I give you guys a challenge and what happens? You rise up to meet it! I asked for 100 reviews and the final tally is… 105! Thank you so much! I'm a very happy author.
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Personal responses: Eclare LJ and Percabeeth, please do not die! I have posted this chapter so no extreme measures are necessary.
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Erik never slept that night. The following morning he retained the detachment and deference that his binge had granted him. He had spent his emotions, though the anger and pain still lingered, whispering hateful thoughts in his mind. He studiously ignored them. If anything he hoped to avoid cruelty with Christine. Goodness knows how well that had worked for him last time.
He sat in his large gilded throne before the hearth. Fire had always soothed him. Watching its deceptively gentle power allowed him to relax in a state close to rest. The warmth contradicted the chill of his stone home. He wondered vaguely if it ever bothered Christine to reside in such a cold place. Then he quickly reminded himself to stop dwelling on her, if only that was possible. He rubbed his temple in irritation.
Christine stood in the archway that served as an entrance to his sitting room. She watched him sadly, recognizing his depressed state immediately. She knew from past experience that he had not known any period of rest that night. She also knew it was all her doing. Allow me to just let you go. What an awful and hurtful request that had been. Let her go? What had happened to her Phantom that never gave up without fighting for his love? Where was his bravado and confidence she was so accustomed to? She wanted so badly to scream at him to wage war again with fate and pull her back into his world. How she would welcome it this time. "You have given me up, haven't you?" she whispered solemnly.
Erik stiffened upon discovery of her presence. She walked to the side of the hearth, looking her angel in the eye. He marveled at her sudden burst of bravery. She did not cower as she awaited an answer to her question, only stood with resolute acceptance of the answer to come. But studying her large brown eyes, he saw a great fear and grief that she held at bay. "What do you want to hear Christine? I do not know what you want from me. I cannot even begin to puzzle out why you are still here."
"I want you to say no. Don't just surrender. Why now?" Her words began to resonate off the stone as the volume increased.
He was on his feet and in her face in less time than she had to comprehend movement. "Why, why Christine! Is that truly what you want to know? Hmm?" His eyes were so close she could not look anywhere else besides the flaming green depths. "You naïve child, you do not understand at all do you? I have lost you! What point is there in battling for you anymore? You rejected me, decided that I was not where your future lay. I gave you the choice, placed it into your cruel little hands. You threw it back into my face with a vengeance." Violence boiled up to the surface.
"Choice?" She interrupted suddenly. "No, Erik I do not recall a choice. I remember all too clearly an ultimatum that could result in death of another man. That isn't a choice; that is a threat." She countered, matching his fury.
"So my methods are not the coddling and gentility you are used to. Forgive me if I am not your well mannered Vicomte. No matter what you call that night, you sealed your fate in that one lie of a kiss. How that burned me, Christine. You cannot begin to grasp the intensity of the pyre. To know you had deceived me with a kiss. Such wounds harm me much more than pathetic bullets from a manmade instrument of violence. The weapons that harm me are not of substance and tangibility. They are raw emotions, power you have over me to destroy my very soul."
"But that kiss-" she attempted to interrupt, but was hastily silenced.
"And how you did. Life ceased to hold any purpose for me. I had spent so long striving for your love that there was not anything left. Music betrayed me Christine, music! It taunted me with my own incompetence. Dear God, I never thought to lose that sanctuary. Yet it dissolved like smoke. I am nothing but a shell without you. I might as well have been in a tomb for all the life that I possessed. How can you ask me to fight? I cannot anymore. This time you won't just leave me bleeding and wounded. I will die Christine. If I let you control my heart again, your leaving will obliterate it into nothingness. So yes, I have given you up! It is the only way to survive the pain that is to come. If you wanted me so much, why did you flee?" he roared, his anger completely unleashed. She cringed, but he caught her arms roughly, holding her in place.
"I didn't." she cried softly. "You sent me away."
"Excuse me?" he demanded.
"Y-you sent me away." She stammered remembering that dark night. "I kissed you because that was my decision, Erik. You call it a lie! I have never had a more truthful moment in my life. I chose you, and you told me to leave. You didn't want me." Her words wavered and trembled.
"That kiss was a desperate attempt to save your precious Vicomte and nothing more! Do not dare tell me otherwise." he warned viciously, glaring into her brown eyes. "I do not need your comforting stories of what I want to hear. I accepted what happened and gave you your wish. I let you go have your happy ending with the boy. I could have trapped you with a villain for eternity, but I know you deserve better."
"I wanted to stay, Erik. Not under the guise of being coerced but because I wanted you. I kissed you to prove it, to convince you. And yet you denied me." Her voice was no longer frightened, but resentful and angry from the hurt of that scene.
