Banana Pancakes
College life is very busy.
I'm sad about it, really.
My depression has come back and that is why I have been offline for so long, but writing helps me with my depression. I am sorry for such a long break. I am back now. I will be updating all stories this weekend! Thank you for being patient with me. I love you all.
Please, please read and review. I love hearing from you.
Christine finally felt well enough to return back to school after a two week medically excused absence. Upon her arrival to her Monday morning English class, she took her normal seat towards the back with Meg. The blonde was silent, as was the rest of the class. Christine looked around the classroom for Erik, but the front of the class was empty. Erik would never skip class. Something was wrong, very wrong and Christine didn't like it.
"Where is Erik?" The ballerina whispered to her blonde friend. Meg blinked slowly, turning towards the curly headed girl. Her blue eyes pleaded with guilt as she remained quiet. "Meg? What's going on here? Why is everyone so quiet? Where is Professor Lantier?" Christine's forehead grew a crease as she frantically asked questions about Erik. The de Chagny boy turned around with saddened expression.
"Lotte," He started, making Christine's eyes dart straight for his hazel gaze. Raoul hadn't called her that name since she was probably five or six. All eyes were on Christine and Raoul as he stood and reached out his hand in a gesture of comfort. "Professor Lantier doesn't work... Here anymore, we're waiting on the new professor." Suddenly, Raoul's tone was dismal, as if he actually cared about this class.
Christine froze in her stance, her green eyes unwavering. Raoul's mouth was moving rapidly, but Christine didn't hear a word of what he was saying to her. Fired. Erik was fired, which means the school found out about them. Christine's mind swirled with endless possibilities. She was trying so hard to figure out how someone would've figured out that he was dating a student and why they wanted him to lose his job. Fired. Christine repeated once more in her head as she looked towards the empty desk, cleared of all his belongings. The white board still fashioned his calligraphic handwriting, the faint scent of his cologne looming the air as Christine sat back down her seat. Turning towards Meg, the dancer inhaled a shaky breath, trying to remain as calm as she could.
"Fired, he was fired. Someone must have... Found out about..." Christine didn't want to finish the sentence, in case of an eavesdropper. Meg shrugged her shoulders.
"I heard that he quit." She replied her gaze fixated on the white board ahead.
"Quit? Why would he quit? He loves teaching! Teaching is his life..." Meg looked down at her desk. "I don't understand why he would quit, without telling me." Meg finally reached the end of her rope.
Standing to her feet, she grabbed her book bag and looked down at the freshman. She had never seen Christine so scared in her life. The blue eyed runner shook her head and shut her eyes, the horrible memories of the past coming back to haunt her as she skulked in her own skin. Finally, as she gained the courage to tell the young girl what had been on her mind for days now, she regretted it the moment it slipped past her lips.
"There were a lot of things he didn't tell you while you were in the hospital, Christine."
Erik got up the next morning, the marred side of his face feeling better than ever. Bailey had given him some cream to put on the irritated skin before bed and it had been working miracles since then. As Erik leaned over, he was met with empty sheets. Erik yawned and checked the time. 6:21am. The unmasked man rubbed the last night out of his eyes before the sound of the bathroom door clicked open, revealing a very sickly fiancée. Erik sat up immediately, moving to help his fiancée back to bed. He had not a clue on how to handle a pregnant woman, but he was sure that it wouldn't be that much a hassle. It was just a baby, a baby that wasn't even physically tangible. The only challenge Erik faced was the challenge of reconciliation, in all areas of his life no matter how tiny, how minuscule.
"You're up early." Erik smiled softly at Bailey, who just groaned in response. "Morning sickness, I suppose then." She nodded slightly before burrowing herself back into the blankets, a sight Erik was not used to seeing Bailey do.
"It's horrible these days, it's not even in the morning. It's throughout the day." Erik raised his eyebrow. "I can't get through a full day of work with vomiting nine times in an hour."
