Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

City of Angels

Prologue

Some people still remembered that there had been a pianist named Erik. No last name, just Erik. They remembered nothing about the way he looked— he had always played behind a screen, but then musicians were eccentric, they said—only that there had been the tap of his shoes across the wooden floor as he approached the piano, the hushed anticipation of the audience as they waited for him. They remembered the silent moments in which the workers slid the screen across the stage, in which the audience held one collective breath—and then the minutes melted into hours as his fingers connected with the keys. The people who remembered him remembered that he had taken the world by storm, performed in the most famous of music halls, brought grown men to tears within seconds. And then— nothing. He was gone. The world never heard from him again.

He had last performed at the Kimmel Center, years ago, alongside the Philadelphia Orchestra. They gave him a standing ovation. The critics raved, as they always had. No one knew that he was just a teenager then, just a boy of seventeen. No one knew that it was the last time he would ever perform, not even Erik. Nearly a year later, the Campbell building burned in Los Angeles. No one made a connection. And the world still wondered what happened to Erik.

His story—their story—began and ended in Los Angeles.

Chapter 1

“What the hell happened?” Erik had to shout to be heard over the roaring panic in his own ears. The smoke was so thick he couldn’t see his hand in front of him, and the electricity had winked out minutes ago.

“Farjad? Farjad! What the hell!”

Falling onto the carpet, he groped along the floor in the darkness, the intense heat making it difficult to breathe, a physical pressure against him as he kept trying to move forward, his sight blurry from tears and sweat and smoke.

“Farjad—” Erik coughed until he almost retched, the acrid air stinging his lungs, feeling blindly with his fingertips until they connected with flesh. A hand grasped his tightly and pulled.

“Get up. Get up. Can you stand?”

“What the fu—”

“Come on.” Farjad hauled him up by his armpits, slung Erik’s arm around his shoulder, and started half-running down the hallway. Dimly, Erik heard shouting, panic, and more distantly, a crash, and a deep, ominous rumbling.

“What happened?” He whispered, his voice getting lost in the din as Farjad burst open the door to the stairwell and nearly threw them both down the steps. The bright, cool, clear air of the street was blinding, the mundane sounds of the city deafening as they stumbled into a back alley, Farjad leaning against a dumpster, doubled over in a coughing fit.

Erik turned back to stare at the Campbell building. Hot, black smoke erupted from the seams, the windows eerily illuminated by the orange glow of the fire threatening to surge through the glass at any moment.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. It wasn’t supposed to happen this way. Erik’s eyes darted frantically from the burning façade to the street, where emergency vehicles were rushing to the curb. People, coughing, choking, covered in ash and soot, poured of the front door into the arms of the waiting first responders. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. It wasn’t—it was only supposed to be the one floor, the one office—it wasn’t—a firefighter ran out of the building holding a little boy wrapped in a rough brown blanket and Erik felt bile rise in his throat. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.

He spun in a desperate circle, his lungs sore from the smoke, his eyes burning with tears.

“Farjad—Farjad—” He gripped the older man’s sleeve.

“I don’t—I don’t know—” Farjad wiped snot and sweat from his face onto his sleeve, staring up at the building that Erik could no longer look at.

“How did this happen?”

“It was a risk—it always would have been a risk, you know that—”

“But—but—”

Farjad began dragging him from the alley, down between two dumpsters and out on the other side of the street, where there was less commotion and fewer people.

“The car is the other way; we’ll have to leave it. We need to walk.”

Erik let himself be pulled, the sounds of the sirens blaring unrelenting in his ears, the press of people running towards the building, staring, filming, their phones little twinkling lights against the grey cloud of smoke closing in on him until his vision tunneled and his knees weakened.

“Not here—come on—Erik, come on.” Farjad hauled him up and pushed him forward, and Erik stumbled ahead, all his senses reeling.

He cried.

He hoped Farjad did not see.

They passed a night in Farjad’s apartment, the first time Erik had ever stepped foot in the older man’s building. Their connection had always been fragile, tenuous, an understanding that the only thing that bound them together was a mutual desire to destroy William Campbell.  Farjad had never asked what Erik’s reasons were, and Erik had never cared about Farjad’s. In those months between his mother’s death and the morning of placing the bomb in Campbell’s office, all that had mattered was making Campbell suffer. Taking back what he could. For her.

But now, tonight, all of it behind them, Campbell dead, his assets neatly transferred to an overseas account, Erik felt only numbness. Cold. A deep, unsettling gnawing in his chest every time he saw that building going up in flames behind his eyelids. The small bomb they had placed in Campbell’s office may have been faulty, Farjad had told him. There had always been a risk for more structural damage than they had anticipated. But Erik had never imagined it would be as bad as it was. Erik had never thought the fire would rage uncontained. He had never thought there would be children.

It was days before they learned the full extent of the damage, days which Erik passed in a dull, silent haze, hardly eating, rarely sleeping, mute unless spoken to directly. He was only twenty, and his life up until that point had been filled with music, compositions, performances. Black keys on white keys. His mother’s gentle smile.

William Campbell had taken her away. He had taken her away, and now Erik had taken him away. That is what he repeated to himself every night and every morning he stared at the Los Angeles skyline, unseeing. Campbell had taken her, and now Campbell was gone. It was enough. It had to be enough.

The two men sat at a coffee table, the morning newspaper in front of them, “Campbell Tragedy” emblazoned on the front.

“Seventy-two casualties,” Farjad said. He fingered the edges of the paper. “Four still hospitalized.”

Erik stared at him. “Casualties, Farjad?”

Farjad’s fingers whitened as they tightened involuntarily against the crinkling pages.

“Yes.” Farjad cleared his throat. He shifted the paper to block his view of Erik’s face, and Erik grabbed the paper and tore it down the middle.

“Seventy-two, Farjad?”

Farjad seemed to shrink into himself, looking anywhere but at Erik, and his reaction, expected, unavoidable, was infuriating. Erik abruptly pushed back from the table and stood, towering over him, his arms flinging out to his sides.

“How the hell did you let this happen?”

“I—I didn’t—”

“We had a plan. A good plan! It was small, it was contained, it was controlled. That’s what you said. That’s what you promised!”

Farjad lowered his head, bringing his shaking hands in front of his face, and Erik cursed, curling his fingers into fists and stalking away. He wanted to speak and be heard, not for Farjad’s eyes to gloss over at the sound of his voice. He wanted this man who was at least ten years older than him to reprimand him, put him in his place like the inexperienced teenager he was. But he didn’t. No one would. Not against his voice. His mother had always praised his voice. His voice was near to heaven, she had told him. Angelic. She hadn’t said it was hypnotizing, terrible in its beauty, that grown men would follow him and cower just at the sound.

There were many things, he was learning, that she had never told him.