He released her abruptly and turned to face the fire. Too many what ifs were slamming against proper thought. He could not believe her, no it was too dangerous. Yet her claims would make all the nonsense in the present make sense. "I cannot believe you, Christine." The sudden controlled tone took her by surprise. "It would hurt too much."
"Let me prove it."
"And how do you intend to do that, mon ange?" The normally gentle endearment lost its sweetness, sarcasm tarnishing it.
"Whatever it takes to convince you, Erik," she stated. He laughed a humorless chuckle, knowing exactly how to bring her back into reality.
"And what of most dear Raoul? Have you decided to just forget him? I cannot imagine you just leaving your fiancée behind to pursue me." He turned to see her face fall. "Exactly. You will toy with my emotions for a time, convince me of a fantasy. Then you will leave and return to the life of a Vicomtess that awaits you." Brought to bitterness by his own words, he continued roughly, "Such a bleak existence you return so vehemently to. Sure, you will possess riches and servants, but your soul will suffer. He does not want you to continue singing, does he?" He did not wait for her weak protests. "I would be willing to wager that he has already tried to persuade you to quit. He was crafty, saying you shouldn't 'tire yourself' or some such idiocy." He saw the defensive hurt, he had found the mark. "I see I am correct. He will cage you because a lady of society does not perform. His high class comrades would call you vulgar. Such hypocrites! They support the arts in funding and attend every opera in town yet scorn the hands that write and voices that sing. That is the world you will inhabit. What respectable imprisonment you have given yourself to."
"And what if he had asked me to discontinue my career? There was no point without you! I ended it myself after I collapsed. My choice, not his." His accusations toward Raoul had stung, for she knew the truth in them. She had to defend him even so, partly to ease her own guilt. Betrayal rang in her conscience.
"Even worse. You denied yourself, Christine. I thought I had taught you better than that. Apparently I have fooled myself into believing you were stronger than you are." Cruel, his mind threatened. But he was beyond caring, so intense was his pain. He wanted her to suffer with him, let her experience the heartache he was so accustomed to.
"When did you ever encourage my strength? You would berate me and yell at me if I displeased or offended you. I would cower like a child beneath your temper." She threw her own blades into his heart.
"Only because you would hurt me. I never intended to harm your spirit. But how could you expect me to react any other way when those moments were incited by your own callous cruelty? That was me defending myself. No, the strength I speak of is in your soul; the innermost heart that I have guarded since the beginning. Who comforted you and listened to you when your father passed? Who encouraged you when Carlotta tried to crush your tender pride? Who listened to you cry and told you to get up stronger than you fell? Who instructed and molded your heart to translate music into existence? Was it not I?"
"I could sing before I met you." It was the only argument she had, for all his statements were truth.
"Yes, yes you could sing. However ability and excellence are two very different aspects of song. You know as well as I that the melody of your soul would never have surfaced without my guidance. Years I slaved over the very idea! I saw it Christine, the very day I happened upon you. I glimpsed the purity and innocence in your core that is the most sincere beauty in existence. I allowed you into my world to guide you. I revealed to you how to truly live. I gave your voice its wings and there was brilliancy. And now you will just throw it all away!" He was livid at the very thought of such insolence.
"That isn't fair. Why must I continue when you let your music die? You told me so, Erik. You vowed not to write again. If my stopping is a crime, then yours is a sin. Your compositions were the very inspiration of my soul. No one has a gift to rival yours and you would lock it away. How I despised the letter that told me so, especially in light of your finale. I haven't even heard it played, yet I know it is greatness."
"No, Christine. That piece is not 'greatness'. Not compared to the rich songs that flood my mind now; which is exactly why I ceased to compose. Only with my 'angel of music' can I create masterpieces. Yet she continues to abandon me and shamefully torment me."
"Torment you? Is that all I am to you Erik? Some hateful creature that only causes you harm? Does your heart hold nothing but hatred for me now?" Though Christine's heart ached, she held quick to her anger, fighting to control the tears that welled in her eyes.
"You do not want to know the extent of what my heart feels for you Christine. I have seen how only glimpses have frightened you. So naïve, you have no concept of your affect on me, no grasp of your unbreakable hold. No, you are not hateful. If only I hated you, how simple my life would be. Instead I struggle with emotions you cannot fathom to have towards one such as myself." He winced as he saw her sorrow, but hid it well.
"Then stop hiding." She entreated. "Show me, Erik. Show me what you feel."
