I'm a bit sad. They've asked me to pre-record Christine's high notes so they can play during our performances even though I was cast as Meg.
Anyone want to cry with me?
Meg's POV
I woke from a loud clatter, felt the air against my bare shoulders before I opened my eyes slowly. The room I was in was not unfamiliar, nor was it mine.
"Oh, good; you're awake." The strong American voice was also something which was familiar to me, and I gave the young man a small smile.
"Good morning, William. Are we going to breakfast?" I made a point of eyeing the suit he was dressing himself in and gathered his bedding around my chest. William had asked for my company on quite a few occasions in the last few months, and I was beginning to think this was where my life was going to change. He was always so gentle with me, so kind. He was fairly successful, hence this beautiful room where we met just about weekly, and I felt something...different with him. All my life I had planned a fairytale marriage, and it felt like my dreams were crumbling as my life fell deeper and deeper into unthought-of of territories once my mother and I had arrived in America. Being with William helped me forget almost everything else. Even the fact that my stage was about to be taken by the one person who had made me feel insignificant so many times before...
"Actually, I'm expecting company. I need you out fairly quickly this morning. I have to be at Central Park at ten."
"A business meeting?" I asked as I followed his instructions and climbed out of bed, reaching forward to gather my stockings and corset.
He sighed and watched the floor, his back to me, as he answered. "Actually, Meg...you remember Miss Sarah Wilkins, who I told you about?"
"The woman you were courting months ago, yes?"
"I'm...I'm going to ask her to marry me."
I was sure I hadn't heard him right, and it suddenly felt as though ice had slipped down, into my stomach. "What?" I gasped weakly.
"I know it wasn't fair to keep this from you, but I needed you. Work has been more frustrating than usual, and you're the one person I know who can take my mind off things."
I swallowed harshly and tied my corset as quickly as I could manage. I did not have anything more to say to this man, even if I had been able to speak coherently. Tears were burning behind my eyes and I felt weak. Once again, I had put too much hope into something never within my reach. I was always something to be used, never wanted. Just something to guide people to what they really wanted.
"Meg? You're angry."
"Just help me dress, William. You rid me of my clothes quick enough; you might as well dress me quickly, too."
The hotel we stayed in was only a twenty minute walk back to Phantasma, and I kept my face lowered the entire time. Usually I would bask in the stares I got from men and the looks of recognition from people who had seen my posters, but I didn't want anyone to see me looking so vulnerable today. There was only one person I wished to see, and I was hoping my pathetic exterior would allow more sympathy than was usual. Erik was the one person I was sure about in my life, other than my mother - he was the one who had stayed for the last decade, and he could give me things which made me smile. There was no one else who could make me happy like he could, and I knew I needed to take action before I lost him, as well.
His workers were sorting through papers as I made my way toward his office, and they stopped me before I could lift my hand to the door.
"The master is in a good mood today, Mademoiselle Giry," chirped Fleck with a wide smile.
"A good mood?" I scoffed, sounding stronger than I was right at that moment.
She nodded quickly. "Humming to himself and everything when he came in this morning. I expect it's something to do with Miss Daaé. His spirits have seemed more and more lifted since she arrived."
"Yes, I expect so, too." I said slowly. What had Christine agreed to now? She was already the headline act for the last performance of the season. What else was there for her to do? I thought of her failing marriage and their undying love Erik had always moaned about, and I suddenly felt very sick. "Excuse me, Miss Fleck."
I did not knock, like I had been instructed to do. I barged into his office and he did not look up.
"Miss Giry," he greeted me softly.
"What is going on, Erik?" my voice was now broken, and I didn't mind. Let him see how affected I was by all of this; he might waver about his final decision.
"I believe you will find some good news in recent decisions. Christine has agreed to stay in America with us. Your old friend. Is that not wonderful?"
I'd never seen him like this, and I knew whatever I had to say now was a lost cause, though I wouldn't dare let myself believe it easily. I felt tears burn behind my eyes once more, and I took action however I could to take what was rightfully mine after all I had done for him.
Erik's POV
"Erik, you can't trust her. You know you can't."
