Originally, this had no author´s notes, because I didn´t feel the need to put them there. But ever since Enrinye, my real-life ever-sarcastic friend reviewed, I had to add them as a slight response. So Z., two words in response to the review that was unusually long for your standards and made me reread this short phic: Read Kay. Enough said. ;-)
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I am watching her again.
I cannot help it. She is everything I am not – beautiful, kind, caring, happy… she embodies all that is good in this world, all that is admirable and lovable. All I never was and never will be. From her head to her toes, she is made of pure light, an angel in the eyes of the world just as in mine. You can know all about her in a few weeks but it still leaves you craving for more, for what can never be. For what I can never have.
I know her perhaps better than she knows herself. I watch her from afar, watch over her as a real angel would. In many ways, she is still a child and a child she will remain, because no one could truly show her that there was a difference between the world of make-believe and the cruel reality. She had no parents anymore, no figure to guide her, save her guardian.
Madame Valerius, her only "relative", was by now way too old to take care of her effectively. The woman needed someone to take care of her, by now, and so Christine was left alone in the world. Christine… Christine. The very name is a prayer on my blasphemous lips. I, who claim not to believe in god, pray that an angel will believe in me.
She is far too fragile in the world of arts, with little self-confidence and almost no desire to become what she is destined to be – a diva, a star. Had her father lived to see this day, perhaps things would have been different. Then again, maybe it is for the best. It would be another obstacle for me to overcome.
How selfish I am! To speak with ease, without caring, of something which causes Christine pain! I truly don't deserve her, but my obsession with her doesn't allow me to let her go. Let her go! Now I speak as if she were mine. The truth is, she isn't mine and never was. Will she ever be? I cannot say. She is the unreachable and under normal circumstances, I would never have gotten this close to her.
This is a desperate game, understand that. My position as the untouchable ghost, the phantom of the opera, has been comfortable for these past years. I never felt the need to speak with another human being. Then she came along. What to say about her besides her being an angel? She is perfection. Not only physically, but vocally as well. it was her voice that drew me to her, truly. It affected me more than I would have wanted it to.
It was broken, but perfect. Crystal clear, but empty. I fell prey to something I didn't know I was able to feel. It was an obsession. An infatuation. After a few days of hearing her voice, I learned I couldn't be far from her. After seeing her smile when she first heard my voice, seeing her change her mind the moment she thought all was lost and she didn't have what it takes to be a soprano, I understood that I wouldn't give her up.
Was this love? Considering that I have never felt the emotion before, only read and heard about it, but I was strangely certain that if this wasn't love, it was the closest to said emotion I could fell.
I have not loved my mother, not long enough to consider it love. I have loved my teacher, but it had been destroyed by his untimely betrayal. But Christine was different entirely, because she was… in a way, she was so much like me. She had lost everything she cared about, not like I, due to the horror my face created in the hearts of others, but due to the cruelty of fate. All she had now was her art, her devotion to it. As did I.
Could this be a sign? Could this fragile child be meant to understand me? She understands my music and my music reflects my soul. Was it at all possible that if God existed, He had decided that perhaps I could be given a chance at happiness? Christine understood my music. For her, music was all… as for me. Neither of us had anything else. There was a chance, no matter how slight, that she would see that despite my face, my circumstance, I would give her all she would ever wish for. And together, we would sing, we would create music unlike the world has ever seen!
Such a beautiful dream.
Or would she run? Would she scream and hide once she would realize that her angel was no more than a man condemned to live the life of a demon?
A nightmare.
Rejection from her, the ultimate rejection, would break me more than anything. I still had hope, as long as she didn't know the truth, as long as she knew not that there lived a ghost that had been enchanted by her beauty, moved by her innocence and shared her sorrow. As long as she didn't know that her poor Erik – for I am hers, whether she knows or not - called her his Christine, Erik wouldn't be so poor after all. He would have hope he could treasure, just as he treasures the smiles he manages to create on her sad face when he sings her lullabies.
I can imagine all that could be if by some miracle I wouldn't be forced to live as a ghost does, if I could approach her and speak with her as a normal man can. There are so many ifs and so many possibilities, but none of them can be. I can never be a normal man for her, only her angel and her protector, savoring what she gives me from afar.
It isn't enough, it will never be, because I know I cannot have her all to myself. I can seal her away from the cruelties of the world, but not from the whole world. And one day, someone will attempt to take her away from me. Can she refuse? Her past is so full of sorrow that the outlook of a new life in happiness would be too tempting, perhaps she wouldn't even consult her angel. She is too fragile to survive alone.
It is another reason why I love her, my little nightingale, to whose wings I can tend until she soars again to the heavens from whence she came.
She lays down the hairbrush with which she had been combing her glorious hair. If it is possible to be jealous of a brush, then I am guilty of that sin. She looks up, and I know she senses my presence, as she somehow seems to be able to do. I don't know how, but I feel there is a connection between us that cannot be breached. Her eyes say that she knows as well.
Christine, my Christine! You cannot possibly imagine how much I want to step out from behind this piece of glass which separates us and touch you, embrace you, tell you all that I hide in the depths of my mind. But you aren't ready. Perhaps you never will be. That, however, will not stop me from loving you, cherishing every smile, every tear, every song, yours or mine.
You are my torturer, and it is a torment to which I submit willingly, because only when I am near you I know bliss. For the first time in over four decades, I feel loved, even though you love me as your angel, not as Erik. In time, however, you might learn to love me, all of me, not just the angel of music I became for you. Know, however, that I won't let you go, because I cannot destroy all that we created. It is a foolish excuse and if you knew what I feel, you would know that. For now, however, the lie will suffice. For now, it is enough. The lie I tell myself will appease me for the moment.
For I lie to myself, make no mistake of that.
It isn't enough, it will never be, and I know it. The more I look at you, the more I realize it. The more I understand that you are what prevents me from dying, my reason to live, or, should I say, to exist. To go on. And still I dream that perhaps one day, you will believe the same.