Purple dress, off-the-shoulder; green dress, leaf print; blue dress, floral print. Christine wasn't sure what he'd like most. Should she ask what he's wearing and try to match with him? Should she go purchase a new dress?

A light knock at the door drew Christine out of her own world. She set the dress in her hands on the edge of her bed beside others and cracked the door open, allowing Radiohead's Ok Computer to float out into the hallway. Mamma stood behind the door, greeting her with a smile. "Would you like to help me with dinner?"

"Sure," Christine smiled and turned to stop her record player in the far corner of her room. Mamma entered behind her and took in the scene, several dresses piled atop Christine's bed.

"Were you planning on going somewhere tonight?"

Christine's music came to a halt at the turn of a knob. "Not tonight. I'm going to a party Saturday."

"Your band got a gig?"

"No, Erik invited me along to an event at his work."

Mamma grinned. "A date?"

Christine clenched every muscle in her jaw to avoid blushing. "No. Nothing like that. Just a party. Two friends."

Mamma's incredulous laughter filled the room, burning Christine's cheeks as it rang in her ears. "Are you sure that's how he feels about it?"

Christine raised her brow and Mamma's eyes fell upon the roses strung over her bed's headboard. Christine had hung them there so they could dry out and she could preserve them.

"I'm just saying you should consider it, Christine. He seems like a nice man and I saw the way he looked at you when-"

"I'm not going to date again anytime soon, Mamma." Christine tore her gowns from the bed and hung them back in her closet.

"Oh, Christine…"

"You don't even understand," Christine sobbed, her shoulders trembling with her. "I loved him and h-he..."

Mamma folded Christine into her arms as she struggled to remove the words in her throat, holding her tight. "It's okay, Christine," she consoled. "You'll be fine."

"I can't do it, Mamma. I can't go with Erik."

Mamma pulled Christine back and looked her in the eye. "Why not?"

"Every time I'm around him, he makes me feel… I just can't. It hurts."

Mamma held Christine's cheeks between each of her hands. "Have you not seen the way he looks at you, Christine? I've seen Raoul look at you, but never like that."

Christine's tears seized and her brows furrowed. "How does he look at me?"

Mamma smiled, her Christine finally coming through. "His eyes would wait an eternity for yours, Christine. That's all I can say to describe it."

Christine felt the wings tickle the walls of her stomach as she recalled his eyes. They were the loveliest shade of amber and sometimes they'd crackle with gold as they held her gaze. She wanted to drown in their honey blaze.

Mamma's hands fell slowly onto Christine's shoulders. "Take your time, Christine. If he loves you the way his eyes love yours, he'd wait forever for you."

Christine stood in front of her apartment complex waiting for his car to pull up. Mamma had helped her select a dusty pink dress from her closet with layers of mesh and lace. It was elegant and grown up yet youthful, ending right at her knee caps. It had been a while since she'd dressed up, truly dressed up for a nice night out. Not for the dead or for a job but for herself.

Erik arrived, pulling into the taxi lane to move out of traffic's way.

"Hey," Christine smiled, entering the vehicle. A light scent of citrus and ocean water crawled into her nose as she shut the door. "You smell nice."

Erik chuckled and he pulled a wrapped box from his center console, handing it to her. "For me?" she asked, half surprised.

Erik glanced at her, smiling before shifting his car back into drive. "Open it."

Christine turned the box to where it was taped and ripped the wrapping paper, revealing a floral pink box still in its plastic wrapping. "I wonder where you got this from," Christine laughed. She pulled the wrap off and opened the box, the little pink bottle she'd been admiring for some time now finally hers. "Thank you."

Erik smiled. "Put it on."

"Right now?"

"Yeah."

Christine ran her thumb over the perfume bottle's cap. She pulled the cap off and pumped a generous spritz onto the underside of her neck.

"You know," Christine began as she capped and slipped the bottle into her purse, "When you were buying the perfume, I thought you might have been shopping for your girlfriend."

Erik laughed awkwardly, almost painfully at her words. "I would never bring flowers to another woman and ask her out if I already had someone else in my life."

Christine flushed. "Well, that makes one man," she muttered. Erik glanced at her a moment, wondering what she meant, but refrained from asking.

Christine gripped tightly onto her purse, feeling the words in her throat before she spoke them. Her mind begged her not to, and she was not going to, but something had gone haywire in her system and the words slipped.

"Is this a date?" she asked. Her heart raced as soon as she realized what she'd done, hearing her own words as if a stranger spoke them. There was a pregnant pause before he answered and she started devising a plan to jump out of the car before she could embarrass herself any more for the night.

"I don't know. Do you want it to be?"