"What are you talking about?" my defensive side reared up in the face of Little Giry as she questioned my Christine.
She sighed, clearly distressed, and I noticed her eyes were red, as if she had been crying. They began to water again now, as she spoke. "She left you, Erik! Who's to say she won't do it again? Don't you remember what you were like those first couple of months in America? You can't go back to that - you'll kill yourself!"
"If she does not want me this time, there is no point to keep living." I pointed out calmly. I would not allow myself to become worked up over this. Christine had promised me she would be staying this time. I would not let Little Giry's words affect me how she intended them to.
"There is a point, Erik! Phantasma needs you - I need you." Her last three words were quiet, broken, and I frowned and stood from my seat.
"Miss Giry, you are upset. There is something troubling you. I have not seen you quite like this before."
"You can't trust her, Erik! Believe me - she's not done anything for you. You're lying to yourself, and if you allow this to go ahead, Phantasma will be in terrible shape! I've...I've done so much for you, Erik. So much. I lost myself on the way, but I kept going, because you needed me! I've done things I could never tell anyone about, and it was all for you! I helped you when you needed me! So choose me, Erik! Not Christine, me!"
"Miss Giry..."
"Erik, please,"
"What are you saying?"
There was a long pause, and I watched, slightly fascinated, as tears rolled out of her eyes and down her cheeks, pink with emotion. "I love you, Erik."
I immediately took a step back, and I felt myself shaking my head. "No, no,"
"Yes, Erik," she took a step toward me with her arms outstretched. "How many people have told you that in your life? You can't believe me because no one has ever done so! I love you! I have always been here for you - isn't that enough proof?!"
Her hands were now on my arms, her fingers buried into the fabric of my coat, and I realised this was the first time she had ever touched me without accident. Her eyes were begging me, and her words had my mind trying to convince me to believe her. It would be so nice to think, out of the entire world, someone had wanted me from the beginning...someone would stay with me no matter what.
"She left you, Erik," she whispered, her eyes flicking between my own and the mask covering the right side of my face. "She didn't see the good in you. She only saw what everyone else did..." her fingers lifted, but I moved away before she could touch my only protection against the eyes of the world.
"Everyone else," I repeated softly. I turned from her and put my hands on the desk before me.
"I will stand by you, Erik." Little Giry insisted. "I promise you. Let me see you, Erik."
Christine had been terrified of my face upon first seeing it. Now she insisted she was comfortable with it, but I could never be sure of that. She had had time to adjust. My mother had never become accustomed to looking at me...what if Christine could not, either?
But...if someone could look upon me for the first time and accept me for who I was. If they were not disgusted or surprised the first time...how could I not believe them? Little Giry may have been an actress, but she was not a great one. I would know if she accepted me just from the look in her eyes...and I knew she would not.
"Christine accepts me," I said quietly. My voice now held a deadly edge to it, and I wondered if she could tell, or if she was just as oblivious to it as she was to so much more.
"I'm sorry?"
"I know Christine is here to stay. I am sure of it." I turned to her once more and stood at my full height, towering over the young woman. "You may think you have done a great deal for me, Miss Giry, but you have never once made me feel comfortable around your person. You will never take Christine's place in my life, and you will never take her place on the stage."
I saw her break right before my eyes, but I did not sympathize for her.
"I love you, Erik! Listen to what I have to say, because I'm right!"
My hand moved so quickly I doubt she would have realised and I ripped the mask away from my face.
Her scream pierced through the air of the office, and I knew everyone in the building would have been able to hear her. Her arms straightened once more, pushing me away from her as she stumbled back and fell into the door. I felt my chest ache as I was rejected by one more person in my life, though I had told myself this, exactly, would be what would happen.
"Don't come any closer to me!" she screamed, and I faltered in my steps toward her. I sighed and turned around, securing the mask back on my face.
"Leave," I instructed sharply, yet quietly. "Leave, and do not come back."
I heard the door to my office open and close, and then I was alone.
Christine's POV
My life since that conversation with Raoul had been good. The concert was just a couple of days away now, and I was rehearsing with Gustave in the home we now called ours. He had learned the music easily, and even made comments on my singing from time to time. I resisted smirking when he did so, because it was all things he'd heard Erik tell me before.
