19) The power to be strong
It didn´t take Raoul long to find Meg. Just as Mme.Giry had predicted it, she sat on a bench in a park not too far away from the opera. She was crumpling a handkerchief in her hands, staring down at it as if there was nothing more important in the world. She noticed neither the bright sunshine nor the cheerfully twittering birds in the trees surrounding the bench.
The young man approached her quickly, almost a little afraid she could leave if he didn´t get to her on time. He sat down next to her quietly. Having let a few moments pass in silence he said: "Meg?". Hearing her name the girl jumped slightly and finally looked up at him. She was a pitiable sight. Her eyes were red and swollen from crying, and there were dark circles under them.
Raoul felt a wave of sympathy rush through his body. "I think I know why you didn´t attend the rehearsal.", he told her. Meg frowned. How could he say that? Nobody knew what had happened between Erik and her last night. When she didn´t make a verbal comment Raoul went on: "You didn´t want to meet Pierre Devoiraux, and as he announced he´d come to the opera this morning you preferred not showing up.".
He threw her a questioning glance. "Am I right?", he asked softly. "You don´t have to worry – he wasn´t there. There´s no reason for shedding more tears." In fact, Meg wasn´t crying anymore. But his words only made the wish to do so grow stronger. During the last hours she hadn´t spent a single second thinking about Pierre. What did he matter now? But then, Raoul´s explanation was actually quite sensible. How easy it would make things for her! Yet somehow she didn´t want to lie. Not for the first time Raoul had helped her. He deserved the truth. Besides, maybe she´d feel better after talking about the events of last night.
She cleared her throat. "That´s not the reason why I´m here.", she whispered. Raoul had to lean forwards slightly to understand her. "Why are you here then?", he wanted to know. "Your mother is worried about you. She sent Christine and me to search for you. I was just lucky enough to find you first." He gave her an inviting smile and nodded, encouraging her to go on.
"Well, I had these weird dreams last night.", Meg started slowly. It was difficult to find the right words to describe them. Some parts had already become blurred, but others were still clear on her mind. "In one of them Erik and I were together in his home. We were… kissing, and suddenly he changed. He got violent, holding onto my wrists and saying dreadful things to me. Then he turned into Pierre and tried to… to…" A dry sob escaped her throat, making her unable to go on.
Yet Raoul had understood it. "This must have been terrible for you.", he muttered sympathetically. "But… it was nothing but a silly dream. Why are you so upset about it?" He didn´t want to appear insensitive; he just couldn´t comprehend it. A simple nightmare could impossibly cause such a behaviour. There had to be more.
As if she had read his mind Meg continued: "It´s not just that. I…". She interrupted herself. As much as she wanted him to understand that she wasn´t only a stupid girl who didn´t know the difference between dream and reality, she couldn´t tell him about the other nightmare. It would have inevitably meant explaining everything about how Erik had hurt himself. She was the only one to know about it, and unless Erik´d ever change it, it would remain like that.
"Erik came to me after I had had these dreams.", she said. "I couldn´t sleep, and he agreed to stay with me for a while. He must have fallen asleep as well because he was lying next to me when I woke up some time later." She smiled, recalling how happy she had been in that moment. But her face became serious again quickly.
"He woke up, too, and we kissed and-" Raoul gave a little cough and ran a hand through his hair nervously. There were certain things he didn´t want to imagine, and Christine´s best friend and the Opera Ghost lying in bed together was one of them. Meg looked at him in surprise. She hadn´t planned to get into more detail anyway. "Well, and then the atmosphere changed, almost as rapidly as in my dream. In one moment I was still enjoying it and wanted him to… go on, and in the next I felt trapped under his body and wanted to escape. It was like this evening when he nearly… did violence to me."
"But he didn´t… I mean, he didn´t do anything you hadn´t allowed him to?" Raoul approached the delicate topic carefully. He was still unsure what to think about the relationship of Meg and Erik. He had never seen them together since the night when Erik had come to her while Raoul had been watching her sleep. From what Christine had told him they were very happy. But this didn´t sound like a happy couple.
"Of course not!", Meg cried, shaking her head with so much determination that the blond curls whirled around her. "We had barely started, and I really… wanted him to make love to me." The frankness of her words made both of them blush slightly, yet the girl had had the impression that it had to be said in order to be understood.
She didn´t speak for a minute or two, and Raoul didn´t urge her to. She´d continue when she was ready to. "I guess you know what Pierre tried to make me do yesterday in the restaurant.", she said, seemingly without connection to what they had talked about earlier. "Yes, Christine told me.", Raoul replied. Meg was relieved that she didn´t have to tell him. "Somehow the situation with Erik reminded me of that. It was completely different, of course. Erik is the man I love, and Pierre… I wouldn´t even let him kiss my handbag if I could decide for myself. And still the feeling was the same, the feeling of how incredibly strong men are. What keeps them from doing whatever they want?"
By now Meg had turned away from Raoul, and he couldn´t fight the impression that she was more talking to herself that to him. She went on in a low voice: "This morning I happened to have the same wish as he. But what if one day I don´t feel like making love to him? Would he try to force me again?". Assuming she was finished Raoul said: "Meg, I want you to be honest with me: Are you afraid of him?".