Christine fumbled in her reply. "I-I'm not sure." She turned to him and furrowed her brows nervously. "Do… do you?"

He couldn't deal with that look, the look of an innocent girl. He saw it in his peripheral, in the little twinkle of her bright blue eyes. His mind raced with a million ways to reply. Grab her hand, stop the car and confess, lie and tell her he didn't care. "Not unless you want it to be," he decided. There. It was back on her shoulders.

Christine did not answer and settled deeply back in her seat to watch the city pass by before it was all lost to an underground parking deck. She wasn't sure what she wanted. Feelings were all jumbled up within her, lost in a sea of doubt and self-pity. She just wondered what he wanted.

"Nadir's going to be happy to see us," Erik said as they began their walk towards his workplace. "I actually didn't plan on coming."

"What changed your mind?" Christine asked, throwing her purse crossbody.

Erik shrugged. "Someone said they'd like to go with me."

Christine smiled knowing she was that someone and took his arm slowly as if not to startle him by it. She felt his eyes fall upon her face and she wanted to look up, but Mamma's words rang through her mind. His eyes would wait an eternity for yours. She made them wait.

"Ah, there it is!" Erik exclaimed as they turned the corner.

Christine pulled her eyes off the cement sidewalk and looked up to the forty-story building ahead of them. Her heart stopped and hardened in her chest at the sight of it, her arm tightening around his as it did so.

Erik laughed. "I know. I felt the very same way when I went in for my interview. It's a horribly intimidating sight, is it not?"

Christine swallowed. "You could say that."

"Is something wrong, Christine?" Erik had stopped, holding her arm firmly so she would as well. He noticed the look in her eyes: the look of anxiety on the edge of a panic attack. Something was wrong. Something was wrong and he knew it.

Christine hesitated in her response, swallowing back her desire to spill everything. "Nothing's wrong. I'm fine," she replied in what was intended to come out as more than a whisper.

Erik's hand slipped out from her arm and took her hand. Christine lost her ability to breathe as he met her gaze with soft eyes. A girl could lose herself in those eyes, drown in their honey embrace. The stark white of his mask defined them even more and distracted from the question of what was underneath, because immediately what mattered was what lied within that sea of honey.

"Christine, tell me," he demanded.

Christine swallowed once more to steel herself. "I'm just nervous. It must be a big party," she said trying to make her voice sound more convincing. To her relief, it worked, and Erik smiled.

"It'll be alright. We can make it through together."

She smiled back and Erik squeezed her hand lightly before slipping his arm back into hers.

Erik wasn't familiar with the floor, but it was larger than the floor he worked on and obviously used to show off for large events. It was crowded. Possibly not as crowded as the event would've been had it been open to customers, but crowded nonetheless.

"Erik!" Nadir spotted him walking in with Christine from the hall and began approaching. "I'm so glad you could make it. And with Christine!"

Christine smiled at the excited man before her. "Nice to see you again, Nadir."

"Ah! She remembers me!" Nadir laughed. "Come, let me show you two the dessert spread. It's legendary."

Christine still held tight to Erik's arm as they made their way past groups of people talking and laughing amongst one another. Several people crowded around a long dessert table where three tiered stands stood in a line, each with a different dessert all from cupcakes to eclairs.

"Wow," Erik said in awe at the amount of food.

"I wish you could've seen it last year. This is a major upgrade."

Nadir, Erik, and Christine stood around talking and laughing like everyone else, picking off the hors devours and sipping from their glasses as they waited for the main event to begin.

A series of clinks on a glass broke through the cloud of voices and everyone silenced as they turned towards the center of the room where the noise had come from. The company CFO stood on a table with an empty champagne glass in hand. He looked around to everyone circled around him and smiled. "Thank you all for coming tonight to celebrate our thirtieth anniversary."

The crowd applauded. "Thank you, thank you," the man nodded smiling, waiting for them to silence once more. He continued on talking about the company's history and how they've grown exponentially since they first started, expressing how they're humbled to have such a wonderful staff supporting them. "Anyways, I've been rambling for some time now. I think our CEO would like to get a few words in before we pop open these bottles of champagne. Please give a warm welcome to our CEO, Raoul De Chagny."

The crowd erupted into applause as the CFO stepped off the table and the CEO took his place. Christine's hand found Erik's arm and squeezed it urgently. Erik's clapping seized and he turned to Christine to find her eyes in a state of full panic. Before he could ask what was wrong, Christine was pulling him out of the room and into the hallway where no one else was. Her cheeks were covered in tears when she finally turned to him and removed her hand from his arm.

"Christine," he cried, holding her by the shoulders.

