"Great! One more day feeling like a stupid" Éponine told to herself.
She was walking down the streets, she couldn't stop thinking about Enjolras and that rainy day he saw her and said her name aloud and started to follow her with no success at all, unexpectedly she saw Marius on his way to go with Cosette so she followed him with no reason; she only wanted to be closer with her best friend in that hard moment she was passing by. It was the first time they saw each other since the day she went away of the Musain because of Enjolras.
"Hello stranger" she said to him and he turn his look at her.
"'Ponine! Where have you gotten yourself? How are you?" Marius said, very enthusiastic, he was very happy of seeing his friend again.
Very bad Éponine thought. Being so far of Enjolras, made her weep so hardly, and she didn't know if she could resist another day without him.
"Well… you only have to look at me to understand how I am…" She tried not to express who she was feeling and why she was feeling like that. Now she was starting to hate Enjolras because of that, but she could not stop loving him since her love was bigger than everything else in the world.
"Please 'Ponine, come back to the Musain with all of us, we are all missing you and we are worried about you. Please, we need you and it's not the same without you" Marius begged.
"I can't go back in there Marius, understand me, I can't see Enjolras, not now" she said feeling the most painful grief with that words.
Those words were enough for Marius to understand that his best friend was truly in love with his other best friend. Enjolras and Éponine would be great together as a couple; they both were in love the one with the other, so their love had to win above the other things. They had to be together every day.
"Haven't you thought that maybe he is like that because he is in love with you, but at the same time he is afraid of expressing himself? You know how he is" Marius said making Éponine turned her head immediately.
"Enjolras doesn't love anything else but his country" Éponine had a few tears streaming down her face, tears of a broken heart that only could heal with love. Enjolras broke Éponine's heart at the moment he denied his feelings. The simple things he said days ago, made Éponine thought that she was the only one loving and that hurt her very much. Two times in love, those two times on her own. But this time that was different, she had no doubt that she could never love anybody the way she loved Enjolras and she had the illusion that Enjolras might feel the same as her. He was the one who owned her heart, forever and forever for the rest of her life.
She wanted to stop thinking about Enjolras but the only things she got, was thinking every time more in him. She imagined how his smile was and how charming he would seeing smiling and that made her glad just for a minute, but at the same time it made her sadly weep with no conscience.
"Oh… 'Ponine I am sorry… I didn't wish to…" Marius said, so ashamed. He was sad watching his friend weeping about a man and that the man who was the cause of that weep was Enjolras. That was an awkward situation for him, because he had no more words to comfort his friends.
He tried to say other things but he couldn't.
"No… Marius, please don't, it is nothing…"she said for Marius to forget that situation between Enjolras and her and she separate from Marius and tried to change the conversation. "So… I guess you are going to see Cosette. Am I right? Well you must go, don't lose your time with me".
Marius saw his friend was still affected, so he had an idea to distract her.
"Would you come with me?" he asked.
Éponine got surprised when she listened to it, she thought she heard wrong.
"What, Marius?"
"Just until we arrive to Cosette's house, then I allowed you to leave if you want, but I really want you to meet her"
"Fine, I'll go" she accepted cleaning her tears.
So, Éponine and Marius walked together to Rue Plumet, the street where Cosette lived with monsieur Fauchelevent. Marius since always have considered Éponine as his best friend the same as Éponine with him, he had affection for her and seeing her so sad and down, in a certain way, hurt him. Now, he was trying to make her happy. So for distracting her he started to talk about Cosette, and he thanked his friend because she was the one who found her and she was the reason of his happiness. Suddenly he talked about something he shouldn't but something that Éponine would surely know any moment for good or for bad: General Lamarque was death. The only thing that meant was: The Revolution.
Enjolras was the only thing that Éponine could think about when she heard that awful word "Revolution". Éponine perfectly knew that in a Revolution many people dies and just a few survives, and the only thing she was thinking about was praying about Enjolras, she didn't wanted Enjolras to die, she could not live knowing that Enjolras could die in that revolution. She didn't want a world without Enjolras, even though she was still mad.
"Have you just said that… there's going to be a revolution?" Éponine could believe it at all, she thought it was an awful nightmare.
"Fortunately and unfortunately yes, but… let's not think about it right now, fine?"
