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Disclaimer: No, I don't own phantom...

chapter 5

Early in the morning I woke up. It was 4:30 AM. But I wasn't tired. I was happy. I went to the bathroom and started to draw a bath.

When I got in, the water was scalding hot, but I liked it. It was so hot that steam was rising from it

Last night, after I had told him that he made me happy, he had asked "But why?"

"Because you're my friend," I responded simply and I had a feeling no one had ever stated something of that nature so bluntly to him.

I looked around the many, many bookshelves that lined the inside wall of the library and much of the center of the room. Everything was in alphabetical order.

I was alone right now, Erik was practicing with his violin; I could hear it just barely. I hadn't seen him since the night before and thoughts of then still filled my mind, clouding it from any other thing that wished to enter.

Did he still love Christine?

It confused me. Apparently, Christine had left him for another man. But that's all I knew. And to kiss and be kissed, I didn't know anything of that. The word itself was foreign to me.

I felt pensive. The thoughts somehow saddened me. Was it the air of somber feeling that came from the story? Was it the fact that he had loved her and she left? Was that it?

I somehow thought I was being a bit intrusive by thinking about it this much but I was interested. Maybe more in the concept than anything else. I was interested in romantic love. What was it like?

In fact, love, what was that? I pulled out a dictionary. There were several entries but this one caught my eye.

A deep, tender, ineffable feeling of affection and solicitude toward a person, such as that arising from kinship, recognition of attractive qualities, or a sense of underlying oneness.

Oneness? I paged through the dictionary til I found the entry for that.

The quality or state of being one.

So a characteristic of love was unity. Perhaps to feel that you are completed by the other person. Even the description of love was appealing.

I put the dictionary back and continued looking. There were all sorts of books, but mostly reference books and books on information.

I was looking at the B section. All the authors began with B. Most of the books where things on train engines or the activity of animals. But one book was different than the rest. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte? It was a small thick book, leather bound.

I picked it up and opened it.

"There was no possibility of taking a walk that day." It began. I was a bit interested. I had never read fiction before, I knew what it was but I'd never come across it. I decided to take it to my room and I did. I put it down on my desk and figured I'd read it later.

I went out into the drawing room and sat down. A few minutes later Erik came out and sat down beside me, but a little less than a foot away. He was holding a newspaper.

"Ma biche…Roxanne," He sighed. "There's something I should tell you."

"Yes?"

"Remember yesterday when that man brought my groceries?" I nodded, "He also bought me a newspaper, like he does every two weeks. I didn't read it until today, does your mother's name happen to be Claire?"

"Yes…why?"

"Claire Delancy," he paused as if he wasn't sure what my reaction was going to be, "is dead."

I didn't say anything.

"It doesn't say how, but it does say it was a medical problem."

To be reminded of her made me bitter. I didn't care that she was dead. She had patronized me, yelled at me, treated me as if I didn't matter, and stood to the side and watched while my father beat me. As far as I was concerned, her death meant as much to me as someone who I didn't even know.

"Sadly, none of my emotions but ones of resentment are involved. Maybe if she had been more of a mother to me, I would have felt differently."

"I understand," he said quietly, "my mother was the same to me." I decided not to press the matter; that seemed to be all he wanted to say about it.

And that was all I wanted to say about it as well.

So within about two weeks my life had changed drastically. I was now living with a man under the opera house, any thought of my parents or sister, long gone, despite the fact my mother had died

I was well into Jane Eyre. I had gotten to the part where Jane starts to realize that she is in love with Mr. Rochester.

The book was incredibly catching. It was probably one of the most pleasurable books I had ever read. Jane was a strong independent woman who grew up an orphan and then made a place for herself in the world. How I wished to do the same for myself, to become independent and free and to have a life for myself. Of course I had a life right now, but I couldn't forever leech off poor Erik.

But the sad thing about Jane's love is that it seems unrequited. Mr. Rochester leads on that he wants to marry another woman. A little later on in the book, Mr. Rochester confesses his own love for Jane. He explains that the reason he led her on was because he didn't know Jane's feelings for him.

The whole idea was so romantic that at this point in the book; I had cried several times. Erik still hadn't caught me reading the book and I was hoping that he wouldn't. Now that I knew what the book was about I would have been embarrassed.

Erik's and my friendship had grown fast. Perhaps it was because we found kindred spirits in each other. Something about Erik tortured him and my disease tortured me.

But something about me wasn't right. Ever since my mother had died, I was moodier than usual.

"Roxanne." Erik sneaked up behind me making me jump.

"What?" I said. He rarely called me by my real name nowadays.

"You haven't let go."

"What are you talking about."

"You haven't let go of your mother."

"Of course I have, she means nothing to me."

"Neither did my mother, but I was the same way as you when she died."

"And what exactly do you propose I do?" I think by this point I was being a bit rude, not just at this point, but in general. We were good friends but my moods sometimes go in the way.

"We're going to see your mother's grave."

"I don't want to." I glared at him.

"Well you're going. Remember what I once said about carrying you kicking and screaming? This applies here as well. Until you say goodbye to your mother, nothing will get better."

I pouted, trying to hold the face as long as I could without crying. But I couldn't for long. I cried.

"Ma biche, it'll be okay." He said. I tried to stop crying and after a few minutes I managed to. I looked up at him and his ochre eyes looked filled with concern. Cautiously he raised a hand and slowly reached out toward my face. But then he drew back. The only contact we had ever had was me holding his hand the night before and perhaps once when he carried me to my bed.

