Wow okay it's been a while. Sorry for the hiatus after only three chapters. College life. Anyway, here's the next installment. I'm resuming this little pet project of mine, so hopefully I will give you another short burst of chapters within the coming weeks. As I've said before, the story itself isn't quite finished, but I sincerely hope you guys enjoy the update and Erik squirming like a bug under a rock ;) -Em
Christine's POV
I soon found myself, after a surprisingly short period meditating with just my thoughts, in Meg's crushing embrace.
"I am so incredibly sorry! I am so glad you are alright! Thank God you can stay with me!" and other such exclamations dribbled from the frantic blonde as she nearly depleted me of my air supply.
"Meg…air…please…" I sputtered, my hands tapping out on her shoulders.
"Oh! I'm sorry!" she released me of her hug and regarded me with round eyes, her hands bracing my shoulders. "Are you alright?" she asked, a sympathetic smile on her lips.
Was I alright? How could I answer that question when I did not know the answer? There was not a definite answer anyway. I felt numb all over, my senses all on autopilot, my thoughts a tangled mess like a cat's ball of yarn, or more acutely, my hair, at the moment. Everything was unfamiliar and foreboding and my nerves were on extra doses of paranoia as if I had just awoken from a lifelong coma and had no recollection how to feel or recognize anything around me. Even Meg seemed distant from my mind. My surroundings ceased to make any sense.
This sensation began the minute I heard his voice, really heard it, not just a passive hearing but a listening. A savoring. I was slumped in Nadir's office trying desperately to shut off my emotions. Just as I was calming my tears enough for me to see straight, my name echoed off the walls in splendor, giving the room a much more acoustic sensation than it did naturally because of the music in his voice. I sucked in a breath, not expecting such liquid symphony to settle over my ears like a blanket of honey. And then I turned and looked at him. His amber eyes matched his rich voice, and he was taller than any man I ever knew, and regally gaunt too. He was such a peculiar individual and my eyes were arrested on him, entranced at his foreboding strangeness and gracefulness. Every move he made was fluid and catlike. My brain had a hard time believing that this was the same man I had nearly thrown up on. The rest of our conversation went smoothly, and I suspect it had something to do with the magic in his voice that kept me teetering on the edge of sanity, tipping in favor of the latter instead of madness as I had been the previous time we spoke. I found myself amazed at my apparent dismissal of his person earlier, not sure how such a feat was accomplished.
"Hello?" came Meg's voice, her fingers snapping in front of my eyes and I flinched back at the noise. "Anybody home?" her voice wavered and I knew she was fighting to keep lighthearted.
I forced a plastic smile. "I am a little distracted today," I said sheepishly, shrugging the memories off my shoulders, if only for a little while.
"Let's get you settled," Meg comforted, steering me out the door and to her little sedan. For the entire drive she prattled on about her day, which I knew was her mechanism for dealing with grief, but my ears were still full of a different voice, the voice that had such a powerful hold on me even still, and a calm settled over me. Mary was gone and all I should have thought was how my life would change and how miserable I was, but I found myself rejoicing at her reunion with Dad, and I imagined them sitting side by side playing the piano, or creating their own duet, her on the piano and him on the violin. Heaven would be filled with the glorious music our family was blessed with by that very congregation which was now their audience. I found myself wishing I could be there to see it, to complete the trio that only had each other for so long. That wish made my thoughts grind to a halt. Did I really pray for death?
I shuddered, suddenly afraid of the dark corners I did not know my mind possessed. The truth was, when it came to death, I did not know what I wanted, and that terrified me. I glanced at my friend in the driver's seat, her eyes sparkling bittersweet, and I realized that, for today at the least, it was not my time to join Dad and Mary. Meg was here and she was going to take care of me.
She finally took a breath once she pulled into her driveway and noticed my stare. She grasped my hand and it dragged me back into the world of reality, realizing that my hands were ice and the warm contact almost made me pull away.
"It's going to be okay." She smiled and squeezed my hand compassionately, and I found myself returning a genuine smile. I could not leave Meg. We had known each other too long for me to cast off our friendship so carelessly.
Maybe it was going to be okay, I thought as the walls fell away and relief and gratitude made their way to the surface through another bout of fresh tears, as my friend's eyes welled up with the same.
Swollen eyelids were scraping against my dry eyes as the light of the late morning poured into them. I craned my arms above my head and warmed my stiff muscles, curling my toes and scrunching up my face in the process. The light adjusted as I stared into a space that was not my bedroom.
I was in Meg's room.
Mary.
