She let out one last sigh then closed her eyes forever, nestled in the arms of the man she loved. The last sight she had seen of this cruel world was his worried and sad face, inclined towards her.
The minutes passed – they seemed so long- on the barricade but no one wanted to disturb this silence, this homage to a faithful friend. Marius stayed there a few minutes, or hours maybe – he had lost the count – crying the loss of his confidante, his friend. After what it seemed centuries, he gently left the inanimate body. A piece of paper slipped of the late girl's coat. His heart jumped hard on his chest and, however all the trust he had in his friend, he could not stop himself from doubting. Had she given Cosette the letter?
He took the note and opened slowly, his heart threatening to jump out of his chest. This letter was written for and he first thought that his beloved answered him before leaving the country.
He started reading it but found out that Eponine had written it before being shot. The letter was filled with drops he believed were her tears – or his – as well as red stain, her blood. The humidity made the reading harder but Marius was too curious to discourage. The letters looked like sticks, as the one written by a child who started to learn to write, however, the young man's name stand out by the delicate writing, as if the young girl had written it hundreds of times. Marius looked up to see his friends gently taking the young girl inside the tavern. When everyone tried to rest before the next attack, Marius fortified a bit more the barricade. It was his way to honour his friend. Once he was satisfied with the solidity of the building, he started to read again.
Marius found in those words softness and sensibility he never saw in his friend. The young girl explained, with poetry, all her love for him and how she was hurt to remain silent, to mute her feelings because she knew there were not shared. The reading completed, Marius put the note in the left pocket inside his jacket, upon his heart. He wiped off his eyes full of tears and went to the tavern. Inside, he looked for his friend, who was lying on the ground, in the left corner. He sat by her side, took her hand and cried. Even if he was in love with Cosette, he started to imagine his life with Eponine. He could not help himself from thinking that if he knew her feelings before he met Cosette, everything could have been different…
"She seemed to be nice girl". Marius looked up to Enjolras standing in front of him, uneasy, with two glasses in his hands. "Yes, she really was." Marius looked down, as if he was trying to hide the tears he could not help to shed. He pressed Eponine's cold hand one last time, kissed it then dropped it off next to the lifeless body. Enjolras sat next to Marius and gave him one of the glasses. "Grantaire says that it helps to forget." Marius drank a mouthful and could not repress a grimace when the liquid crossed his lips.
"I told her to give Cosette a letter. I thought she would be safe, she wouldn't come back." His eyes filled up with tears and he buried his head in the nest formed by his arms. Enjolras, useless, looked his friend's back raise and lower due to the violence of his sobs. He turned his face towards the peaceful girl. He observed her, looked at length at every detail of her face. Touched, he faced the other way. He stared into space for a while then took a mouthful.
"I saw her a few times at the tavern. I remember the first time I saw her: I was sitting here, in this room, at the table over there. I was drinking alone and reading books. It was before I dropped out school. She was sitting at the table by the window. She was looking outside. I remember thinking "she's pretty". Then she smiled, and if it was like the world suddenly had lighted up."
Marius looked his friend. He was puzzled by Enjolras' story. He always seemed so…distant and cold. He never thought he really loved someone deeply.
"Then, she left before I said a word. After that, I often saw her hanging around our meetings, and I believed that she came to see me." He took another mouthful. "How naïve I was. She came for you. She only had eyes for you. She didn't see me.
- I'm sorry. I didn't know.
- That's why I was so upset when you said you had met a girl. I was jealous at first because I thought you were talking about her. Then I understood that it was someone else and I thought of how much she must suffer."
At that moment, his eyes were staring at the young girl.
"I thought I would never see her again…and I'd have preferred. All of this is my fault. Because of my damn barricade!
- Don't say that. She knew what she was doing. I tried to make her leave from here, she came back. She believed in that new world you talk about with passion.
- I would have given up for her. I would have taken the bullet for her!"
His voice cracked. He let the sadness flood and his tears shed. Marius slowly stood up, stopped in front of his friend and dropped off a hand on his shoulder.
"I think you need to tell her goodbye.
- How could I? I've never even said hello.
- You'll find the words, as always."
He left the tavern, met the others near the barricade to give his friend intimacy.
Enjolras took a deep breath, wiped his eyes and kneeled next the young girl. He gently, shyly took her hand.
"Eponine, I know that we don't really know each other. I never had the gut to talk to you, even less to tell you how you changed my life. You're the only one who gave me the want to fight for a better world…But it's useless now that you're not here…I'll keep on fighting, for you, for the world I wanted to give you as a gift."
He tenderly kissed her hand he did not stop to caress while he was speaking. He dropped it off gently next to the lifeless body, looked one last time the face he loved so much. He stood up, hid the last evidence of his disruption, and left the tavern. He knew what he had to do: tell his friend to leave – he did not want more tragedies- and die upon the barricade that caused the young girl's death. He was ready to meet her.