A figure was leaning heavily on the wall of the bridge over the Seine river, silhouetted against the moon. She was thin, and delicate-looking, like she would break under the touch of a finger. However, despite such an outward appearance of fragility, the many vicious bruises peppering her body showed otherwise. She was gazing upward to the stars in the heavens, letting vague thoughts drift across her mind, the first of which was pain. She felt a droplet of blood trace it's way down her leg. She ignored it. That wasn't new to her. Gingerly, she rearranged her arms on top of the bridge's wall to avoid the throbbing sensation she was met with when pressure was put on her many bruises. Once that had subsided, she was free to focus on every other thought in her head vying for attention.

For a while, she just stood there, looking out at the river, marveling at how the water captured the moonlight, then let it go back to the sky in the sparkling reflections. The silver-gilded ripples met her eyes, but after a while she didn't see them anymore. Her eyes glazed over, no longer seeing the river that had been capturing her vision, but beyond it, looking deep into herself, into the part of her that she tucked away behind her heart, the place where she hid what little was left of her soul. Whenever she felt the need to hide,or to numb herself for whatever reason from the cruelty of her life and the people in it, she withdrew beyond her emotions where there was no feeling, only a subconcious depth of thought. She needed to think; she needed to harden herself from the latest of her hurts. Yet numbing her pain had become harder and harder for her to do, as she sank deeper and deeper into despair. She could find no way out of her present situation, no respite from the life she had come to despise.

While in her state of unfeeling mindfulness, she felt a tremor in the planking of the bridge. Now having been jerked back to stark reality, she turned around to see the silhouette of a figure who had tripped and fallen, having caught his foot in a crevice in the wooden planking.

"Here, Monsieur, let me help you." she said, reaching out a hand to help whomever it was back to his feet.

"Merci, Mademoise-Eponine!" he replied, cut off mid-word, surprised at seeing her face in the half-light of the moon.

"Marius!" she said, quickly turning back to the wall of the bridge in an effort to hide herself from his eyes, blushing furiously from embarrassment. There were some tears in her clothing and new vivid bruises on her skin from her previous ordeal that night that she didn't want her friend to see. She felt another drop of blood trickle down her leg and she hurried to stop it from tracing it's way any farther. "What are you doing out here so late?"

"I could say the same for you. Me, I'm on my way back from a meeting with Enjolras and the rest of the ABC. What've you been-good lord, Eponing, what happened to you?" he asked, noticing the bruises rising on her pale arms, and then the bloody streaks running down her legs.

"I - I took a fall." she lied through her teeth. She knew he would see right through it, but it was the only feeble excuse she could come up with, and hopefully he wouldn't try to delve any deeper into her affairs. Lord knew he wouldn't like what he found.

"Eponine, please don't lie to me. You know it won't work." He moved over to her and tried to take her arm to look at her bruises, but she yanked it away, backing up a step.

"Please let me see, 'Ponine, or I'll hand you over to Joly for treatment. And you know he has other ways of uncovering what happened to you than just words out of your mouth." He was hoping her answer wasn't what he feared it was going to be.

Reluctantly she thrust her arm out for him to examine. Now that he could see them clearly, the bruises marring her porcelain white skin seemed even more vicious and angry then before. And then there were still the bloodstains . . .

"Eponine, who did this to you?" he asked, genuine and complete concern written all over his face.

She kept silent.

"Do you really want Joly to find out the extent of your hurts?"

As he said this, she turned back to watching ther river.

"Nina? Are you alright?" he asked quietly, sensing something was wrong.

She stiffened at the use of the name Nina. Oh, Lord, Nina was the name /he/ used . . .

"Nina?"

"Everything hurts, Marius." she whispered.

"What happened?"

"Marc Montparnasse - he - he hurt me. It was so, so much worse than what he's done before-" She broke off, bowing her head and looking away. The tears had managed to burn their way out of her eyes to fall into the river. She hadn't cried in so long; months, maybe even close to a year; why was she breaking now?

Before he even knew what he was doing, Marius reached for her, and pulled her slight form into his arms. Silently she cried into his shoulder. He had never seen her cry before. She was always so - strong, so toughened by the street. She had never been so broken and vulnerable before; she seemed so small, almost childlike, her body so unhealthily thin, hurt, and afraid. He felt a sudden surge of emotion and he wanted to be able to comfort her and to tell her that she would be fine. As she let the tears course down her face for the first time in months, his arm tightened around her shoulders. He had never felt this way before; not even for Cosette, the love of his life - he thought.

