“Would you like me to make you something? I think there’s some cheese and eggs left – I could make you an omelette.”

“Omelette?” He leans back so he can see me around the fridge door and I see vague surprise in his eyes. Even I – and I’m pretty good at realising my own failings – am finding it hard to believe that he didn’t know I was here. The man was a hit-man for the army, trained to be never seen but always seeing, and he doesn’t pick up on an 18 year old sitting in his kitchen? I look at the cigarette between his lips and wonder when he took up smoking again.

“Well… you’re looking in the fridge. Reason says you’re hungry.” I grin and push my plate across the table to him. “Or you can have marmite and cucumber sandwiches with me?” Marc looks visibly disgusted.

“I don’t even know what that is.”

“You don’t have that in France?”

“France?”

“You’re… Franco-American. Your chip says so.”

“Oh. In name only.” It’s only a little drop of information in a sea of lies and enigma, but I can feel my cheeks flush. Thank God my dad was black and Marc can’t see it against my skin. I want to know more about him than anyone else, but I’m not stupid enough to ask him directly. Everyone knows he hates that. He sighs and sits down in the chair opposite me and I watch the muscles of his arms contract as he moves and leans forward on the table. He’s wearing a T-shirt, and usually he sleeps in loose tracksuit bottoms alone, so he must have been awake for a while… going through the motions of trying to sleep perhaps. He takes the cigarette out of his mouth and looks at it pointedly, like it’s personally offended him. “I don’t have a lighter.”

“I thought you gave up?” I ask it light and breezy with a smile and I’m surprised when he returns it – not with the same enthusiasm but there’s warmth in his eyes all the same.

“Sometimes.” And maybe those ‘times’ are always at night, when you’re alone, and you can set the air conditioning to extract the fumes so nobody notices, and it helps take your mind off things. Off what, Marc? What is it that worries you? Is it the people you’ve killed, the people you’ve hurt, the fear that you put off all day so we can’t see it?

“Can I try one?”

“Uh, sure. But if we don’t have a lighter – ”

“Oh I just want to taste it.” Marc arches an eyebrow at me and I shrug. “I sat through hours of lectures at college that showed pictures of smokers lungs – I don’t actually want to smoke it… that’d be silly…” I don’t want to breathe poison, I don’t want Marc to breathe poison. Choking, like my lungs have shrunk and I can’t get enough oxygen – not enough to breathe – a vice grip around my chest. I’m drowning and I don’t care, because if you panic, you need more oxygen. Only makes sense, doesn’t it?

“Su.” He’s looking at me. How long ago did I answer his question? “What’s wrong?”

“I… uh. I forgot what to say. Sorry!” I wave a hand carelessly and pull my plate back, inspecting the inside of the sandwich thoughtfully. I should slice the cucumbers thinner.

“You know, I don’t think you’re not happy.” Marc’s looking directly at me. This is strange. I’m so used to the feeling that he’s looking at some point just behind me that I’ve forgotten what it’s like to have him concentrate on me like this. His eyes hurt. “You’re too fucking happy for someone who spends all their life inside a ship running around after 3 grown men, 1 alcoholic ex-soldier and a drama queen. But you can’t be a ray of sunshine all your life, and when you get upset, I think you stuff it down and pretend it’s not there. So, I got to wonder why you try so hard to push away your problems.” His expression is unmoving. Unreadable. “Are they that bad that you can’t stand them?”

“I guess… I’m just not made quite right.” That’s my excuse. The same excuse for the past 18 years and it’s served me well. I need these reasons. Marc doesn’t interrupt like I’d expect someone to, he lets the silence stretch until I’ve got my words together. “I was 14 when I started to wonder why everything was so hard for me. I mean, I worked for everything I wanted and I wasn’t failing, but it was just so…” I drop my head even lower and flick my thumb nails together. “Tiring. Everything was so hard – I was never comfortable, like I was walking on a really thin wire every day. If you relax, you lose!” I grin again. Maybe that’s not appropriate. “Like a motto. I’d have to judge everything I did. Every day. You know how difficult that is? Going over every mistake. I couldn’t talk to people without worrying what they’d think of me. And I started to wonder, can I really do this for my whole life? 60 years or so?” I blush again, so hard that I wonder he might actually be able to see. Am I really going to tell him? “So I started having panic attacks. There was always worry at the top of my mind. And… I ran away in the end. I get the feeling that’s something you can relate to.” A nervous smile, and I risk a glance up. The trouble is that when you meet Marc’s eyes, it’s hard to look away again. He’s silent for a long time. I suppose I’m still savouring the small triumph that he actually realised what I was doing with anything that worried me. That he noticed.

“Why here?” His voice breaks our truce and I have to replay it to make sense of the words.

“Because… I don’t have to get any of your approval. I’m always doing things for you, and everyone else, and that’s my place. Even if I’m taken for granted, I’m below the radar, so nobody gets angry with me.” I draw my arms around myself. “And that’s why I feel safe here! I’m needed. And it’s all so exciting – even if there’s not a job to be done, there’s always something to clean, or fix. I – ”

“You don’t deserve to settle for that.” I close my mouth slowly. For a moment, I think he’s angry at me, but then I realise I’m wrong. “To be ‘taken for granted’ – like wallpaper. And I don’t think that’s what you are.” He finally puts down the cigarette, on the table between us. “You should be needed. Loved. The most important thing to someone, who you don’t need to approve of you. But… that person isn’t on this ship.” Ah. This is as tactful as Marc gets, I think. He’s not an idiot – I’m sure he recognises my childish crush. So why keep up the charade?

“I wouldn’t expect that from you.” I don’t make my tone unreasonable. I’m harbouring a futile hope anyway. And I try hard not to look at him, it almost works.

“There’s not much you could do or say to me that’d make me stop liking you. But I can’t let things matter that much to me.” I meet his eyes, and I’m shocked when he looks away. “I’m not going to fall in love.” He seems to dwell on that but only for a second, then I see him pull it back. He doesn’t want to? He doesn’t think he can?

“It’s funny. Don’t you think it’s funny? I need to find someone to love me but I can’t risk it, and you need to fall in love but you can’t. … funny.” It’s not funny, but it helps me to say it is. “Do you think we could find a middle-ground?” Marc leans back and puts his feed up on the chair opposite.

“I think the middle-ground is sex.”

“I…” I feel like a little girl having this conversation with an adult. Strong, and masculine, the kind of guy you see with beautiful girlfriends on their arms - though, Marc doesn't really fit with that line of reasoning. “That could help.” I laugh, so it’ll sound okay if he does too. But he doesn’t laugh. He smiles, but there’s something thoughtful about it. My eyes widen as he stands up, and stretches lazily.

“If that’s what you want.”

“Th-that’s a joke?”

“No. I think it’s an invitation.”

“Sex… doesn’t mean very much to you, does it?”