Disclaimer: I do now own anything related to Phantom of the Opera

Chapter 14

Aubrey took the icepack from her cheek and handed it to Erik. "Here Erik, put that on your hand, it looks exactly like mine did when I hit you." Aubrey said.

Erik smiled and pushed the icepack back to Aubrey. "You need it more than me, and I have to say, my jaw still hurts. You have one tough right hook." Erik said reaching up and grabbing his jaw and moving his jaw around like it still bothered him.

Aubrey laughed and felt relief when she put the icepack against her cheek.

"I just can't believe he hit me!" Aubrey burst out after a minute.

"Well let's not dwell on it." Erik said. "So what do you want to do, I could take you out for dinner." Erik suggested.

"No, I don't want to go anywhere; people will think you beat me up."

Erik rolled his eyes and stood up. He placed a DVD into the DVD player pushed play. Aubrey was shocked when she saw on the screen. "Erik, you don't have to watch this," Aubrey said softly.

"It doesn't bother me, a lot of the facts are wrong, and I know it's your favorite, so I though it would help cheer you up." Erik answered.

So Aubrey waited for Erik to sit next to her on the couch and settled in to watch Phantom of the Opera.

The feeling was so surreal as the movie played out, sitting with that man's great, great, great, great grandson, things just felt like a dream.

Aubrey watched the last scene as Phantom Erik smashed the glass in his mirror and walk through, and just like every time she watched it, she felt so bad for Phantom Erik. Aubrey always hated to see Christine choose Raoul over Phantom Erik.

Aubrey couldn't even imagine going through that kind of loss, and suddenly got a feeling that if Erik had ever left her, that's what Aubrey would go through. Getting a feeling that he had tore her heart out with a dull butcher's knife.

The credits were rolling and Erik got off the couch and turned the DVD player off.

"Aubrey, your birthday is in a couple days…does your family have anything planned?"

"Actually I'm not sure," Aubrey said thinking over anything her parents might have said. "We usually just have a little family party."

"Well, I would like to take you out, but I didn't want to disrupt anything your family might be doing."

"Yeah, I don't think I will be able to go out on my birthday, but maybe Friday night we could go out. Besides, there's nothing to do on a Thursday anyways." Aubrey said shrugging.

Erik walked in front of Aubrey and held his hand out to her to help her up. "I should really take you home, unless you want to get something to eat first." Erik said as I stood up.

"No, I don't feel very good. I think it was the hit to the head." Aubrey said trying to sound funny.

"That's not funny." Erik said sternly.

Aubrey sighed. "I know. I'm sorry."

"Well, when you get home and take some Tylenol and go rest." Erik said and Aubrey nodded her head.

The drive to Aubrey's house went by too quickly for Aubrey. "I'll see you tomorrow morning." Erik said as he put the car in park in her driveway.

"Okay. I think your right about the Tylenol, my head hurts a lot."

Aubrey got out of the car and walked over to Erik's open window. "Don't be late picking me up tomorrow." Aubrey said with a smile on her face and leaned in and placed a tender kiss on his lips and turned to walk back towards the house.

Before Aubrey could take two steps though Erik's arm shot out of the window and closed on Aubrey's arm pulling her back to the car and eagerly placed his lips to hers.

Aubrey got a warm feeling in her whole body and deepened the kiss. She opened her mouth and felt Erik's warm breath in her mouth and that nearly sent her into hysterics. Aubrey's cheek was groaning in protest though, but Aubrey didn't really care.

When she pulled away this time Erik let her go, though he held her hand until he couldn't anymore. "I won't be late."

Aubrey walked into the house filled with happiness and couldn't keep the huge grin off her face, but that soon vanished when she got through the door.

When Lacey saw Aubrey's face she started flipping out asking how Erik could do that to Aubrey. Aubrey had to finally shout 'listen to me!' before Lacey stopped jabbering.

"Mom, Erik didn't do this to me, Lawrence did! He freaked out when I told him things were over, and had been for a while and he flew off the handle and slapped me. If Erik hadn't been there who knows what would have happened." Aubrey said.

Then Aubrey had to listen to a long speech of how Lacey never thought Lawrence could do that, and he was always such a nice sweet boy, and on, and on.