I hadn't seen Erik for a few days. He'd been distant for a little while, and then stopped coming to visit altogether. What made me most uncomfortable, however, was that he had distanced himself from the day after I'd made my decision about staying in America. I had expected him to have had the opposite reaction. Perhaps he did not want us to stay after all? Did he think our staying would result in a negative impact to his park?
There was a sharp knock on the front door just as Gustave and I were nearing the end of our song, and we exchanged a curious glance because I crossed briskly to answer it.
"Meg!" I was surprised as the blonde stared back at me, her eyes wide with what I took to be worry. "This is a surprise," I did not know how to react to her visit. Did I want to see her? In my time here I had found her impossible to decipher. I was not ignorant enough to believe she had visited just to catch up with an old friend, and I didn't know if I could be anything but wary around her now. She'd seemed too curious about my failing marriage in the time I'd been here, and I was uncomfortable about speaking of my current situation with her.
"Christine...do you have a moment?"
"That depends on what this would be about, Meg." I answered grimly.
She sighed heavily and looked away from me, and in the next moment tears were rolling down her cheeks from her wide green eyes. "I - I need to talk. I haven't spoken to anyone for days, and I know my mother would never listen to me. Not now. I've ruined everything, and I don't think I'll be able to get it back!"
Her face was hidden by her hands when I wrapped my arm around her and steered her into the small house, closing the door behind us. Gustave was watching curiously from the bench behind the piano, but he stood and disappeared when Meg and I neared him.
Seeing the state the young woman beside me was in made my heart ache. I'd seen the same girl such a way so many times before - she'd taken things to heart back in our days at the opera house. She'd always been so fragile, though no one ever would have picked that after taking ballet classes with her mother. As far as I know, Meg had never let anyone else see this side of her, but I knew the truth. Even the slightest of social misadventures had Meg in a state occasionally, and I had always been there to help her through it. Now felt just as it had a decade ago.
"Meg, what happened? I didn't expect to see you like this. Not anymore."
"Oh, Christine!" she was gasping for breath now, and her lips and eyes had swollen through her tantrum. "I don't know what to do, Christine! I can't stay here! What would my mother say? Oh, no! And I haven't anywhere to go! Do you know what that leaves me with, Christine? If I can't live, then -" she broke off and buried her face in her hands again. I felt uneasy with the direction her words were taking and took her hands in my own.
"Meg, speak to me. Surely this isn't as bad as it seems. You always were known for your overreactions."
"Not this time, Christine. It's over. I've been hiding myself away...I didn't know who to come to. But who better than my best friend?" She laughed weakly as though she had just made a good joke, then hiccoughed and whimpered before she could continue. "There really is nothing left for me now...there hasn't been for a long time, but I was stupid enough to believe things would get better. I kept up this charade thinking it would get me somewhere." Her eyes fixed on my own, and her lips quivered. "But he never had plans for me. Not with you in mind. I was stupid. And now I'm used and no one remembers me, and it was all for nothing."
"Meg, what are you talking about? Your face is plastered all over Phantasma. Surely that means something!"
"It means nothing, Christine!" tears poured out of her eyes once more, and I was shocked when she threw her arms around my neck and buried her head against my shoulder. "Please tell me you forgive me! I was so jealous - you know I've always been a jealous person. But you were always mine, Christine! I didn't need to worry about any of the other girls taking you away from me! Until you started singing, of course. I'm sorry I strayed from you during that time, Christine! I should have been a good friend, but with the Vicomte trailing after you I didn't think you needed me anymore. I didn't want to hear about how wonderful your life was going to be when I would be stuck in the opera house my entire life."
"But you loved dancing, Meg,"
"I loved the idea of being looked up to! Being at the front of the stage is wonderful, and it was the best thing for me then, but when you were being courted...I started imagining what my life would be like when you left. You would be wearing fancy hats and gloves and I would be stuck in those ridiculous costumes until the end of my days. You would forget about me!"
