Sorry this is late too guys. I suck I know. But, I'm trying my best here lol a lot of work and so little time. And finals are coming up so I gotta start studying for that and I had to write so many essays and do a project...cherish the time you have in middle school and high school because the work load doesn't even compare to college lol for me anyway. Well, I hope you like this chapter!

Disclaimer: I do not own Phantom of the Opera

Chapter 26

Dear Diary,

I don't know what came over me that day. I was just so happy that Erik woke up and desperate to make him believe that I wanted him. I hadn't planned on kissing him but I'm glad I did. It was nice, actually. And I never saw Erik seem so happy before. The moment was almost perfect for the most part. Just one thing was nagging me that I couldn't help but feel guilty about. Raoul.

I still love him and I do think about him daily. Did he give up looking for me? Did he move on? I hope the answer to both of those questions are no. I know this makes me a horrible person and I feel so selfish. I'm here with Erik and my feelings for him grow every day. I couldn't fight it anymore. It was exhausting and was a waste of time trying to get away to begin with. I know now I'll probably never get out of here and that thought doesn't scare me as much as it used to. I was…happy here. Even though I feel this way, one thing I know is for certain. I'll never love Erik in the way he wants me to. That feeling is reserved for Raoul only.

I already admit I have feelings for him but they can never grow into love. I already told him that love like that can never happen in these conditions. The day I think I love Erik is the day I have officially lost myself in this game. I already betrayed myself in giving into him this much, I can't go even farther.

Anyway, after I kissed him, I insisted that he told me more about his past. It was something that would always come up but he would always keep it clouded in mystery. It was starting to become annoying how he would try to cover up his life and obviously all of his issues came from it. If he told me about it, maybe he could let some of that pain go.

He told me that he would like to freshen up before we ate and I had to agree with him on that. I never felt that strong of an urge to bathe and just relax. Even though he was unconscious for hours, it felt like days and I needed some time to unwind. It also gave me time to fix the chain on the necklace Erik gave me. When I tore it off and threw it at Erik, the clasp broke. It took me a while, but I finally fixed it. I put it back on after my bath and I haven't taken it off since.

About an hour went by and I decided to go downstairs to check on Erik. He decided to keep the door unlocked again and that definitely added to my good mood.

"Sasha, come here! You must be hungry because I'm starving." I called to her as I left the room. She followed after me as I walked down the stairs. I smelled something heavenly in the kitchen and I quickly made my way there to see Erik making food.

"Are those pancakes I smell?" I asked as I walked next to him.

"Yes they are." He said and I looked up at him. I was disappointed to see the mask back on him.

"I told you I liked you better without the mask." I said with a pout. He stiffened slightly and looked down at the food he was making.

"I understand that. Well, not exactly. I don't understand how you can prefer to see my face." He said.

"Erik-"

"But, I understand that you do and I'll wear it less for you." He said and looked back at me. "Just give me some time. I've worn this mask all of my life and I just can't stop wearing it within a day."

I sighed but nodded. I knew he was right. I didn't want to make him uncomfortable and draw away from me. So, I could wait for him to take off the mask around me. I have all the time in the world, right?

"Anyway, I know you hate pancakes so, what do you have to eat?" I asked him.

"I'm not hungry." He said and I gave him a stern look.

"Well, I find that hard to believe. You fainted and had a really high fever. I think having some food in your system would help you. How many pancakes did you make?"

"This is the third one." He said and gestured to the almost cooked food. "But, I'm not eating one."

"Yes you are. Just one and I bet you'll feel better. I just really want to make sure you get better. And besides, I want to talk to about your life. I don't think I could wait for you to make something else for yourself."

He sighed but didn't say anything. I took that as a victory for myself and went to grab Sasha's food bowl and filled it up. By the time I was done with that, Erik had put our food on plates and I eagerly grabbed one. We walked to the dining room and he sat down in his usual spot. This time, I sat next to him and I saw a hint of a smile on his face.

"Take a bite." I encouraged and he rolled his eyes and quickly cut a small piece off and popped it in his mouth. He shuddered and put the fork down.

"It's much too sweet for my taste." He complained but I smiled and took a bite for myself.

"Well, I like it." I told him. We, well mostly I, ate in silence for a few moments before I cleared my throat.

"So, I know this is a hard topic for you…" I started to say.

"It is." He said quietly. "But, I promised I would tell you. Where should I start?"

"The beginning is always a good place. Maybe talk about your family?" I said with an encouraging smile but he still looked grim.

