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Despite what everyone around her seemed to think, Christine Daaé had never been big on love. She wasn’t even sure she knew what it actually was.
She wanted people to like her, so she did what she thought people expected her to do. They wanted a shoulder to cry on? She was a good listener and gave reasonable advice. A fellow dancer’s monthly caught her off guard? “I have an extra pad”. A mom needed help with fixing her daughter’s hair? Her hands were always willing to do their best. She was kind, polite, attentive, but she doubted it had anything to do with love. It was just who she was.
Sure, her parents must have loved her. They were supposed to, she assumed. Despite their complicated financial condition, her widowed father made sure she had food on the table, a roof over her head, and saw doctors and took medications whenever it was necessary. He entertained her with stories and music. She was kept alive, clean and healthy, which she knew was more than many other kids her age and far younger had. For a long time, that had been enough, but people made it seem like there was more, as if she was missing the best bits. She envied it, but it was not like she could do things differently now. Her parents had found eternal rest beneath the ground, or so she was told. She hoped they did rest- from what little her father had disclosed of their pasts, life hadn’t been easy for any of them.
There was, of course, Mama Valerius. The old lady cherished Christine and spoiled her as much as she could, regaling the girl with luminous stories about angels and all kinds of heavenly beings. When Gustave Daaé joined his wife in eternity, Christine’s tutor was the one who kept the tale of the Angel of Music alive. However, the old woman’s health was slowly and steadily deteriorating, making Christine wonder about the day when the only thing left of the lady who sneaked sweets into a little girl’s bag when her father wasn’t looking would be the shell, the physical body. Christine hoped she would be able to be there when it happened, if only to give her guardian some comfort in her final moments.
The ballet rats made her feel like she was part of something. They were nice, funny and listened attentively when she spoke, but Christine couldn’t shake the feeling that they simply tolerated her, too polite not to do so. They weren’t mean, but they didn’t share their secrets, their fears and their pain with her. She didn’t blame them- she was quiet and mostly kept it to herself, not wanting to draw inappropriate attention. It was far too easy to mistake her for a stuck-up foreigner, and she didn’t have the strength to change that image.
At one point in her life, she had had Raoul. Sweet, lovely Raoul, who had her hanging onto his every word, following his every step. He was patient with her shyness and loved hearing her father’s stories. She was happy to be his Little Lotte… Until she wasn’t. All of a sudden, summer was over, Raoul had left and never tried to reach her again. A tiny voice inside her head told her she wasn’t that special and that Raoul probably had grown tired of having her in tow for such a long time. She tried not to listen to it, but it was difficult to ignore.
It hurt, coming to that conclusion. Realizing that there would come a point where no one would actively miss her, seek her out, give her much as a second thought. But at the same time, how could she expect people to remember her if she barely had the energy to make herself be seen?
A violin softly playing the Resurrection of Lazarus startled her.