"That doesn't sound normal, Bailey. You need to go to the doctor... The baby doctor." Bailey let out a soft giggle, resting her hands on the small bump. "I will take you this afternoon after I return from some errands, okay?" Bailey reluctantly agreed, only for the sole purpose of having a few hours to herself to freshen up and clean the house. She wasn't used to having company, his company.
"Erik?" Bailey finally chirped up after a few moments of silence. Erik hummed in return. "Do... Do you... Is this... Are we... Are you... This... What is... I mean..." Bailey continued to try and find a suitable way to ask her burning question, but there was just no way to go about it. After minutes of failed attempts, Bailey fell against the pillows in defeat. "Nevermind, it's unimportant."
"The child isn't mine, Bailey." Erik blurted out, trying to make the conversation as straightforward as possible. He knew what she was trying to ask and he just wanted to get there faster. "I don't know what this is, but it's very dysfunctional at the moment." Erik sighed as he ran a hand through his dark hair. "We called off our wedding and you are going to have a baby in six odd months, yet here we lie in our home... It's a strange arrangement, I must admit." Erik turned to face his fiancée, his eyes almost as confused as his mind. "We all make mistakes and surely, I've made mine... But a child, a child is something you're going to be with forever. The only problem is," Erik paused to glance down at her baby bump. It was going to burst anytime now. Erik took a deep breath and closed his eyes. He wished that this was all a nightmare and he would wake up somewhere that these choices did not have to be made, to be suffered.
"The only problem is, I don't think I can be stuck with his child forever."
Erik's phone had been ringing nonstop since he had woken up and not gone to work all last week. Yes, he agreed with himself that he would regret quitting with every fiber of his being, but he had to for the sake of his new arrangement. Erik loathed himself for quitting, leaving Christine without breathing a word of it to her before doing so, but he was much older than her and there were things that needed to be done in order for his life to move forward. Christine, she had barely started college. Erik was practically thirty five and in a situation that could either age him ten years or make his unspoken songs take wing.
"I have to go make a phone call. Shall anything happen, you just yell out for me, okay?" Erik made sure his fiancée understood the seriousness of the situation. She just sighed in response. Stepping out of the room and onto his apartment's balcony, he took his phone from his pocket and dialed nervously.
"Hello?" The soft voice answered, leaving an uneasy feeling in his stomach. Erik tried swallowing the lump in his throat.
"K-Kitten, I mean, Christine. I'm sorry, I'm just... I... Hi." He shut his eyes. "I... Are you on campus?"
"No." Erik could feel the hatred that emanated off her smooth skin on his side of the phone. "I'm walking to dance class."
"You shouldn't be walking there, Christine. Do you remember what I said about that area downtown? It's a bad place for a girl like you to be, especially walking and alone." Christine cleared her throat as Erik braced himself.
"I'm with someone, I'm not alone. I know this is a bad area." Erik could hear her searching through her... Purse? She never carried a purse. "Isn't this against the rules?" She finally lipped out, confusing the composer entirely.
"Is what against the rules?" He leaned against the railing, looking down at the busy street.
"You know, you calling me. You're back with Bailey and I don't think she'd be very happy to know that you're calling your ex-mistress." Christine replied flatly as she walked down the cracked sidewalk. The person beside her let out an airy chuckle that Erik just so happen to hear. He didn't like the sound of it.
"How did you know about that?" Christine laughed aloud at his question. She paused in her footing to look over her shoulder. They had picked up a dropped lighter, it still had some kick to it. "Did the school tell you that? Did Professor Guidicelli tell you that?"
"No, Meg told me. She loomed around the idea, that's more like it." Erik groaned at the thought. "After I got released from the hospital and back to school, you were gone. You ignored all my text messages and calls, so I went to my best friend for advice. She was indifferent towards our situation, as well as anyone would be," Christine paused again. Letting out a shaky breath of air, she glanced at her companion with a wide smile. "She told me that she heard down the grape vine that your fiancée was pregnant."