"The beginning…" he said and looked across the room. "Well, it all started out rather lovely. It was a perfect love story. Madeline and Charles met in France when they were only eighteen."

"Those were your parents, right?" I double checked and he nodded.

"They both came from wealthy families and met at a social gathering. They fell in love and after a year, they were engaged. When Madeline's parents died, they decided to travel the world together. For some reason, they decided to settle down here in America in this very house. They were blissfully happy and everything seemed to be working out for them. Madeline, however, had a hard time conceiving. As if it were a miracle, she eventually became pregnant. They day she found out she was with child was the day Charles died in a car accident." He told me and I bit my lip. He let out a bitter laugh and continued. "She always did like to tell me that I was a mock gift. That I was supposed to comfort her but only ended up making her life worse. She would have gladly traded my life for Charles."

"I'm sorry. That's horrible." I said quietly and he shook his head.

"I'm not looking for pity, Christine." He said. "That won't change anything." I nodded and he took a breath before he continued. I could tell he was growing more uncomfortable by the minute but I had to hear this.

"As you could have guessed, my mother was disgusted by my face. She stayed away from me as long as she could in the beginning. She called every plastic surgeon she heard of to see if they could do anything to fix my face. Of course, none of them could. The deformity was too severe. Soon, all of her friends and Charles' family stopped visiting her because of me. So, Madeline started to hate me. She would abuse me in every way possible and I started to hate her too." He sighed and closed his eyes.

"I didn't make life easy for her either. As you already know, I have a horrible temper. Whenever she would leave me by myself for too long, I would destroy everything in sight. It was sick really. I hated her but I didn't want her to leave me alone. I hated being alone when I was young. Even though she treated me like a punching bag, I'd rather have her around then be by myself. When I was alone, I would tell myself all of it was my fault…that I deserved what had happened to me. When she was around, I could blame her for hating me and creating me. It's pathetic, though. At night I would lie awake and wish that she wouldn't hate me. That I could have been the son she wanted."

My heart was breaking listening to this and I didn't know what to say. He didn't want pity but that was all I felt at the moment. How could a mother treat her own child like that?

"She didn't let me go to school and I couldn't blame her for that. I probably would have burned down the place if I did go. I taught myself everything I know and soon became interested in music. There was a piano in the music room and I taught myself how to play. It was a nice escape but it never lasted too long. She would scream at me and on several occasions she would slam the key lid on my hands." he said and held one up for me to see. I gasped lightly when I saw faint scars on his knuckles. "It was becoming too much to bare. One night when I was seventeen, she pushed me too far. She had slapped me on top of the stairs and called me some crude name that I'd rather not say. It wasn't different than any other incident with her but I had enough with it. I was old enough to leave and that's what I did. I lost my temper and pushed her down the stairs. She was unconscious but wasn't dead. I took all the money that she had laying around the house and left. "

"Well, she deserved that." I told him and he chuckled. I wasn't one for violence, but at least he didn't do anything worse to his mother.

"I suppose she did." He said. "It only gets worse from here, Christine. Are you sure you still want to hear it?"

How could it possibly get worse from there, I thought to myself. "I want to know all of it."

He sighed and shook his head. "If I were smart, I wouldn't tell you anything else. I know this will change your opinion of me."

I laid my hand on his knee and squeezed it slightly. "I doubt that could happen."

"I hope you mean that…" he said and took a breath. "I wasn't sure where to go at that point. I didn't know anyone and I had a limited amount of money. The only place I could think of was the city. The place full of opportunity and all of that nonsense. It took me a few months to find work there." He stopped and looked away from me.

"What kind of work?" I asked, hoping he would respond. He was doing so great and opening up to me. I didn't want him to stop.

"Drug dealing." He sighed and I was slightly shocked. I knew Erik did have his issues with drugs but I never imagined he would sell them…

"It was the only thing I could do. I didn't have a high school degree, no prior work experience, and no one would hire a man in a mask." He said and my shock turned to sympathy. "I didn't enjoy smuggling drugs and talking to those low lives. It was just necessary for my survival."

"That sounds dangerous, though." I told him and he nodded.

"It was on occasion. Some of the clients would become violent and other times my employers would threaten me if I didn't get the money. I had to resort to violence a few times but it was nothing I couldn't handle. Until…" he sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "I killed a man for the first time when I was nineteen."

