Weeks passed and Christine was placed as La Carlotta's understudy and she even ended up performing the lead when Carlotta refused to perform due to a "life threatening" accident during rehearsal that day. Christine was a huge success but she fainted at the end do to the overwhelming emotions she had felt during the performance. However, shortly after Christine was taken to her dressing room to rest she disappeared. No one knew where she had disappeared to since the young man, Raoul le Vicomte de Chagny, claimed that she never left the room and he heard her speaking with a man. The door had been locked when Raoul had tried to enter the room to get Christine since she had agreed to go with him to dinner but shortly after the room had gone quiet the door unlocked and Raoul enter to find it empty.
Paris stepped out from behind the changing screen and stared sadly at the mirror. She had been in the room when Christine was taken through the mirror by her Angel of Music. No one knew she was back there and now that she knew the Angel was just a man, Paris felt mixed emotions. She had been in love with the Angel of Music but now that he turned out to be an actual man, someone who she could actually hold and love, she feared that he would never return the feelings. She had a feeling he was in love with Christine but Paris knew Christine was undecided in the love department. Christine cared greatly for her Angel but she also had feelings for Raoul and it was obvious that Raoul had feelings for Christine as well. Paris felt tears well up in her eyes as she realized that no one would ever love her that way. She had a feeling it was because she was "deaf and dumb". Clutching a pillow, Paris cried silently.
Christine returned a few days later and it was obvious something terrible had happened. The first person she sought out was Paris. Paris was in rehearsal so as soon as it was over Christine pulled her off to a small café for dinner and a chat.
"Oh Paris, it was awful! I thought he was my Angel but he's not, he's just a man with the voice of my Angel! He took me down to his house below the Opera House. Oh Paris, he's the Phantom and he's so terribly disfigured. His face, it's hardly a face any more and his temper…oh God! I promised I would visit him again but I just don't know if I can." Christine went on to tell Paris what happened while she was down in the Phantom's domain.
Paris, for her part, acted as though she was being supportive while not being able to hear or speak. However, she collected all the information that Christine gave about the man who had pretended to be the Angel of Music. She savored the name of him in her mind, Erik, a lonely, disfigured man who cared deeply for Christine. When Christine completed her tale she looked at Paris and gave a nervous smile.
"I'm sorry I've just placed all my problems on you like this but you are the only one who would understand. Maybe it's because you can't speak and hear so you don't know what exactly I'm saying and so you can't condemn me for anything. Although I do wish you could at least offer me some advice. I could really use some advice."
Paris smiled at Christine and squeezed her hand comfortingly. However, as soon as Christine turned to look down at the menu, Paris' smile faded and her eyes filled with pain. She knew Christine was not strong enough to handle a situation like this. She was not raised the same way Paris was and she had a feeling Erik had had similar treatment in his youth if he was deformed. However, Paris couldn't hate Christine for hurting both herself and Erik with her fear but until Paris got to know Erik she could only feel hurt by his rejection and feel sorry for Christine for being afraid of a deformed man who had lied to her.
From that day on Christine would disappear after rehearsal to visit Erik for her daily voice lesson and Paris would be left behind up on the stage. But she couldn't hate Christine for her actions since Christine was her best friend and she still came to Paris to confess what went on between Erik and herself. Every time this happened Paris would "listen" to Christine but in her heart she was in pain. She wanted Erik to pay attention to her. The more she heard about Erik from Christine the more Paris was convinced that Christine did not deserve Erik and he did not need Christine, which in the end hurt Paris just the same.
A month went by since Christine had been taken down to Erik's layer and one day Paris found her self in Christine's dressing room while Christine was out to lunch with Raoul. He had been courting Christine or at least trying to since she was rather reluctant to go anywhere with him since Erik was rather demanding of her time. Paris was tidying up the dressing room when she suddenly felt a presence nearby watching her. Giving no indication that she could sense whoever it was she waited for them to speak. She didn't have long to wait.
"Oh Paris, why can't Christine accept me for who I am? Why must she only see my face and my temper? I care deeply for her yet she refuses to acknowledge my feelings. I wish you could hear and speak but then again I'm glad you can't because then you can't be afraid of me. You don't even know who I am so maybe that's a good thing too. You can't be afraid of me if you don't know who I am to know what I've done. God Paris, I'm the Phantom of the Opera but I'm also only a man! I have feelings just like the next man but because of my face everyone thinks other wise. How do you do it, Paris? How do you go about your life with your problems and not have them hold you back like mine do me? Where do you get the strength to go about your life knowing you're different?" the Opera Ghost demanded from behind the mirror.
Paris picked up a dust cloth and went over towards the mirror and began to dust it. She could still feel Erik's presence behind it and so after a few minutes of dusting she slowly lowered the cloth and just stared into the mirror. She didn't really look at herself but looked past her reflection as if she was looking at something behind the mirror. Slowly she tentatively placed a hand on the mirror's surface.
"Sometimes I wonder what goes on in your head. You always seem to know what's going on even when you shouldn't due to your disabilities. And yet you are still just as clueless to what is going on. Sometimes I wish Christine were more like you, Paris."
Paris turned and continued dusting the vanity as if she hadn't heard anything from him. Paris stayed in the dressing room until she felt Erik's presence disappear, then she left for home where she curled up in her bed and silently cried for everything she couldn't have. Having heard Erik's confessions she wanted desperately to be the object of his affections.
Erik sat on his couch staring into the fire. His mind was surprisingly not on Christine but on another just as equally confusing woman: Paris Aldress. He couldn't get her out of his mind for some reason. After talking to her that afternoon he had found that she was a wonderful confessional. He could talk to her about anything and she wouldn't say anything back. Usually that would annoy the hell out of him but with Paris it was a relief. However, that scene at the mirror kept replaying in his mind. She had seemed wistful and sad, as if she could actually hear him and had been saddened by what he was saying. But, he thought with a soft laugh, she was deaf and therefore she could not hear what he was saying.
Getting up Erik made his way to his music room to compose more of his opera. His opera was for Christine now but as he composed the next aria he had Paris in mind. Sheet after sheet of music began to fill with notes that embodied Paris in his mind. He went through three arias with out stopping and when exhaustion finally took over his body he had written more music for Paris than he had for Christine. He usually didn't write this fast when he was composing an aria for Christine; usually he would sit at his organ testing chords here and intervals there. He was always very careful about the music he composed for Christine and he would always go back and rewrite the score to clean it up. However, this time when he went over the scores for Paris' arias he couldn't bring himself to change anything. There didn't seem to be anything wrong with them.
"You're tired Erik, get some rest and then come back to these. You'll fix them in the morning, maybe even trash them. These can't be that good, Christine didn't inspire me to compose these and she is always my inspiration. Paris is a sweet child but she shouldn't be inspiring me this way! I just need to rest, that's all," Erik muttered to himself as he stood up and made his way to his bedroom. A short while later Erik was in bed dreaming of Paris.