"Bailey, she-"
"Hey, things happen, okay? I understand completely, Erik. I mean, I understand it to the best of my will. I didn't have a normal childhood, but I have no doubt that your child will be loved and cared for unconditionally. There was no way we could have kept up our relationship with a baby on the way, your baby on the way." Erik gripped the railing tighter, trying so hard to break it. He was angry and frustrated at how comfortably she spoke of things she did not know of.
"Sometimes, you have to make choices in life that involve one thing over another. This time... It was just two people over one. I was outnumbered and frankly, if I had fought back, it would have been much uglier than your very clean breakaway. We couldn't spend all day locked away on Sunday mornings, eating pancakes and having sex."
If there was one solid word to describe just how Erik felt in that one moment, it would be nauseous. Just as he felt when Christine told him that she used to be chained to the ground as a child, the familiar pit in his throat compiled as he listened to Christine's grave speech. As he squeezed his eyes shut, hoping and praying that that would turn back time and take back the poison that stung her lips, Christine spoke again the words his heart knew would stop beating for, eternally.
"I loved you, Erik... You didn't even give me a warning, absolutely nothing."
"Mr. Lantier?" A gentle voice awoke Erik from his slight state of unconsciousness as he lifted his head to meet eyes with the female doctor. She clutched her clipboard close to her chest, while her brown eyes peered down at the masked man. "I'm Melissa Newbury. Christine's doctor. Are you Mr. Erik Lantier?"
"Yes, I am Erik Lantier. Is Christine alright?" Erik stood to meet the doctor with panic. "Is she dead, oh God!"
"No, sir, no!" The doctor injected by lifting her hands in reassurance. "Christine is fine, she was severely dehydrated. I put fluids in her and the fever was almost immediately gone by the hour."
"Oh... Oh, thank God." Erik let out all the air in his lungs. "Is she okay, is she alright?"
"She's just fine. She's resting. I suggest keeping her overnight for a couple of days, just for observation." Erik raised his eyebrow.
"Observation? Why does she need to be under observation?" The doctor eyed Erik curiously with pure skepticism. "I thought you said she was just fine."
"I mean, she is healthy, no doubt of it... But, sir... She has scars like I've never seen before all over her body. Christine was branded, chained, and abused as a child. I don't mean to pry, but a patient such as Christine should have come into a hospital much sooner." The doctor paused. "I want to admit her to young adult psychiatric ward, for her post-traumatic stress disorder-"
"Christine doesn't have PTSD!" Erik shouted much louder than he expected. Running a hand through his messy hair, he exhaled deeply. "I won't allow it. No, she goes home tomorrow morning, none of this observation will be taking place. She is not a toy to be put on display." The doctor sighed as her expression turned stoic.
"I know, sir."
"You know what, exactly? You know that she is not to be put on display or you know that she does not in fact have post-traumatic stress disorder?" Erik seethed through his jaw. The doctor looked down at her clipboard, then back at Erik with an unreadable glare.
"No." Erik furrowed his eyebrows towards her. "I know that you aren't her cousin, who just so happens to also be a professor at the college." Erik lost the feeling in his body as his knees gave out beneath him. He stumbled backwards with his hand pressed against his palm. The doctor remained emotionless. "I also know that you have been having sexual relations with your student for about five months now. You're also a former composer, a musical genius some may say. Your movement in F major was my wedding march, Mr. Lantier." She exhaled slowly as she relayed all the information to Erik, who was speechless. "Mr. Lantier, are you aware that you have been sleeping with someone who has been sexually abused in the past?" Erik nodded, unable to speak through the dryness of his closed throat. "Are you also aware that the student you have been sleeping with has lied to you about her past, extensively?"
"What? What are you talking about? You're lying to me!" Erik's deep voice bellowed through the crowded waiting room. Through the eye hole of the mask, his yellow eye stared intently at the brown eyed doctor, his breathing heavy with fear and denial. "She would never lie to me. Christine is... She is good, she's the best... I've been there... To her world! I've been to her childhood home!" Erik's head was reeling in disbelief as he began to weep. Falling into the chair underneath him, he buried his face in his hands, trying to grasp all the things that were thrown at him with a devilish curve. "She would never lie to me, Doctor Newbury... Never..."
