Paladin12
By dinnertime Erik felt like a knot being pulled tighter and tighter. He wished he had never agreed to give Sophia piano lessons. He wished he had never offered to teach her, to share the same space with her, to smell how tantalizing a woman…
With a closed fist, he turned on his heel in the middle of his room and searched for something to punch. For a moment he considered hitting the dresser but knew he would damage his hand. Hitting the wall would create a hole, and with a full house beneath him, an unwelcomed stir. Frustrated, he was left to stew.
Erik cursed softly and continued across the floor, his skull throbbing from the coiled tension.
He had not asked for this. When Madame Giry had sent him away he had expected a quiet house in the countryside, a tiny wooden shack, weather-beaten and leaning to the side, not a vast Manor with servants.
Yet that was what he found waiting for him once the carriage came to a stop and the door swung open. He had an estate purchased with funds extorted from the opera house's foolish, frightened managers. An estate he did not deserve, he thought balefully.
Erik had asked himself a thousand times why he insisted on tormenting himself. He should have learned from Christine that what the rest of the world enjoyed could never be his. He would know nothing but the rejection she had shown him.
"And she did it to save him," Erik muttered under his breath. "You pathetic fool, it wasn't for love. It was for him. She kissed you to save him."
Erik shuddered at the passing thought. It had been nothing more than a duty, than a performance for an audience of one. Christine had kissed him to save her fiancé and escape the hell Erik had dragged her into. That was what he had become: a kidnapper, a pathetic and thoughtless fool forcing her into his darkness.
He deserved the humiliation of being unmasked before the crowd. He deserved the heavy, haunting remorse that followed him every day, the echoes of gasps and shrieks of horror that followed his greatest moment of shame.
Regret gnawed at him each day and night he continued to exist, as he picked apart each detail that led to submerging Christine Daae in his underground hell.
His vision began to fail. The thoughts were too much to bear. He had to do something before he blacked out.
"Monsieur, you have a letter," Sophia called as she tapped on the door.
Erik froze, hand still raised, heart still thumping, unsure of whether the voice was real or imagined.
"It is from Paris," she tempted.
He was too ashamed of himself to do anything at all. He would somehow manage to harm her if he answered, and the last thing he wanted to do was ruin the pleasant memory he had of her sitting beside him in the parlor. That was something he could carry with him forever, something he could take to his grave.
As he thought of how she looked sitting beside him, Erik merely waited and hoped she would leave, though deep inside he knew she wouldn't walk away until he answered. She would not go unnoticed. She would imbed herself in his memory.
"Monsieur? Are you in?"
"Slide it under the door," he growled.
There was a brief silence followed by the rattling of the doorknob. She was attempting to enter, he thought miserably. That damned girl is attempting to enter this room.
"It's a thick envelope. I'm not certain it will fit, Monsieur."
"Then leave it in the hall," he said, his voice disappearing before he finished.
"Are you certain?"
Tears streamed down his face as he stood with his back to the door, his head bowed. Everything he ever wanted stood behind doors. An iron cage door, a sliding mirrored door, and now a heavy wooden door. Compassion, friendship, love…
Erik couldn't tolerate everything being just out of reach a moment longer. He wanted his life to return to the way it was before he had first seen Christine. He wanted peace and quiet, the conversation of music he had always enjoyed. Music he could feel in his soul even if he could never touch it. This damned girl was driving him mad.
His knees began to shake and he was forced to sit and weep like a child. With his face in his hands he cried as silently as he could, praying that God should spare him at least one moment of humiliation.
"It's from Aunt Ann," Sophia said brightly, apparently unaware of the misery he had shrouded himself in. "Quite a lovely envelope. But you must be busy with your music, no? A new work for tonight, perhaps?" She waited a moment for him to answer. He hated himself for quivering, for sitting doubled-over on his bed and praying she would leave him be.
"I will leave it outside the door, Monsieur."
She waited for him to speak again but he couldn't bring himself to utter a word. His throat was so tight he could barely breathe.
"Dinner will be up shortly. Good evening, Monsieur."
Erik tore his hands from his face and stared at the closed door. He could hear the stairs creak as she returned to the kitchen for his supper. His whole body felt heavier, weighed down with despair as he realized he didn't want her to leave. He wanted to ask her in but he couldn't. He couldn't bring himself to beg her for a little of her time.
With a deep breath, Erik forced himself to calm down. There was no use blubbering like an infant. He had to retrieve his letter and hope it contained funds, as he would need at least a small amount of money to take the train back to Paris. Food would be a concern later, as would other expenses.
What had she said? A letter from Aunt Ann?
It didn't much matter what she said. By nightfall he would leave this place for good.
Erik climbed to his feet and began rummaging through the dresser drawers and the small wardrobe. Whatever he could carry he would take in a sack and forget this place, this attempt at being human. Before he had even begun he had failed. Now it was time for what he did best: disappear into the shadows.
By now, he mused, the opera house would be abandoned and in need of a ghost.