Realization

"Madame Giry, may I please have a word with you?" asked Mercedes Gautier. Madame Giry instantly allowed Mercedes in and invited her to sit down. "How long have I been down there?" she asked.

"Three days. Many people have been inquiring about your absence. I told them that you were visiting family members." replied Madame Giry.

"Thank you so much for covering for me! Look, I need to ask you a favor. It's about Erik. He is reluctant to share his past with me, but I need to know who he is!"

"Why?" was all that Madame Giry asked.

"I… I don't know. I just…, I can't really explain…"

"Then I cannot tell you who he is. That is for him to decide. He might share with you that bit of information if you told him who you are. You are a mystery to all of us, Mercedes Gautier."

"I cannot tell anyone who I am." replied Mercedes.

"Why not?" asked Madame Giry.

"Because you, as well as Erik, would reject me just as everyone else that I knew has!" screamed an enraged Mercedes. Realizing that she had just yelled at one of her employees, she gasped and said, "I am sorry. It's just that my past is too painful to relive."

Erik had been hiding in the shadows all throughout this conversation. He couldn't believe that Mercedes was going around inquiring about who he was! After he had blatantly said that he was not going to share his past with her! He was furious with that meddling little minx! Couldn't she just leave him be? He was so glad that Madame Giry had not relinquished any information about who he was.

He stormed down to the catacombs of the opera house, his home. He tried his hardest to be angry at Mercedes and remain that way. He just couldn't do it, though. Suddenly something dawned on him. Maybe one of the reasons why she wasn't repulsed by him was because she loved…

No! She would never love a beast like him! He tried to put her out of his mind by thinking of only his "beloved" Christine. But for every image of Christine that he conjured up in his head, ten more images of Mercedes assaulted his tormented mind. Her soft black hair, her full, crimson lips, her grey eyes that saw through his loathsome exterior and to the man whom she loved…

Why did she ever have to come here in the first place? Who was this wretched young woman who was slowly bringing him back to life after he had already committed himself to his death? Angrily, he flung himself onto his large bed and sobbed, his cries of agony ebbing away only when sleep finally took him.

Mercedes was extremely confused. She didn't know why Erik was hiding anything from her. She didn't know why Madame Giry would not tell her anything about Erik, not even a word about his past! But what confused her most was why she was always inquiring about this mysterious resident. At first she convinced herself that she only wanted to know who he was because he lived under her opera house. The more she thought about it, however, the more inconsequential that fact seemed.

She then told herself that he only intrigued her. But why? Why did he intrigue her so much? Why did she care about who he was? A thought that had hidden in the shadows of her mind before now stepped out into the open. That thought, now in the open, could not be ignored. She turned her attention to this small though, which was gradually growing bigger, and she almost fainted when she realized that it was true.

She loved Erik.