Thank you all so much for your thoughtful, insightful comments. I can't express how much I appreciate every single one of them. I also can't believe how you all have stuck with these sad, melodramatic characters for so long! :) Please enjoy this chapter.
Christine's hands shook so badly that she could barely get the key inside the lock, and once it was finally in, it took several failed attempts before she realized she was twisting it the wrong way. When the door finally unlocked and opened with a soft click, she gave a shuddering sigh and cautiously pushed open the door, waiting.
Waiting for what? Waiting for Erik to swoop in and grab her, say it was all a test and she had failed? Waiting for the apartment to blow up the moment she stepped inside?
No. She realized that she was waiting for someone to tell her what to do. Someone to tell her to either go inside or turn around and leave. But it was only her.
She reached over and flicked on the light. The apartment was just as she remembered, just as she had left it after seeing Raoul all those months ago. Dirty, dusty, small. Her old things scattered around, untouched for nearly a year. Useless odds and ends that she had forgotten she even owned.
She looked over her shoulder, but again there was no one. After closing and locking the door behind her, she put down her bags and opened the windows to air out the stale rooms, the warm summer breeze rushing through. Then she sat on the squishy sofa and looked around, twisting her fingers together, her heart still beating wildly against her chest. The walk over had been in a daze, unseeing of the people around her, guided only by memory to the apartment building and up the elevator.
A few tears dripped down her cheeks, and she buried her face in her hands, the dam finally breaking. She slumped sideways on the sofa and sobbed, sobbed so much she felt like she couldn't breathe, sobbed until her eyes were sore and throbbing, until her throat ached. She cried for her father, for herself, and for him.
Initially, she hadn't believed him. Not at all. But he had been insistent.
"Take these, damn you. Take them and go!"
"Erik, what are you talking about?" she continued to stammer. "Why are you—?"
"You are no longer trapped with the monster. You're free. Take whatever you'd like. You need money." He rifled through the desk again before pulling out a large wad of bills and tossing it onto the desk next to the keys. "Here—this is all I have on hand. I will set up your account today and have all the information sent to the apartment. You'll never want for anything again."
"S-stop!" she said, her arms wrapped around her stomach, her hands grabbing onto her shirt tightly. "You're being cruel again. Lying to—"
"I am not lying," he said, slumped back in the chair, his voice still ugly and tired. "For once in my miserable life, I am not lying to you. Take the keys, take the money. Do what you will. Leave the city, leave the country. Go back to your charming Sweden. Go back to your boy. I will not contact you again. I swear it."
"I don't understand," she said helplessly, walking over to him. She tried to take his hand, but he quickly pulled away from her, standing and retreating to the opposite side of the office, kicking aside a bottle of gin, sending it spinning underneath the desk.
"What's wrong?" she whispered. "What did I do?"
"You've done nothing," he murmured, turning away from her. "Nothing except be the most lovely, exquisite thing I've ever known. It is Erik. He is the monster. He is why you cannot stay."
They stood there in silence for what felt like an eternity. Her heart was about to beat its way out of her chest, and she kept gasping on little breaths of air, trying to wrap her head around what was happening. He was letting her go. He was releasing her.
"But we're married," she said stupidly.
He laughed, bitter and hollow, the saddest laugh she'd ever heard. "That is what concerns her," he muttered, still not looking at her. "Marriage. 'But we're married.' As if that god of hers would consider us bound by any kind of matrimony." He shook his head and then addressed her, "Take off the ring. Then we will no longer be married."
She reflexively wrapped her right hand around the fingers on her left hand, as if protecting the little gold band. The ring hadn't left her finger in months. It was difficult to imagine not wearing it any longer. It had become a part of her, like her hair or teeth or toes.
Suddenly, he spun around, his eyes flashing, his teeth bared. "Why are you still here?" he hissed, his hands clenched by his side. "Take what you like and go!"
Her gaze went to the money and the keys on the desk, sitting there alluringly, threateningly. This was what she had wanted for so long. She had begged God for this for months. She had fought, screamed, cried, hurt him…for this. So why did it feel impossible to approach the desk?