He grabbed her wrist suddenly, pulling her flush against him. Unleashing the force of his gaze on her, he let his emotions show. She gasped at the desire she felt and struggled against his restraining arm that pinned her wrist behind her back. With his free hand he tilted her chin up. His green eyes searched her for a measureless moment. For the briefest moment she thought he would kiss her. But he gritted his teeth, regaining control of himself. "No," he stated, "I will not show you. If your affection is still torn between two men, I have no inclination to demonstrate my feelings to you."
Christine's brow creased. That was low and he knew it. But it also was completely fact and she had no side to argue. "Tell me I am wrong." He challenged. She did not realize how badly he wanted to hear it. "Tell me!" He commanded again.
"I can't." The two words were like a spark to ignite the explosion.
"Why?" He begged of her as he once had begged her picture. "You want me to fight for you, yet you give me nothing in return. Nothing. And I want you, all of you. Every single facet of your heart and nuance of your mind, I covet. To just hear the words 'I love you' applied to me for once, but that is too much to ask of you isn't it?" Venom was in every phrase. So intense were his words that Christine could not speak or rebuke him. "Instead, the boy has your love and I only hold your fascination and interest, such weak sentiments in comparison. Why can't you just let go?" he questioned, thoroughly exasperated. "Let your heart stray in one direction or the other, but for heaven's sake stop fighting yourself." He paused to take a steadying breath, her mere proximity clouding his mind. "I can feel the erratic rhythm of your heart even as I see the indecision in your eyes; just as you are here with me, yet engaged to another." With a quick jerk, he pulled her left hand up between them. "How the reflections off this jewel mock me. Have you forgotten the significance of this gem on your finger?" He asked roughly, twisting her palm so the gaudy ring sparkled in the firelight. "It is further proof that any battle for you now is already lost. I'm so tired of sacrificing everything with no gain. I'm so horribly sick of your rejection and duplicity. The irony is I cannot simply demand that you leave me. My essentially selfish nature won't allow me to release your company so easily. Instead I suffer under the weight of my desire. Grateful, I suppose that I can feel anything at all. At least I feel alive, if not happy. You cannot imagine the new darkness I have lived in for the past months. Such depressing angst and sorrow, such cruel solitude you left me to. You!" He yelled the accusation, causing her to cringe, even while in the hold of his hands. When he witnessed her recoil, his entire expression darkened.
"Yes, Christine," he whispered in a deep menacing timbre. "Be afraid of the monster you know is inside me. You should be frightened of that demon that hid behind the guise of an angel. That heavenly creature does not reside in me any longer." He looked away, hiding the shame he never wished for her to see. "Perhaps he never did. Perhaps I only hoped that if I could convince you, then just maybe I would be worthy. But I'm not, I never was, and I never will be." He said this last with a hopeless defeat that was poignant in his voice.
"Erik, you're not a demon or unworthy. That isn't who you are." She tried vainly to persuade him.
"Yes it is!" He roared in adamant denial. "It is who I always have been. That's the reason you left me. That's why I did not argue or come after you. I hate myself and what I do to you. If I tried to seduce you or pull you back into my grasp, I wouldn't be able to let you go again. Ever. You would be my prisoner, treasured, but captive just the same. I do not fight, for I want better things for you than that. I want better than even the Vicomte for you. So my hands are tied. There is no answer but to give you what you chose."
"If that is so, why aren't you mine?" she cried suddenly. "If you let go, I will as well, I promise. But you hold to your idea of what you believe is best for me. Let me choose. Please." Erik looked down at her in agony, a small disbelieving cry escaping him. Before he could leap readily into such an idea, he thrust her away, putting physical distance between him and the enticing offer. He turned away before she could see the glistening moisture in his eyes.
His back to her, she saw his fists rapidly clench and unclench. "The moment that ring leaves your finger is the moment I will surrender." He whispered in a strangely emotionless tone. Giving her no chance to reply, Erik left the room, leaving his temptress to her thoughts.
She heard the door to his music room slam, the resounding harsh echo making her jolt. Closing her aching eyes, she fell back against the couch. The crackling fire did little to warm her body. Her heart felt encased in ice. She shivered violently, and curled in a ball. Only when she heard the infuriated and heartbroken pounding of dissonant chords did she let herself cry. She brushed her upper arms and wrists with her fingers, feeling the sting of her tender flesh he held so roughly, and welcoming the pain. She stared at the huge diamond on her third finger, torn by her feelings for her fiancée. Erik or Raoul? The question became harder to answer every day.
I will honestly admit I haven't been this apprehensive about an update in a while. So if you enjoyed it, please tell me so and review.
I now have an update on updates section on my profile. If I know when I will be posting, it will be there.
Thanks to my beta, as always, WeLoveWeLive. Her wonderful advice helps add to this story so much.
Hope to hear from all my loyal followers and maybe even some new people.
Much love!
~bo-leigh bella