"I never forgot about you, Meg. I wanted you there more than anything during the first couple of years of my life. You don't understand how hard that was for me, Meg. I needed my best friend to talk to."
Meg scoffed. "I'm sorry, Christine. Those things hurt - knowing you didn't appreciate your perfect life with your perfect husband while I was dragged to America to - to work for Erik! I had no choice! You chose the perfect life and you took it for granted, Christine! Don't you know what I would have done to have been given the marriage you were? It's one thing being admired on stage, Christine, but it's something else completely to be admired for who you are. You didn't have to work for anything, and you ruined it anyway."
"Meg, that just was not the life for me." I said gently. "I am sorry you see me as someone who threw the best away, but that's not how it is. Yes, I destroyed what Raoul and I had, but that was never my intention. I tortured myself every day with thoughts of what I could have done to make things better for us. I just couldn't do them at the time. It's like I was trapped and couldn't help myself."
"You were trapped," she snorted gently as she looked at the floor and tightened her shawl around her shoulders protectively.
"What happened, Meg? What's gotten you in such a state this morning?"
Her eyes were swimming again as she peered back to me. "What is it like to be wanted, Christine? How does that feel?"
I was at a loss for words. I don't know how long I hesitated for, but Meg continued without my prompting. "I thought William loved me." She began again in a casual tone. She looked back to her skirts and picked at a stray thread. "It's hard to know, when you're spending so much time alone with a man who is giving you all his attention. But I'd told myself no man would ever want me permanently. Not when I'm stained by a decade of the most undesirable kind of work."
"Meg..."
She did not look at me, but frowned at my boots. "I was brought here for Erik, Christine. I was told we needed to get money, and quickly. I was forgotten about from day one, and each time I helped out, I would be rewarded by being noticed. Even if it was just from my mother, it was enough. I felt like a ghost once we arrived in America...I cannot say that I didn't cherish the attention I received from the men who asked for my time, either. Anything was a blessing. And still is."
"Did you really feel as though you needed to turn to...that?"
"Do not act as though you're aware of how those first couple of years were, Christine! I had no place on the stage until just a few years ago, and even then it was near impossible to convince Erik to let me up there! He'd never looked at me twice - I was half convinced he hadn't realised I'd joined him on this journey."
"There are other jobs, Meg." I said gently.
"Do you really think so little of me, Christine? To believe that selling myself would be the first thing I would consider?" she shook her head. "I need to speak to my old friend again."
"Your old friend was expecting a warmer welcome than what she received. I need to know I can trust you again, Meg."
"There's no need, Christine. I do not think I will be here much longer."
"You're not going to turn to taking your own life, Meg. You would not do that."
"My life is not worth living," she said simply with an almost bored look upon her face. "Look what's become of me. I'm a failure at everything. No one wants me. I doubt I would even be able to handle ballet now, after all this time."
I took her hand and made her look at me. "You know that is not true! Ballet is inside of you - you could never forget it, Meg. And I know there is someone for you in the world, as well. You're too good, when you are trying to be. You've just forgotten yourself. My Meg charmed just about every stage hand in the opera house. Any one of them would have been grateful to have you, Meg. You were the desirable one of our younger years, not me. You just can't remember how beautiful you are."
"You told me your father said beauty was on the inside."
"And do you not see how I follow that rule?" I asked with a small smirk. "I never wanted Raoul during our marriage. I am aware of his beauty Meg, but have you forgotten who I am staying in America for?"
"The same man who brought me here today," she said with a long sigh.
"Erik?" I was surprised. Did she know something I did not? Had he told her he no longer wished for me to stay in Phantasma? I was worried. Meg worked for him - he could have sent her to explain about his absence.
"Yes, Erik," she spat through a tear-strained voice. "Christine, I've done something terrible! Your father's lesson doesn't work with me - I am not beautiful on the inside! Oh, Erik..."
"What did you do, Meg?" I asked desperately, leaning toward her and trying to draw out everything she knew.
She watched me for a long moment, her eyes wide, terrified. Her green orbs looked twice as bright from the redness the tears had caused, and when she finally did speak her voice was a whisper.
"I saw his face."