"We have to go," she said between sputtered breaths.

Erik squeezed on her tighter, pulling her closer slightly as he searched for her eyes. "Why? What happened?"

"Nothing, Erik. Let's just go."

"Not until you tell me, Christine."

She wiped away her tears and took a moment to breathe, ignoring the voice trailing out from the other room as much as she could manage. Erik pulled her to a couch where he sat patiently beside her, waiting as she calmed herself before she spoke.

"We were engaged," she began.

"We?"

"Me and Raoul. We were engaged."

Erik stared in surprise for a moment. "What happened?"

Christine began crying once more as laughter flowed out into the hallway. "He fell in love with another woman after we'd been engaged for a year, and called off the wedding a month before it could even happen."

"What?" Erik gritted. "That piece of shit." He stood suddenly, violently, and turned in the direction of the voice.

"Where are you going?" Christine panickedly moved to the edge of the couch.

"To give him a taste of what he deserves."

"No! Erik, please, don't!"

Christine was too slow trying to catch up to Erik as he stormed back into the room, pushing past people and ignoring their irritated grunts. He made it to the center where Raoul had taken back to the floor to open the first bottle of champagne.

"Mr. De Chagny!" Erik yelled. Raoul turned towards him and Erik's hands found their way to his collar, pulling him off the ground. The room that was once full of silent anticipation was now filled with whispers of shock and confusion. "What makes you think it's fine to see another woman when you're already engaged?"

Christine had finally pushed her way through the crowd, coupling their grunts with her soft replies of "Sorry."

Raoul looked towards her as she appeared by the impending man holding him high. "Christine?" he choked, hands clawing away at Erik's.

Christine ignored him and went straight to Erik, tugging hard on his sleeve. "Stop, Erik! Please! Let him down!"

A security officer found his way through the crowd, demanding Erik let go of Raoul. Erik did so reluctantly, setting Raoul back on the floor with an added expression of disdain. Nadir took Christine's arm, pulling her away from Erik and back through the crowd. She cried the entire way to his car.

The silent rumble of the road soothed her and she leaned her head against the passenger side door. "He didn't listen to me. I told him not to and he didn't listen," she sulked as her tears began to cease.

Nadir sat for a moment trying to think of how to reply. "Erik is… passionate. If he really wants to do something, he does it. There's not much stopping him." He turned to her a moment. "But he never does things without good reasoning."

"But he stopped when that officer told him to." Christine felt something of betrayal tighten within her stomach. "Why not me?"

Nadir shrugged. "He probably thought you'd be easier convincing to forgive him. Law enforcement isn't as much."

Christine fingered the strap of her purse. "Do you think he's going to jail tonight?"

"I don't know, Christine. Even if he does, I'll bail him. He can take care of himself until then."

Christine wanted to ask more, but she was too exhausted from the night's events to speak further and kept her words to directions.

"Thank you, Nadir," she said, offering a small smile as they pulled up to her apartment complex.

"It's no problem. I'm sorry about… everything. I hope you can forgive him. He likes you, you know?"

Christine's hand had found its way to the door's handle, ready to leave and crawl into bed for the rest of the night, but she paused at his last couple of words. Her brows furrowed as her eyes searched his for a hint of lie.

"I… I know I probably shouldn't be the one telling you, but he never will actually make the first move. He might ask you out to things, but he'll never, you know, kiss you or anything like that unless you initiate it. He's just afraid."

Christine's toes curled at the thought of him being just as afraid as she was, that she was going to have to be the one to kiss first. "He's adorable," she muttered, speaking her thoughts aloud.

Nadir laughed lightly. "I'm glad you think that. Most people think otherwise."

"Why's that?"

Nadir sighed. "Before you came around, Erik was a bit more rough around the edges."

She cocked her head, struggling to imagine him anything but the kind and caring Erik she knew. "How so?"

Nadir shrugged. "He wasn't truly satisfied with his life. Ever since I've known him, he's been constantly searching for purpose. When he doesn't have anything, he loses himself and starts closing himself off from the world."

Christine felt a rush of warmth in her chest. "And I've been the one to convince him to open back up?"

"I can't think of anything else that has done it."

Christine hugged Nadir tightly. "Thank you again, Nadir."

Mamma was already in bed and Christine was grateful to avoid what would have been the inevitable barrage of questions for having only been gone two hours. Her head hit the pillow as soon as she was in her room, not taking off her dress. She was somewhere between a state of consciousness and dreaming when her phone went off, message after message lighting up her screen and signaling the little ting of her ringtone. She was tempted to open the messages and read them, at the least check who it was, but instead she shut her phone off entirely and settled back into her pillow.