Hey, my dudes! Long time, no update... my apologies. I'm currently galavanting around the UK, living the dream. You can thank the bad weather for me having the time and inclination to sit down and write, and the noisy hotel environment for this chapter not being as polished as I'd like it to be. It's hard to concentrate in here.
Anyways.
Tell me what you think, maybe? Sorry if this chapter is lame/too angsty/not as funny as the previous ones. I have the next chapter partially-written, and I promise the silliness will return!
Thanks for reading!
Erik cursed himself as he stood in his bathroom, glaring at the twin bottles of tattoo moisturizer on the counter. There they sat, blissfully inanimate, monuments to his mistake.
Feeling stupid about just standing and staring at bottles of lotion, Erik removed his mask and ran the tap. Splashing the cold water on his scarred, boney face gave him something else to do and feel, and was a momentary relief.
But only a momentary one.
Damn his pride.
Damn his drunken sentimentality.
Damn his face.
His fist hit the tile countertop and the minor jolt of pain gave him another moment of distraction. His stupid, hideous face. The face that had him in this wreck to begin with— that kept him from normal human interaction to such a degree that something as simple as talking to a pretty girl was a task as foreign to him as deep-space exploration.
And damn it, it was something he was far more interested in.
He was a fool. He'd had the chance to come clean, and what had he done? Imposed some sort of bizarre waiting-period on himself, brought on by a lie— a lie that was told to preserve someone's opinion of him, no less! When had he ever cared what people thought of him? It would have destroyed him long ago if he had… and yet, here he was, desperately managing his image in hopes of a favorable judgement from a stranger…
He blotted the water from his face vigorously and snatched his wallet from his pocket, fumbling for the post-it note that Christine had given him. It was unremarkably neon pink, but her handwriting slanted across it, graceful and delicate in silver gel pen. He breathed deeply.
She had given him her number. She hadn't any reason to do that. Actually, she'd had plenty of good reasons not to. And… well, it felt sacrilegious to say, but he was quite sure that she had flirted with him… and she hadn't had to do that, either.
Erik couldn't resist a crooked smile. He smoothed the post-it note, then stuck it firmly onto the second bottle of moisturizer in triumph.
After adding Christine's personal number to his phone, Erik tried to compose a text. He wanted her to have his number as well, and it seemed the right thing to do, anyway— to thank her for her… kindness? Interest?
He wrinkled his nose and backspaced, then tried again. He'd just tell her that he appreciated the tattoo and her willingness to work something out, and that he looked forward to seeing her soon… No. He backspaced again.
And so it went.
Over the course of the next half-hour, Erik drafted and re-drafted his text to Christine, unable to do anything but over-think his message. Everything he proceeded to type was either too long-winded for his comfort or much more cold than he wished to come across. He didn't want to come across as needy, or stalker-y… or distant.
Why was this so difficult?
He sent texts all the time for work without a second thought about how they might be read by the recipient, or concern for how they'd feel about it (unless he was actively making sure that they would feel a certain way about it)! This was something he'd never done before.
Caring was exhausting.
Finally, after he'd composed a text that passed his proof-reading a solid 10 times over without finding anything to delete or change, he had a flutter of anxiety and did some second-guessing… and then sent it.
After that, knowing she was still at work and telling himself that he wouldn't hear back from her until she closed, there was nothing else for him to do.
Except look her up on the internet.
Several times in his life, Erik had wondered what he'd do without the internet. His life (and probably the lives of many others) would probably be much more of a dumpster fire if it weren't for the ability to do light reconnaissance work remotely.
Hell, if he considered living life with a horrendously malformed face to be a curse, how much more excruciating would life in an age without the internet be? That would be the cruelest joke ever played on him by fate. Not to mention that living in a glorified basement would be far less tolerable without it.
So it was that Erik opened up his search engine with gratitude.
With a fake profile he'd created solely for online data-gathering, he found her on Facebook— she used her real name. Her page had some lax privacy settings. He tsked to himself. She needed to fix that.