"Why were you crying last night?" she asked.
Immediately, he picked up the bundle of bills and keys and was at her side, grabbing her hand and stuffing the items into it, forcing her fingers to curl around them. Then he seized her arms in a painful, pinching grip, roughly pushing her out of the office and towards the front door.
Oh god. It was happening. She was leaving.
It was not how she had envisioned it all. She had thought there would be sobbing, begging entreaties for her to stay, to somehow forgive him for what he'd done, and she would march nobly from the underground house, her head held high. But he was the one pushing her out.
There were no tears. Neither of them said goodbye.
She lived in a fog.
There was one final costume fitting for Mariana that she had scheduled for that afternoon, and Christine sat on the sofa in the little dirty apartment and stared at her watch, counting down the time. Then she went to the costume fitting. When she was back in the apartment, hungry and tired, she realized there was no food whatsoever in the fridge or cupboards. The thick stack of money sat on the small coffee table, and she looked at it for a few minutes before peeling some bills away and going back down the elevator.
It had been nearly a year since she had stepped inside a store. She wandered around for over an hour, picking out things in a daze, overwhelmed by the lights and people and choices. An employee asked if she was all right, and Christine blinked, confused, before realizing that she had been staring at the apples for over ten minutes. Blankly, she nodded, and the employee walked off, eyeing her suspiciously.
When she was back at the apartment, she ate an apple and a piece of toast.
The bedsheets were musty and filthy. She stripped the bed and laid down a quilted blanket over the bare mattress, too overwhelmed to do anything more than curl up on top of it. It was bright in the room, the window letting in the lights from the streetlamps outside. The bed was smaller than the one in the underground house, foreign and strange. She squeezed her eyes shut, her throat oddly dry.
Sleep never came. She tossed and turned for hours before sliding from the bed and returning to the front room. The bags were still on the floor, and she knelt beside them. He had packed them for her, as she had been too dazed to do much more than slowly and clumsily pull on her shoes. They were full of clothing, books, music, jewelry, letters. All things she favored, wore or used often; the blue wool scarf, the book about drawing fundamentals, the small silver bracelet she liked to wear. The pink silk pajama set she wore when it was warm, the thick striped socks she pulled on when it was cold. She dug through it all, pulling out item after item, unsure where to start.
It had really happened. She was free. It was almost five in the morning, and he hadn't come for her.
The sunrise slowly crept into the room, beautiful and captivating, and she abandoned her task to instead sit on the couch and watch the way the rays spilled over the city, illuminating the buildings and streets, each minute bringing more light, chasing away the shadows. Soon the sun was completely up, blazing into the room, and she closed her eyes for a few minutes, the light warm on her face.
The daylight perfectly illuminated the grimy state of the apartment, and she grimaced as she saw the cobwebs in the corners and the thick dust that had settled over the countertops, the little bookshelf, and the small kitchen table. For the next hour or two, she scrubbed the entire apartment, top to bottom, the normality of the task somewhat soothing.
After she was done, she sank back down onto the sun-filled couch. La Rondine was playing that night, the show having been extended due to its popularity, but the thought of simply sitting around until call time was torture.
She changed her clothing and managed her hair before gathering her things and leaving the apartment, her eyes aching with exhaustion. She hadn't slept one minute, and she stepped into the summer morning, already surrounded by dozens of other people on their way to work, briefcases or satchels in hand, some already talking on their cell phones in hurried, urgent voices. Christine watched them with interest, wondering if she blended in. Did they look at her and know she had been kept underground for nearly a year? Was it written on her face that she had been forced to marry the Phantom?
As she walked down the sidewalk, she saw many people stepping into various cafés and coffee shops, and she followed a short blonde woman into a small, industrial-looking café. Normal people bought coffee to help wake them up in the morning, didn't they?
When the tattooed man with the septum piercing behind the counter asked her what she wanted, she hesitated. "Coffee?" she said stupidly. Erik never drank coffee, which meant she never did, either. The man at the café rolled his eyes and poured her a cup. She paid for it with a blush, stepped aside, and took a sip. It was disgusting. She made sure she was out of sight of the café before tossing the rest into a rubbish bin.