“Are there any other survivors?” Erik asked, pushing aside the curtain to stare at the streets below. He had forged himself a fake face, a hyper-realistic rubber mask, but there was no mask for his voice, no way to curb that natural spellbinding effect he seemed to have on anyone who heard him. It was exhausting.

“Two, the paper said. A little girl and her father.”

He closed his eyes, a sudden, sharp pain rising deep in his chest, stealing his breath and causing him to clutch against the windowsill for support. Momma. Momma, I’m sorry. He had spent the first twenty years of his life ensconced in her warm embrace, safe, loved, only his music and her laughter in his ears. What was he supposed to do now? How was he supposed to pick up these charred pieces of his life?

Erik splayed his hand against the glass, covering the view of the city. “Done, then. I am done.”

Farjad hesitated.

“What?”

“You promised me half. You told me you’d get me out.”

“So I did,” Erik said. His head hurt. Blurred lights twinkled between his fingers.

“Well?” Farjad asked.

“New York. Beijing. Helsinki. I don’t care. Pick one.” The skyline disappeared as he drew the curtains tightly over the window. Remembering his mother. Remembering he had done this all for her. “I don’t care. But we leave tonight.”  

He turned on his heel and vowed that he would never return to this city again.

Erik took Farjad to New York, but he didn’t stay. His mind was still full of the horrors of the past year, and he thought he’d go crazy with it if he stayed in one place. He forged a new alias for Farjad—Nadir Khan—and gave him access to an account that had sufficient funds to start a business. For orphans, Erik had decided one night while he was drunk. Erik and Farjad had stood on the balcony of Erik’s penthouse apartment in Manhattan and Erik had accidentally thrown a champagne glass over the rail. He laughed as he watched the liquid soar. For musical orphans, he had said, listening to the glass whizz through the air. A place to develop their art.

And then he had fled, like a bat from the light. Farjad’s face reminded him of Los Angeles, and he was beginning to feel his mind crack. He packed a few clothes and a violin, and then bought the first ticket he could to the first city he could find. Detroit, but it hadn’t mattered, because Erik didn’t stay in one place for very long.

The months blurred in his mind, running through fake names and credit cards and hotel rooms faster than he could count. He drowned himself in seedy bars and motel rooms rented with a half-naked woman on his arm, his beautiful rubber face dimmed and just real enough in the dark, perfume-heavy air. His violin was abandoned at a bus station in Chicago, standing for days before someone picked it up and realized its worth. Erik was already halfway to New Orleans. He didn’t care; he didn’t hear the strings of the violin anymore. He just needed to go.

In Vegas, he had girls in his hotel room every hour of the day. Pot, acid, clubs, craps tables, ecstasy—he spent weeks, maybe months, living out the screaming in his head, running his mind and body down until they were silent, until he felt nothing, until he would vomit, and vomit, and collapse on the floor of the casino, dragged by his armpits by security, thrown unceremoniously back into his room with just a warning because he had rented the penthouse.

And he would stare at the blackened ceiling, the chandelier lights twinkling with the flashing neon signs behind his window, and he would still see the red glow of fire behind his eyelids. He would still be alone.

He would scream.

One morning, Erik peeled away his mask and drove a car with darkened windows back to New York. Revenge hadn’t been sweet at all. It didn’t bring back what he had lost.

He swore he would never be seen or heard by a living being again.

Ten years later

New York, New York

“The list is going to be posted soon for the ladies who will be auditioning for the Met next Sunday,” Mr. Reyer said. There were nervous whisperings among the class. “I do not want to hear any complaining, and my decisions are final. If you choose to audition anyway, it will not be with the endorsement of the school. Is that clear?” The girls shook their heads, and Mr. Reyer exited the classroom to make a similar speech to the group of male singers waiting in the next room.

It was January, and while the rest of the city froze, the best singers of The New Marguerite School of Music and Dance, fondly known as The Maggie by its attendants, were gearing up for the annual auditions for the Metropolitan Opera. The Maggie had come in less than a decade to be regarded as one of the best schools of music in the country, and it consistently sent graduates on to the best stages in the world. The only difference was that The Maggie had very small class sizes, with a special fund set aside for orphaned students. The owner was said to be an eccentric, as his or her identity was unknown. What was very clear was that whoever it was had an extraordinary talent for music and performance.

The school took up two blocks in Battery Park City, and was only a short walk from the water. It provided meals and homes for its students, the youngest of whom were fresh out of Family and Child Services at seven, and the oldest of whom were approaching twenty-one. At eighteen the school required the students to sign a formal contract spanning one to three years. Very few who wanted to have successful careers in the music industry left before their contract was up.

When Mr. Reyer was done speaking to his classes, he handed his chosen list of singers to his superior, who reviewed it, and then slid it into the mailbox of his boss, Nadir Khan. Nadir Khan was the last person to whom anyone could trace the administrative process of the school. After that, it was a mystery.

It was midday when Nadir got the list and, knowing nothing about music, he tucked it under his arm and then locked the door to his office.

“Erik?” He said. He listened. He looked around his office, staring hard at every potential crack in the ceiling and wall. “Erik?” Nadir waved the paper around. “I have Reyer’s shortlist for the Met.” Nadir sighed, and then left the list on his desk. “You can look at it when you have time.” Nadir turned and started for the door.

The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end.

“Stop.” The whisper came along with a creak of the hidden door. Nadir stood straight, staring at the wall. “You can turn now,” the whisper said. Nadir looked over his shoulder to see that the papers had disappeared from his desk, no doubt through the seamless door in the wall which Erik had built into the room. The man slipped as easily through the walls as a ghost, allowing him to interact with   Nadir without beind seen. It was one of the many things Nadir had learned to get used to, working for Erik.  He heard the rustling of the papers.

“I do not know any of these names,” Erik whispered. That too, had been Erik’s price, after Los Angeles. Nadir had not heard him speak in ten years. It made him easier to stand up to, in Nadir’s opinion, without that strange voice clubbing his senses

“Moncharmin did make a note to me that each of them will be doing a dress rehearsal later in the week, if you would like to attend.” Nadir said to the blank wall.

“Yes.” The whisper sounded like a hiss. “Last year we did not send anyone to the Met. I’d like final say on these singers.”

“I’ll let them know,” Nadir said. He waited, listening, until the whisper was no more. Once he was sure that his office was empty, he took a deep breath, closed his eyes for a split second, and then continued back into the hallway, where real people with real voices smiled and greeted him. The difference was as jarring as leaving a theatre screening a horror film and walking into a bright sunny day. Nadir had helped Erik set off a bomb that had killed nearly a hundred people, and now he watched as Erik built up the careers of hundreds of orphans. He wondered when the day would come when they would all go crazy.

The list went up at five in the afternoon, and it was swarmed by gaggles of students. Singers pushed past other singers to get to the front and read the names. Some burst into tears, and only a lucky few exclaimed with high pitched squeaks, hugging the life out of anyone standing near them. Christine Daaé stood near the back of the crowd, waiting for it to clear. Her friend Meg Giry, a dancer, stood with her, holding her hand.

