Eponine had quite a knack for convincing everyone that everything was fine in her life though she had never managed to hide pain from herself. She knew that she would never amount to anything that anyone would be proud of, not that it particularly mattered considering the circumstances. She could safely say that she was an atheist. At one time, she had a strong belief in things like God and Heaven but those days were long gone; praying never changed anything whatsoever and over time she had just given up believing in a higher power. Eponine was stuck forever in her frozen reality which she had taught herself to accept, despite her efforts to forget.
Daydreams were her way of escape; her way of shutting out the world for long enough to imagine the life she had always wanted. But when those fantasies were over, everything would just go back to the way it originally was…a cold, cruel, dark world. Eponine had always done her best to stay out of everyone's way, for her own sake. She had realized that she was better of keeping her mouth shut, for the time being since no one wanted to listen to what she had to say; no one cared whether she was alive or dead. In fact, her father would probably be happy if she just disappeared, one less mouth to feed after all.
Eponine thought that at least Marius would listen to her without complaint, though she was horribly incorrect. Ever since he had laid eyes on Cosette, she was constantly sidelined. Nothing else seemed to matter to him other than his obsession with the 'Lark' and she knew the exact reason why. Cosette was pretty; gorgeous even. Eponine knew that she would never match up to someone like her. As a child, she was considered to be marginally pretty, however everything changed when the profits of her father's inn went completely downhill before it eventually shut down completely. Now all she was, was ugly. How she loathed the word 'ugly'. It was something that she couldn't change about herself, unlike most of the other aspects which she had been criticized on. People had called her stupid, awkward and worthless to name a few. If Eponine had thought it would make a difference she could change most of these negative things that people had noticed, but her looks was something she couldn't help nor could she change.
Keeping her feelings to herself was the most difficult feat she had ever had to face. Eponine hardly talked to anyone, in fear or saying something wrong and either embarrassing herself or making someone angry. She hated to see her father angry, as she knew that it was most likely herself that would get the brunt of it. Even Montparnasse could be reasonably frightening when he was in a bad mood, though he was far less irritable than her father.
Eponine tended to let her mind wander into completely irrelevant situations which she wished could happen, though she understood that they never would, and that just made everything worse. She was always so much braver in fantasies than she was in real life…
"Are you alright?" she heard Montparnasse ask, his words de-railing her metaphorical train of thought.
"I'm fine. Just fine." was her only possible reply.
Any comments? I know this is short, but its only really a prologue unless I decided to leave it as a one-shot. Tell me what you guys think, please. How am I supposed to know if its worthwhile continuing if nobody reviews. Even if you didn't like it, tell me ways it could have been improved. Jeez,I'm totally whoring for reviews now, haha. But seriously.