Melissa's heart shattered at the sight of the broken man. As Erik wept, the doctor sat down beside him, placing the clipboard on her lap. She rarely got this close to someone involved with a patient. She didn't condone this situation by any means, but the sight of Erik gave such an uneasy feeling in her stomach that Melissa was pulled to almost hug the poor man. Pity, that is what she felt as she watched Erik sob over a girl, barely beginning her youth. His voice had cracked as he sat in pure repudiation of the matter at hand, the truth behind the messy curls he came to knew so well. His lips continuously whispered words of unconditional love towards this girl and the doctor hadn't the slightest of clues as to why. Erik finally raised his head, his blood shot eyes coming into the light as he turned towards the doctor with a perplexed heart. She simply sat there, waiting for him to speak. She could tell that it was on the tip of his tongue, but not in the way that it couldn't be spoken. It was in the way that it didn't want to be spoken, because once it was spoken, then it would be true.
"How did it happen?" Erik finally asked as he wiped his tears away with the sleeve of his coat, his eyes slowly blinking away the crystals of salt on his dark eyelashes.
"That's an awfully vague question, Mr. Lantier." Erik drew in a long breath. "In my experience with this kind of abuse, it happened over a period of time. She elongated it, for quite some time. She told me that she was first experimenting with it, then she got addicted to it. She had nothing else, no mother or father... I guess you could say it's what kept her company, what kept her occupied. You know, when she wasn't dancing... Dancing, that is the only reason why she isn't dead." Erik let out the air in his lungs again. "The house she showed you was just something she found on a walk, at least that's what she told me." Melissa turned towards Erik with a tilted head. "Did she tell you about her parents?"
"Her father... He abused her and chained her to the floor of the house. I asked her about how he died, but she said she didn't know. Rather, she yelled at me and bolted through the forest when I asked her." Melissa nodded slowly. "Is any of that true?"
"I don't doubt that she yelled at you or ran away from you when you began to pry through her life." The doctor glanced at her watch. "Do you want to know how he died, Erik?" Peering up from her glasses, Erik braced himself for the worst possible answer.
"I suppose, I mean... Nothing could make this day any worse." Erik shrugged. "Hit me with your best shot, Doctor."
"He never existed." Erik's eyes widened in confusion as he sat up, stupefied by the enigmatic statement. "She's an orphan, a child who ran away from a foster home when she was six and took up the name Christine, after an opera singer in Paris. She read it in a book. She has no idea who her parents are, she doesn't remember them or care to remember them. She found that she was an exceptional ballet dancer at the age of seven after living on the streets for a year and a woman by the name of Anne Marie Giry took her in, adopted her. She is the cousin of Raoul de Chagny, a student of yours, and the adopted sister of Megdalynn Giry, another student of yours." The doctor looked down at her clipboard. "The more serious scars, like the one on her inner thigh and the branding, were from the foster home... But the smaller ones, were self inflicted. She suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder and severe depression. My best guess is that she didn't want to tell you that she self harmed, she wanted to avoid judgment. She wants to live happily ever after with you, but she knows that's not possible."
Erik shut his eyes. He couldn't bear to hear another word.
"Do you want to know what she told me when I asked her why she lied to you?"
At that moment, Erik didn't know what he wanted. As Doctor Newbury stood to her feet, she blinked slowly as Erik stood to meet her. He nodded with hesitance, trying his best to hold back the ache he held so deeply in his throat. He wanted so greatly just to run down the corridor, to see Christine and hear the words from her lips, to taste the truth straight from life that lived it.
"She wanted you to marry her and she knew if you were aware about self-harming, you wouldn't love her anymore as the girl who just wanted to be loved by the man in the mask, the composer and scholar."