"Eponine! You home?"

Eponine scrambled out from under the duvet and grabbed her phone.

19.05.

She'd been asleep for 5 hours. Her plan to avoid facing up the reality of her situation was already going swimmingly.

"Yeah," she mumbled, hauling herself up. "I'm in my room."

Cosette bounded in a few seconds later, looking full of the joys of spring. Most of the time Cosette was a pretty decent roommate, but she definitely wasn't the type of person you wanted around when your main focus was wallowing in your own self pity.

"Hey..." she said, far too chirpily for Eponine's liking. "What are you doing in bed?'

"Napping." Eponine replied bluntly, pushing her dark hair out of her face.

"Oh OK then." Cosette said as she sat down the bed. "So what are your plans tonight?"

"Well, now that I'm up, I'm considering ordering Chinese food. Then I'm probably going to sit on my ass and do nothing."

"You're not going to the Musain? It's not like you to stay home on a Saturday night."

"I'm not really in the mood tonight."

"Everything OK?" Cosette said, sounding genuinely concerned.

"Yeah, yeah," Eponine replied quickly, "everything is fine."

"You sure?"

"Yup. Anyway," she said, desperately trying to change the subject, "what are you up to tonight?"

"Marius's grandfather is taking us out to dinner, he managed to get a table at that new Italian place everyone is raving about."

"That's nice."

When Cosette referred to herself and Marius as 'us' it still made Eponine feel ever so slightly like she'd been punched in the stomach. It had been over a year, and she really should have gotten over it by now, but there was a tiny part of her that still wanted to cry every time she had to listen to the endless tales of all the wonderful couple activities they did and how insanely in love they were.

"Well I'd better go get ready, Marius is picking me up at 8. I'm probably going to stay at his tonight."

"OK, well have a nice time."

"Have a nice night 'Ponine, I'll see you tomorrow."

Cosette smiled as she jumped up off the bed and practically skipped out the room.

As soon as she was gone Eponine lay back down and pulled the duvet over her head. In that moment she realized how utterly ridiculous her life was; she was a little bit in love with her roommate's boyfriend and knocked up by a guy who was more than likely going to want nothing to do with her when he found out.
She decided to skip on the Chinese, she wasn't ready to face the world outside her bed just yet.

Eponine's sleep was interrupted for the second time that night by the sound of her phone ringing. She reached over and switched on the light before she answered, glancing at the clock on her nightstand as she grabbed the phone.

3.13.

She had a pretty good idea it would be Grantaire before she even looked at the screen. He was the only person who ever called her in the middle of the night.

"Hello," she murmured.

"'Ponine!" Grantaire's voice bellowed on the other end of the line. "I'm outside, let me in."

"Grantaire, it's like 3 in the morning."

"I know, so you gotta let me in. I could get robbed, or raped, or anything, standing out in the street at this hour."

"Oh Jesus Christ," she said, dragging herself out of bed and making her way to the door. "I'm going to buzz you up now. Please be quiet in the hall, I don't want my neighbors complaining about your singing again like last time."

"I'll be as quiet as a mouse. They won't even know I'm here. Bye!"

Eponine shoved her phone into the pocket of her pyjama pants as she buzzed Grantaire into the building. She opened the door and lent up against it. Granatire had a terrible habit of showing up at her apartment at the end of the night instead of going home. He did the same thing every time; he'd come in, she'd make him toast and he'd fall asleep on the couch. She had never really gotten to the bottom of why he did this. She always suspected it was because he didn't want to go home to an empty apartment, but she knew he'd never admit to that. He eventually came stumbling up the hall a couple of minutes later.

"'Ponine!"

"Sssh!" she said, putting her finger up to her mouth.

"Oh right," he whispered, "sorry, forgot about the quiet thing."

"You look sober," she said, as he wandered through the door and into the apartment.

"Well it was a long night. Enjolras went on another one of his 2 hour rants about how we should all take the streets about taxes, or health care, or something. I can't remember the exact cause that had upset him so much tonight, I wasn't really listening. I had to keep drinking to try and drown him out."

Eponine felt her face go red at the mention of Enjolras's name. Thankfully Grantaire was too drunk to notice. He walked right through to the living room and threw himself down on the couch.

"Anyway, I missed you tonight. Pontmercy wasn't there either, so I couldn't even make fun of him to pass the time."

"Yeah," she said, sitting on the arm of the couch, "he was at dinner with his grandfather and Cosette."

"Sounds thrilling. You got any toast?"

"I can make you some toast." Eponine replied.

"Oh that would be so good. Just butter, that's all I want, just some toast and butter." He grabbed her hand as she attempted to walk past him into the kitchen. "You're the best friend in the world 'Ponine."

"OK R," she said. "OK."