Ellie doesn't even know what she's saying Rosie would have wanted to know yet, but it doesn't matter; she's not wrong. She's not wrong, and it doesn't feel better, exactly, to think Rosie would have wanted to know -- perhaps it's even more horrible, in a way -- but it's the way she says it, and the pragmatic, Ellie way that she skips right past the proof of it to come embrace Eponine at once.
Eponine just lets herself be tugged, the letter still in her other hand; she drops her phone on top of her bag so she can close her hand into Ellie's shirt.
It's not that Darrow's some paradise. It's not even that she hasn't lost anyone here. But it's still safe. Even the monsters, the evil things, the haunting reminders of her past -- the worst of them here, really -- not the eeriest or most unnatural, but the worst -- had been things that were at home too. And, more often than not, more often than it should be, everyone gets through the monsters, the nightmares, and the just plain evil -- alive and together and still all wanting to be that way.
It feels ...permanent. Or like it could be, if they try hard enough.
Which is ridiculous. All of them, they've all lost plenty of people. They'd mourned, they'd gritted their teeth through it, they'd been angry. She's grieved her own losses and held them through theirs. She's lost most of the friends she'd made here.
But the closest of them, Ellie, Rosie, Bev; Elio, Jamie and Eddie -- they've all stuck around. She isn't holding her breath over them or counting the seconds, not anymore. Not over the people who feel like -- like the sort of beams that hold up a house. It isn't as though loss never happens here. It's that this has become the sort of place where she doesn't expect it. She doesn't walk past children she's known for years curled in frozen death and simply think that's a shame; she makes plans; she has times she simply isn't hungry and neither is anyone around her.
It's been so long since she has thought of that that the Eponine that had taunted her father's men with it, had held her own death in front of her like a dare, a challenge to just try and scare her -- seems like another person. She has people she wants to live for. She has things she wants to do.
Right now, though, she feels exactly like a structure that has had its load-bearing beams pulled out. Like she's swaying, a frame just waiting for a little nudge.
"It's not fair," she says, and it's childish: she can hear the petulance in her own voice. "She promised." The tears have finally sprung to her eyes now and she swallows hard against a lump in her throat. Eponine knows that if she lets them, they'll keep coming and she hates crying more than anything. "I -- I made her promise me, that neither of us would go before the other. If we were either to disappear, it would just have to be at the same time --"
She laughs, a little hiccupy sob sort of thing that isn't really a laugh, but is, too, at her own expense. It must sound so absurd and naive. "Back at Christmas. She was talking about how she'd been here too long. Like she knew, or something; only of course, that was -- god, nearly a year ago. I'd half forgotten until now." Only she hadn't. She hadn't forgotten, not really: she had just put it away in a box somewhere, shut aside from her daily thoughts.
What she had done was let herself become complacent. Soft. Rosie hadn't disappeared right away so she'd let herself think it might not happen at all. As though Darrow was a thing that could be trusted.
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I shouldn't -- I haven't even told you --" She wobbles. Eponine hadn't teased Ellie about not knowing what Rosie would have wanted to know because she was too distressed, but she also hadn't done it because it was true. Now, half-hysterically, she thinks, What about all the things that we might do still that she would have wanted to know about?
It's not a thought she's expecting at all, nor does it provide her with any useful specifics so much as a vast, idyllic and possibly ridiculous future spread out like a landscape dotted with every plausible landmark that Rosie might have been witness to between Eponine and Ellie. She's not even sure she knew until this moment that she wanted any of it. Or even if -- and what, and what it might look like -- she does want, much less what Ellie does, which is terrifying:
All she knows is Rosie doesn't get to see any of whatever they do, and she still hasn't even said out loud that she got into a university class.
She bursts into full on tears, abruptly, and hating it.
[holy shit sorry for the novel]
Eponine just lets herself be tugged, the letter still in her other hand; she drops her phone on top of her bag so she can close her hand into Ellie's shirt.
It's not that Darrow's some paradise. It's not even that she hasn't lost anyone here. But it's still safe. Even the monsters, the evil things, the haunting reminders of her past -- the worst of them here, really -- not the eeriest or most unnatural, but the worst -- had been things that were at home too. And, more often than not, more often than it should be, everyone gets through the monsters, the nightmares, and the just plain evil -- alive and together and still all wanting to be that way.
It feels ...permanent. Or like it could be, if they try hard enough.
Which is ridiculous. All of them, they've all lost plenty of people. They'd mourned, they'd gritted their teeth through it, they'd been angry. She's grieved her own losses and held them through theirs. She's lost most of the friends she'd made here.
But the closest of them, Ellie, Rosie, Bev; Elio, Jamie and Eddie -- they've all stuck around. She isn't holding her breath over them or counting the seconds, not anymore. Not over the people who feel like -- like the sort of beams that hold up a house. It isn't as though loss never happens here. It's that this has become the sort of place where she doesn't expect it. She doesn't walk past children she's known for years curled in frozen death and simply think that's a shame; she makes plans; she has times she simply isn't hungry and neither is anyone around her.
It's been so long since she has thought of that that the Eponine that had taunted her father's men with it, had held her own death in front of her like a dare, a challenge to just try and scare her -- seems like another person. She has people she wants to live for. She has things she wants to do.
Right now, though, she feels exactly like a structure that has had its load-bearing beams pulled out. Like she's swaying, a frame just waiting for a little nudge.
"It's not fair," she says, and it's childish: she can hear the petulance in her own voice. "She promised." The tears have finally sprung to her eyes now and she swallows hard against a lump in her throat. Eponine knows that if she lets them, they'll keep coming and she hates crying more than anything. "I -- I made her promise me, that neither of us would go before the other. If we were either to disappear, it would just have to be at the same time --"
She laughs, a little hiccupy sob sort of thing that isn't really a laugh, but is, too, at her own expense. It must sound so absurd and naive. "Back at Christmas. She was talking about how she'd been here too long. Like she knew, or something; only of course, that was -- god, nearly a year ago. I'd half forgotten until now." Only she hadn't. She hadn't forgotten, not really: she had just put it away in a box somewhere, shut aside from her daily thoughts.
What she had done was let herself become complacent. Soft. Rosie hadn't disappeared right away so she'd let herself think it might not happen at all. As though Darrow was a thing that could be trusted.
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I shouldn't -- I haven't even told you --" She wobbles. Eponine hadn't teased Ellie about not knowing what Rosie would have wanted to know because she was too distressed, but she also hadn't done it because it was true. Now, half-hysterically, she thinks, What about all the things that we might do still that she would have wanted to know about?
It's not a thought she's expecting at all, nor does it provide her with any useful specifics so much as a vast, idyllic and possibly ridiculous future spread out like a landscape dotted with every plausible landmark that Rosie might have been witness to between Eponine and Ellie. She's not even sure she knew until this moment that she wanted any of it. Or even if -- and what, and what it might look like -- she does want, much less what Ellie does, which is terrifying:
All she knows is Rosie doesn't get to see any of whatever they do, and she still hasn't even said out loud that she got into a university class.
She bursts into full on tears, abruptly, and hating it.