It was a goldmine of information, though— she had far too much personal information in her profile. He combed through the pages eagerly anyway, noting with satisfaction that her relationship status was "single," that she liked French food, and that she was fond of animals and didn't have too many selfies involving duck lips. She was 24.
She also appeared to have a wide range in her music tastes and was a fan of ballet and opera, with several Broadway shows thrown into the mix of her "likes" page.
The photos she had posted, though few, were telling: several selfies of her and a slightly younger, olive-complexioned girl with curly dark hair spoke of a happy friendship. There were some photos of her and an older, bearded man who shared similar features— her father, no doubt. This, too, looked like a treasured relationship.
There was nothing about her mother.
Erik found himself transfixed as he scrolled further back in time to Christine's adolescence— she'd been tagged in photos from church choir practices and concerts, dance classes, and high school theatre productions… oddly enough, from several different high schools across the States.
One particularly good photograph of her caught his eye— she was onstage, singing, costumed as Belle from Beauty and the Beast. The passion on her face was clear; she was lost in the role. He wished there was video footage of that moment.
She was clearly an artist in more ways than one.
He wondered why there were no more recent posts or photos of her like this in the last few years. Midway through her junior year of high-school, most of her Facebook activity ceased, and when it picked up more a year and a half later, it was considerably altered in tone and subject. The personal involvement in music was at an end.
Internet searches on her name turned up mostly programs for school shows, and an article with a photograph of her as a younger girl, standing with the man he presumed was her father. The type beneath the photo confirmed his intuition, and the article was from the local newspaper of some small town in Minnesota that he'd never heard of, about the novelty of such a marvelous violinist as Charles Daaé passing through their town on tour. It went on to laud his playing and the connection between his Scandinavian roots and the township, and mentioned "his charming daughter" with "a voice as sweet as any songbird" who'd done some accompanying vocals for his folksongs…
He searched Youtube for recordings, and eventually, found one. It was grainy, taken on an old camera or phone, but it showed Charles Daaé busking in San Diego at Balboa park. The man's bow moved with precision and vivacity, and the music that poured from his violin was full of soul and love. Erik listened in awe, then played it again.
To his disappointment, he could find no recordings of Christine singing.
A quick search for the father's name turned up the man's obituary, dated 9 years ago. The time when Christine had stopped being involved with music.
Erik felt a pang of guilt. Suddenly, he felt like he was intruding into Christine's life a little too much, prying into her grief.
Absentmindedly, he ran his fingers through his hair as he reflected on what he'd gleaned. He got the impression that she'd moved around a lot with her father as a kid, probably homeschooled through her elementary years. He felt a bit of kinship with her for that— he'd moved around, too, and knew how hard it was. Still, going from city to city with a beloved father was a lot different than being passed from foster home to foster home.
He closed the tab and sat back in his chair, feeling oddly subdued.
Knowing his lack of self-control, he'd probably dig through her pictures again later, but for now he just felt the need to step away.
Maybe he'd distract himself with some composing… Charles Daaé had inspired him.
After the second week of waiting, not only had Erik planned a variety of first dates in excruciating, practical detail, but he'd also imagined countless conversations with Christine. Would she appreciate any of his compositions? Did she prefer books or movies? What would he do if she was a fan of the Hallmark channel?
She'd ask about his mask, eventually.
How would he answer? He'd need to keep his cool, certainly. Scaring her away was not an option. But would she make it an easy conversation?
He knew he'd never show her his face. She'd probably puke in the nearest bush or trashcan and that would be the end of things. Nope, no matter how sweet she was, he doubted she had a strong enough stomach to remain acquainted with him after seeing… all of that.
He heard a crash in the next room and spun around to see Ayesha glaring at him from atop the table… and his coffee mug from that morning, broken into three or four pieces on the floor.
"Feeling neglected, little angel?" Erik raised his eyebrows and rubbed his hip pointedly. "I don't see why. I rather thought I'd proved my devotion permanently."
At the end of the third week, though he'd tried to keep his mind busy, Erik was startled one dull afternoon when he found himself absent-mindedly contemplating another tattoo… just to have some contact with Christine.
He grimaced. This had gone far enough. Surely, three weeks was long enough for a normal person to have recovered from a breakup.
