A/N: Before anyone one reads I just wanted to clear some things up so no one gets confused. In this story Eponine and Marius don't know each other and Montparnasse isn't a bad guy. Also the POVs will alternate at times. This part is Eponine's POV and the next will likely be Cosette. So please read and review!
Eponine walked into her new college apartment feeling very excited. She was finally away at college! She didn't even want to apply to Duke University knowing that she couldn't afford it. She was thankful for the scholarship she received since without it she knew coming here would not be possible. She was so surprised when she won it out of all of the hundreds of students who had applied. Azelma and Gavroche weren't surprised at all though. They always told her that she was the smartest person they knew. She had a straight A average and good SAT scores but she still thought they were just being modest. She knew that she was going to miss them. They had always looked out for each other since they knew their parents wouldn't and they hadn't for years.
She was also going to miss her boyfriend Montparnasse, especially since she knew he didn't want her to leave. He wanted her to go to the local community college so they could still be together. She hated him when she first met him after all any guy who dropped out of school and chose to hang around her dad had to be a loser. However, the more he hung around their apartment the more she realized he wasn't so bad after all. His home life was much worse than hers which she didn't think was possible. She had encouraged him to get his GED and a decent job so he wouldn't turn out to be like her dad. She helped him study for the test and he passed it the same day she learned about her scholarship. He even got a job at a local car garage and wanted them to have their own place once she graduated high school. She didn't want that, though. She loved him but she wasn't ready to take that step in their relationship. Plus she wanted to go to college. He wasn't happy about that and he was still kind of mad when she left. She knew their relationship was in trouble. She tried not to think about that now.
She looked around the spacious place from what she knew it had two bedrooms and two bathrooms, and there would be two girls staying in each room. She carried her two oversized suitcases and her carry-on bag towards one of the two rooms but stopped when she saw two girls standing in by the door of the room.
"I'm Eponine," she said greeting them with a smile.
"I'm Megan and this is Liz. This is our room. Yours is the other one. Your roommate isn't here yet." Meg explained but she didn't seem very eager to talk to her. In fact she sounded like she was mad at Eponine or something. She didn't say anything else to her. She wasn't going to let a rude girl ruin her mood so she just grabbed her bags and walked towards the other room. The girl Liz grabbed her smaller back and followed her.
"So your parents didn't come?" Liz said as Eponine opened the door. She just shook her head sadly. They wouldn't have come even if they could afford to take the twelve hour drive to the school. She was so jealous when she saw all of the other students around campus with their parents helping them settle in. She had to come all alone on a twelve hour ride on a Greyhound bus and had to catch the local bus to the campus. She was glad that Azelma, Gavroche and Montparnasse said goodbye to her at the bus station but it still wasn't the same.
"Oh that's too bad I'm sorry and I'm also sorry about Meg. She's like that sometimes." She said sitting the bag on one of the twin beds in the room. She didn't offer anymore information even though Eponine thought that she wanted to.
"I'll leave you to unpack." She said then left the room. Eponine claimed the bed by the window and put her bedding on it. Since she didn't have much stuff it didn't take her long to unpack. She had just placed framed photos of her and Montparnasse, and another one of her with her siblings on her desk when the door opened.
A very attractive girl with long blonde hair walked in with a couple of big suitcases and an older guy who Eponine assumed was her dad trailed behind her also carrying a couple of bags. There was someone else behind them carrying a couple of bags as well as a trunk. This girl had a ton of stuff but that wasn't what Eponine was drawn to. She also looked very familiar. She didn't think she ever encountered a girl like her back home so where did she know her from?
"Hi I'm Cosette," the girl said. Cosette?! Oh crap! She did know her! Cosette was the girl who stayed with her family when they used to run a bed and breakfast a long time ago. Cosette's mom had dropped her off back then and never came back. Her parents were never kind to her but Eponine and Azelma did play with her when their parents weren't looking. They were cruel to her in their parents' presence because it was what they were told to do. She felt bad for having to make Cosette cry all of those times despite being a part of "The Secret Girls Club" as the three girls had called their friendship. One night her mom had sent Cosette walking to the store in the middle of the night for a gallon of milk that she could have easily driven half a mile down the road to get herself but Cosette never came back. The next day she was told that one of Cosette's relatives came for her. She didn't even get a chance to apologize to her for pushing her outside that night when Cosette had refused to leave right away because she was scared. She always apologized to her when they were playing.
Back then Cosette didn't have much of anything and now here she was dressed in a designer outfit that Eponine recognized from one of the fashion magazine Azelma always read and with tons of luggage, and a parent who cared about her. And she just got off a long bus ride, was wearing clothes from goodwill, and had very little things. Oh how times changed!
