Thank you Erik for President for the idea of this chapter. Brittney feels pretty crappy right now and maybe a game or two will cheer her up a bit. But before we get to that she has a little catching up to do.

I don't know many Playstation games, so NASCAR will work, because I know there are plenty of games like that for that system.

Chapter 12: Eat My Dust

Brittney woke up to someone shuffling around the room. She sat up slowly and pushed back the curtain. Erik was standing there in a black muscle shirt looking out the window. The little bit of sunlight coming through it hit his back making glare appear in his sweat. Her heart seemed to drop against her ribcage at the sight and she could have fallen off the bed if it wasn't for the fact that she was clutching the iron frame.

He turned to face her when he heard her gasp and he smiled at her. Right away her eyes fell upon the bandage on his chin. "Erik, what happened?" she asked as she climbed out of bed and came over to him.

He tried to cover it with his hand, but she pulled it away in attempt to take a better look. She moved the fingers of her good hand gently over the bandage and with her eyes pleaded with him to tell her.

"Some kids pushed me that's all," he said quickly pulling away from her.

"An injury like that isn't caused by being pushed. Did you fall on something?"

"I fell into a group of desks and hit a chair. The mask fell off and they were telling me to show them my face. I resisted and they kicked me just to make me cry out. I wanted to die. I was begging for someone to end my life, but Randy saved me instead. He didn't even care about my face," Erik said a tear falling down his cheek.

"Randy's a nice guy. He doesn't care what you look like. He likes the fact that you put so much work into the shows. He told me this at tech the day of the accident."

Erik whipped around to face her; a look of surprise on his face. "Randy actually said that about me?"

"Yeah, that's what I was going to tell you, but then I saw Christine and…"

Her words were silenced by him putting a finger to her lips. She leaned her head against his chest feeling each rise and fall as he breathed slowly in and out. Even though she was hurt all pain seemed to be sucked away leaving her free to do as she pleased. All she wanted to know was that he was close. Nothing else in the world mattered and it seemed as if nothing else ever would again.

"Erik?" she asked softly.

He looked down at her and smiled. "Yes, my sweet."

"I want you to do something for me."

"Anything."

"Tell me you love me and that you'll never leave me."

He turned her around in his arms and rested his hands along her front. And in a deep voice he whispered into her ear. "I love you with all my heart Brittney, my love and until the end of time I will be here with you to guide you and to guard you."

Brittney could have melted right there, but he kept a firm hold around her waist. She knew all too well that there was truth in those words. He wouldn't lie to her, not after all that had happened. Looking up she saw the mirror on the back of the door. The image reflecting back at her made her want to cry.

Erik had a smile on his face as he settled his head in the curve of her neck and gently wrapped his arms a bit more around her waist. With her good hand she reached up and stroked the unmasked side of his face. She would never run from him again. Never again.

xxxxx

Two weeks later Brittney was sitting on Erik's bed writing a speech for class that was due the next day. After a couple hours she finally threw down her pencil in frustration and flopped back against the comforter forgetting the bar supporting the bunk above and smacking that first before she hit the pillow.

"Ow! Am I an accident waiting to happen or what?" she asked as Erik came over and touched the back of her head gently. "I mean that happens all the time in my room, but it get's annoying the 100th time I've done it."

He chuckled and helped her to sit up. "I know something that might cheer you up a bit. I almost never thought to pull it out, but I think you could use a break," he said sinking down onto the floor and pulling a duffel bag out from under the bed. Unzipping it Brittney saw him pull out a Playstation 2. "I think we could both use a break."

"But Erik you always lectured me about getting my homework done first. You can't possibly expect me to stop now and play."

Erik picked up her notebook and took a look at her progress. "Well from what I can see you have done quite well. I'll tell you what. We'll take a break now and play a game or two, then you'll finish writing the data down for your speech, and I'll be nice enough to type up your outline and make note cards for you, so you don't cramp up your wrist."

Brittney couldn't believe what she was hearing. Her own boyfriend was willing to help her with her schoolwork. "You actually want to do my homework?"

"I'm only playing secretary, because you're hurt. If you weren't I would make you finish it," he said hooking the appropriate cables up to the television.

Slowly Brittney got off the bed and sat down on the floor stretching her legs out in front of her. Erik finished with the game console and handed her a controller. "What game are we going to play?" she asked.

"Any requests my love? I have a nice collection."

"Well I never really played Playstation before except for at my uncle's house. He has one of the original consoles and I would play Tony Hawk's Skate Park. I was actually pretty good. Besides the only systems I ever had was Sega, while I was growing up, Game Boy, which my family has had since the beginning, and N64. But that's starting to become old news. I like playing Zelda on it though."

"Then I have some things to teach you huh?"

"If that isn't too much of a bother for you?" she asked testing the buttons on the controller with her fingers. A cast may have stopped the motion of her left arm, but she still had use of her hand though, because of pain she made sure to use it as little as possible.

"Are you a fast learner?"

"That depends. What's the game?"

