BAD CINDERELLA
Cosette flicked some sweat off her forehead and sighed, why couldn't some guy come and rescue her, like a knight in shining armor, or a big bearded guy, like Hagrid the half-giant, from the Harry Potter books Eponine had left lying around, but not magical, since she didn't believe in that anymore, like how she didn't believe in the tooth fairy, anyways, moving on, the big bearded guy would give her cake and sausages, and perhaps a doll like the ones Eponine and Azelma had, maybe he would even give Eponine and Azelma pig tails too.
Cosette slumped, and continued washing the windows
"Psst"
"Yes Mademoiselle Eponine"
"Hush 'Sette, I was thinking," she paused dramatically and hummed contently from where she was spread out spread eagle on the couch
"Yes,"
"You read those books I leave around" Eponine paused, stood up, and sat down on the table, daintily crossing her legs as if a debutante, as if waiting for an answer, or baiting her, and seeing Cosette didn't react whatever way it was she was supposed to react, she continued "I know you do, but also, at this point, we all know my mother is a b h, well maybe Azelma doesn't, she's an old toad, she's evil, whatever, I hate her, so I want to help you, you know, you actually like reading, I really don't, I mean, I guess it's fine, but you love it, so how about instead of you sneaking around at night and reading the books I leave lying around, how about you come to my room sometime and pick out whatever books you like, or we go and get you a library card, or you borrow mine, or-"
"Why are you helping me? You know I can't give you anything in return, the only thing I have is my mother's necklace, and all this is a bit too much just because you hate your mother"
"Settie, life's a bitch, my mother's a bitch, and you're like that girl in one of the stories I read, everyone's horrible to you, that only means you're going to succeed, I believe in you more than I believe in myself at this point, you can't experience the highest highs if you haven't experienced the lowest lows or some s t like that, and I'm not even talking about drugs, anyways, here's my library card," Eponine slapped the library card into her hand "and here's one of the free bookmarks I took when I went there last time to do a project, I took like the entire supply, I still go back every now and then to take more, I've been selling them on eBay, quite profitable actually, since inflation nowadays is just crazy," Eponine smirked lazily, uncrossed her legs, and left.
The bookmark had tiny giraffes reading tiny books floating around in a sea of bright orange, it was laminated and quite nice and glossy.
Cosette sighed, she really should stop sighing at any rate, she rubbed the sleep from her eyes and lit another candle, like she was some medieval peasant, but Madame Thenadier would be angry at her for making the electricity bills go up and make her do more work, and candles were free, from Eponine's crazy ex-boyfriend trying to get her back, giving her scented candles and such, Eponine always sold the chocolates and roses and other miscellaneous pink-ish and red-hued objects on eBay or bartered them with her classmates, she always saved the glittery, pink, and pompomified pencils and vanilla and rose-scented heart erasers and the candles for Cosette, once she had even received a huge fluffy glittery notebook, she gave it to Cosette, and she used it as a diary of sorts.