“Your name is going to be on there,” Meg said.

“I hope so.” She squeezed Meg’s hand. She was twenty, and it was nearing her next birthday, and then her contract would be up and she would need to leave The Maggie. She had never made the list before. It was now or never for her.

It took about ten minutes for the crowd to ease, and then Christine, still holding Meg’s hand, walked up to the paper, her fingers shaking.

“Christine!” She barely heard Meg’s voice over the roaring in her ears. Beneath Carly Guidicelli, Irina Polyakova, Olivia Bell, and Jasmine Jammes, there was her name. Christine Daaé. Christine’s eyes began to leak tears as Meg nearly knocked her over with a fierce hug.

She had made it. Christine stood entwined with Meg, laughing through her tears, looking at her name. By the skin of her teeth, but she had made it, finally.

She knew her father would be proud.

Above this scene, staring through the ceiling, Erik watched as countless numbers of his students took their turn looking at the list. He was glad to have talented students, and their successes would momentarily bring fulfillment to the hole in his chest. But for all the vicarious happiness he gleaned from them, Erik most preferred the Maggie when it was silent, late at night. There was a labyrinth of hidden walkways and rooms, all sound-proofed, that Erik had seen put into the building before he opened it as a school. It was his home, had been ever since he had abandoned his penthouse apartment for these dark, empty hallways.

He would float from room to room of his secret palace, alone, away from staring eyes, from too-loud sounds, from people. When he got tired, he would walk through the hallways, trailing his fingers along the walls, singing old lullabies his mother had taught him. Then he would find himself before the room. He always did.

This night was no different. Erik’s voice died around him as he approached the little shrine. He knelt before it, struck a match against the floor, and lit the little candle that he replaced every morning. The flame illuminated a small picture of his mother.

“Momma,” he said, softly. His fingers caressed the cheek of the woman on the yellowing paper. Her ghost was the only one who heard him speak, anymore.

Chapter Text

Chapter 2

Christine’s hands were sweating. She hadn’t slept well, tossing and turning all night with her wild thoughts. She had made it. How had she made it? 

Carly was practicing her aria in the next room, and Christine sang each phrase in her head before Carly did, mentally correcting every vowel, every pause, every breath the other singer took. It was the only way to distract herself.

Tapping her finger against her knee like a metronome, she watched the notes march behind her eyelids, nodding her head in time with the rhythm. Since she had been small, this had always been her escape, her coping mechanism. Drown yourself in the music, and don’t hear the sirens, don’t feel the heat of the smoke. Lose yourself in the symphony, and don’t see your father’s casket. 

“What’s that she’s singing?” someone asked from behind.

Jumping, Christine turned on the bench to see Meg, standing in the doorway. Meg lifted two coffee cups in her hand.

“Decaf, but at least it’ll calm your nerves?” She sat next to Christine and gave her a one-armed hug. “What’re you doing here, chica? It’s not going to help to listen to her sing.”

“I know,” Christine said. It didn’t help, not really, but neither had sitting in her apartment and staring at the ceiling. “How’d you find me?”

Meg snorted. “Not difficult. It’s half past seven and I knew you weren’t out partying.”

Christine shifted uncomfortably on her chair. She took the coffee from Meg and took a long swig. “This is it, Meg,” she said, staring at the ground. “This is really it. This is my last chance.”

“Don’t be silly,” Meg said. “You’ll make it this time, but even if you don’t, graduating from The Maggie doesn’t mean you’re washed up.”

“I can feel it,” Christine said, shaking her head. “This is my time. If I miss it I’ll never get another chance.”

“Divas,” Meg said. “Always so dramatic.”

Christine chuckled because that’s what she knew she was supposed to do, and Meg squeezed her shoulder again. “Come on,” Meg said. “Let’s leave. It’s not doing you any good listening to her, and I know that cute boy from CUNY is going to be back at the café to find his favorite barista.”

Christine scoffed and wrapped her scarf around her neck, glad for a new topic. “As if,” she said. “No one comes to the café to see me. They come because I brew coffee.”

“Anyone can brew coffee. If you stop at home with me I’ll make sure you look a little too adorable to pass up.”

The two girls laughed as they left the building. On the other side of the sound-proofed wall, Erik paced back and forth, his hands pressed against his temples. He was trying to block out the memories, but they were so persistent, and with the constant silence and endless white walls sometimes it was impossible to remember where he was, or what year it was. 

“Erik,” her voice seemed to emanate from the walls. Erik cried out, his heart thumping. He braced himself against the wall.

“No,” he said.

“E-Erik,” his mother called to him, laughing. “Where are you, silly?”

“No,” Erik said again. He clutched a hand to his heart. He sank to the ground, moaning. “Stop,” he whispered. Tears began to press against his eyes. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair. How many years had it been, and he still heard her voice echoing in his head? Staring at the blank wall across from him, he tried to steady his breathing, tried to focus his thoughts on anything, anywhere else but her. 

Standing rapidly, he charged into his bedroom, already knowing he was going to fail, already knowing how it would end. But he tried anyway, he sat at the piano anyway, flipped open the lid he had closed angrily days before, and played. He closed his eyes and played, tried to rid himself of her voice, of her memory, tried to grasp the thread of the music that floated somewhere, unreachable, in his heart, and he cried. He cried so hard that his fingers began to slide against the keys, banging into each other as he collapsed fully onto his forearms, each sobbing breath stinging as it ripped from his chest.

It was never any different, not on these nights when he couldn’t expel his mother’s memory from his mind. He had his school, his successful students placed in theatres and opera houses all over the globe, and it wasn’t enough. It didn’t mean anything. Because when he sat here at night and tried to play, he couldn’t. Bach, Mozart, Rachmaninoff—they flowed like rainwater. But his own music? It had been absent for years. 

Erik shuddered. He felt like his chest was caving in. Was it worth it to live so long if all he could remember was a time when he had been whole? When his mother had sat on the couch in their Los Angeles apartment and listened to his music and laughed? What was any of it worth, without her? What was he worth? 

He laid his head across the keys, the discordant notes only registering dimly. It was so easy to pretend she was sitting just behind him, listening, smiling, breathing. If he turned, maybe she would be there. She would caress his face. She would tell him she loved him. 

Tears filled his eyes, but he was too exhausted to do anything but let them slip silently from his cheeks. His mother had wiped them, once. My poor Erik, she would say, when he asked her why he wasn’t allowed to see anyone. Why he wasn’t allowed to have friends. Why he couldn’t just wear a mask and go to the park, even if he was as ugly as she said. 

