Her eyes hide behind glasses that she in no way needed, though, he is beginning to suspect otherwise. Her sight is fading faster than the blue, black bruise that peaks out from underneath the shaded lenses and thick rims.
He stares, but he doesn't really mean to.
Her eyebrow twitches because she knows what he thinks.
"Just eat before the food gets cold," she orders. He can't really call what she's put on the table, food, though. He nudges the almost mush vegetables and dry meat, his appetite gone the instant he saw the plate. He thinks that he would rather go without eating entirely than eat what she calls "cooking". He looks back up at her. She chews her food slowly as if she's in thought. He hopes she's thinking about leaving.
"Do you think he'll stop?"
She scoffs at him and stabs another piece of broccoli with her fork. It falls apart from the abuse; he can say the same about her. "Don't talk to me like you know anything, okay?"
"I'm not an idiot."
She laughs, but her smile disappears almost immediately. Almost; she keeps it up long enough to make her comment seem playful. "I wouldn't bet money on that, pipsqueak." She eats the broccoli like she's thankful for the silence it gives the two of them. It doesn't last long, though.
"Why can't you just leave?"
Her sigh is short and silent. "Why can't you just leave it alone, huh?"
"Because it's wrong."
"It's wrong of you to butt into adult business."
"It's not 'adult business' when it might leave me a motherless child."
She slaps her fork down on the table with a clatter that rings in the sparse house. The ringing signals the end of this discussion. He swallows the saliva in his mouth, a more flavorful meal than the one she put in front of him, and excuses himself from the small table. He disappears to his room and doesn't come out for the rest of the day.
.o0o.
The ocean is rocky, he thinks, quite a contradiction. His body constantly shifts and sways with the ocean waves that move the Orbit across its surface. His body's movements show in his work, the uneven cuts in the vegetables, the awkward shavings in the potatoes. He gets yelled at for it, but he brushes the comments off because they're from a chef he doesn't respect. When doing all his uneven, awkward work, he thinks about why he's there.
He remembers her blonde hair falling in front of the eyes hidden behind glasses she didn't really need, behind the only semblance of armor she had. He could see the bruise beneath fading to an awful yellow, purple. She had the air of confidence that said she knew what she was doing, putting him on a cruise ship to be the chef he always wanted. ("You can finally stop bugging me on my cooking, you rat!" she laughed in that forever hollow way of hers.) That confidence was as fake as all of that man's promises to stop and they both knew it.
He doesn't say anything about her decision. He just says the normal goodbyes and farewells and smiles weakly. But he stares at her through those dark glasses, conveying everything he wanted to say – everything he always said. He means well and that's the very reason why he's here, not there with her anymore.
.o0o.
It's within the month, that she dies. A letter from some person from his hometown in the North Blue tells him so. It's late by many months, but he takes it as a simple confirmation of what he already thought true. She wouldn't have lasted long with a man like that.
He reads the letter in the company of the kitchen workers. All of them peek and stare at him from the corners of their eyes. He feels… something deep in his chest and, for an all too brief moment, everything is silent and still. He closes his eyes and feels like he's about to cry and break down…
But then he's hit in the head by another worker before he can do anything else and is told to get back to work.
He stares down at the letter in his small hands for a few moments. The letter's wrinkled, torn in a few places, slightly yellowed…
And then he folds it, places it in the trash, and gets back to work.