Amelia could barely move she felt stiff; her limbs tingled as if waking up all on their own. She crawled across the floor on her elbows back to where she hid all of her things. The tingly feeling began to fade feeling more like a foot waking up from being asleep. She kneeled on the floor by her backpack ignoring the cold, damp floor.
She ignored everything as she groped for the flashlight in her pack, but her hands shook too much. She had to get back, she couldn't stay here, he didn't know yet, he didn't believe her. Before she could find the flashlight she gave up and just sat there, numb. What had gone wrong, what had triggered her return? Did just talking about the future bring her back?
After everything she had gone through, to fall in love with her idol, to win his love, for what? "What right do I have to any of this, people expect the story to go the way it just went… no one cares that my heart is broken," she thought bitterly. She tried to sync herself back into the past but her mind ached with fatigue and it was impossible for her to clear her mind, she could only see Erik. She could only hear his sweet voice echoing.
As she sunk to the damp ground under the Paris Opera house she tried to prevent herself from screaming instead, she numbly wiped away the tears streaming down her cheeks. Her mind insisted that she would never see Erik again, anxiously she determined that her entire life would never be the same. Perhaps that was not a completely ridiculous thought.
She waited, sitting there for almost an hour, hoping beyond hope that she would open her eyes and see Erik's house again. She blinked and blinked but nothing happened. This was the end. She rubbed her eyes, stood up, and took in the last moments of her time at the Paris opera.
Quickly, she removed her modern day clothes from her backpack, shoving her other garments in their, as if trying to erase the whole experience from her mind. It felt strange to wear jeans again but rather nice to wear socks and sneakers again. "Maybe if I add a few more modern luxuries to that list it will make up for losing the love of my life." She checked her phone, no time had passed. All of her experiences, months of working at the opera, all equaled the time of a few hours of present time.
She knew the opera catacombs pretty well by now and easily was able to find her way back upstairs. Glancing around carefully, she walked around the barrier tape and avoided detection from security long enough to escape the walls of the opera into the crisp Paris night air. The noises of cars and the glare of the street lights only served as a painful reminder of what she had lost. She summoned a cab in her trance-like state barely able to intimate to the cab driver the name of her hotel. She had not lost her improved French just the ability to form words that conveyed anything.
Once back at her hotel she crashed onto her bed and prayed for sleep to overcome her to avoid feeling this pain. Her eyes barely blinked as sleep failed to come, just more tears. Her body shook as she tried to avoid the rush of emotions that kept her weeping uncontrollably. She cried and cried until she exhausted herself into a nearly dreamless sleep. She saw nothing in her dreams, she just heard her Angel singing.
When Amelia awoke, she rubbed her puffy eyes and resigned to take a hot shower. One of the few modern comforts that she actually wanted was denied to her in the cheap hotel shower. The cool water zapped her back to life a bit and she enjoyed the clean feeling as best as she could. It was too bad that she could not live in the 1800s and bring her vanilla body wash with her. The thought made her smile a little bit as she imagined Erik in a drug store smelling body washes with her.
She decided to wear a dress outside today; it felt more comfortable these days. Once outside she settled in to a small café and ordered a coffee and a baguette for breakfast. Neither one could calm the knot that was in her stomach. She kept sunglasses over her eyes hiding her painful night.
She spent the majority of the day sitting at the café, people watching, or rather Erik watching. None of the people walking by fit his description even a little bit. As the sky tinted purple she found her way back to the opera house. There weren't many opera performances here anymore but there was a performance of La Boheme tonight. She needed to go and listen, drown out her thoughts with beautiful music, at least put herself as near to Erik as humanly possible.
She bought a ticket and climbed the stairs to the top of the balcony, sitting nearly alone as the orchestra began to swell into the beautiful opening of Boheme. She closed her eyes and tried to forget. The music opened more doors to feel the pain of her loss. Her eyes welled as she heard the singers who could not match the beauty of her beloved Erik's voice.
Amelia leaned back in her seat and imagined that she was here with Erik. They'd sit here holding hands, she would enjoy the shock on his face at seeing an opera that he would never have heard before, seeing his face enjoying this Puccini masterpiece for the first time, and smile as he compared his own work as superior. She could almost feel him there next to her.
As the opera progressed to the end, she was captivated by the tragedy of the love story's end. She felt her own pain in the lyrics of the final aria. The music swirled around her and as she let the tears come again she felt a hand on her shoulder, which jolted her back to reality.
She began to say something in protest but the hand clamped on her mouth. As she began to stand up to resist, she saw the flash of a white mask and a pair of amber eyes. Before she could react, the figure whispered to her, "Don't ruin the end for me now Ma Chère, this might be better than my own opera."