Wish this didn't have to hurt at all
Wish there was an easy way to say this - Schuyler Fisk, Songs that Say Goodbye
(7 years ago)
A girl and a boy sit side by side, noticing neither the wind picking up the forgotten papers falling from the boy's loose grasp, nor the happy crowd in the background.
"I don't understand. I thought you're happy. I thought we're fine? We'll call and write and see each other on holidays. It's only a year."
"One year and thousands of miles apart." Two thousand five hundred and seventy seven miles to be exact, she counts in her head. You are leaving for the other side of the continent and I can't follow you there.
"It's nothing," the boy insists. "You're brilliant. This time next year, you'll be swimming in scholarship offers. You can go wherever you want."
"But I can't. I can't be selfish and just bail out on my siblings. I can't live like that. You taught me that, remember? You're leaving, and I can't follow," she continues.
"Then I stay here. I can always just go to college somewhere nearer," the boy says, making the girl snap her wide-eyed gaze at him.
"You can't give up Harvard! That's always been your dream. That's always been your plan, and I can't be the thing that holds you back."
The boy's shock has worn a little, and the hurt and confusion he is feeling recedes enough for the anger to color his voice. "Why are you doing this?"
"Because I can't possibly know the future, but I know this: I'd rather set you free now, than for us to drift apart slowly, and to be weighed down by a promise we have no way of keeping indefinitely." She stares resolutely ahead, and wills the tears away. "I'd rather say goodbye now, than to draw this out until we start hating each other."
"We won't-"
She cuts him off with a shake of her head. "You don't know that."
"And you don't know for sure that we will! Why are you pushing me away?"
"Because I love you too much to let you make this mistake!"
The boy rakes his thick blond hair and curses. "Jesus Christ, you break up with me and tell me you love me in the same breath. How do I let go of you now?"
The girl is silent for a moment, thinking of how desperately she doesn't want him to leave her side. She swallows the lump in her throat, and says quietly, "You will, because you know I'm right. And I am trying to do the right thing here. We both know you need to go. So go. Please."
The boy sighs, and stands up. He clenches his fists and starts to walk away before looking back at the girl. She sits still, a bronze statue on a stone bench. Her face is cast down, and he could swear those are tears in her eyes. No, you don't get to cry. Not when you're the one breaking our hearts here, he thinks angrily.
"I could never change your mind when you're convinced you're absolutely right, Eponine. But as you wish."
He stiffly walks away before her sobs makes him turn around again.
[AN: Finally posting this here, because why not? This is born out of my need for a fic that deals with Enjolras and Eponine crossing paths again after breaking up years before. ]