Erik shuffled around in the duffel bag till he pulled out NASCAR Racing. He put the disk into the console and turned it on. When it was successfully running he came back and leaned against the bed frame after getting Brittney a pillow to lean on. It was a well known fact amongst the students that the bed frames were not comfortable if you leaned against them for to long.

Erik explained to her what each button did as the title screen appeared on the television. Brittney listened closely and practiced pushing the buttons just to make sure she could do it without any pain.

When she had the basics down flat Erik started up the game and had her pick out her racecar. She went for the Pepsi car and he took the Tide detergent one. The light on screen went from red, to yellow, to green and they began racing their cars around the track. Brittney thought she was doing really well; that was until she crashed into the bleachers.

"Oops! I really didn't mean to do that," she said glancing at Erik, who only gave her one of his smirks. She loved when he did that.

"Here let's try that again."

After a few more tries Brittney was really getting the hang of it and had won 3 out of 4 races. During each race they would hoot and holler at one another trying to screw them up and the only reason Erik got a victory was he had reached over just as Brittney got close to the end and kissed her cheek. She had been so surprised and let up enough to let him pass and win.

"That's cheating," she said smacking his arm playfully.

"That was not cheating. I was merely creating a distraction."

"Well distractions are cheating."

"All right I won't create distractions anymore," he said with a frown.

Brittney couldn't help herself. The way he was sitting was cute and she reached over placing her hand upon his unmasked side and brought him back to look at her before leaning in and kissing him.

He pulled back a bit not wanting to pull his eyes away from her. "Now wait a minute. You said no creating distractions. I can't concentrate when you do that to me."

"Erik, you're blind. The game isn't even going on right now. So right now it's totally fair."

He clicked the start button and with a grin went back to his sitting up position. Brittney was now more determined to show him just how good she was at video games. She chuckled as she whispered under her breath, "Eat my dust!"

After her third victory Erik looked over at her a bit confused.

"You never said you were that fast of a learner. How did you do that?"

"It's just a game don't take it so personally," she grinned leaning over and resting her head on his shoulder. "It doesn't matter. Now I feel ready to finish my speech," she kissed his cheek and stood so she could sit on the bed and collected her speech stuff in her lap.

Erik cleaned up the game stuff and placed the console under the television, because he wasn't in the mood to disconnect anything. It was getting stuffy in the room, so he opened the door before climbing onto the top bunk with a book he had wanted to finish.

After a half an hour sitting there and getting work done Erik decided to have a little fun. He put a bookmark in the book and slowly moved to the side of the bed. Brittney was down below working on the last little bit of her speech completely unaware of his movement.

Gripping the edge of the bed he gave himself to the count of three before he hung upside down in front of the bottom bunk making Brittney give out a terrified scream. He did a back flip and landed on the floor on all fours like a cat. Erik was chuckling to himself, but Brittney was panting in fear. She had been surprised, but she had been more afraid that he was really going to fall off.

Nadir's head appeared in the doorway with Meg standing behind him. "What happened? We heard a scream from in the lounge," the teen exclaimed.

"Erik scared me," Brittney replied pointing a finger at her boyfriend.

"What? How did he do that?"

"By leaning over the side of the bunk and hanging upside down."

Meg giggled. "I remember back in elementary school that he was always the one hanging from his knees on the monkey bars. He used to scare the crap out of the teachers with that stunt."

Erik was grinning at the thought of that. "Ah, well some of them deserved that. It was so much fun pulling off those stunts in front of them, because half of the stuff I did they never believed a child of my age could do such things in the first place."

"What kind of things?" Brittney asked.

"I wrote my first composed piece when I was six and just starting the 1st grade."

"That's incredible."

"Guys quick Christine's coming. Act as if nothing is going on," Meg hissed under her breath.

Brittney pulled up her speech book and Erik gripped the edge of the bunk and threw himself up in one jump. Nadir and Meg hustled into the room and sat on the floor. Erik threw them each a book to make it look as if they were busy.

Christine popped her head in the doorway and no one looked up, yet Erik was watching her carefully out of the corner of his eye.

"Hi everyone," she said then looked down at Meg and Nadir. "Didn't I see you two standing in the doorway just a minute ago?"

"Yeah, but we came in and decided to study. It's rather peaceful in here," Meg said using her finger as a place marker.

Brittney looked up from her speech book for just a second before going back to work on it. She had done pretty well with staying away from Christine, but right now she had no way of escaping, so she tried to become as small as possible, which didn't work.

"So Brittney you haven't talked to me at all for two weeks. I'll try to talk to you and you always seem to be heading off somewhere. How are you doing?"

"I'm fine thank you. How are you?" Brittney asked not wanting to go anywhere with the conversation, but still be polite. She still hadn't forgiven Christine for what she did and she wasn't planning on doing it anytime soon.

"I'm feeling great. Choir was excellent once again today except for a certain someone," Christine exclaimed looking up in Erik's direction. He glared at her and went back to reading his book.

Brittney was scared. Christine was trying to point something out, but she couldn't push herself to find out what happened. It wasn't any of her business and Erik didn't seem to be upset when he had come into the room a few hours ago.