Finally when Aubrey told her mother that her head was throbbing and needed to lie down, Lacey finally let her go.

Aubrey headed towards the kitchen and got a glass of Kool-Aid and two Tylenol. She sat down at the kitchen table and made herself drink the whole glass, but Aubrey still felt nauseous. It probably was that she had been slapped that she felt sick to her stomach.

Aubrey gently laid her forehead down on the table and closed her eyes waiting for the Tylenol to kick in. It almost felt like Aubrey had a migraine, though she had never had one, she had heard what they felt like.

The phone rang and it made Aubrey wince. "Ruthie, phone's for you." Her mother shouted.

Grudgingly Aubrey got off the chair and answered the phone in the kitchen. It was Jane.

"Hey, I wanted to see if you wanted to go out tonight to celebrate your new freedom!" Jane gushed on the phone.

"No Jane, I don't feel very well. I had sort of an incident today."

"Oh, did you and Erik break up?" Jane asked.

"Wait, how do you know were going out?" Aubrey asked with a small laugh.

"Aubrey! It's so obvious to everyone…so did he break up with you?" Jane asked as she rushed through the first part.

"No, my ex-boyfriend drove up to see me, though I made it perfectly clear that we were over, and he hit me."

"What! Were you there by your self? How did you get out of there? Are you okay?"

"Jane, Jane, calm down. Erik was with me, yes your right we are dating, Erik actually punched him back." Aubrey said with a giggle thinking of how Erik's fist made contact with Lawrence's jaw. At this moment, she really hope that Erik broke his jaw.

"Should I come over?"

"Actually if you want to you can, but I'm not in a wonderful mood, my head fees like it is about to split open."

"Well maybe we can just talk about you and Erik." Jane said, and Aubrey knew that she had a huge grin on her face and was planning on drilling Aubrey for every last ounce of gossip she could possible get.

Aubrey said goodbye and hung up the phone. On her way through the front room Aubrey asked her mother when Jane got here if she could just send her upstairs.

Once in the privacy of her bedroom Aubrey walked to the full length mirror and saw her face for the first time. It really was bad. The center of her cheek was swollen and a deep purple.

Why was it so simple for men to just give out a backhanded slap, it was the same in every movie…just whack!

Aubrey could see exactly where his knuckles had struck her cheek because that's where the swelling and bruising was the worse. There were small scratches near her ear where his fingernails had scratched her. Between the scratches and swelling was a brownish bruise, but not nearly as bad as the center of her cheek.

No amount of makeup could cover this. Maybe Jane would have a better idea of how to fix this.

Finally when Jane got there she had some home remedies that Aubrey should try. First off she made Aubrey take some vitamin K, then made some kind of paste of cayenne pepper and Vaseline and smoothed it over her bruise.

After the health tips Jane laid into Aubrey about some gossip, but of course Aubrey couldn't say everything, but Aubrey did tell Jane about the kiss today, then the conversation got turned to what Erik was going to get Aubrey for her birthday.

"How in the world would I know?!?" Aubrey said with a laugh.

"Maybe he is going to get you a promise ring!" Jane said suddenly.

"Please Jane! We have only been dating for a little while." Aubrey said rolling her eyes.

After an hour or so of chatting Jane had to leave and Aubrey laid down in her bed and thought about what Jane had said about a promise ring. Maybe he would. Their relationship wasn't exactly a normal one. Well it was, it just had a deeper significant meaning than other relationships with teenagers their age.

Was it so crazy to think about marrying Erik? Aubrey did see them eventually getting married. Maybe that wasn't such a crazy idea after all.

Aubrey went to bed and had a dreamless sleep for a change.

First off, I need to thank Adinah, my step-mom, because she looked up the home remedies about the bruise. I want to give a huge thank you to all my wonderful readers, because your reviews is what keeps me going, and makes me continue to write the stories, so please, please review! Maybe you guys can get me past 100 reviews!! You are all wonderful readers, and I really enjoy reading and responding to your reviews, so keep them coming. Oh and I have posted a Twilight one-shot called New Beginnings, so if you like Twilight you should check it out.

Desiree'