https://archiveofourown.org/works/16225535/chapters/37927295
- Quasimodo's POV***
I couldn't help the feeling that someone still watched me in this life. Someone that I had worked awfully hard to forget. Besides, I have more important things to worry about anyway, and I wasn't willing to add this to the list.
It was time to finally head out to boarding school! Uncle Victor and Aunt Laverne insisted that I could handle being on my own, getting out there and meeting new people. Even Djali, my dear younger sister, agreed, and she usually hates it when I'm away from her. Cousin Hugo wasn't so keen on the idea of me living inside of school, but he decided to be happy for me anyway. The three of them were always trying to get me out there to explore the world, even when they were just made out of stone and watching out for me.
Unlike... someone.
- Esmeralda's POV***
I don't like being touched. I used to. But not anymore.
Any time someone that I don't know touches me, I'm worried it's him running his cold fingers in my hair, across my body.
Even as our cynical mother drove us up to another year of boarding school, the next year up, thoughts like that night would never leave my mind.
And no amount of comfort or dramatics were going to make it - his cold, dusty touch - go away.
No matter what.
- Phoebus's POV***
Boarding school.
The one place I can go without my parents' disappointment of me constantly looming over my shoulder because they won't shut up about it already.
They were so bitter, they actually refused to take me there again for my next year, so I ended up walking there myself. I didn't mind. It wasn't far and I needed the exercise anyway. The only reason I don't like going off is because my sister, Agnes, always gets separated from me because she is much younger. But they love her, so she would be fine.
But I still couldn't help but feel that my parents had finally betrayed me. I'd done everything they wanted, and they couldn't even let me have this for myself. And now I'm paying the price because they did this to me.
Just like he eventually did...
- Clopin's POV***
Everyone said that I was a fool, crazy, off my rocker.
Everyone, except my sister and the twins.
Because they knew the truth.
Sure, I loved my dramatics. They were what made me... me. But not everyone knew that I used them as a coping mechanism.
Because he stained our lives forever.
It's time to go to boarding school and forget all about him.
But that's just it. It's impossible to forget. He made it impossible...
I couldn't say I was very okay.