Disclaimer: I do not own anything related to Phantom of the Opera, sadly.

Chapter 7

Aubrey woke to the birds chirping loudly outside her bedroom window. She looked down at her hand and saw that it had swollen even more than last night. Erik's face probably looked worse than her hand though and she felt guilty.

She hauled herself out of bed and grabbed her phone and dialed Erik's number, but before she let the phone ring she hung up. Why was she going to call him? She would see him in a few hours time.

When Aubrey walked down the stairs she saw her dad eating breakfast at the table.

"Aubrey we need to take you to the police station this morning." He said calmly.

"What! Why?"

"Because you need to identify the guys that attacked you."

Aubrey was mortified. "I'm supposed to go to Erik's house and finish our project."

"Well I can drop you off afterwards."

So Aubrey was at the police station, against her will and looking through a big plate glass window. She knew the people couldn't see her, but it still made her nervous.

Aubrey recognized the two men quickly, "Number 2 and number 6 are the guys that attacked me." Aubrey said quietly.

They asked them to step forward. "Do you need her for anything else?" Her dad asked?

"Yes, just have her follow Officer Jon and give a report, and that's it."

Aubrey relived the entire story and went over every detail with Officer Jon, even the part of punching Erik.

"Thank you for giving us this information Aubrey, I know that reliving it isn't easy."

Aubrey nodded her head and followed her dad to the car. When she got to Erik's house she let out a breath that she didn't know she was holding.

Erik answered the door and Aubrey gasped. Erik's face had swollen and was very angry looking and red.

"Oh Erik! I'm so sorry, does it hurt?"

"Of course it hurts, you punched me in the face."

Aubrey felt guilty once again. "I'm really, really sorry Erik."

"Yeah you mentioned." Erik grumbled. "If you can just go downstairs I'll meet you there in a minute, I have to finish something."

Aubrey walked down the stairs and saw Erik's laptop opened. Jane's words floated back to her "maybe he deleted it on purpose to spend time with you". Erik wouldn't do that though? Well he might, he didn't really like her dating Harry.

Aubrey started poking around on his laptop looking for the old file with their report on it, but couldn't find it. She looked through his deleted stuff in trash, but couldn't find it there either. She would have seen it in trash because there were other things there as well.

She checked the history of the computer to see if he has done any revamping on his computer, but it looked as though he needed it done because it hadn't been performed in months.

It looked as though Erik really didn't delete it on purpose. It looked like he did have a virus on his computer. That was probably what happened, a virus deleted it.

Aubrey heard Erik coming down the stairs so she quickly moved and sat on the other couch, away from the computer.

About 1 o'clock they finished looking up all the information and retying their whole report.

"Are you hungry?" Erik asked as he closed the report, after printing it.

Before Erik had said that, Aubrey hadn't given her stomach much thought, but now she realized she was very hungry.

"Actually I am!" Aubrey laughed as her stomach gave a loud growl.

They walked upstairs and into the kitchen to make them selves a sandwich.

"So are you still going out with Harry tonight?" Erik asked suddenly.

"Yes" Aubrey said.

"Oh, I was hoping that we could maybe hang out." Erik said quietly.

"I don't understand you Erik! You snub me, then you want to be friends, then you snub me, then you want to be friends! I can't take this anymore. You either need to be nice to me and be my friend, or keep on snubbing me and never talk to me again, because I'm getting some very conflicting messages from you. What do you want with me!" Aubrey said a little hysterically.

"I'm sorry if I made you feel like I don't like you Aubrey. I'm just not used to having someone to talk to, and I find that talking to you is very easy for me." Erik said softly not looking at her.

"Okay. I can't hang out tonight though, I still have my date with Harry. Maybe we can hang out tomorrow though."

Erik's head jerked up with a small smile on his face.

"Do you think you can drive me home? I don't want to go walking anywhere right now."

Erik finished eating his sandwich and nodded. "I don't blame you, but I don't think you would have any problems if something did happen, you could just punch them." Erik said gesturing to his face.

Aubrey burst out laughing.

When Erik pulled into her driveway she thanked him for the ride.

"Well I hope you have fun tonight on your date."Erik said a little coolly.

"Okay I will. Will you call me tomorrow?"

"If you wish."