He hadn’t understood, then. It was impossible for a child to truly grasp, especially a child kept apart, the only true interaction he had with the public from behind the screen he slid across the stage every time he performed, a double sided square contraption that held him in, protecting him from the sight of both audience and theater workers. It had been her contingency when he had signed with William Campbell. Nobody was to see him, not his manager, and not anyone else, ever. The screen traveled with them everywhere, because she would never allow a mask. They wouldn’t understand, she said. She tickled him, she told him she loved him, she told him he looked different from other people, but that it was okay, because he was brilliant, and talented, and incredible. I’m sorry, she would say, when he protested, when he pleaded. But she never let him wear a mask. There was no need for one. 

He hadn’t known, then, that his face would be the only thing that mattered, that it would destroy everything he had, that it would destroy her. All he knew then was that he looked different, but it was okay, because she said it was. As he got older, he would spend time staring at himself in the mirror, tracing the malformed contours of his face with his eyes, struck by the difference between her perfectly smooth skin and his own. Sometimes she would catch him, and she would sit him down at the piano and splay his fingers over the keys. 

“You don’t need a mask, Erik. Look. Look what you can do.” 

And he would play, and he would forget everything except for the music around him, within him. 

“You have your music.” It was her constant refrain to him throughout his life. “You have your music. And whatever else happens in life, you’ll always have your music, won’t you?”

Her words repeated themselves in his mind until he thought he’d scream. 

He was in hell. 

The cute boy from CUNY was at the café that night, and Christine did notice how long he hung around her end of the cashier’s stand. As she and the other baristas began to close up, Christine saw him slink up towards her, fiddling with his phone in his hands. 

“Can I help you?” She asked. She had hoped to sound polite but it came out sounding rather harsh. 

He laughed, nervously, she thought. “I just wanted to see if, you know—” Christine pulled out a rag and started to wipe down the counters. He ran his fingers through his hair. “So, are you busy tonight?”

Christine’s eyes shot up to meet his. Meg had joked about this but Christine had been certain it would never happen. “Me?” She said, without thinking. A spasm of panic constricted around her heart.

“Yeah,” he said, smiling. “You.”

Christine tried to smile, too, but it felt forced. “I don’t even know your name,” she said, blushing. 

“Raoul,” the boy said, putting out his hand. Christine shook it. 

“Sorry for the Windex,” she said, dropping his gaze, trying to focus on breathing steadily to relieve her sudden anxiety . She scrubbed at the counter, trying to ground herself in the moment. 

“That’s all right.” He made a show of looking at her nametag. Christine looked up at him, relieved to have been taken out of her reverie. “Christine.”

“So you go to CUNY?” Christine asked. She moved away from the register and began stacking chairs on tables. The pretense that they had never noticed each other and knew nothing about each other was up. 

“Here, let me help.” Before she could stop him, Raoul was moving behind her, stacking chairs faster than she could. “Yeah, CUNY,” he said. “I’m in my last year. I’m studying finance.”

Christine continued stacking. It took concentration to force herself into normal small talk . “Are you from the city, then?”

“Five Towns,” Raoul said. “What about you?”

“I’m a student at the New Marguerite School.” She took a deep breath and turned away. 

“Oh.” Raoul stopped stacking for a moment and Christine tensed, waiting for it. So you’re an orphan? Sometimes they would laugh, try to make a joke of it. I’m sorry, others would say. “That’s awesome,” Raoul said after a pause. Christine said nothing. “That’s amazing.”

“It’s not that impressive.” She let out a breath. Apparently she wouldn’t need to face those questions tonight. 

“It’s like the best school in the world, isn’t it?”

Christine laughed. “Definitely not. It’s not even the best in the country. It’s not Julliard. It’s just the Maggie.”

Raoul shrugged. “It’s like comparing Harvard and Yale. I don’t see the difference.”

Christine didn’t have a reply, and she saw that they were done stacking chairs. She needed to mop but didn’t want to look too servile in front of Raoul when they had just met. 

“So you sing? Or is it dance?” Raoul asked. He too had finished stacking his chairs and now turned to face her. “How long do you study there, anyway? I’ve never seen you before this year.”

“I only started working here in the fall. But I’ve been at the Maggie since I was twelve.”

“Twelve?” Raoul said. “Wow.”

“Yeah,” Christine said. “It’s been a long time.” She dug her toe into the ground. “It’s going to suck to leave. Look, I need to finish cleaning up—”

“Well you never did say if you were free this evening.”

“Oh.” Christine blushed again, because Raoul was smiling at her. “Well—” She glanced at her watch. She had a private rehearsal with Mr. Reyer tomorrow and then the rehearsal for the department heads two days after that. But Raoul really did have nice eyes. And Meg was always begging her to be social, to see people, to be somebody, to stop being so alone.

 “I think I could be free just for a little bit.” 

Erik had scheduled the department rehearsals to take place in specifically non-sound proofed practice rooms so that he could hear and observe them. At half past one in the afternoon he was comfortably seated behind a wall, looking in through a series of tiny holes as Carly Guidicelli ran through her warm ups with Reyer. Erik remembered hiring Reyer and being impressed by the man’s unshakable temperament in the face of arrogant singers. The years at The Maggie had only seemed to harden him more. And The Maggie continued to turn out spectacular performers. 

Nadir sat near Erik’s wall, and Erik would periodically throw his whisper into his ear when he had a comment on the music, which Nadir would then relate to Moncharmin, Mercier, or Reyer, whoever happened to be available at the moment. Carly’s rehearsal went without a hitch, and then Erik sat through five more rehearsals, two of them male, before the group broke for dinner. Nadir lingered behind at Erik’s request as the rest of the group leaked out of the room.

“I’m unimpressed with everyone except that boy Michael, he was quite good.”

“You’re never impressed, Erik,” Nadir said under his breath. “And yet we’re still the most respected new school in decades.”

“It doesn’t matter. The singers this year are all mediocre. How many are there left to sing tonight?”

“Four.”

“What about the violinists?” Erik asked. “Do we have anyone auditioning for a spot in an orchestra? The first oboist caught my attention last time I stopped by their rehearsal.”

Nadir rubbed his eyebrow. He hated talking to a wall. “I’m not even sure if I know what an oboe is.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Nadir, you’ve worked for me for ten years. At the very least I would think you could distinguish a middle C.” Erik’s whisper was raspy.

Nadir sighed. There were things he wanted to say, real things— stop hiding behind a wall Erik, use your voice, Erik, make something of yourself. He may not have known anything about music, but he had at least heard of the famous pianist before the boy himself had contacted him about William Campbell. But he couldn’t say anything. The teenager he had met in Los Angeles was now a man who was determined to shut out the world forever. 

When the rehearsal groups reconvened, Nadir resumed his seat near Erik’s wall. He had never been to Erik’s part of the building, but he understood that it was vast, and that many parts were soundproof. The remaining singers performed, and when it was done and the lights went out, Erik followed Nadir behind the wall towards his office. 

“None of them are particularly remarkable,” Erik whispered. “You will please inform Reyer that the management expects better selections from him in the future. Someone with a little soul! Do we have a single graduating senior with any talent?”

