Christine's POV

Dearest Diary,

I am writing this down for the sake of my sanity and because there is no one that I can turn to now, in this my darkest hour. Even the Lord can't help me it seems! Oh, my heart is breaking, it is being torn in two and the pain is too much!

What have I done? My God, what have I done? Oh, God I believe I've doomed us all! On the very top of my little world, the roof of the Opera House, I had been so sure, afraid, yes, but so sure that what I was doing was right! And now I am drowning in doubt!

Here within the confines of my dressing room, in the presence of that mirror, his mirror, I feel sickened by my childish actions. Raoul is only outside my door waiting for me to return changed and ready to be escorted home, and yet I have never felt more alone. This is the only way, surely it must be! How can my resolve have crumbled so completely in a matter of moments?

When I look at myself in the mirror I hardly recognise the person staring back at me. I have been irrevocably altered. I have endured so much that, where once there was an innocent little chorus girl; there is now a world weary young diva. I should know exactly who I am and what I want, yet here I am, a lost little child again reaching out desperately for something to cling to, someone to guide me so I don't have to truly feel as though I've lost my way. It appears that I have not grown much at all…

I was faced with the most important and potentially, the most dangerous, decision of my young life and I faltered, hesitated for a split second and in that second, it would seem, I forfeited my right to choose. Angel or man? Live my life with a ghost or put my faith in an old memory?

Tonight I found myself standing on a precipice looking down into a cavernous abyss and wondering if I were to jump, would I soar or plummet? Now, it seems I will never know, for instead of testing the wings that my Angel had given me, I allowed myself to be drawn back from the edge by a safe and sensible hand.

The caring hand of my oldest friend and now…now my betrothed as well. Oh I had so hoped that after writing it down I would feel the natural happiness of a bride-to-be but all I seem capable of feeling is shame! This feels wrong, it all seems so wrong!

Oh, Raoul, my dear, reliable Raoul, you are so happy to play the hero, so convinced that you are rescuing me as you once rescued my scarf. You think that you are saving me from a monster but the only thing you are saving me from is myself. Now that I, in my weakness, have allowed you to take charge, I no longer have to face myself, face my terrifyingly convoluted feelings!

I love you, this I know. I have loved you for such a long time, but I find myself wondering how much of that love is real…do I love you simply because, with you, I can live in a world of memories, memories of happier, simpler times. It has been so long, Raoul, we are not the same as we were before. Things have changed no matter how much we pretend they haven't.

It was easy to feel free on the roof with you, easy to mean everything I promised you and easy to allow myself to believe that everything would be alright, too easy perhaps. Your presence is like the most beautiful ray of sunshine, in your presence everything seems that way, easy…safe.

But that isn't the way life is, it isn't real. I can leave with you and pretend that I will not regret it at all, pretend that I will be perfectly happy. But that is all it will be; pretend.

We are from two different worlds now and we can no longer make believe as we once did, we can't be children anymore…no matter how much we'd like to be. And no matter how much you disagree I have been visited by the Angel of Music and he has crawled inside my being.

Erik…You are not the Angel I once believed you to be and yet you are so much more than just a man. You have the power to terrify me, to inspire me but worst of all you have the power to move me! I believe that I lo…No…I can not write down how I feel about you because I am afraid to, afraid to admit to it and make it real.

Words would never be sufficient enough to explain it anyway, I can hardly understand it! You have made me feel every human emotion possible! How incredibly shallow a creature I was before you took my soul under your wing! In you I lose myself completely but in doing so I feel whole!

But you are not an Angel! You are a murderer, a liar, a thief! So many horrors you have committed, and some in my name! But these do not scare me the most, not even your face, pitifully horrid as it may be (so ashamed am I to have not yet fully overcome the shock of that face). No, what scares me most is that I do not care about these things as much as I should!

Your presence is so intoxicating that I find myself willing to overlook almost anything just to bask in it! If only I were brave enough to surrender to you, things would be clearer then. Perhaps I would be an engaged woman still, but my future husband would not glory in the light of the sun. But I am not that brave, Erik!

There is a darkness in you that should make me recoil from you completely but I am unable to. You have taken my soul and I don't want it back, I should but I don't. You have shown me that there is a kindred darkness in me, a fire that burns so intensely I do not know what to do about it. I don't understand, I yearn to but like a sheltered animal, I fear the unknown, so I run, I hide. You are Music, you are Magic, and you are Love so true that it blinds…but you are also the Unknown.

You see me as an Angel, one whom you hand-crafted. I would be nothing still if it had not been for you. But the pedestal you put me on is so high and unstable, I can not stay on it much longer. Soon I will fall for I have betrayed you, and it is killing me inside. I wish I could hate you as simply as Raoul does! I never meant to hurt you, but I can't stay here!

I can't go on denying you, but I don't know how to give myself fully to you without fearing the consequences. I know I am torturing you and it is driving me mad! This is the only way, it simply has to be! And yet I know that no matter what I do I can't win!

I can never be the fearless Angel you crave, Erik, and so to save us both the agony of never being, never having what we want, I will go away with Raoul. I will marry him and I know that he will make a good husband and he will forever try to make me happy. But I will never be truly happy with him, never truly whole.

As his wife I will never be able to be a Prima Donna as I had dreamed and this is a most bitter blow, for music is my most beloved passion! But that will not be the worst blow, no, that will lie in the fact that I know I shall never be able to love him as deeply and completely, as I should, as I would have, had there never been you, my Angel. I will live in barely concealed regret. Oh how I wish it weren't so but I cannot lie to myself anymore!

I will go with Raoul because I know it will make him happy and it will mean that I don't have to struggle with myself anymore. I will resign myself to living half a life as it's the best I can do.

Oh, Erik, please forgive me! Do not hate me, I hate myself enough already. I will never be able to forget you and though I wish it were a lie, I will miss you. Fate links thee to me forever and a day.

And Raoul, God how I wish things will turn out differently for us, that we will be blissfully happy, that I will be able to love you more than I do! I will give all I have left of me to you and pray that it is enough!

You truly are a wonderful, loving man perhaps even the better man, but I will never be able to banish my Angel from my mind. No matter how far we go, we will forever be haunted by his ghost. There is no escaping the Phantom of the Opera, no escaping Erik, I see that now.

He'll always be there singing songs in my head….he'll always be there…singing songs in my head…

And God help me for I would have it no other way!

Oh, Heavenly Father, have mercy on us all for we know not what we do…

Christine

A/N: So there it is, thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed it! Feedback please. (",)