Then she continued to wander, walking past bookstores and office buildings and restaurants and pharmacies. It was tempting to go inside each and every door and simply look at all the things that had been so inaccessible to her for so long.
When she passed by a hair salon, she made another split-second decision, and an hour later she walked out with her hair decidedly shorter. She couldn't remember the last time she had had her hair professionally cut, and it was freeing and strange to feel her curls brushing just past her shoulders instead of hanging all the way down her back, heavy and tangled.
Erik liked her curls long, she knew that. What would he say, she wondered, when he saw them so short?
No. Not when. He wouldn't see them, meaning he wouldn't rage and demand to know why she had ruined her hair. He had let her go, and she was now in control of her own life. She could cut her hair when she wanted to. She could try coffee. She could go wherever she wanted, whenever she wanted. She was now free.
But why now? Why, after almost a year of marriage, had he suddenly decided to let her go? All the pain, the tears—nearly killing Mr. Khan to prevent her from leaving—and he had changed his mind overnight. It didn't make any sense.
As she turned a corner, a glint caught her eye, and she looked up to see the roof of the Opera House, several streets away but instantly recognizable. She had been up there once. With Erik. He had been gentle, soft, wrapping her scarf around her neck and bringing her hand to his mouth. He had told her that he knew she deserved more but was too selfish to let her go.
I would die without you.
Her heart immediately leapt to her throat, choking her as she remembered his words—words he had said to her more than once. She stopped right in the middle of the sidewalk, and a man walking behind her bumped into her, scowling and muttering about tourists as he stepped around her. Christine stood there, staring at the roof, horrified.
Was it true? Or was that just another one of his melodramatic proclamations?
There had been too many emotions in her as she left to ask him any questions, to get any clarification on what this all really meant for her and for him. And now, staring at the Opera House, terror began to fill her chest, almost painful.
I will kill myself to spare you the mess. And then you can leave me down here to rot.
Was that what he meant when he said that he would die without her? That he wouldn't die of a broken heart—he would just kill himself?
She didn't want him to kill himself. She didn't want Erik dead. Even if she wasn't going to be in his life anymore, just the thought of him dead nearly caused her to break down into another panic attack. What if, as she stood there, he was…?
With a little sob, she pressed her shaking hands over her mouth, sucking in deep breaths, doing her very best not to collapse. It had all happened so fast. She hadn't had the time to think through everything. She had been given money and some of her things and then pushed out the door.
But she couldn't simply hope that he would be okay. She had to do something.
She headed towards the Opera House, trying to prepare a speech for when she would see him again. She would make him promise not to do anything to himself. If he loved her, he would promise to live.
However, when she got down to the end of the alleyway, she stopped short. The door that led into the tunnels was always locked, and Erik hadn't given her a key. A little desperately, she reached out and pulled on the handle, as if the door would be able to sense her distress and magically open for her. But it didn't budge.
She took two steps backwards and looked around. No one around, no one coming to her aid.
"Erik?" she whispered softly.
Nothing. No one.
For ten whole minutes, she stood there, staring at the door, thinking hard, doing her best not to dissolve into a panic. It was getting harder and harder. The lack of sleep and food, combined with every passing moment in which she wasn't able to make sure that Erik wasn't…that he hadn't…
After trying the door once more, just to make sure that it hadn't somehow unlocked itself as she stood there, she left the alleyway, heading for the staff entrance. It was still early, and most of the people in the Opera House were administrative and office workers. She hurried through the hallways, trying not to arouse suspicion.
It took several minutes of wandering, as her memory of that night was very foggy and vague due to the alcohol, but eventually she found it: the closet in which Erik had made a hidden door appear. There was the utility box of wires and switches, and Christine gingerly slipped her hand behind it, feeling around somewhat nervously. She ran her fingertips up and down the back of the box, pressing on anything that felt like an indent, a bump, a switch, a button. Anything. But nothing happened.
She grew increasingly more desperate, scratching at the box, slapping it, trying to look around to see just where the secret switch was, but since the box was mounted just a few centimeters away from the wall, it was impossible to see anything.
