
The question scattered his thoughts, and he found himself retracing everything he had done and would usually do from day to day.
"I train, in the mornings," he started after clearing his throat. It was his turn to twirl the fork between his fingers, spinning the leaf around on his plate.
"I don't know why. But I feel I have to," he added, lifting his gaze to glance at her momentarily before stilling his hand and the fork.
"In the afternoons I had been going to different parts of the city that I haven't been to before, finding my way around this place. This... I hadn't been here for very long before- the island. I had considered finding routine work, but. The uncertainty of... everything, makes it difficult for future plans. And... I don't miss waking up in the morning and feeling like I... have to kill someone to prove my worth."