"Christine I would mind you stay out of my business. Certain things have happened to me and I'm surprised you're not one to jump in and help me. You've said you liked me and that you're my friend, but you haven't been demonstrating that if you just go off leaving me stuck in a situation like that," Erik hissed.

"You deserved it. The whole class is sick of you. You're always trying to over sing the rest of us."

"I'm not trying to. I can't help that I'm more of an outgoing singer. I apologized to all of you, but apparently that wasn't enough, because that jerk Jason managed to pull the mask off in front of the entire class. You were there Christine. You saw."

Brittney let out a small gasp. "They pulled your mask off. Oh, Erik that's awful."

"I found it to be rather funny. Plus I found it more amusing for you just sat there and blubbered like an infant. You've grown soft again Erik; all because of Brittney. You lost your killer instinct."

"I never had one to begin with. I only get defensive, because so many people seem to have trouble looking at me as just a human being. I hate being called a freak or a monster. I'm a person just like everyone else," he shouted.

"You're problem is you don't look like the rest of us."

That had drawn the line. Erik leaped off the bunk and was now standing to his full height before Christine his eyes glowing. "Yes Christine I'm different, but that doesn't give people the right to take advantage of me just to fulfill their endless curiosity. You try going to school everyday in fear that someone will laugh at you or pull off your mask in front of the class. You're lucky Christine. You had the beauty like normal people. You could go anywhere you wanted, talk to anyone you wanted, and do just about anything you wanted to do. My resources were slim, so don't you dare think you're funny stories are hitting me deep down, because I've had enough of that to supply 20 people with shame, depression, and a lowered self-esteem."

He had stated this in one breath and Christine now stood wide eyed in front of him. She was trembling and her eyes were beginning to glaze over with tears. Brittney was already in tears and Meg was trying to comfort her. Christine saw this and grew upset.

"Meg, whose side are you on? I thought you were my best friend?"

"I'm on nobody's side right now. I'm just worried, because Brittney isn't fairing very well over here."

Erik came over and laid a hand on Brittney's cheek. It felt cold and a few more tears slid down onto his hand. She was suffering one of her shocked experiences that when something startling or shocking happened her body would tense up and a tingling sensation came over her face mostly in the nose and head area.

With the feel of his hand on her cheek she began crying harder causing herself to hyperventilate.

"Nadir, get a glass of water," Erik instructed pulling Brittney up against him and tried to calm her.

She coughed a bit before allowing Erik to get some of the water down her throat. She had been so upset with what she had heard that she had lost control of her emotions and had been pulled into a state of pure anger and fear. This was rare for her and it scared her.

"Brittney, calm down its okay. Everything is okay," Erik said rubbing her cheek as she cried into his shirt.

"It's not okay. Erik it's not okay," she said sadly. "People shouldn't be making fun of you. To hear that they are rips me apart inside. You don't deserve to be treated like that." She began coughing again and he got her to drink some more water.

Christine watched all this with a look of loathing and jealously. Everyone had ignored her and was now focused on keeping Brittney calm. She had disliked the girl the minute she met her outside this very room. The minute she knew Erik was at the same college with her, she had wanted to try and make up with him even if it meant dumping Raoul, but this plain girl beat her to Erik's heart and in two days even.

Brittney was finally calm and took the glass finishing off the rest of the water. Nadir handed her a box of tissues and she blew her nose and wiped her eyes.

"Are you all right now?" Meg asked her rubbing Brittney's knee.

Brittney nodded. "I didn't mean to scare anyone. It was just a bit of mixed emotions getting the best of me."

Erik rubbed her back gently and brushed some wet hair out of her face. "I'm just glad you're all right now. I always said to myself that a good cry makes a person feel better. I'm sure you feel even better now than you did 5 minutes ago."

"Actually I do. Thank you Erik." She reached up and pressed her lips to his and gave him a loving kiss.

Christine watched for a second then felt like she was going to be sick and raced for the bathroom. She stood over the sink staring into the bathroom mirror, her anger and jealousy rising. If Erik didn't want her anymore he didn't deserve anyone.

"What am I thinking? I never went out with him, because I was afraid of him. I still am afraid of him. Then why am I so jealous? Was it, because he had been the first guy to ever come to me and said I was beautiful. Raoul doesn't count, because I went up to him and said he looked cute. Erik has a beautiful voice though and such skill with the piano. How could I not love that? But Raoul is very promising in his studies and would be able to provide for me someday. I should just let Erik and his little girlfriend enjoy the life of starving artists together and let it be. At least they'll suffer together. I'll be rich and look down on them with no pity or sorrow."

Christine looked at herself in the mirror again. She was going mad. Why would she want to put Erik into that kind of situation? She had to get him away from Brittney some how and have him fall in love with her again. Her first attempt had backfired and now Erik loathed every thing about her. She had no hope of fulfilling her plan until Brittney walked into the bathroom…

To Be Continued…

Okay Christine is showing true jealousy here and she's totally out of character, but hey it works doesn't it. Sorry for the cliff hanger everyone, but I have to study for French before class, so I need to stop for now. The next chapter might be up this weekend, but I'm not a hundred percent sure on that, because I have 4 performances this weekend for Will Roger's Follies. Please Review.