A custodian eventually opened the closet to find her there, and Christine invented a story about how she had misplaced some music in this practice room and thought someone might have put it in the closet. The custodian glared at her and then pointed towards the door, the meaning clear.
Feeling very stupid and increasingly-desperate, she went backstage, hurrying over to the corner that held the majority of the ropes for the flies. But she hadn't seen what Erik had done to open the hidden door there, either. She had been too distracted by the chaos of the fire. The door had simply appeared in front of her. Undeterred, she pushed through the ropes and felt around, running her palms up and down the rough, scratchy wall behind them.
Again, she was interrupted by a member of the staff, asking her—thankfully with more confusion than suspicion—what she was doing. Christine stammered she had lost an earring during the last performance and was trying to find it again.
"It's probably gone forever," she blabbered on, her voice shaking. "But it wasn't very expensive or anything. I just wanted to see if I could find it here before everyone comes to work. Or else I'd just be in their way. That's all."
The staff member looked more confused than ever, but she didn't stay to clarify anything else, leaving the stage and heading to the administrative wing. The summer day was becoming very warm, and sweat prickled her forehead and underarms as she hurried through the hallways and towards the familiar door. She knocked once and opened it without waiting for an invitation to enter.
"Miss Daae?" Mr. Reyer said, looking up from his computer with a disapproving frown. "We don't have an appointment, do we? Because I'm actually in the middle of—"
"When are you seeing my manager next?" she interrupted.
Mr. Reyer's eyebrow rose slightly. "Your manager?" he repeated.
"Yes. When are you meeting him next? He said that you—there were some scores he was going to rework. When is he giving them back to you?"
"Those are done already," Mr. Reyer said, standing and looking at her with confusion. "He left them on my desk several days ago. I already gave you your updated score for Mariana, remember?"
Her heart was sinking. "But you—do you have a meeting with him soon?"
Mr. Reyer shook his head. "He…er, doesn't exactly keep a schedule. I'm sure you know that."
"When was the last time you saw him?"
"Miss Daae, are you all right?" Mr. Reyer said, stepping around the desk and towards her. "This is…a very unusual conversion to be having."
"When was the last time you saw him?" she repeated urgently. "Please tell me. Please."
"It must have been a few weeks ago," Mr. Reyer said, his eyebrows knitted together as he watched her. "It was about the orchestration for an upcoming production. We need a new oboist."
Christine looked around the office in desperation, as if she would be able to see some secret trapdoor that Erik used, but there was nothing. Again.
"Do you have a pen and paper?" she then said.
"Miss Daae, are you sure you're—"
"Please!" she half-shouted, her voice cracking and strangled. Mr. Reyer stepped over to his desk and pulled out the items before handing them over to her, his expression one of serious concern.
"Has something happened?" he asked. "Has he—what's happened?"
"I don't know," she said shortly, quickly scribbling out a note: I need to see you as soon as possible. Please. Love, Christine.
She folded it up and handed it over to Mr. Reyer. "If you see him, please give that to him. Please, Mr. Reyer."
He nodded, slipping it into his pocket, peering at her with confusion. "So he's not…?" He shook his head a little. "I was under the impression that you two were…"
But Christine was already leaving the office, not wanting to waste any time listening to questions she didn't have answers to.
She spent the rest of the day wandering around the Opera House in exhaustion, going back to every place she could think of that might lead to him, but there was nothing. The building became busier by the hour, more and more people arriving to prepare for the upcoming performance, and Christine, not knowing what else to do, made her way backstage to prepare as well. Maybe if she gave the performance of her life, Erik would want to congratulate her. It was a stretch, but she was very quickly running out of ideas.
Despite her lack of sleep and the gnawing anxiety, she did her very best that evening, earning a louder than usual round of applause when she went out for curtain call. She knew it was pointless but scanned the audience anyway, disappointed nonetheless when she didn't see him. Afterwards, she lingered so long backstage that a stage manager had to shoo her away for the night.
He hadn't come to her. He hadn't told her how wonderful she had been. It had now been over twenty-four hours since she had last seen him, and the painful heaviness in her chest was getting worse.