He didn't know, he'd never had one. He supposed he could Google it, but he sure as hell didn't want to be getting relationship advice from Yahoo Answers.
As he furiously deep-cleaned the backsplash on his stovetop, he realized that if he kept waiting he'd go crazy— or he'd have built so many castles-in-the-air that actual, real interactions with Christine would be a let-down— or he'd completely psyche himself out of ever seeing her again at all!
Good lord, he'd better just go see her again and get it over with. He couldn't live like this anymore. If he was going to obsess over interacting with a girl, he might as well be obsessing over things that were actually happening.
What were Christine's favorite flowers? Erik had no idea, but he felt like he needed to bring her something.
As it was, he found himself leaving the florists' with a red rose, and he hadn't gotten two blocks away before he was mentally berating himself for the choice.
Too romantic. Too forward. Too intense… Just dramatic enough to signal what she'd be getting into if she went out with him.
Damn it anyway. Let the cards fall where they may, he was doing this.
He hadn't texted her— he wasn't going to sit for four hours composing the perfect series of texts to ask her out. Their personal interactions had been pretty pleasant, and he was feeling audacious enough to try his luck again.
As Palais Tattoos came into view, Erik instinctively began scoping out the street to make sure no one was approaching. Satisfied, he peered into the interior of the shop through the window.
Christine was leaning with both elbows on the counter, laughing.
His heart jumped at her smile.
His heart plummeted into his stomach when he registered that she was laughing with a young man. A very attractive young man.
All of Erik's outrageous optimism fled in that moment. He stood, frozen to the ground outside the shop, still gripping the rose— he wished it would wither away instantly so that he could crumble it into dust. He was once again a cold, dry husk, empty of any feeling… just the way he'd been before, but worse for having felt hope and lost it.
He felt like he was seeing everything clearly for the first time in weeks. He was a skeletal man who wore a mask to hide a disgusting deformity, who'd gotten lonely and emotional and drunk enough to get a tattoo from a girl who just happened to have more common decency than most of the rest of the world and hadn't shoved him away as vehemently as he was used to.
She'd let him down gently.
After all, what was he compared to the laughing man behind the window? He was nothing, he was all the worst things rolled up in a single, unappealing package. Beautiful, kind Christine didn't deserve to be romantically pursued by a monster with a whole lifetime's worth of emotional baggage.
Erik had gone from having butterflies in his stomach to feeling them grow heavy and merge into one cold, still lump in under 30 seconds. He couldn't keep watching the scene before him; he had to get out of there or one of them would see him.
Just as he thought this, he realized that Christine had already noticed him through the window.
No. No. Too late.
Her expression was one of surprise; she seemed a little startled… but then she smiled and waved to him. The young man turned to see who she was waving to. His face was much less welcoming than hers. Erik's gaze was drawn back to Christine by her hand... she was motioning at him to come into the shop.
In his new, enlightened, dispassionate frame of mind, Erik was vastly more inclined to walk away and never visit this part of town again.
He was about to do just that, to turn away and wander home and never leave his basement again… but something stopped him. Numbly, his eyes were drawn back to the man in the shop. The goofy affability in his countenance, his confident stance, and the mixture of protective wariness and patronizing good humor that filled his gaze…
That's when Erik knew: if he turned and left now, he would be a coward. He could never live this moment down to himself, knowing that he'd left without a fight. There was no challenge in the blond man's eyes— why would there be? To this man, he was just a weirdo in a mask. If he walked away, that's all he would ever be, and that might be what he became to Christine.
That primal understanding tied him there, unmoving. The lack of a challenge. The assumption. He sure as hell couldn't slink away and shed his dignity.
His jaw felt tight. When had he started clenching his teeth?
He was going to go forward with this. He'd walk into this extremely uncomfortable, awkward social situation and prove that he was capable — worthy— of being seen as rival of this man, whoever he was…. that he, Erik, was also part of the human race, and that he wasn't just some awkward basement-dwelling man playing dress-up. Whatever happened, so be it.
If he lost his dignity, he'd lose it on his own terms.
Erik put his hand to the door and pushed.