Aubrey got out of her car and was halfway towards the door when she saw a bush shake. Aubrey let out a piercing scream and out jumped Spunky. She sighed in relief.

She ran over and picked him up. He was still wearing his leash from last night.

Her mom had run outside at Aubrey's scream, only to find her picking Spunk up.

"Ruthie! You scared me half to death!"

"Sorry mom."

Aubrey ran upstairs and took a shower and started getting ready for her date. She had several outfits laid on her bed when Delilah walked into her room.

"What are you doing?"

"Getting ready for my date. What should I wear?"

Delilah looked over the outfits on Aubrey's bed and picked out a white skirt that went a little above her knee and a black t-shirt with a small white mask on the bottom left corner of the shirt.

"You always look good in that outfit." Delilah said.

Aubrey nodded in agreement and started to get dressed. She was finishing clipping her hair back when the door bell sounded.

Aubrey rushed down the stairs and opened the door. She gave Harry a big hug.

"I'll be right back, I have to tell my parents I'm leaving."

Once she got back they started walking to his car. He reached down to hold her hand, but it was the hand that she injured.

"Ouch." Aubrey said as he grasped it.

"What did you do to your hand? Harry asked.

Aubrey went through the whole story.

"What was Erik Destler doing there?" Harry asked confused.

"Well he said he was just passing by." Aubrey said shrugging.

"I don't like it. He is so weird, I don't know why you even bother with him."

Aubrey was suddenly angry. "Erik is my friend Harry."

"Doesn't stop him from being weird." Harry said shrugging.

They didn't talk until they got to the movies. Aubrey wasn't really paying attention to the movie. She couldn't when Harry was trying to hang all over her.

"Harry please stop, I'm trying to watch the movie."

Harry grumbled and pulled his arm from around her shoulders.

When the movie was done they returned to his truck. "Are you mad at me?" Harry suddenly blurted out.

Aubrey was still upset about what he had said about Erik and the fact that he barely knew her and was trying to kiss all over her. "Well no Harry, but I think you should behave yourself a little more. You don't even know me that well."

"You're my girlfriend! I'm allowed to kiss you aren't' I?"

"I'm just not comfortable with you yet, so I would appreciate it if you didn't."

"Fine." Harry said coolly. He drove her straight home not saying a word to her.

"Well goodnight." Aubrey said hoping out of his truck.

He drove away before she even got to the house. Aubrey felt very sad about what had just happened and felt tears sting her eyes.

When she got home she told her parents that she was home.

"Aubrey we have a surprise for you." Her mother said as she walked in the room. "We know you went through a terrible ordeal, and we thought you have needed one anyways, but we got you a computer for you room. You need one with SAT's coming up so you can study and do your homework on it. We have installed it in your bedroom. You have your own phone line tool."

Aubrey's sad mood suddenly went to happy. She hugged and kissed her mother and father and ran upstairs to see a new computer sitting on her desk.

She clicked the internet button and waited for it to dial in. When the internet connected she signed up for MSN and loaded the few people whose e-mail address she knew, including Erik's.

As soon as she added his name he appeared online. A message suddenly appeared.

Your home early.

Yeah I didn't really have a good time.

Well I'm sorry to hear that.

LOL!!! Yeah right. He wasn't very gentlemanly.

Are you dating then?

I dunno…maybe I shouldn't….

Well why don't you come over tomorrow and talk to me about it.

Okay…will you pick me up at noon?

See you then. Sleep well Aubrey.

Aubrey signed off and fell into bed. Why were things in her life so complicated? She did like Harry, be he was being a total jerk. And what was the deal with Erik? He seemed to dislike her, then like her and want to be friends, but Aubrey still had a small crush on him.

Could they stay just friends or would Aubrey want to date him, even though technically she was still dating Harry.

Aubrey slowly drifted off into sleep, and once again dreamt of Erik.

So Aubrey is alreay having trouble in paradise with Harry. Do you think they will work it out, or break up? Please let me know what you think about the story. Oh and if you like Twiliht, check out my story Beautiful Golden Eyes! Once again, thank you to all my wonderful readers for reviewing, you really make my day with reviews. I can't believe how many people are adding this story to their favorite list and adding me to favorite authors list, you have no idea how much that touches me!

Desiree'