Nadir shrugged. “They’re all talented, Erik. You were at their auditions when they were younger. You hand selected them.”

“Oh, of course I did,” Erik whispered. “Of course they’re talented. But they’re not—none of them are—”

“None of them are you,” Nadir said.

Erik was silent. It was rare that Nadir was able to make comments even approaching the subject of what Erik had been before without eliciting his wrath. 

“I just want to make beautiful music,” Erik whispered. "It was all for nothing, wasn't it?"

The whisper stopped, and the room was silent. 

For a long time after, Nadir gingerly sat at his own desk, tracing his pen across the list of names. 

All for nothing, the whisper echoed around the room. All for nothing. 

Erik wandered the Maggie that night, the futility of his life pressing in on him. The death, the fire, the music, even-- for what? For this? For silence, for mediocrity, for Nadir to make thinly-veiled comments about what Erik had been before?

He couldn’t bear to step onto the stage again, to play the music his mother had loved, knowing that she was gone, because of him. Because of his face. No, not that. Never. But there was still an ache inside of him, where he was empty, where he was craving. He couldn’t share that music again, but God did he want to. All of the dreams, the applause, the orchestras, the record deals—they had all gone up in smoke as surely as the Campbell building had. And Madeleine was gone. And Erik was empty. 

Trailing his hands along the white and black walls, a distinct feeling of worthlessness delaying him from visiting his mother’s memorial room, Erik was suddenly stopped by the faint sound of singing coming from a seldom-used practice room at the back of the building. Erik walked quietly, glad of the distraction, knowing that this area was not sound-proofed and not wishing to interrupt the singer. As he approached, he pressed his face against the wall, looking into the room. What he heard tore through his heart and stole the breath from his lungs. 

The girl before him continued to sing, and her voice transported him through a whirlwind of memories, a kaleidoscope of colors bursting behind his eyelids as he closed his eyes and rested his forehead against the wall. A sigh parted his lips, his fingers curling into the wall. He could listen to her forever, her clear, warm, rich tones flowing through him like smooth brandy, lifting onto his toes as she reached the crescendo and then falling, falling with her through the octaves, intoxicated by her voice.

His chest still heaving and her last notes dying in the room as she collected her sheet music, Erik opened his eyes to glimpse the embodiment of what he had heard. The girl glanced to her side, once, at the wall behind which he was standing, and Erik’s tranquil feelings suddenly turned sour. 

He had seen this girl only this evening, and she had not sung like this at all. She had sung like a marionette, like a puppet with a bad ventriloquist. What did it mean? She was about to leave, and Erik’s head began to spin. He couldn’t do anything about it. He would never know who she was or why she had hidden her music, never know what dizzying heights she could reach if she just had the right push, the right instruction, the heights he now couldn’t help but hear echoing in his mind, thumping loudly, painfully in his chest. She was going to leave, and he was going to turn away, as he had from all the other students for the last ten years, as he had from all music since the day his mother had died. He was going to turn away. He had to. But that voice—

Her hand turned the doorknob, and he threw himself against the wall.  

“Wait.”  

Chapter Text

Christine was trembling, her eyes darting across the floor, up the walls, over the ceiling. Where had that voice come from? Was she hearing things? It would be fitting now, if she finally went mad.

“Hello?” She asked. “Hel—hello?”

“Come back,” the voice whispered. Christine shivered. 

“I—I don’t—”

“Come back!” 

Christine stumbled over to the piano bench and sat down, clutching her bag to her chest. “Who are you? Where are you?”

“I am everywhere,” the voice said. She heard it to her left, and she turned that way, but suddenly the sound was coming from her right, and then above her, and then behind her. Tears sprung to her eyes. 

“Is this a joke?” Christine began to stand. “Is this—look if you’re trying to scare me before the audition—”

“Sit down, and be quiet!”

Christine fell back into the seat. 

“Who are you?”

“I don’t—I don’t understand.” Christine listened very hard, hoping she could hear something that would give the voice’s location away. What if it was just a janitor, playing a joke? Or one of the boys of the ballet, who loved practical jokes? 

“I heard you sing at the rehearsal and it was clear to me you would never make it past the first cut at the Met,” it said.

Christine’s cheeks burned with shame. She had enough rancor for herself, she didn’t need more from a voice—She stood. “Well if that’s all you thought of me then I will just leave—”

“You will sit down, for the last time, until I am done speaking with you. I have locked the door.” The anger in the voice was terrible, even in a whisper. “Is that very clear?”

Christine nodded, stealing glances at the door. It wasn’t really possible that he had locked it, was it? 

“As I said,” the voice whispered, “your rehearsal was average, at best. They all were. But what I just heard was astounding. Did you know that you could bring the world to its knees?”

Christine’s mouth fell open, forgetting about the door. “I—I couldn’t—me?”

“Yes, you. Don’t you have any control over your voice? What is wrong with you?”

“I—” Christine stuttered into silence, swallowing hard.

“Don’t you care about your music?”

With all her might, she held back tears. Whatever this was, whoever he was, whatever prank he was trying to pull, she was not going to give in. 

“Look, I don’t know what your problem is, but I have to go. Can you yell at someone else?”

“Get off the bench and you’ll regret it.”

“Who are you?” Her eyes were streaming now against her will. “What do you want from me?” 

“I want to know how a girl sings like an overeager middle-schooler one second and a star the next.”

Christine pressed her palms against her eyes and tried to even her breathing. It was a prank. Just a joke. Silly, stupid. The faster she appeased whoever it was, the faster she could leave. It was late, she was tired, and it was frightening to be having a conversation with an angry, whispering room. 

“I never meant to do it on purpose, okay? It’s just easier for me to sing when nobody is around. Then I think about—well, it just helps.” 

“You expect me to believe that of a singer in a voice performance program?”

“What difference could it possibly make to you?”

“All of the difference!”

“I don’t even know who you are, okay?” She tried to inflect her voice with just as much anger. “I don’t owe you anything!”

The voice was silent for a moment. “Tell me your name,” it said. 

“Why should I?”

The room was quiet again, and Christine stood, staring at the walls, her arms crossed protectively over her body. 

Then it said, terribly, horribly, “I remember you. Christine Daaé.”

Breathlessly Christine rushed for the door, heedless that the voice had said it was locked, and pulled, desperately, at the handle, pulled and pulled against the heavy lock, tears flying from the edges of her eyes, until suddenly she heard a click in the door and it gave way. 

She wrenched it open, and looked both ways only to see a completely empty hallway. 

“I am not there,” the voice whispered in her ear. “You will never see me. But I will see you. When you audition at the Met, Christine Daaé, I will be there.”

Christine ran as hard as she could.

Christine sat with Raoul in the closed café in which she worked and where the owner trusted her with the keys to lock up at night. Their last date—or whatever they were calling the few times they had met up—a couple nights before had been really nice, and Christine was lingering behind with him at the café now because she was nervous about her performance tomorrow—and about the terrible voice that would be there, watching her. 

