amen, amen | enjoltaire

Chapter Four

He didn't mean to do it. He didn't even really want to do it. There were a thousand excuses and third parties Enjolras could blame his actions on, accuse anyone but himself of ruining his life. But realistically, it was his own fault.

There were just the right conditions for a perfect storm. Enjolras had been grounded for feeding rats in the garden, meaning he was confined to his room. His mother, too busy deciding whether or not she needed to call pest control, hadn't remembered to confiscate his phone. Grantaire was drunk again, and every two seconds his phone would ping with another new and incomprehensible message from him. His phone was also slightly broken, and wouldn't go on silent no matter how hard he tried. Cosette, reeling from her fourth-or-fifth date with Marius he-made-me-a-daisy-chain Pontmercy, was nagging Enjolras about whether or not he was interested in anyone, and the common conspiracy she often liked to visit that he was in fact dating numerous girls in secret, without telling anybody.

Enjolras was frustrated, and tired, and honestly would much rather have hidden under his duvet and listened to Against Me! than deal with anyone's shit. He wanted Cosette to stop bugging him, he wanted Grantaire to shut up so he could sleep, and he wanted his mum to stop being so anti-rat, but none of that was going to happen any time soon because apparently the world despised him.

This all lead to him grabbing his whiteboard and telling Cosette Fine. You win. I do like someone.

He could see her excitement across the dimly lit space between their houses. He'd never spoken about his love life or own romantic feelings in general with Cosette. He'd never wanted to, especially since it was a road that undoubtedly leaded to her accidentally forcing him out of the closet and him having to embarrass himself by revealing the details of a half-decade long crush on somebody who was supposed to be just a friend.

:o who is she???? was all he got back, and Enjolras regretted his whole life instantly. There was absolutely no way he could even describe him to Cosette, let alone actually telling her who he was. Any small hints as to the identity of Enjolras's crush would lead to Cosette wanting to dig up every sordid detail.

I'm not saying. Sorry.

She looked unimpressed at that, and in mere seconds flashed back nothing more than a very large =(, accompanied by a thumbs down from her free hand.

Another message from Grantaire came in at this point. He'd drawn a very crude penguin on a bar napkin, and the message was nothing more than a string of letters: dio oyu tresd ti?

He replied with simply Drink water, in the same vein of all of his other messages from the past hour or so. He cared deeply about Grantaire, drunk or not, but it was difficult to respond adequately when he was being sent words he couldn't read.

Grantaire's reply echoed Cosette- a single sad face emoji, followed by another penguin. He seemed to have a thing for penguins tonight. And sending Enjolras several blurry selfies in a row with no accompanying message. Selfies that Enjolras would never admit in his life to saving to his camera roll.

He looked back up at Cosette, who had propped her whiteboard against the window in an effort to not have to hold it while he was distracted.

do I know her?

Enjolras wasn't quite sure how to answer that. On one hand, he wanted to shut down every line of questioning she would present to him. At the same time, however, he would be lying if he said no. 'Yes' wasn't quite the right answer though, because Grantaire wasn't a her. But he couldn't correct that without outing himself. He decided on a simple Kind of.

how do i kind of know her

It's rather complicated.

He could tell she wasn't happy with that answer, but he refused to elaborate. There was no way he was doing this tonight, especially not when he knew he would hate himself if he did when morning came.