She stemmed her tears almost as soon as they had started, once more building up her resolve. For a moment she hesitated in his embrace, not wanting to pull away, but reluctantly she did, resuming her former position leaning on the bridge wall. Marius stood next to her, mimicing her position, an unusual but comforting presence beside her in the darkness.

"It wasn't always this way." she said quietly.

He looked her way, wanting her to continue, but at the same time hoping she wouldn't.

"I used to just wander the streets, occasionally delivering messages from my son-of-a-bitch father to his crooked friends. Until one day about two years ago, Marc Montparnasse, one of my father's twisted gang, paid my father to let him take me home with him. In the beginning it was just kisses and the like, nothing like it is now. He used to love me, I think, but then something in him, I dunno, changed.

"The first time he - he did this to me, it began with him calling me things like whore, bitch, and others. Then he started with rough kisses, and hard bites on my lips. And then he started to beat me. When he was sure I was in too much pain to find the strength to resist, he - " She broke off. Somewhere along the line her eyes had fallen back into their former glazed state, and once more she had lapsed into speaking from the secret place behind her heart.

"Now every time he's angry, he finds me, hunts me down, uses me as an outlet for his rage. And every time it gets worse. Marius, it hurts so badly, but it seems I can never get away. No matter where I run, or where I hide, he always finds me and treats me worse because I hid from him. There is no way out for me. And when he discovered I felt love for another - but no matter. The man I love doesn't know I exist. Besides, he has someone else as the object of his affections. I just don't know why I dare to hope and dream anymore. It's just a waste of thought. But still, dream I do. I can still find hope within me, hiding behind my heart, just keeping alive the dream that my life will turn out for the better, and that the one I love can find it in his heart to love me in return. But I know better than to believe in that. I don't know why I bother. I don't know why I'm even telling you this." She took care not to look at Marius with those last words, and the the numb, far-off expression melted off her face. Her eyes were no longer distanced and unblinking, but once again the desolate eyes of the broken spirit she was. When she realized how much she had revealed to him, a hot flush crept up her cheeks, embarrassed by how much of her secret self she had told him.

"Nina, you can't go on living your life in fear like this." Marius began. He now saw her in an entirely new light. She had endured so much pain in her sixteen years, kept it all hidden inside herself, and he marveled at how she could still find the strength in her to go on. "Stay as far away from Montparnasse as you can."

"What do you think I've been trying to do?" she asked bitterly, turning away.

"Nina, I have an apartment on the other side of the city - well actually, a friend of mine is living there now, but he's leaving for America soon. Once I have my rooms back, I'm going to move back there from the Gorbeau House, and - if you want - you could come with me, stay there, with me, until - " he said tentatively. For a brief moment, he saw her eyes light up at his offer, but that light faded as quickly as it had been sparked.

"Marius, I would love to, so, so much, but- "

"What is it, Nina?"

"Azelma, my sister. I can't leave her here with my parents. And 'Parnasse - he threatened to do the same to her if I ran, if I didn't let him do these things to me. I can't let him hurt Zel the way he does me. I'm sorry, Marius, but I have to stay. For my sister. I have to protect her. She has no one else."

"No, Eponine, I'm sorry. For being so blind."

"Don't be. I'll be fine." she said quietly.

"You won't be fine, Nina. You know it." he said gently, taking her hand. It felt so small and delicate in his own. "Let's go find Azelma. Tell her she'll be staying with the two of us."

"Us?" she whispered. She felt a spark of hpe and prayed it wasn't a cruel fantasy that her mind had made up to taunt her.

Marius nodded. "Both of us, you and I."

"You would do this for me, a dirty street gamine? What about your Cosette?" she asked, steeling herself for the moment when he would realize he couldn't help her. He had Cosette - he could never want she, Eponine. Cosette was everything she wasn't - Eponine knew she couldn't hold a candle to the girl who used to be a servant to the Thenardiers, but managed to find a way out and to blossom into such radiance as she possessed now.

