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Eponine lived half her life at Cosette’s house when she was eighteen.
Well. Not quite half. And not her life either, because her life wasn’t like Cosette’s life, with her floral print dresses and light, dizzying perfume, and her bedroom clean and neat, and a father who she saw everyday, who’d kiss her on the forehead, and give her twenty, thirty, fifty quid ‘in case anything bad happens’ and say ‘be safe, my dear’.
So. Eponine escaped half her life at Cosette’s house when she was eighteen.
They were going out that night, because Cosette decided that Eponine hasn’t been out in ‘absolutely ages’ and ‘I know you worry about him, really, but Gavroche will be okay on his own for one night’.
Cosette was weirdly optimistic like that. Like the bad in people just didn’t exist.
Eponine has made Gavroche stay at a friend’s house anyway. Just in case. And she knew if anything bad happened, Gavroche would get out and go to somewhere safe. Somewhere that only the two of them knew. And she’d pick him after school tomorrow, or at least meet him by the gates and he’d tell all about his day, playing on his friend’s N64, and eating Turkey Dinosaurs and -
“I do wonder where you go sometimes,” Cosette said, smiling at Eponine’s reflection. “You get so lost in your head.”
Eponine blinked, and scowled at her bleach-blonde friend. She didn’t get too many moments like that.
“Only when I’m around you,” she said, and Cosette laughed, all bubbly and delighted.
She had her hair up in two pigtails like Baby Spice as always, but her make-up was weird and experimental like always. Traditional blush had been rejected in favour of eyeshadow dusted across her nose and cheeks, purple, red and blue, the background to a galaxy or a bruise, and in Cosette’s hand was her white eyeliner, with which she had been dotting stars across her face. Her dress was short, but sparkly and pink. Chunky platform boots were waiting beside her vanity dresser.
“You’re so cute,” she said, not unkindly, putting down her eyeliner and picking up black lipstick instead, though she paused. “Do you think it’s too much? Going for black?”
“You’ve got the half solar system across your face, you div,” Eponine replied. “If you add, like, hot pink glitter highlights to your hair, maybe it’d be too much. Black lipstick is just right.”
“Oh, knock it off with the div,” Cosette sighed, but it wasn’t a bad sigh. Just a Cosette sigh. “Black lipstick is it.”
For a moment, as Cosette applied the waxy substance to her lips, Eponine wished she could be like her. Draw cherry blossoms or music notes underneath her eyes, and spray glitter and add a temporary tattoo or two on her arms, her legs, across her whole body. Dress in bright, eye-aching colours, in short, short skirts and tops that showed off anything she liked. Anything but her current heavy dark smudged eyeliner and black lipstick and clothes where even she didn’t know which rips were real and which were there by design.
But there were bruises on her legs, hidden beneath skirts and fishnet tights, bruises on her face masked beneath makeup, and bruises on her arm, and bruises clashed with short dresses. No one questioned bruises when you were all in black. No one saw you when you were all in black.
“You know what I can’t wait for?” Cosette asked, placing the lipstick and selecting a body mist. “Next year. When we’re living together - with your brother, of course - and we’re able to just do whatever we want to, consequences be damned.”
And Eponine just had to smile at that, ignoring the twisted feeling building inside her.
She was in the last year of sixth form - or rather, Cosette was. Eponine had left school at sixteen. For Cosette, exams were looming up ahead. For Cosette there was a future, and that future wasn’t one that featured Eponine, no matter what the younger girl thought.
Eponine was nice for the moment. A school friend. Good for a bus ride into town for the shopping centre, but not good to take the train to Meadowhall with. Good to kiss and more in bedrooms but not good to introduce friends to beyond ‘this girl I meet with’. Good for memories. Not good for life.
“Hey, are you listening to me? Eppy - Eponine!” Cosette’s was voice enough to startle Eponine, and she looked up, eyes wide.
“What -” Eponine began, only to be cut off by the flash of Cosette’s Polaroid camera.
She smiled as she lowered her camera, tucking a strand of hair behind her delicate ear, and she took the Polaroid picture out of the camera and put it on her dresser.
“Sorry,” she said, not sorry at all, “but you look beautiful. I wanted to show you how nice you look, because you never believe me, even when I do this.”
And she kissed Eponine. Once, twice, a gentle peck on the lips, until Eponine grabbed her by the hips and pulled her closer, arms around Cosette’s shoulders, brushing against silky hair, and there was the scent of strawberries and moringa flowers -
Yes. That felt right.
Cosette pulled away after a moment, still smiling, before turning back to her dresser and picking up the developed picture.
“See?” she said, holding out it for Eponine to look. “You look beautiful.”
She looked at the photo and found it was another of Cosette’s kind lies. Beautiful was about the furthest thing that could describe her in the photo, where she was sat on Cosette’s bed, everything but her face a shapeless lump of black. Even her face wasn’t beautiful like Cosette claimed. Surly-looking, certainly. Not beautiful.
“Give that here,” Eponine muttered, grabbing for Cosette’s camera. “I’ll show you beautiful -”
“No, don’t -” Cosette was laughing, smiling, arms reaching back to take the camera back when Eponine snapped the photo.
“There,” she said, smiling as the polaroid picture out. “We’ll see how beautiful you are now.”
That photo did come out beautiful. Cosette, frozen in time, laughing, smiling, space splashed across her cheeks. Someone could have told Eponine that photo was a priceless piece of art, worth millions and millions of pounds, and she would have believed them, and she would have kept it, all because of Cosette.
“You can keep that one,” she said, now sat next to Eponine, pulling on her hot pink boots, her rough skin brushing against Eponine’s soft shoulders. “And I’ll keep the one of you, and in the morning, I’ll get Dad to take some pictures of both of us.”
Eponine just nodded and put the Polaroid into her bag.
Maybe, she thought to herself, watching her love, Cosette would meet the love her life tonight - her actual love of her life, not just some moody girl from a council estate with parents who spend half their time in prison and a kid brother who only ate every other day and didn’t even have a school bookbag. Someone who could take care of her and someone who she could take care of. Someone nice. Someone who wasn’t her.
“Are you ready?” Cosette asked, standing up and smiling. “Our taxi should be here soon.”
But she would hate if that happened.
“Yeah,” Eponine replied. “I’m ready.”
And she kissed Cosette, each of their black lipstick smudging together, and she ignored the fact Cosette was going to Durham University in September, and she ignored the fact that both of had a definite End, plain as day that anyone could, and she ignored the fact that Cosette was so, so good and she was so, so bad, and she ignored the fact she knew she was loved by someone who didn’t deserve to love her -
- because in that moment, all she and Cosette were was just two girls, kissing.