I shut my eyes tight again, somehow believing that I could just fall back to sleep if I closed them. Needless to say I was very much awake, and the aching I felt was not simply physical. My heart felt incredibly heavy and my spirit cut down, as if Mary had been a piece violently ripped from it. Sluggishly, I pulled back the covers from the rest of me and gingerly placed my feet on the floor. Every move I made was foreign, the hardwood cold and unwelcoming.
"Honey?"
I jumped, startled at the voice. Meg leaned against the doorframe, clad in shorts and a loose tee shirt. Her face looked at me imploringly. "Would you like some honey in your coffee? I know that's how you like it." Her attempt at thoughtfulness drove a bit of the aching away, but not nearly enough.
Sighing, I nodded. "You are not going in today?"
She shook her head and smiled gently, coming to sit on the edge of the bed. "I called in and explained and they gave me the rest of the week off to be with you."
Relief flooded over me. I wouldn't have to be alone, at least not for a few days. "I think I will take you up on that cup of coffee," I said, flexing my toes and standing. "Black, no sugar, please. And yes, honey."
Meg let out a small giggle. "I know. I bring you coffee every day." She turned and left me to ready myself, a small smirk still resting on my lips. I brought myself over to one of the suitcases full of my clothes I had hastily packed and rifled through it until I found suitable undergarments, a thick sweater, and some jeans, tucked them under my arm and then I stepped over to the bathroom, thinking how wonderful a hot shower would be, when the doorbell rang through the house.
"I'll get it!" Meg shouted, and I heard the door swing open as I unscrewed the knob and steaming water spewed from the shower head. I stripped myself of clothing and let the water rush over me, banishing any dark leftover thoughts from my mind and letting my muscles relax under the flow. It felt nice to relax after the headaches I'd endured from crying so terribly often yesterday, and the steam reinvigorated my senses so I hoped I wouldn't be a dazed mess for the rest of the day.
Nearly simultaneously as I had finished, a respectful knock sounded on the bathroom door accompanied by a muffled voice.
"I will be out in a few minutes, Meg," I told the door. I did not hear a reply, so I quickly rid myself of excess moisture and pulled my clothing on and opened the door, my hair still soaked and clinging to my skin.
I expected to see Meg standing there, but she was absent from the bedroom, although I heard voices coming from the kitchen, both familiar.
"How is she doing?"
"Better than expected, I guess. She cried a lot last night," Meg's voice whispered. I stopped in my tracks, embarrassed. Interrupting a conversation about me was not a preferable way to greet our guest. I stayed behind the wall, just to the right of the entryway to the kitchen
"And you, Miss Giry?" a deep accent asked her in return. Nadir.
"I'm just worried about her. I don't want to leave her alone."
I heard Nadir sigh from my perch around the corner. "I understand. I'm just here to check up on her." A pause, and then he continued. "Can you go see where she is, Erik? I want to ask Miss Giry a few more questions."
Mr. Erik was here? I sprang backwards from my eavesdropping and ran back towards the hall I had descended from, only to trip over myself in my haste and fall flat on my back. The air in my lungs left me suddenly as I yelped in surprise at my own clumsiness. Great, I moaned, now they all think I'm incapable of taking care of myself.
"Chris!" Meg exclaimed, rushing over and crashing on her knees beside me. "What happened?"
"I-I…I, uh, tripped," I blurted stupidly, sitting up and digging my fingers into my shoulders. I could already feel the bruises forming.
Erik and Nadir followed swiftly after, both staring down at me with concern, or so I hoped. Nadir I could sense, but it was impossible to get a read on Erik.
I got to my feet and brushed myself off as quickly as I could manage, feeling blood heat my cheeks. "I am fine. Sorry for not welcoming you properly," I apologized, hanging my head like a dog with its tail between its legs.
Nadir, thankfully, gave a wide smile and waved his hand as if to dismiss it. "No matter, we are sorry to disturb you." He looked at Erik, who still didn't move his body or his cold stare.
This could not have gotten any more awkward.
I turned to Meg. "You know? I am going to go finish getting ready. Could you bring me my coffee?" I asked, hoping she would get the message that I was going to retreat into that room and stay there until our guests were gone. Or the rest of the day. Whichever came first.
Her eyes searched mine, and then alighted with understanding. "Of course," she spoke slowly. With that, she flitted her way around the visitors, and I fled.
~Erik's POV
The little blonde who invited us in and said Christine wasn't available was already irritating. I caught her piercing little glances towards my face and her falsely perky exterior, and if Jacoby had noticed any of this he did not show it. He was extraneously polite to the distracted woman, which did nothing to help the black mood I was crawling in. I was not prepared to be an S.O., much less the one of Miss Daae.
