Prologue
Meg Giry searched for Christine all over the DeChagny Chateau; she learned plenty by eavesdropping on Raoul (though when she told Christine she'd leave that part out) about the wedding, particularly something that Christine would be upset that Raoul would do without her.
"Christine? Hey, do you want to---" Meg Giry paused as she saw her friend crying, "Chris, what's wrong?"
"Nothing, it's nothing." Christine said rubbing her eyes with the back of her hand.
"Don't lie, your eyes are bloodshot, your face is a mess, and that tissue is just about shredded to bits." Meg said.
Christine turned away sobbing harder when she heard Meg mention the words "mess" and "face." This made Meg feel terrible about the tone she had used with her friend.
"Christine, it'll be all right, please, tell me what's upset you." She asked again as she began rubbing soothing circles on Christine's back.
Christine slowly started to calm down.
"Just think of your wedding, it will be the event of the season." Meg encouraged.
Christine Daae inwardly shook her head. Her wedding to Raoul would be the grandest event Paris would ever remember, certainly even withholding the events that occurred at the Opera Populaire, but every time she heard the wedding mentioned her thoughts would steadily drift elsewhere.
Flashback
Raoul hung from the infamous Punjab lasso, one which he held controlling Raoul's existence. He looked at her with such great rage, but his gaze also held such great pain.
He turned his fiery gaze on Raoul then returned it to her again, she tripped as she tried to back away from him, he raised his hand to backhand her, she assumed.
"You try my patience,"
She waited with baited breath for the blow that never came.
"Make your choice!"
She would not allow him to kill for her sake, never again.
Slowly she rose, approached him, and sorrowfully sang:
"Pitiful creature of darkness, What kind of life have you known? God, give me courage to show you, you are not alone!"
She kissed him; right there in the wedding dress he had designed especially for her, she kissed him. It was like nothing that she had ever experienced while kissing Raoul, the frisson between them was passionate yet still held gentleness to it. As they parted she knew, she just knew. Yet he still sent her away with Raoul.
Meg had been among the mob and retrieved the Phantom's mask for Christine before it was destroyed.
Madame Giry told her that she and Raoul were the last people to have seen him, the notorious Phantom of the Opera.
End Flashback
"What was it that you wanted to tell me, Meg?"
"It's about the wedding, oh, Christine, I raced across to this wing to tell you that Raoul has decided to move the wedding date up…to two weeks from today."
"WHAT!"