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It’s been five months since the last time he saw Enjolras.
Grantaire sat up in bed, the white sheets gathering around his stomach. His mouth tasted like cigarettes and white sunlight washed over everything in the room.
Nothing looked the same anymore.
The side of the bed where Enjolras used to sleep now just smelled of booze and Grantaire. Enjolras’s clothes weren’t strewn over the couch anymore. No one was there to put Grantaire’s plates in the sink when he passed out over his drawings.
He cracks his neck and glances at his alarm clock, fumbling around for his cigarettes.
He should have been there.
When Enjolras was fighting. He should have been there. And when Enjolras was crying, and bleeding, and… Grantaire should have been there. Every morning Grantaire wakes up and the first thing he imagines is Enjolras’s face, determined and scared and alone. Maybe if Grantaire had been there, things would have gone differently. Maybe he could have stopped the bleeding, or stopped the shooting, or... maybe he could have died as well.
He doesn’t even have the decency to kill himself. He wakes up each day and he sits in their house, drinks until he can pretend he isn’t alone, then drinks more until he passes out. Then he wakes up again. Then he drinks again.
He wishes he saw Enjolras everywhere in their apartment, but he doesn’t. He only sees himself, covering up all traces of Enjolras like a child with dirty hands, ruining every beautiful thing he touches.
He ruined Enjolras. That was the most beautiful thing he ever touched. He can still remember Enjolras’s pale skin, stark against his calloused hands. He pictures it every night. The way Enjolras would throw his head back into the pillows and smile a little secret smile to himself. No one else ever saw that smile.
Grantaire traces his hand over the pillow. It’s crumpled and damp, and he can’t stand to look at it anymore. He puts out his lit cigarette on the pillowcase, burning a perfect circle into the fabric.
“Why would you do that?”
He hears Enjolras’s voice. Grantaire sighs, putting his hands over his ears and shutting his eyes. “I hate you.”
“Why would you say that?”
“I hate you I hate you I hate you,”
“I love you.”
Grantaire screams, flinging the pillow across the room. It hits the wall and slides down behind the couch.
It’s been five months since he last saw Enjolras.