That woman had no coordination, or respect in any of its forms, and her mood was entirely unpredictable, and I had extreme distaste for people with those unholy qualities. I decided to leave out the bizarre effect she had on me when compiling my opinion of her, comprehension of it reaching far beyond my purview anyway. Her spill in the hallway—and her obvious eavesdropping, as I could hear the scuffling of feet and the faint dripping of water—only proved me my own point.
"Erik, what you did was rude. You should have said something to the poor thing," Jacoby chastised, glaring at me sternly. I didn't reply.
The blonde woman skirted around us again, this time clutching a steaming mug. She didn't pay us a second glance as she padded straight down the hall and into the room into which Christine had descended. Seeing very glaringly that we were no longer welcome, I started for the door. If she did not want me in her home then I finally had a good excuse to present to Richards about how I could not, and how I should not be her supervisor. She was a grown woman for Christ's sake! She could take care of herself! Although, seeing as she could trip and fall over her own self, I doubted the validity of this last thought.
"We are not leaving," Jacoby ordered fairly harshly. I knew I couldn't leave, but my fingers itched to get my hands back on the steering wheel and drive anywhere rather than stay here.
"She reminds me of someone," he stated rather cryptically, drumming his finger on the countertop of the kitchen.
I stiffened, swiveling to face him. "Who on earth are you talking about?"
He smirked, still staring straight ahead down the hallway. "Christine, of course."
"No," I grated, "Who does she remind you of?" My patience for this day was wearing thin. Strike that, my patience for this whole ordeal was. Ten years of patience.
"Well, she is headstrong, moody, clumsy, and curious, and she has a temper. Who could that possibly be?" he was forcing down a laugh, I could hear the strain in his words. "Who else could that possibly be but you, my friend?"
It was my turn to force down a laugh, although a quite mirthless one. "You must be joking. I am nothing like that woman. And I am certainly not your friend."
Jacoby gave a guffaw. "At least she isn't as arrogant and shortsighted."
"Arrogant? Shortsighted?" I scoffed, my volume raising. "And clumsy? When in my life have I ever been clumsy?"
"Be quiet! We are still in their home! If I had a nickel," he mumbled under his breath, his voice still tinged with humor that I did not share. I was nothing like that irritable woman whose only job in life seemed to puzzle me to no end. It was infuriating.
"Clumsy," I growled. Jacoby laughed.
"Mr. Jacoby, Mr. Laurent?" the Giry woman called to get our attention. "I am terribly sorry for that little incident. Christine apologizes but she won't see anyone right now."
I gritted my teeth. Who does she think she is, refusing her supervising officer the right to just do his job and get it done with?
"Miss, I assure you it is quite urgent," Jacoby tried to placate, but she cut him off with abrasiveness.
"Believe me, I tried to get her to come out here, but she won't budge," she explained with a hint of bitterness in her tone, leading me to believe that Christine had said something to upset her in some way, which did not surprise me in the slightest. "Why don't you both join us for dinner tonight? She may be in a better mood then," she suggested. Her politeness was commendable, but hell itself would freeze over before I found myself in that situation.
I opened my mouth to refuse when I heard Jacoby say, "We would be delighted to." I whipped my head around and bore my eyes into him. Confound his manners! Confound it all! I wanted to shout.
He returned the hard stare and shook his head imperceptibly. I clenched my jaw even harder to prevent myself from screaming my lungs out at him. I could have strangled him, too, were it not for the fact that he continued to engage the young woman in conversation.
"What time would be suitable for yourself and Miss Daae?" he asked.
Her shoulders drooped slightly, as if relieved, and she replied, but I took little notice. My thoughts were all that consumed me.
First, Jacoby says that I have qualities in common with that woman, qualities that I condemned, no less, and now I was scheduled to have dinner with her and her friend. Heaven knows I am no saint, I have more blood on my hands than most people had running through their veins, but a simple dinner in a simple house with three despicably confounding people had me running for cover, which succeeded in making me even angrier. This whole ordeal was a vicious cycle I was looking for every opportunity to break.
Come hell or high water, this would be the last time I would ever see that exhuming wretch again, I promised myself. I wasn't sure I could handle it, regardless.
Leave a comment if you would like a sneak peek in your DM's of the next chapter! I won't be posting for a while, so take the chance while you have it! As always, comments and critiques are greatly appreciated. Have a splendid day! -Em