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“Do you know what you're going to do with yourself?”
Grantaire broke the long silence that they’d been sitting in for what felt like hours.
“What?” Enjolras didn't look away from the sky, tracking a plane as it flew overhead.
“After graduation. Do you know what you want to do?” Grantaire repeated.
Enjolras thought for a minute. “Law school. Probably.”
“Then president?” Grantaire chuckled.
“No, maybe a public defense attorney. If I really want to get into government, congressman. But presidents can only do so much, I want to be able to make real change for people.”
“Hm…” Grantaire stared at the sky, noticing the first couple stars starting to appear in the twilight and feeling Enjolras’s diaphragm rise and fall under his head. “You really have it figured out, huh?”
“I guess. I just don't like not knowing what I'm going to do next.”
“I'm just saying it feels like everyone else has ambitions and knows what they want to do and I don't.”
“You have ambitions, Grantaire…” Enjolras said softly. “You draw, you dance you-”
“But being a creative isn't going to get me anywhere in this society.”
Enjolras sat silently for a minute, trying to figure out a reply. Realistically, he knew Grantaire wasn't wrong. But he didn’t want to crush the other boys' spirits more than he already did himself. Not at the moment at least.
“You could make it work, you’re stubborn like that.” Enjolras finally said after a long pause that tells Grantaire what he had really been thinking. “The world needs stubborn creatives like you.” He adds after another second.
Grantaire sighed, watching a satellite track across the navy sky. “Yeah, I guess… but that’s still not really ambition, that’s just who I am. How do I know if that’s even what I want to do with my life?”
Another silence, with only the soft slosh of water under the dock and the distant buzz of insects filling the air until Enjolras finally spoke again.
“I guess you don’t. None of us really know if this is what we want to do with our lives.”
“But you do.” Grantaire scoffed.
“…yeah, so?” Defensive. Grantaire felt Enjolras take in a breath, in his head he could see the way his chest puffs up before an argument.
“So there’s no way you can be an authority on-“
“Even if I know what I want to do doesn’t mean there’s a guarantee it’ll work out.” Enjolras interrupted him. “None of us really know what the future is going to look like. We can just hope and try.”
Grantaire considered his words for a minute and they fell back into comfortable silence.
“Hey Enj.” Grantaire finally spoke after a few minutes. He was given a hum in return.
“Do you think we’re gonna say friends?” He doesn’t add the G word, graduation is still far enough away he doesn’t want to think about it, even with its shadow increasingly looming over his life.
“Us?” Enjolras asked in return.
“Yeah us… Well, all of us. I mean.”
Enjolras is quiet again, definitely thinking out his response. “I don’t see why not.” He finally concluded. “Why?”
“Well I mean, You’re going to be a big shot lawyer, and Combeferre and Joly are planning for medical school, And Bousset and Marius are also planning on going to law school. I’m going to be a starving artist. I guess what I mean is, we’re all going different places, schools, whatever. Who’s to say we all still keep in touch, stay friends?”
“I guess you’re right. We’ve all been friends for so long now, I’ve never thought about it changing.” Enjolras, not having something thought through, this was a rare moment. “We’re going to stay friends.” He finally said decisively.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. I’ll at least still talk to you, and Combeferre, and Coufeyrac obviously. And you know how he is, Coufeyrac will still talk to everyone, and Borhel, those two are like glue, they know everyone, hold them together. You’ll still talk to Eponine, and of course she’ll still talk to Marius and Cosette. It’s a net, we’re all stuck together one way or another.”
Grantaire nodded, he was right. They were all stuck to each other in some way. “I guess it will be weird. Us all being so far apart in different places… I’m going to miss going to the Musain after school.”
Enjolras chuckled. “Yeah.”
“Do you think there will be people after us? A group of students, another group of friends who‘ll spend their adolescence in that cafe… there was probably a group before us.”
“There will always be room in cafes for rowdy teenagers.” Enjolras almost sounded like he was smiling at the thought.
Grantaire blinked away tears threatening to mist his eyes. “I’m going to miss the Musain after school.”
“We still have time.”