She felt strangely bereft when he stood to get the napkin though it was only for a second. And the story he told made it only worse. Little Gavroche taking the place of Marius because he was told he could not go. Gavroche had taken the chance and gone running out only to die. It was no ones fault really. He'd made the decision and how could Enjolras have known or have stopped him. But she knew that look in his eye as he spoke of his friends. That was plain and simple guilt and it wasn't fair. "They all made the choice to be there you know. They believed in the cause, or they believed in you. Or they were foolish girls unable to walk away from a man that did not love them. But for whatever reason they stood with you. Their blood is not on your hands my friend, it is on the hands of the opressers. Do you not see?"
He knew so much of the story. Of Azelma and her father and mother. Cosette treated so terribly. This was her guilt. "You read...I have not yet, I do not know what it makes of me beyond a terrible person. My family dragged her up and then once Valjean took her things started to go downhill. Money became an issue and Father decided I was a good kid to have in the gang with him. And you know how that all went if you've read the story." She wasn't at all sure she liked that he'd read it either.
At his words about Marius, Eponine blinked slightly. She'd never heard him use that tone. Oh he'd called his friend a fool for missing out on her before and Eponine had always laughed it off. But this. This was different somehow. "Perhaps he just did not love me. It is not a crime is it? To love someone else." she mused. Oh she resented how things had gone, that she was not appropriate for him, not as pretty as Cosette, not someone that would turn heads so readily as the other girl. But she needed to accepted or her past would never let her be.
"She is more suited to him than I? But we should not discuss this, or my past, or yours. We have a future to be getting on with do we not?"
Avoidance of topics she did not like. Eponine did it well.