(You were never mine)
She stared out blankly to the open lovely meadow of the Seine, a meadow darker and shallower than any she'd ever looked into and with considerably less joy. Then again, she'd never taken comfort in meadows, or sunshine, dolls or hair-ribbons like other little girls had. They'd been a mark of shame for her as a spoiled child and a mark of hunger for her as a sallow, wasted girl thrown hastily into adulthood on the streets.
The boy Joly could sense this as he sat next to her, silently, watching her swing one long, browned leg idly over the river, tossing pebbles off the bridge into the pit of nothingness below. She picked at her scabbed knees and stared ahead intently, as if she had not seen Joly there, as if there was no one else to talk to in the world. But she had seen him; her gaze had flickered up, bright and light grey as a dove's beaten wing, before she turned her eyes away, ashamed to be looked upon. Her dress was tattered scraps of cloth barely clinging to the tops of her knees, and yet she had taken no notice. No, she'd fallen past that----she was beyond caring.
Joly sat next to her in the sweet breeze, watching it take up lengths of her loose curled hair, and longed to tuck it behind her ears. But instead he listened, as any good friend would do.
"It was like he was never really there, you know?" she started listlessly, still staring straight ahead. The skies were bellied with fresh rain---Joly could taste it on the air. Soon, rain might take the soot from her cheek and maybe the sadness in her soul with it. "All I ever did was see him, and he never saw me. Nobody did. But at least he pretended, at least he tried. At least I had some idea of who I was. Now…" she trailed off, wide light eyes empty and curiously dull. Her lashes were grey, Joly noticed. They swept the curve of her browbone, dusted it with an innocence she did not know she possessed. "Now I am lost. I'm alone again. I keep losing…losing someone…my family, my sister…now Marius…" She spoke his name in a choked-off sob, with a note of anguish coupled with a note of despair and still that hushed-up awe, like he had died. Of course he has, to her, Joly thought.
She scrubbed a hand to her face, reluctant to let him see her face fully towards him. She tucked her knees in to her chest as far as they would go. They'd made uneasy friends at first, but as time grew on, Marius proved to be their tie-bind. Soon, they were almost too closely attached, so much friends out of necessity that Joly had doubted she'd even seen his face. She'd never noticed when he parted his hair the way Marius did (just the once, it was uncomfortable), or that upon overhearing her tell Marius that her favourite flowers were white dahlias and dandelions, he'd bought a bouquet of the expensive flower then spent a day picking the yellow weed out of the countryside, giving her an armful of both. She'd thanked him and braided some of the dahlia blooms into her hair, a distance in her eyes that told him she was becoming the bourgeoisie girl again, the overdressed little girl-child in her mother's lap instead of the street-urchin, the yellow flower so often overlooked and scorned and stepped on by richly worn boots. But Joly tore himself out of this reverie and looked at the barefooted girl with her knees drawn up to her chest beside him, blank and alone. It was this girl he'd fallen in love with, someone who loved so fiercely she seemed to wear her own soul on her lips.
"I don't understand, Joly…how can someone you've known for so long just leave you like that? Without even telling me, even…without even knowing her name…" Eponine's lip quivered, and for a moment, she looked angry. She folded her ash-laden hands tightly across the tops of her knees, brown hair whipping around her face and escaping from her cap in angry curls. How lovely she looked then, the profile of her freckled nose turned against the harsh wind blown from the river. "It's not right to judge a girl by how she looks. If I were white-skinned and lovely, if my voice was melodic as chimes and butterflies, if I'd had the bell-shape of her dress and the smoothness of her face and the rose-blush of her cheek…I wouldn't even need be on the streets. People'd be taking me in for an angel." She laughed, bitterly, and rested her chin on her knees. Her eyes closed, eyelashes sweeping shut like clamshells.
Joly wanted to tell her how beautiful she was, her profile in the lazy darkness of evening: he wanted to kiss her then, but she was young and so set on what she wanted that she didn't even realize what she had. He admired her determination, but he wished she'd slow down a little bit from racing barefooted down the cobblestone streets, slow down from her thousand harrowing escapes just once to walk in pace with his simple gait, maybe just down Rue Plumet. He opened his mouth to speak, but she, the girl of little words, spoke again, this time looking him in the eyes.
"Joly," she said, almost pleading, "You've been such a good friend to me, but I don't think…I don't think I can live around Cosette anymore. Just seeing her face gives my stomach a lurch as if it's bound and I'm still running away…but Marius----"—there was that anguished little half-sob again, the despair of a lover who'd lost their affection to the sea and knew in an eerie sense that they'd never see them ever---"---his face, to me, was once a beacon to home to. But now I have no home, not here, not with anyone, not ever." She sobbed, once, brokenly, and then seemed to snap. She wailed into her arms, uncontrolled and lurching tears into the Seine like skipping-rocks, letting her breath out in hollow moans of stricken sadness that came unsteadily and in little spasms. How I wish I could hold her and dry her tears, Joly thought, and then shook his head. If not now, he never would. Gently, he reached for her, to pull her into his arms and perhaps dry her cheek with a gentle kiss---he would never hurt her, not like Marius had---but it was done. She had stopped, silent, chilled at the touch of his hands, and the moon reflected once on her face before he understood.
"Ponine…" he said faintly, reaching for her, but she seemed oddly far away. She smiled, a quaint little half-smile given by those who know who they are in one little moment, and she fell back, framed by the reflection of stars in the river.
"That was his nickname for me," she sighed dreamily, but as her eyes reached his one last time, they seemed to catch, to snag on something deep within them. They widened, half in horror and half in peace, and she fell limply to meet the river with an embrace Joly had been too slow to offer.
Leaping to his feet but knowing there was nothing he could do to save her, he dropped to his knees and gripped the slippery bridge-edge in the darkness, peering vainly into the night. His knuckles turning fishbone white, he howled,
"Eponine!" The one thing he could think of, wildly, to save her. Of course she wouldn't respond, he thought bitterly. Eponine had been her bourgeoisie name. Ponine…that was for the man who had ultimately killed her, he thought violently, uncontrollably. Or had he? Could one small touch of warmth brought her to her senses? Joly struck the ground with a fist, hitting cold wet stone and feeling one of the small bones in his hand break. He screamed for that, and her, and all the things he hadn't said, and then finally the irony. Finally, as the moon drew clouds for shades, he sat back on his heels, crying unattainable silent tears at a love that was never his to have. It's funny, he thought, watching silently the place where he had for the first time seen her eyes see him, how you really don't know what you have until it's gone. You never truly knew what you wanted, little girl. And Marius never truly knew what he had.