Status: Characters belong to the wonderful Victor Hugo.
Of Shadows and Light
Angels in the Shadows
Not all good things in her life end in tragedy.
At least, that’s what she tells herself when he leaves one morning and doesn’t come back. He probably got caught up in school work (wouldn’t be the first time, certainly), or traffic (it is New York City, for Heaven’s sakes), or he went to get a coffee (she’s pretty sure the dark liquid runs through his veins by now), or R got drunk and needed help getting home (honestly, when isn’t he drunk?). She repeats this to herself as the darkness swallows everything but the solitary twinkle of a star, so rare in this godforsaken city. Not everything in her life ends in tragedy. She almost laughs at the thought, because when hasn’t it?
Still, this thing- this thing, wonderful thing, whatever it is-cannot pass. She won’t let it. She is Eponine Thenardier, she finally gets to be happy, and damn everything to hell if she’s gonna let it go.
The clock strikes four, and then she can’t stand it anymore. Grabbing the red trench coat she bought last winter (he almost made love to her in the middle of Time’s Square when he saw it for the first time) and her car keys, she ventures out into the night. The familiar shadows swallow her up and then his words echo in her head: “I’ve been thinking about you.” “Oh? And what did you decide?” “Shadows don’t suit you.”
He had said it so simply, as if it was the plainest fact in the world. That night she burned all the letters her mother had sent her since starting college (“Oh baby, I miss you. We need you. Papa has a great job set up, we’ll be millionaires overnight… Montparnasse misses you…They won’t let you run from this one… won’t you come home, baby?”), changed her phone number, and moved to the other end of the city. Her name was Eponine. And she was made of light.
When she reaches the café, his car isn’t there. A feeling, at once so heavy as to be crushing and nameless, indescribable, takes up residence in her chest. She gets out of the beaten old car and runs. It starts to rain softly, tracing her pale scars and dimming the neon lights till they’re nothing but ghosts of a dream. She knows, and she curses herself for being so stupid, for thinking They wouldn’t find her. It’s two alleys away from the café when she stumbles over him. The exact place where he rescued her from Them, all those moonless nights ago. He’s been dragged here, smothered in darkness to send a message clear as day. She falls to her knees as if paying homage to the title R once gave him- god of the sun. But here, bloodied and broken, he resembles more a fallen angel.
The shadows don’t suit him.
Not all good things in her life end in tragedy.
False.
All good things in her life end in tragedy.
At least, that’s what she tells herself when he leaves one morning and doesn’t come back. He probably got caught up in school work (wouldn’t be the first time, certainly), or traffic (it is New York City, for Heaven’s sakes), or he went to get a coffee (she’s pretty sure the dark liquid runs through his veins by now), or R got drunk and needed help getting home (honestly, when isn’t he drunk?). She repeats this to herself as the darkness swallows everything but the solitary twinkle of a star, so rare in this godforsaken city. Not everything in her life ends in tragedy. She almost laughs at the thought, because when hasn’t it?
Still, this thing- this thing, wonderful thing, whatever it is-cannot pass. She won’t let it. She is Eponine Thenardier, she finally gets to be happy, and damn everything to hell if she’s gonna let it go.
The clock strikes four, and then she can’t stand it anymore. Grabbing the red trench coat she bought last winter (he almost made love to her in the middle of Time’s Square when he saw it for the first time) and her car keys, she ventures out into the night. The familiar shadows swallow her up and then his words echo in her head: “I’ve been thinking about you.” “Oh? And what did you decide?” “Shadows don’t suit you.”
He had said it so simply, as if it was the plainest fact in the world. That night she burned all the letters her mother had sent her since starting college (“Oh baby, I miss you. We need you. Papa has a great job set up, we’ll be millionaires overnight… Montparnasse misses you…They won’t let you run from this one… won’t you come home, baby?”), changed her phone number, and moved to the other end of the city. Her name was Eponine. And she was made of light.
When she reaches the café, his car isn’t there. A feeling, at once so heavy as to be crushing and nameless, indescribable, takes up residence in her chest. She gets out of the beaten old car and runs. It starts to rain softly, tracing her pale scars and dimming the neon lights till they’re nothing but ghosts of a dream. She knows, and she curses herself for being so stupid, for thinking They wouldn’t find her. It’s two alleys away from the café when she stumbles over him. The exact place where he rescued her from Them, all those moonless nights ago. He’s been dragged here, smothered in darkness to send a message clear as day. She falls to her knees as if paying homage to the title R once gave him- god of the sun. But here, bloodied and broken, he resembles more a fallen angel.
The shadows don’t suit him.
Not all good things in her life end in tragedy.
False.
All good things in her life end in tragedy.