"Get your cloak," He went over to wait by the door. I retrieved it and we started for the surface.

Erik picked the lock to the horse stable. Outside it was nighttime.

"Do you know how to ride?" He asked me. I shook my head no.

"Okay, you'll have to ride with me." He helped me onto a grey horse and then got up himself behind me. He reached his arms around me to hold the reins. Being in such a close vicinity of him made me a bit shy and I felt awkward. But it wasn't a bad feeling, it was just new to me.

Erik prompted the horse into a gallop and while holding the reins he still managed to hold on to me. We sat in silence as the horse ran. We finally reached a large cemetery, which was the one all my family members were buried in. Erik got down and then lifted me off. He was quite strong for his lean frame.

It was a cold night. The stars were out, twinkling coldly just like the night I left Erik. Erik led the way, he was obviously very observant and he would probably notice my family's plot long before I would.

At last we found it. And we found the freshly disturbed earth. And a grave marker. One that read "Claire Delancy, missed wife and mother." Then it went on to list the dates of her birth and death. Of course there was a cross on the stone.

"I'll leave you." Erik walked a bit away, standing about fifteen feet away from me.

I Just stared at the marker. For ten minutes I just stood there and Erik just waited. Finally I spoke.

"You know, Mother, I never thought I would be here after you left. I told myself that I'd never visit your or father's grave. But here I am. Mother, I'm free now, you and father can't hurt me anymore. Do you know how much it hurt me? Everything you did. But most of all that fact that you watched while father abused me. When I most needed a mother, you weren't there. Why? Mother, ma Mere, I needed you. I wanted to love you. But the most kindness I got from you was when you would bring me pastries which I didn't even need or want. That's not what I needed. That's not what I wanted. I wanted and needed love.

"I guess Mother, it's made me who I am. And I don't know who that is yet, but one day I will, and I'll be stronger. Stronger than you and father. You both will never touch me again. Goodbye…ma Mere."

I turned and walked away to Erik.

"I'm done here." I told him.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes," I said back. Erik once again reached out his hand and this time he stroked my hair once and it was so brief that I hardly knew whether it had happened or not.

Just as we both got on the horse, it began to snow big thick flakes. We began to ride, Erik once again holding me close to prevent me from falling. The horse slowly began increasing its speed until it was even faster than a gallop.

"Erik, why are we going this fast?" I said, my voice shaking from the rhythm of the horse.

"Quiet, ma biche."

Then all at once a loud cracking noise broke out. Erik's body hit mine but then he managed to sit up straight. I looked behind and someone was following us on a chestnut horse. I couldn't see them because their cloak covered their face.

I said nothing so as to heed his earlier instructions. We rode faster than we had been riding before and eventually managed to lose whoever it was by going the wrong way for a while then turning back once we were sure they were gone. But I was worried about Erik, he was now holding me looser than he had been in the beginning.

As we got closer to the opera house Erik slowed down the horse to cool it down. He put him away in his stable, threw a blanket over him, and gave him a pat.

"Come," He said. He gripped his upper arm with his other hand. We hurriedly went back down to the lower level. When we got in, I could finally see Erik's arm.

"Erik, you're hurt!" I said

His cloak, jacket, and shirt had been cut through, leaving a large bloody wound.

"It's nothing, it's not deep, the bullet only grazed my arm."

"Let me help you clean it up."

"No, ma cherie, I'll do it, I'll be back."

When Erik didn't return for nearly twenty minutes I began to become worried. I didn't know what I was scared of or what I thought could hurt him down here but I was worried. Maybe it was because he was already hurt.

I went down the long hallway to his room and knocked. "Erik?" I said tentatively.

"Yes?"

"Are you alright? You've just been awhile and I started to wonder."

"I apologize," He said opening the door a crack, just enough to let himself out. "I just became preoccupied."

He was wearing a loose renaissance poet shirt that bared his chest a bit.

I blushed and I think he noticed my embarrassment and started to become embarrassed himself and he quickly finished buttoning his shirt.

I changed the unsaid subject. "How is your arm?" I asked.

"It's better than it was, I applied some ointment to help it heal."

"That's good." I said, sort of preoccupied myself.

"That was your father wasn't it?"

"I was beginning to think the same thing. I recognized that horse as his. How do you think he knew though?"

"What I believe is that he followed the footsteps from the opera house. As you remember, he knew that you went to the opera house the first time you were gone so he must have assumed they were yours. But I'm not sure he knows who the other pair of footprints belonged to. As for why he was out, probably coincidence."

I don't know how but I started to be upset. My father had no right to hurt Erik, of course, he was probably going for me but why would he want me dead?

I gripped my head, my mind started racing with all different thoughts.

The beating. My dead mother. The pastry. My father's horse gaining on us. Erik's arm. My drawings. Jane Eyre. The cemetery. Erik's arms around me. Anger. Sadness. Love.

"No! Stop it!" I screamed and ran into the wall on accident and fell down. Erik sat down in front of me, his hands on my shoulders.

He began to sing for me. I don't remember exactly what it was, it was in a different language, but it sounded like a lullaby. I started to loosen up.

"Erik…" I said his name once and then was soothed to sleep.

that's the chapter! Tell me what you think!