Raoul was talking about his last summer internship at a consulting firm in Chicago, and Christine was only half listening. She was trying to remember as much as she could about the voice. She hadn’t told Meg because she didn’t want to sound crazy, but the voice wouldn’t leave her head. She kept remembering how angry it had sounded, and how it had locked and unlocked the door at will. She was sure she didn’t believe in ghosts, but—

“Christine?” Raoul took her hand, and Christine blinked at him. “You must be so nervous.”

Christine tried to smile at him. She squeezed his hand. “I need to do well at this. It’s the most important audition of my life.”

“I think you’ll be wonderful,” Raoul said. Christine looked away. She had hoped that too, until the voice. It was clear to me you would never make it past the first cut at the Met, it had said. But then-- Did you know that you could bring the world to its knees? Christine shivered.

“Want to go for a walk?” Raoul said. 

“Yes,” Christine said, not realizing that a breath of fresh air was exactly what she needed. It was so strange, to have another person to rely on besides Meg. Christine wasn’t used to it, hadn’t sought it out in the past. There had been other men in her life, but they had been fleeting, a few dates here and there, occasional one-night stands. There was comfort in that arrangement, in the mutual understanding that there were no expectations. She could hide in a relationship like that, hide from herself and what she didn’t want to face.

The fire. The deaths.

Christine took a warm cup of tea to protect her throat from the cold and wrapped her scarf tightly. “You can’t be too careful with voice health,” she said as Raoul watched her. “Especially not the night before a performance.”

Raoul draped his arm around her shoulder as she locked the café doors. They continued down the street towards her apartment, and Christine tried to lose herself in the simple comfort of that embrace.

“I would ask to be there,” Raoul said, “at your performance, if I didn’t have an exam tomorrow.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Christine said. “I’ll have enough listeners as it is.” And one too many. “I appreciate the sentiment.”

Raoul smiled. “Maybe I can celebrate with you afterwards? I should take you out to a proper dinner. No more of this bar stuff.”

Christine smiled back. She had not sought this out in the past, it was true, but something about him and his shy nervousness that first night had made her want to try. 

“I’d really like that.” 

“Great. I’ll pick you up at seven, say?”

Christine nodded, and swung up onto the stoop of her apartment building. She hesitated for a minute, looking into his eyes, wondering if she should invite him in. They had been out a few times already, but he hadn’t done anything more than kiss her on the cheek. It was another thing she liked about him. And every time he smiled her heart jerked a little.

Raoul cleared his throat and looked away, and Christine, bolder than she usually was, took a step towards the street and placed her gloved hand on his cheek. 

“Seven sounds great,” she said. She wasn’t good at this, though. She was blushing under her wind-reddened cheeks. She was trying to look at him from underneath her eyelashes and she felt ridiculous. 

But Raoul was smooth. He pressed his hand against hers and held it against his cheek. He stepped up to be level with her and then took her chin in his hand and slowly pressed his lips against hers. 

“Goodnight, Christine,” he said. Christine’s heart beat slowly as she watched him release her hand, and then smile and turn away into the night. She ran upstairs, hardly concealing a squeal, not remembering having felt this light in years.

The first few bars of Juliet’s waltz from Gounod’s Romeo and Juliet filled the great auditorium of the Metropolitan Opera House, and Christine closed her eyes, willing herself to sing like her father had always taught her. Sing for the angels, he had said. Sing for heaven.

Christine opened her mouth. 

“Je veux vivre

Dans le rêve qui m’enivre

Ce jour encore!

Douce flamme, 

Je te garde dans mon âme

Comme un trésor!”

If her crystal coloratura faltered during the performance, it was because she was having passing memories of the voice in the practice room. Christine stepped forward and stretched out her arms, her eyes still closed, feeling the embrace of her father and sound of his violin. She was reaching towards him, seeing him in the light—there he was— Papa!

The song ended. Christine opened her eyes. Her heart was beating out of control and tears had sprung onto her cheeks. She felt faint. People were speaking to her but she couldn’t hear them over the buzzing in her ears. She began to feel her eyes roll back in her forehead. And then suddenly, a voice was right in her ear. 

“Bravo, Christine Daaé,” the whisper said. Christine immediately regained her faculties. She whipped around, looking for the source of the voice. But there was only Mr. Reyer, beckoning her to leave the stage, a bemused expression on his face. Christine confusedly bowed to the judges, who were calling for the next singer, and then quickly walked backstage.

“Were you trying to act, too?” Mr. Reyer asked under his breath. He gave Olivia Bell a little push onto the stage, and then glanced back at Christine. “You did well,” he said. “Better than I’ve ever heard you.”

Christine smiled, but she was still incredibly alert. The voice was here. It was watching her. How was it omnipotent both at Maggie and at the Met? Was she truly going crazy? As nervous as she was, she did not hear from the voice for the rest of the day, and she left the Met feeling excited for her date with Raoul and hoping that the voice would never speak to her again. She didn’t let herself feel the excitement of having done well until she was safely in Raoul’s arms.

Erik returned to his storage closet to wait for nightfall. He stared into the darkness, frowning. His students had done well, overall, and he was hopeful that the Met would call back at least one of his tenors. As for Christine Daaé…

The girl had no control of her instrument. What he had heard at her first dress rehearsal was average talent shaped by years of excellent training at the Maggie. Later he had heard the true magnificence of her voice. Tonight, he had listened to a painful internal struggle. The whole aria was marred by her constantly jumping between the mediocre and the tremendous, by her clear inability to understand her own voice. 

It frustrated him. He knew what it felt like to be called by true music. He had spent the first twenty years of his life being lost in its heavenly grip. Music meant everything to him. It was the only way he understood how to live. This girl, this Christine—she wasn’t allowing herself to hear her own potential. 

Erik knew she could be great. Greater perhaps than even he had been. All he wanted was to give music back to world. Would it be so bad to speak to her once more? To guide her on her way to the stage?

Christine and Meg walked up the stairs towards the cafeteria after their morning classes. Meg was still ecstatic about her official date with Raoul, and Christine couldn’t help smiling every time she thought about it. And her audition! The further away she got from that day and the voice, the more she thought she had really done well. That maybe she really had a chance. 

Meg was chattering about her mother’s upcoming visit to the city as they took wrapped sandwiches from the serving line. Christine had always liked Mrs. Giry, and looked forward to seeing her again.

“Mom is going to need a place to stay for graduation, too,” Meg said. “Would you mind if she stayed with us? It’s just too expensive to get a room in the city that time of year. All the schools are graduating.”

Christine nodded, her warm feelings slowly sinking into her stomach. She had begun to unwrap her sandwich and now stopped, staring at it. Graduation was much sooner than she would like. Only a few months, really. The Maggie had been the first place she had come into her own, the first place she had felt alive, and real, and important, since her father had died. She couldn’t imagine life without it. If she didn’t make it on the stage in the first few years after she graduated, she didn’t know what she was going to do. There was nobody waiting for her out in the world. 

