Cosette clutched the coffee cup against the slight bite of the wind, her brown boots making dull clicks on the pavement. She had tried to concentrate on her class, she really had, but her mind was consumed with bitter secondhand grief for Eponine. Not only that, but her siblings? Traveling from their aunt and uncle's to their sister's all the time had to be hard on the poor children. For a split second, she wondered how old they were now. Maybe she could meet them when they came over to Eponine's tonight-

Stop, she realized. They were barely friends, more like two people who had been thrust haphazardly together. She couldn't just "meet Eponine's siblings" after a day of knowing her.

Her thoughts were cut short as her toe caught on a passerby's leg, sending her textbook and her half-finished latte out of her arms and causing her to stumble. The people around her paid no heed, and instead tried to maneuver around the student sent sprawling on the sidewalk.

"Oh, I'm so sorry! Here, let me just get your book-"

She could feel her chest constrict as she recognized the owner of the voice immediately. "It's fine, I'll get it," she gasped, trying to lower her voice an octave. Grabbing up her book and abandoning her coffee, she began her way back down the street a quicker pace, but there was no such luck.

"Cosette?"

She unconsciously stopped, but wished she had just kept walking. Turning slowly, she prepared herself for whatever somber and semi-hopeful expression she knew resided on the face of-

"Marius."

He looked at her in disbelief. "I haven't seen you for…how are you?"

Spindly threads of embarrassment laced through her like cyanide. "I'm…well," she stammered. Then, as an afterthought, "And you? Are you…well?"

"Yes," he answered a bit too quickly. "What are you doing here?"

Clutching the textbook a bit more tightly, she looked at her apartment building down the road. "I'm going to the university. And I got an apartment."

He nodded, following her gaze. "I, I just came to…meet a friend," he explained, pointing into the coffee store she had just come out of. "He's getting drinks."

Cosette pursed her lips and attempted a small nod. She wanted to do anything but meet his eyes, not knowing what feelings resided there for her. Anger? Hurt? A small wrench in her stomach reminded her that those feelings would be completely subsequent to what she had done.

"Cosette, I don't understand," he whispered, trying to take her hand across the table, but she withdrew herself from him and placed her hands in her lap.

"I'm going to college, you're going to college. I don't think that it would be completely fair for either of us to go four years waiting for each other," she explained again, willing the tear that was about to fall to disappear.

Marius looked genuinely confused, and it killed her. It killed her to wait for his next sentence, it killed her to watch his lip twitch nervously, everything just sent another mind-numbingly painful stab through her. "But we don't have to wait. We can see each other on weekends, and during the summer, and-"

"Marius…"

"You're acting like this is going to change everything."

"That's the point!" she snapped back a little too loudly, drawing stares from nearby café customers. Lowering her voice, she continued, "This is going to change everything. I don't want you to be tied down to me when there are so many opportunities for you."

"But it doesn't have to-"

"You're not listening to me," she tried interrupting.

"It won't feel like I'm tied down…"

"And what about me?" she blurted out. "What if I don't want to be tied down because there are other opportunities for me?"

In one sentence, she could see the immediate effect. The confusion and protest on his countenance shattered and showed nothing but the wounds she had inflicted upon him. Cosette could feel her lips twitch, but she sealed them closed. If this was how it had to be done, with Marius's last memory of her being a ruthless glare in her eyes, then this was how she had to do it.

"I'm sorry, then," he began slowly, and she braced herself for the impact, "for being a burden to you."

And with that, he put his mug down, peeled his jacket from the back of the chair, and slowly walked out, the bell on the door jingling to signal his leaving.

Her eyes threatened to spill over, but she pulled every muscle she could to stabilize it. A bouncy waitress came over and asked if she would like anything more, but she shook her head and managed to get out, "Can I just get the check, please?" without her voice wavering.

She wished she had at least met his eyes when she said it. If she could go back just a few seconds and look at him, she would.

"Well, I really should be going back, I've got a paper," she lied, trying to turn around.

"Wait," came the voice behind her. Footsteps brought him back in front of her, and she stole a glance up at him. The mask that covered the same damp memory she had relayed was flimsy and hardly convincing. "I can ask Courfeyrac to get an extra coffee. Maybe we could…"

"I've really got to be going."

"Now?"

It was the same relentlessness that he had shown in the café, always needing to push her the extra inch. So although she knew that he in no way deserved it, she looked him straight in the eye. "I've got plans. With Eponine."

She turned and quickly walked away, ignoring the inquisitives that came behind her. "Eponine? You know Eponine? Is she here?" Her boots had stepped in her spilled latte, and little pale-brown footprints jauntily followed her for a few steps until all of the coffee had rubbed off onto the pavement, like she had stopped walking and flown into the sky, never to be seen again.

Once she was enclosed in the safety of her own apartment, she slammed her textbook down on the table. What was she so afraid of? Perhaps Marius just wanted to innocently catch up. She had recognized the name of his friend from their old group from high school. But they would inevitably have jumped to that night in the café, she decided. The last thing she needed was a reminder of everything that she had left.

A nagging question that she had asked in the week after their breakup wormed its way into her mind: would they have been married? She had been happy with him, of course. She had been happier than she ever remembered. Was it possible that in a few years, she would call him and say that she had been wrong? That she missed the predictability, the ease of always knowing what he was thinking, and the stability of having him always by her side?

Trying to calm herself, she pulled her raspberry candle out of one of her suitcases and grabbed a discarded box of matches, closing the door to her room. The little flame that sprung up when she dragged the match across the side of the box illuminated her expressionless face, and she pressed the sprightly fire to the wick of the candle, watching the wax burn down to the very end. So far, in fact, that it licked against her fingertips and she dropped it with a gasp, stomping it out on the floor and setting the candle on her bedside table.

She was ready to go to sleep, even though it was only late afternoon. Sleep would allow her to forget, if only for just a moment. But a pad of paper lying on her desk gave her an idea. With a black pen, she scribbled down a quick message and crumpled it, slipping it inside of the thick hollow glass lid of her candle. Sliding her window open, she stretched out as far as she could to gently roll the lid down to where it clicked against Eponine's windowsill. Just to make sure, she balled up another sheet and threw it at the window, quickly ducking back in.

She didn't have to wait long before there was the sound of a window sliding open, uncrumpling paper, and Eponine yelling up to the still open window:

"What the FUCK?"

Please R/R!