My heart leaped in my chest and I tried to keep a calm composure. I knew his life wasn't easy but…murder? And he killed someone for the first time? That meant he did it more than once…

"Breathe Christine. Your face is turning blue." He said and I let out a breath I didn't realize I was holding in. "I shouldn't have told you that. You're afraid of me now."

"N-no. I just wasn't expecting…" I said but thought about it for a minute. I guess I shouldn't have been so shocked. I knew he could be violent and he was so strong. Still, it was a chilling thought. I was sitting next to and have been living with someone who was capable of killing someone.

"If that got that reaction, I don't know if I should go on." He said but I shook my head.

"No! I have to know. You can't just stop there." I told him and he slowly nodded.

"Like I was saying, I killed a man when I was nineteen. He was on some type of drug and he was angry about how much the drugs cost. We were behind some bar and he took out a knife and well…it only took a minute to kill him. I won't go into detail." He said.

"So, it was in self-defense." I said trying to make the situation a bit better but he shook his head.

"If it were self-defense, I would have just knocked him out. But, I wanted to kill him. I was so angry with everything. My life was a living hell and this was the perfect way to…distract myself." He looked me in the eyes and I guess he didn't like what he saw in them. "Now you must hate me."

"No…" I said and it was the truth. I was slightly scared of him at the moment, yes. But I didn't hate him. "I can't hate you for what you did before I even met you. It's just…I don't understand how that could make you feel better. I guess I never really will."

"I hope you never understand it. Do you wish for me to continue?" he asked and I nodded. "Well, after that incident, I became known for another set of skills. Different people, mostly gangs, would hire me to kill someone who wronged them in some way. I never cared as to why they wanted the person dead; I just did it for the money and satisfaction I got out of it. It wasn't long until I became well known and I no longer needed to sell drugs."

"When did you meet Mr. Khan?" I asked him.

"I was getting there. Be patient." He chided and I remained quiet. "I think it was 1991 when a man came to my apartment and told me my…skills were needed in Iran." He said. "He told me what I needed to do and how much I would be paid. I was on a plane the next day."

"What did you need to do?" I asked him.

"The usual. There were rival gangs in a small city and one decided to hire me to take care of their business. I didn't expect to stay there so long but in the beginning, I liked it there." He said. "I was feared and practically no one bothered me. They gave me my space and I did what they asked of me. Until one day, I met the man who specifically sent out his men to get me. Abid." He said the name with such venom it actually scared me.

"I take it you don't like him." I said.

"To put it lightly, no. I didn't like him." He said. "He was arrogant and thought he owned me. He was quite bothersome and so was the girl he always dragged around with him. Her name was Afsoon."

"That's where you met her?" I instantly remembered that name.

"Yes, and I regret I ever met any of them. Abid wanted me to stay in Iran permanently so I could do his dirty work for him. At first, I was fine with that. I could do whatever I wanted there and no one dared to stop me. I agreed to stay there as long as I was left alone. Of course, he couldn't even do that. He would check up on me daily and that damn girl would always be right by his side. She would always stare at me and it bothered me. One day, she came to see me by herself."

"So, she was…interested in you?" I asked. Was it weird that I actually felt jealous?

"In her own sick way, I suppose she was." He said. "She liked men who had power. Before I came to Iran, Abid had all of the power. But, I took that from him without him even realizing it. I won't even tell you what Afsoon tried to do that night. It was sickening and I don't even like to think about it. After that, she wouldn't leave me alone. She would come to see me without Abid and would bother me in every way she could. She'd touch my things, complain about how boring I was, and would always end our lovely conversations with a comment about my mask."

"Why didn't you just tell her to leave you alone?" I asked him and he chuckled.

"Oh, I did. She wouldn't listen to me. I suppose, in some strange way, it was refreshing to have her around. She wasn't afraid of me even though she should have been. I can't even count the times I wanted to strangle her." He shook his head. "But, I never had any necessarily good feelings towards her. I was just…curious about her I suppose. She just became a pest in the end."

That made me feel better and I had a strange urge to smile. It was wrong but I liked the fact that I was the only woman Erik was interested in. It was selfish but over the past couple of months, I've become a selfish person in general.

"It was later in my time in Iran that I found myself growing bored there. I had everything I wanted and yet something was missing. It wasn't until I was in a small town and came across an old antic shop that I realized what I wanted." He said and smiled slightly. "There was this old piano in the back of the shop and for some reason I had the urge to play it. It was horribly out of tune but it reminded me of the times when I was almost happy as a child. I suppose I was so wrapped up in it that I didn't even notice the store owner watching me. That's how I met Khan. He talked to me like I was just a normal person and never questioned my mask. It was…very different for me. I started to visit that shop every night and I grew a bond with him. Even his wife, Aara, treated me kindly. When she first saw me, I could tell she was frightened but she never stared at me. I grew to like that family. Until I found out who their son was."