Not knowing what else to do, she walked back to the apartment in defeat, tears sliding down her face. The one small mercy of the day was that she fell asleep quickly and slept deeply, dreamlessly, for several long hours.
Just before sunrise, she woke suddenly, sitting up and sliding out of the bed, a new idea ready. Her brain must have worked on it as she slept, and she went to the front room, digging around the small pile of things she hadn't yet put away.
She found it tucked in a pocket of one of the bags: her phone, something she hadn't seen in nearly a year. It was dead, of course, but she located a spare charging cable in a kitchen drawer and plugged it in, tapping her fingers impatiently on the counter, waiting breathlessly for the severely-neglected device to come to life again.
Once it finally powered on, there was another agonizing twenty minute wait while it updated all systems, applications, and software. Christine chewed on a nail and stared at the infuriating little loading circle as it went around and around. The moment it disappeared, she went to work.
It was a long morning of huddling over the counter, typing into an internet browser countless variations of, How to get a phone number from just a name. She almost fell for three different scams, each one promising to do just that. Simply enter the name here, pay a one-time fee, and the results will be emailed to you!
Finally, she had the idea to look up the white pages for West Los Angeles, and she grabbed the bundle of letters that had been packed, rifling through them until she found one from Nadir Khan.
When she typed in the return address into the white pages website, a name came up: Shayan Mehrabi. She had no idea if that was Mr. Khan's cousin or not, but a quick search found only two men by that name with online profiles located in the Los Angeles area. Immediately, she messaged them both: Hello, I am trying to get in contact with Nadir Khan. I think you're his cousin. Can you help me? It's an emergency.
As she sat there, staring at the phone, waiting and waiting for a reply, she realized that it was still the middle of the night in Los Angeles, meaning the men she had messaged were probably still fast asleep. There was no point waiting there, phone in hand, for an answer that wouldn't come for another few hours at least. If any came at all.
Instead, she forced herself to shower and eat something substantial, trying to resist the urge to pick up the phone every minute to check for a response. She decided to go on a quick walk around the neighborhood, just to help her think and to feel the sunshine, but she stopped short when she opened the front door. Sitting on the doorstep was a long box with an unmarked envelope on top.
"Erik?" she said stupidly, looking around the empty landing.
Of course there was no answer, and she bent down and grabbed the envelope, opening it with shaky fingers, hoping to see a long, heartfelt letter written in his scratchy penmanship. Instead it was a generic welcome letter from a bank in the city, congratulating her on opening an account with them and asking her to finish her online registration so they could mail her a debit card.
Angrily, she tossed the letter onto the floor and knelt down to open the box. It was her father's violin, nestled carefully in its case, gleaming and beautiful, the bow freshly rosined. After pulling the box into the apartment and shutting the door, she sat on the floor and sobbed, her legs bent and her face buried in her knees.
He had been there, mere feet from her, and hadn't tried to see her. While she knew this was a good sign, as it meant he was still alive, it hurt more than she could say. Why hadn't he knocked on the door and given it to her himself? Why tell her repeatedly that he loved her more than anything and yet not even want to see her?
It was another three torturous hours before her phone let out a little ding. She grabbed it and opened the messages. One of the men had blocked her, but the other had replied, stating that Nadir was, in fact, his cousin and asking what the emergency was.
I need to talk to him as soon as possible, she immediately replied. It's about a mutual friend.
The man wrote back: I don't know that I feel comfortable giving out his phone number to a stranger.
Tell him to call me instead, she typed, her hands shaking. Tell him it's Christine. Tell him to call me at this number ASAP. It's an emergency. Please.
No answer. Christine paced around the apartment, chewing on her nails and lips and pulling at her hair, staring at the phone resting plaintively on the counter. Fifteen minutes later, it lit up, a call from an unknown number coming through, and she grabbed it.
"Nadir?" she said, her voice trembling. "Hello?"
"Christine." His voice was kind but cautious. "Hello. To what do I owe the honor of this very early and unexpected call?"
She took a shuddering little breath and said, looking through the window at the rooftop of the Opera House, "I need your help."