Ch 10 – Our Strange Duet

"What does that mean?" I asked. "I don't want to leave you. Not now…"

He sat down and pulled me over onto his lap, speaking very gently, as though to a child.

"I would never make you leave. I don't want to ever be apart from you; not for one minute. But we can't stay here forever…the Opera House is ruined. I don't even live here now…and I spoke to you of something I must do."

I bit my lip. He was right, of course. I hadn't given a thought to consequences, to I after /I , but he clearly had.

"Oh, God," I moaned, burying my face on his shoulder.

"Regrets?"

"Right now I think I regret all the world more than I regret you."

"But you do regret?"

"No – oh, don't make me say things when I can't even think!" I said. He stroked my hair. Everything and nothing had changed. How was that possible?

"What will happen now?" I asked, helplessly. "Why must you go?"

He shifted me off his lap and set me down next to him, holding my hands in his.

"Christine…" he began again, "You know that my heart and my soul belong to you. They've been yours since I first laid eyes on you, since the first time I heard you sing. There's nothing on earth I'd rather do than to spend my life with you, starting with this moment - "

I began to interrupt, but he held a finger to my lips, quieting me while he continued.

"And I will, if you still want me to, when you've heard me out. The choice is always yours. But I made a commitment before had any idea that I – that we –"

He stopped, and began again.

"Our last encounter made look at the deep chasm which separates us. I've lived all my life as an outcast, an animal, a monster. I considered myself to be outside of humanity, and I behaved accordingly.

"I've done desperate things. You know of some of them."

I did not want to hear or think of this. He was opening an old wound. I made as if to pull away, but he held my hand firmly between his two.

"Please, listen. This is no easy thing for me to speak of.

"After you left, things went…badly for me for awhile. I had to come face to face with some of my inner demons. I thought long and hard about what you said about where my fault truly lay, and I decided, after much soul-searching, that I wanted to make an effort to rejoin humanity…to some extent. I want to atone in some measure for the past. I need to."

"You're going to the police? You can't!" They'd condemn him. I wished I hadn't said it. I felt sick. I broke free of his grip and jumped up, one hand at my throat.

He looked up at me through the hair falling over one half of his face, with that sardonic half-grin of his.

"I'm neither that brave nor that foolish. Nor, oddly enough, do I have a death wish. The past is the past, and I can't change it."

"Then what are you going to do?"

His face looked tormented. "I can't tell you. Not yet. I wish I could. I may be away for a month, maybe more. God, I wish I'd known – I should never – "

"Hush." It was my turn to soothe him. "Just tell me what you can."

"'l'll return to you as soon as I can. Sooner. I swear. I'd do anything not to have to go, and the irony is that it was wanting to be a better – man – for your sake that put me on this path," he looked at me with something like despair.

"Is it dangerous?"

"It might be."

I sat down again, slowly. I felt that I'd finally found my heart, only to have it broken.

He looked away, and said, roughly, "And you have a commitment, too."

I waited for him to finish.

"You're engaged to be married to the Vicomte de Chagny." It was difficult for him to get the words out; they seemed to stick in his throat.

"I can't – now – Oh, God. You know I can't."

He looked at me for the first time, with hope, yet still with fear in his eyes. "What will you do?"

"I'll break the engagement."

"It might not be as easy as you think."

"I only want you."

"If only that were clear, how much simpler it would all be. The fates, and the hearts, of two men rest in your hands, Christine."

I hated it, but he was right. I truly loved both of them. I My /I irony was that I had ended up engaged to the wrong man, my childhood friend; the man I now knew I loved like a brother. Raoul was very dear to me, and how I wished I could escape from the necessity of hurting him.

The man I now knew I loved passionately, with my heart and soul, was about to leave – for my sake. What an awful mess we had all made of things. I felt torn into pieces.