Christine wanted to pretend that she would never have to leave. She wanted to pretend that she wasn’t graduating soon. That she could stay at the Maggie forever.

“When do you think they’ll call back?” Meg asked.

“Oh,” Christine said, finally biting into her sandwich. “You’re assuming they will.”

“You know they will. I saw it on your face when you came back that night. Late, that is.” Meg blinked innocently at her, and Christine blushed.

“So, fair little Christine had some loving, did she?” 

“Oh, Meg, hush—” Christine looked around to make sure no one was listening to them. “It wasn’t like that. He just took me out to dinner.”

“Sure he did,” Meg said.

“I’m serious! Trust me, Meg, you’d know if anything like that happened.”

Meg leaned forward. “Just tell me there was more kissing,” she said.

“There was a little bit more of that, yeah.”

“Score!” Meg held her arms above her head. “Christine, I am so happy for you. Everything is finally happening.” 

A wave of gut-wrenching dread filled her. What if it all goes away? Christine closed her eyes at the pain as fear floated free and tight in her chest. She would not let this overtake her. She would not let it win. “I know,” she said, her eyes glistening with tears from her effort. “Everything is happening, isn’t it?”

Christine was supposed to have met Raoul that night, but she never did, and the next afternoon, she sent him a confused but apologetic text. She couldn’t explain to him what had happened, because he would never believe her. It was too strange, too fantastical. And it had made her want to go straight back to her apartment and speak to no one for the rest of the night.

She had been walking through the back music rooms, picking up stray pieces of sheet music that had been left around, a favor she often did for Mrs. Valerius, a kind old violin teacher. She had collected a hefty stack of papers before she dropped them all in terror.

“Christine.” The damned whisper was everywhere! Christine felt like it was coming at her from all angles. “Christine.” The voice breathed her name and Christine began to shake. 

“Wh—what is it? What do you want? I did what you asked!”

“Yes, you tried,” the voice said.

“Then will you please, please, leave me alone?”

“No,” the whisper said. “I can’t. I couldn’t.” 

Christine dropped her head into her hands and rubbed her eyes. “What do you want from me?” 

“I want to teach you.”

Christine tensed. “You want to—what?”

“I want to teach you. I told you before that you could have the world on a silver platter. You could, Christine. You have the most astonishing voice.”

Christine let her hands fall from her face. “Really?” She hated to sound so vulnerable, so eager, to this voice that she considered a bully, but she couldn’t help it. She wanted to be great. For her father.

“Yes,” the voice said. “Oh, yes.”

“But what do you mean, teach me? How?”

“Right here in the Maggie. I will take over your personal lessons from Mr. Mercier. I have seen your files; I know where you are up to in your studies.”

“How—how could you possibly know that?”

“How am I here, and also at the Met?”

Christine swallowed against a dry throat, all pretenses of normal forgotten.

“Are you a ghost?”

“No. And neither are you. Let me teach you.”

“Why me?” It was a question she had often asked herself in life. Why had she survived the Campbell fire, when so many people hadn’t? Why was she worthy of something great, when all those people were dead? When her father was dead? 

“Because your soul belongs to music. All I ask is that you give that soul, and I will give you the heart of the world.”

Christine hung her head. “I don’t—” She was answering her own question. “I don’t deserve that—”

“Of course you do. You were born for it. I have heard every singer who passed under this roof and not a single one could hold a candle to you. You are a diamond, Christine. I only need to chip away a bit at the rough earth that is holding you back.”

Christine looked around at the empty room. “Am I going crazy?” She whispered. It felt odd to be on the same speaking plane as the voice. It felt as though whispers belonged exclusively to it.

“No, you are not. I am perfectly real.” The voice paused. “My name is Erik, and I will be your teacher. Say yes. Say you’ll dedicate yourself to the music. You won’t be sorry.”

Christine closed her eyes. It was crazy, no matter what the disembodied voice named Erik thought. But then she began to nod her head. “I’ll do it. Teach me.”

Chapter Text

Nadir was finishing up paperwork for the night. He had contracts to draft for the students who planned to come back in the fall, and he slipped those under a stack of paychecks and personnel folders he needed to square away before they filed for taxes in the spring. Tabbing through screens on his computer, he approved online time cards on the school’s employee page. This was what his life was now—paperwork, emails, phone calls. But it paid the bills. And he was safe from those he had crossed in Los Angeles. Nadir started several web browsers to check different email accounts, and then he logged on to a secure IP address and opened a new tab. He didn’t think that Erik paid much attention to what he did, but then again, he was never sure.

Reporters were sniffing around in Los Angeles again, everyone wanting a ten-year anniversary look at the Campbell fire and the cold case for the culprit. Nadir had once found it mentioned on a podcast about unsolved mysteries. While searching the various news reports, tabloids, and other blogs, he found himself, as always, searching the internet about Erik himself. Something about imagining his life before was fascinating to Nadir, especially when he was tired, especially when it was late.

There wasn’t much written about him, usually just the basics—there had been a pianist named Erik, whom no one saw. He had come upon the world’s stage in 1993 and had been able to play absolutely anything with the most wrenching of emotions. He had traveled to distant countries and accompanied the most famous of musicians. Once, in 2004, months before his final appearance in Philadelphia, he had performed at the Royal Albert Hall in London. It had been an original composition of his, City of Angels, and the crowd went crazy. Erik’s music was so profound, the critics had said the next day, that it was clear from this very first piece that the world had never seen an artist like him. There was talk of putting the manuscript in a time capsule. Of sending it into space. It was to be preserved for all time.

But of course, Erik had pulled it from general circulation soon after the fire. And then there was the last thing mentioned in most biographies—that the pianist named Erik had a manager and benefactor named William Campbell, and that the music had stopped forever after Campbell had been killed in an explosion in his own building. 

Nadir had very little understanding of what happened between Erik and William Campbell. All the boy had ever said was that Campbell had taken something from him. Having had his own reasons for revenge against the real estate tycoon, Nadir had never pressed the issue, and Erik had never mentioned it again in the years afterwards. His life now was comfortable, it was true. Bills and emails and HR and meetings. But if he could have gone back in time to the day that teenager had walked into his makeshift office with the blueprints to Campbell’s office, he wondered if he would have made a different choice. He wondered if it would have made a difference.

Christine sat in her bedroom, applying eyeliner in front of her mirror. Thoughts were running like wildfire through her head and she was hoping that focusing on the makeup would distract her. There were so many ugly things she didn’t want to face.

“Christine?” Meg knocked and then slipped into Christine’s room. Christine looked at her in the mirror with one eye closed and the pencil poised near her nose. “You look pretty,” Meg said.