Marius remembered not that he had Cosette, but back to a day or so before that night. He and Cosette had had an explosive row over their differing views on the rebellion the Friends of the ABC were to act upon. Cosette had shouted that he couldn't leave her to get himself killed fighting for what was clearly a doomed cause. He had argued back that he and his friends believed so strongly in the cause of freedom, he could not and would not desert them now to run away from the inevitable battle. He would stand or die alongside his companions, and if Cosette couldn't respect him and his loyalty to his friends, then so be it. He could see now that Eponine and people like her were the ones he and his friends were fighting for, to better their lives, to give them hope. Nina had been there from the start, offering encouragement and friendship no matter what she had been put through, and he never saw her there. He wasn't sure when, but that night she had made him see her differently. He respected her, as she did him. Now he could see that she had loved him, and he was so blind as to chase after Cosette. Even worse, he had asked her to take him to Cosette in the first place. She had taken him to Cosette and despite her own heart, wanted to make him happy even if it meant forfeiting her own happiness. And now he knew.

"Cosette doesn't respect me or what I believe in. Nina, you do. You are strong and kind and beautiful and terribly, terribly brave. Thank you for opening my eyes. Please say that you and your sister will accept my offer. Both of you must be so tired of always being alone."

"I am, Marius. You don't know what it's like to feel unwanted and lonely every day of your life. To go to sleep at night and never want to wake up, because you know you'll only be waking up to another day of nothing more than mere existance. People like you don't see people like me as fit to live, so I go on just to spite them, just for the sake of still being able to breathe." She paused for a moment, staring at the river's moonlit waves.

"You don't know how many times I've stood on this bridge and wanted nothing more than to throw myself into the water below. But I couldn't, because I was too afraid. I'm so glad that I won't have to think like that anymore."

"Never again, Nina. Never again." How could she have ever wanted to kill herself when she was so full of life? And then he remembered. His eyes began to burn.

The tears that now wet her eyes were not a result of some sort of pain, but were those of thanks, relief, and release of all she had kept to herself for so long, all the emotions she refused to let show in order to harden herself against them. It felt so good to let it pour from her soul like the tears from her eyes, to wet her hands as she held them to her face, to dampen Marius's shoulder as he drew her into his embrace. Suddenly she felt droplets of liquid fall onto her cheek that were not her own; Marius was crying as well. His tears were for her, for all she had suffered at the hands of others, at the hands of his own blind ignorance. Eponine had loved him all along and he had failed to see past the dirt on her face to the girl within. He had never noticed that her face lit up every time he spoke to her, or that there was a warmth in her large sad eyes that seemed to radiate out fom her. She had never before experienced kindness or friendship before, or the small pleasure of just having someone to turn to when sadness and fear took her over. These were brand new to her, and he was all to happy to give them to her. She deserved all that and more.

She dried her eyes with the back of her hand as he pressed a kiss to her forhead. Eponine blushed at the touch, so different from what she was used to. Marc Montparnasse had been rough, cold and cruel. This was nothing like he was. For the first time, she wasn't sfraid of the arms that held her. Deeply she inhaled his sweet scent, a smell consisting of the cool river breeze, wine from the Cafe Musain, and sweat. He carefully finger-combed the fine, silken-dark strands of her hair, smoothing out the tangles until it hung in shining waves down her back.

After a few moments in silence, each of them content to listen to the heartbeat of the other, Marius tilted her face up so that their eyes met.

"What do you suppose your sister will think of us, ma cherie?" he asked, smiling into her eyes.

"Oh, I don't think Zel will mind in the least. I don't either, for that matter." she replied, smiling back.

"Really, Nina? Would you mind this?" he asked quietly, softly settling his mouth over hers. Her heart began to race as he kissed her. She dared to smoothe her hands up his arms to rest lightly, almost hesitantly at the nape of his neck.

When she broke the kiss, he whispered, "Do you hurt anymore?"

"No," she said, a little surprised herself that no was a truthful answer, "Not at all."

"You look so pretty when you smile."

"No I don't."

"Yes you do. Get used to it, love, you'll be hearing it all too often."

They fell silent for a long moment, until Eponine ventured a thought.

"Thank you, cher ami."

"What for?"

"For bringing me back to life."

"What do you mean?"

"I thought my heart was dead until tonight. I thought I had killed it along with my dreams. You saved me from myself."

"Oh, Nina - " he said in mock exasperation. He answered her statement with another kiss, the asked, "Walk with me?"

She linked her arm through his and let him lead her away from the bridge. As he laced his fingers through hers, she leaned against him, and she closed her eyes, sighing in contentment. And Eponine knew she would never again need to hide in the secret place behind her heart.

[Main Index] [More by Mlle. LaBourde] [More about Eponine]
URL:
Provider: MV Communications