Deceiving Passion

Chapter 9: Cosette's Conflicts

I walked straight to Eponine's right after my meeting. My mind was racing at around ten million miles a minute, yet my legs had decided to move at a slower rate than a turtle's. The meeting that I had just returned from had not turned out the way I had expected, and it felt as though I had had the wind knocked out of me. It had completely flipped everything upside down. I still didn't know how I was going to go about it, but I didn't have time to worry about it anyway. I was already late for meeting up with Eponine. 

The door flew open just as my hand hit the door. Eponine looked at me with a slight look of annoyance, "Nice of you to show up. I was just about to leave without you." I was about to respond to her, when Marius came up to the door. I looked down, not wanting to meet his eyes. I had not spoken to him since that morning. There was nothing for me to say. Did I want to talk to him? More than anything. I just couldn't though. Besides, I was doing him a favor.

I looked back up at them as they said their goodbyes. In my eyes, they seemed to be completely in love, and that's when the sinking feeling in my heart came back. I had to close my eyes when they kissed. I simply could not let myself do that. I never could. I know how selfish it was, and I wished more than anything that I could stop it. However, I couldn't help it. I couldn't stand the sight of their happiness when I was so miserable.

Once we left her house, Eponine spoke to me, "Alright, what's going on?" 

She knew me too well. However, I still attempted to play dumb with her, "Why whatever do you mean?"

"Don't pull that crap with me Cosette," she stated sharply, "I know something is going on. Spill it. Did something happen with Enjolras? He told Marius that things were going very well between you too."

After what happened that night with Marius, I decided to spend more time with Enjolras in an attempt to move on from Marius. However, being around Enjolras simply reminded me of how much I missed Marius. I did not let Enjolras know this though. To him, our relationship was progressing better than it ever had before. I hated leading him on like this, and I had been thinking about ending it. I did not have time to deal with my relationship with him at that time. I had bigger problems to pertain to. I rubbed the back of my neck, "Kind of."

"Why won't you tell me?"

"Because it is really not a big deal," I shouted. Eponine was a bit taken aback by my harshness. In a way, I was too. I had never raised my voice. To anyone. I don't think I had even yelled at Marius that morning. I felt horrible about it. I wanted to take it back, but I couldn't. It was done. I scrambled to pick up the pieces, "P-Ponine... I-I I am so sorry. I didn-"

She cut me off, "Let's just forget it... We're here anyway." I looked up at the dress shop. I had begun to grow tired of this bridal shop. We had went several times two weeks ago, another five times the week after, and this had been the thrid time that week that we had shown up. Eponine simply couldn't pick a dress. I could understand why she wanted to pick a beautiful dress. She had fallen into poverty, and before Marius took her in she only owned one tattered dress. It reminded me of the first time that my Papa had taken me dress shopping after rescuing me from the Thenardiers, but this was getting ridiculous. 

She marched out in the dress that I had seen her try on twelve separate times. It was an elegant lace dress that fit her figure perfectly. I had a feeling that she knew this one was the one. I could see it in her eyes. There was a miniscule part of me that thought that Eponine might have been continuously trying on the same dress so that she could parade around in it while accepting compliments. I did my best to brush these feelings off though. She was probably just really excited about her wedding. I would be too.

"So," she sighed happily, "you think this is the one?" She did a quck spin as she looked at herself in the mirror. 

"I do," I replied, "like I told you the last 7,000 times you asked me."

She giggled, "I just really want to make sure that this is the one. I want everything to be perfect." 

I placed my hand gently on her shoulder, "and it will be. I promise." 

"Thank you Cosette," she smiled, "you're the best friend a girl can ask for."

This killed me. I hated how she could say this so sincerely, and I knew it was a lie. I was a horrible friend. Good friends didn't sleep with their friend's fiancee. Good friends did not hold such jealousy inside them. Most of all, good friends did not try so hard to hide such big secrets from their friends with such lies. My head was spinning just thinking about it. The whole thing made me feel sick. In reality though, there really was a stirring feeling in stomach that actually did make me feel like I was going to be sick.

"Okay, I think this is is the on-" I interrupted Eponine as I made my way out the back. Once I was out there, I let everything out, literally. I felt like it would never end. However, once it finally did, I fell down to my knees. I didn't know how much more of this I could take. 

Eponine followed me outside, now changed back in her regular dress. She looked down at me as I looked up at her with a look of aloofness. "Wow Cosette..." She said, "If you didn't like the dress that much, you could have told me.

I laughed slightly, trying to hide the truth. The reason I got sick was way far from simply Eponine's dress.