I could tell by his voice who he was talking about. "It was Abid, wasn't it?"

"Yes. It was quite awkward when Abid found me in his father's shop one night. He didn't like the fact that I was mixing up his business with his family. Abid ordered me to never talk to them again. Of course, I didn't listen. I never take orders, especially from someone like him." He said. "Khan, after finding out who I was, wanted to help me. He told me that he had failed his son long ago. He blamed himself for his son involvement with criminals and wanted to redeem himself. I told him there was no way for him to help me but that didn't stop him from trying. He told me I could do great things, especially in music. He told me I should leave Iran and start new somewhere else. It was a tempting offer. I had grown bored of my life there. The killing didn't have the thrill it used to and I hated almost everyone there. So, I took him up on his offer. He got three plane tickets to America. One for me, one for him and one for his wife. Of course, that didn't work out. Abid found out about this and he wasn't too pleased. The night before I was supposed to board the plane, Abid had a large group of his gang invade my home and they brought me to Abid's home." He sighed and looked at me. "You saw the scars on my chest, correct?"

"Yeah." I said and felt the same pity as before.

"I got those during my time in Abid's home. They chained me up in his small basement and Abid had a grand time torturing me. He felt like he owned me and he was rather mad that his possession tried to get away from him. Afsoon liked to watch this and liked to visit me on occasion. She constantly offered to set me free if she could see behind my mask. I denied her every time until one day, I couldn't take it anymore. I hated feeling like an animal chained to a wall. I agreed to her and she let me go. I was too weak to fight her off as she took my mask off. As you might imagine, that didn't go too well either. She started to scream and I had to cover her mouth. I didn't want her to cause any unwanted attention. I was too late and Abid came down to see me touching his woman. He wasn't happy about that. She claimed that I escaped on my own and tried to rape her. Abid tried to kill me and he very well could of in the state I was in. Before that could happen, someone stopped him. It was Khan. He went to Abid's house that night just to see if he knew where I was. He always had a knack of knowing that I was in trouble."

"It's a miracle that he was there." I told him.

"I suppose so…but Abid was angry that his own father was against him. He tried to kill him but…I stopped him. I used one of the chains that kept me down there and wrapped it around his throat-I shouldn't tell you that. I'm sorry. I stopped him from killing Khan. That's all you need to know. Khan was upset, of course, but didn't hold it against me. Khan and I left the house and went back to his shop. It was then that Khan told me that his wife had died a few days earlier from some sort of sickness."

"Poor Mr. Khan." I said quietly. He must be so lonely…

"Yes, it was a shame. Even though he could be a nuisance, he was always my only friend. We left Iran immediately and came to America. It was here that I convinced him that I needed the morphine to get over the pain. He agreed to get me it on one condition. I had to never kill again. I agreed and well…after years of keeping to myself he convinced me to tutor you. And here we are." He said.

We sat in silence for a few moments as I digested all of this. His life sounded like hell. I couldn't even fathom how horrible it must have been and how hard it was to keep going.

"You're a strong person, you know that right?" He tilted his head and gave me a confused look.

"Why would you say that?" he asked.

"You survived all of that." I said. "You did make wrong decisions but you still managed to overcome it."

"I've killed so many people. I don't think I can overcome that." he said and I shook my head.

"But you stopped doing that. You realized you could do so many better things with your life. I won't lie, it did scare me a little but it happened so long ago. You're a different person now." He slowly put his hand on top of mine.

"You're a wonder." He said. "I told you all of this and I expected you to never want to talk to me again."

"And you still told me." I said with a smile. I knew I should be afraid of him but something in me told me Erik would never hurt me like that. He loved me too much. Besides, there would be no point in never talking to him. I can't necessarily leave here so he's the only one I have here to talk to. "I don't know how many times I have to say it but I won't hate you because of what you did in your past. We've all done bad things. Even I have. We just have to move on. Thank you for telling me all of this." I smiled at him and he gave me an odd look. "What is it?"

"Can…can I kiss you?" he asked quietly. I nodded and leaned my head into him. I closed my eyes when I felt his lips on my forehead.

"I love you so much." He sighed. I know he wanted me to say it back but I couldn't lie to him. Instead, I just hugged him and prayed that this would always be enough for him.