She pretended to forget it, and Marius did too. The arrived to Cosette's house, she suddenly came out, she was like sunshine, she was very happy about seeing Marius again, she also saw Éponine but she couldn't understood who was her and what does she was doing there. Before she could ask, Marius already started talking.
"Cosette, she is Éponine, my best friend, she had founded you first than I, and she is the reason why you and I met"
Éponine smiled shyly and Cosette smiled thankfully and full of love.
"Thank you Époni…. Hey… did you say Éponine? I think I've heard that name before, but, I can't remember where"
Éponine got a little nervous.
"You don't remember me, well… I do, we were children together, and I am Thénardier's bigger daughter, and surely you also cannot remember my little sister and my little brother…"
Cosette suddenly remember, but she didn't felt resentful, because there's no kinder woman than one in love.
"Oh… yes there were…. emm… Azela and Garvolché, right?" she managed it almost.
Éponine showed a little laugh.
"Azelma and Gavroche" Éponine corrected her.
Cosette nodded and smiled, Éponine was a little bit more relaxed. Marius couldn't understand anything about what was happening between his favorite two girls. They met each other? They grew up together? Cosette knew the Thénardier family?
"Hey… Cosette… I am really sorry, I am so ashamed for all the things I did to you and tell to you when we were children" Éponine started to say very grieved "You didn't deserve nor Azelma and either I to treated you like that. I guess I deserve now to be miserable because all that…"
Cosette's blue beautiful eyes gleamed really touched so she made Éponine enter to the beautiful garden and she hugged her. Like two sisters meeting again. It was a new beginning for both of them.
"I'd like that we could be able to be friends now" Cosette said to Éponine by an ear.
"Yes, me too"
When they separated (not at all) Marius started to make questions.
"So then… you used to live together and you were like… what?" Marius asked.
The two girls smiled shyly and mischievously at the same time and they looked each other trying to remember that not in a bad way.
"Yes… well… my mom and dad received her in our inn when we were like two years old I think, but my mom didn't like "intruders" like she used to say, so she used to treat Cosette like an object not like a person, she gave us a bad example of how to treat her, so you can imagine what happened then."
Marius listened with attention all of it, every time, he hated more Thénardier and his wife, first his best friend, and now results that they used to treat Cosette so abruptly, husband and wife where both monsters.
"Yes… bad times, but then my father came in and rescue me that's the reason why I love him so much, he showed me and gave me the love I needed".
Suddenly all of them, listened to a noise that warned them something bad was about to happen but they didn't know what. Cosette got terrified and Éponine and Marius got out of the house. Éponine barely saw a few faces that she knew.
"Cosette, stay inside and close the door" Éponine ordered, "Marius… go away and hide"
Marius didn't want to leave Cosette and Éponine in that moment, now that it seemed to be something dangerous.
"'But... 'Ponine…. What about y…?" Marius started to say getting a little nervous.
"Just do it! GO!"
Thénardier suddenly came out with all his henchmen, and with a creepy and scary glance that you can only get in jail. He saw her daughter but he didn't recognize her at the beginning until she talked to tell him he should go away. Father and daughter argue aloud and aggressively, and Brujon tried to take advantage of Éponine so she hit him in the face and put him away, then she screamed very loud to warn monsieur Fauchelevent and Cosette. Thénardier struck her in the face after she spit on his face.
Moments later when Thénardier went away, Cosette came out of the house and through the grille she called many times for Éponine or Marius, Éponine was the one who came out of the shadows because Marius had already gone. Besides that awful moment Éponine had the revolution on her mind, she felt so sad because she was wishing to see Enjolras before he dies, and she noticed that Cosette was just the same as her so she asked her why.
"My father decided that we must move out to London"
"What?! NO Cosette! You can't leave Marius just like that! You can't leave him flat! What will be of him? Without you he is going to die!"
"I can't do anything, my father is decided" she started to cry so Éponine held her hand and she pressed it affectionately. Now her sadness was much bigger. Without Cosette, Marius surely would unite to his friends at the barricade, so it would make sure his death. No. The love of her life and her best friend would die. She could not permit that happened, especially because she was not the only one involved, Cosette was also, and if she found out someday that her Marius die one day, she could not live anymore in peace. "Take this to Marius, I am begging you" and Cosette gave a letter the letter to Éponine and she nodded.