Christine continued to apply the makeup, and Meg lingered at the door. “I got asked out by a guy at the bookstore today,” Meg said.

“Mmm?” Christine’s eyebrows shot up as she painted on lipstick. “What guy?” She smacked her lips together once, and then a bitter pull in her chest made her look away from the mirror. 

Meg fiddled with her hands. “I don’t know a lot about him,” she said. “He seemed nice. Do you think I should meet him?”

“Where was the date supposed to be?” Christine sifted through her jewelry box to find something that matched her outfit. 

“Starbucks,” Meg said. “In an hour.”

Christine shrugged. “It’s a public place. Presumably he won’t try to abduct you in the middle of the city.”

Meg laughed. “I know, I know.” She came up behind Christine and held up a pair of dangling earrings that matched Christine’s blue eyes. “He was so sweet to me. I wonder if it’s too good to be true, you know?”

Christine threaded the earrings through her ears with a look of thanks. “I don’t see how meeting him one time can be a bad thing. Sometimes we just need to take a leap into things, right?” Things like taking lessons from disembodied voices.

“I guess so.” Meg’s eyes looked pained for a moment, and then she brightened. “Promise me we’ll have girl’s night later,” she said. She took Christine’s hand, and Christine laughed. “After your date you can come back home and we’ll dish about everything, deal?”

“Fine,” Christine said, smiling. “But I have one other condition. Bring the ice cream.”

Meg squeezed Christine’s hands, and then across the hallway to shower. Christine, shaking her head, shrugged on her coat and wrapped her scarf tightly around her throat. Sometimes it was hard to live with Meg, to be around anyone, really, who balked at minor problems. Who didn’t appreciate what they had. 

Moving quickly, she left the apartment and locked the door behind her. It was never good to dwell on it, never good to watch a group of girls cry over a test when she had cried over the singed remains of her life at the tender age of ten. It wasn’t Meg’s fault that she hadn’t suffered, wasn’t her fault that she didn’t understand what it was like to be one of the only people to walk out of a fire, alive. Didn’t know what it was like to imagine all those faces, all of those people, staring at her. Wondering why it had been her, and not them. 

Christine shivered as she burst outside into the biting winter air. It was better, to be cold. Better to be in pain. Then she didn’t have to feel guilty for living. 

Raoul met her a few blocks down, and they walked together towards the restaurant where he had made a reservation. He took one of her hands in his and stuffed them both in his pocket, and Christine didn’t say anything. Her mind was elsewhere. The towering buildings in the city sometimes distracted her. So many thoughts running around her mind, like a phonograph stuck in a groove. Sometimes when she got like this she couldn’t sleep because her brain was whirring so quickly, saying so many things to her at once. Sometimes when she got like this she couldn’t do the most basic thing without feeling like she deserved to die. Put on lipstick; take a bite of a muffin. She deserved none of it. It was like a snake, starting in her stomach and reaching up through her chest, a terrible pain that was worse than dying. It was surviving.

After the fire, after she and her father had stood on the curb and watched their apartment burn to a crisp before their eyes, after they had moved in with Gustave’s sister, and then his friend from work, and then eventually into transitional housing, Christine had held onto her father like a lifeline. They had lost everything they had owned, everything they had known, except each other. And every time they had to move again, whether it was because of the black mold in the air conditioning unit or the drunk and abusive husband across the paper-thin walls, they had still always, always had each other. When she was lost, when she was cold, when she had nightmares because she couldn’t see her hand before her eyes or breathe because of the phantom smoke, when she cried, and cried, and cried, her father had always been there.

Until one day, he fell over and died. Just like that.

Her father’s sister took her in for as long as it took to get her shipped off to New York, and then it was all over. At twelve years old, she was stranded, orphaned, boarding in a new state in a new school with people she had never seen before, no matter that they were musical, no matter that they were kind. 

She was alone. And she had been ever since.

They entered the warm restaurant and Christine sat by the window, her strawberry blond hair glistening underneath her knit woolen hat. She brushed her hands over her freezing cheeks, thinking about the voice. Erik. Christine knew, logically, that the voice belonged to a man, and he had told her himself that he had a name. But it still seemed so weird. He was just a voice. She had vaguely wondered if this disembodied whisper had something to do with the recluse owner of the Maggie. But then why was he deigning to finally come and speak to someone—her?

Christine tuned in as Raoul talked about his classes. He was very pretty—she just enjoyed looking at him, watching the light fall on his cheeks, watching his eyelashes. His skin was nearly as pale as hers, his hair a shade blonder, and his eyes a shade bluer, and Christine liked it. He looked like a cherub, filled with innocence and laughter.

Raoul looked over at her plate. “You’re not eating anything.”

Christine started and looked down at her plate, too. “I didn’t think about it,” she said after a moment. She poked her fork at the plate, not realizing that she hadn’t been hungry for hours. “Sorry.”

“Hey—” Raoul pressed his hand against her, and Christine smiled despite the twinge in her chest. “You feeling okay?”

Christine shrugged. “You were talking about your family. I liked that. Tell me more?”

Raoul smiled at her, although his eyes were still crinkled in concern. “I have two sisters,” he said. “And a brother. All older. I’m the baby by nearly ten years.”

“Meg is like my sister,” Christine said, swirling her fork around with her finger. “Meg keeps me sane.” Christine feigned laughter. “And she’s such a beautiful dancer.”

“I’d like to meet her,” Raoul said. “You know my brother is actually coming down to the city in a few weeks. Maybe you’d like to meet him?”

Christine blinked, and then smiled. “That’s so nice of you to offer. I’m sure it would be nice.” She felt a little out of touch with the conversation. It wasn’t like she didn’t know what it was to have family—she had had a father for eleven years, and for three years she had even had a mother. But it all seemed so far in the past, and her father’s memory was encased in grief. She reached for something more familiar. “Do you enjoy music, Raoul?” 

Raoul’s big blue eyes crinkled at the edges when he smiled, Christine noticed. “I like music—who doesn’t like music? It’s the soundtrack to life, isn’t it?”

“What sort of music, though? Have you ever been to the opera?”

“Like the Met, you mean?” He picked at the last of his dinner and Christine felt guilty for hardly finishing any of hers. “I’ve never really been into opera, no. It’s not something that people our age are really into, is it? I mean—well obviously you sing opera, but it’s different—”

“Opera is the most amazing kind of music,” she interrupted. “It’s pageantry, and it’s soul, and it’s love and tragedy—opera is acting and singing and really feeling. I’ve never experienced anything like it.” 

“I—I never really thought about it.”

Christine leaned forward, her eyes glistening, her heart beginning to pound. She closed a hand over Raoul’s in excitement. “Opera,” she said, “it transports me. Have you ever heard a real tenor sing in Faust? It’s—it’s—there’s nothing like it. Raoul—” Christine squeezed his hand. She didn’t know what else she could say. “You have to see at least one opera. Promise me you will.”

“I will,” he said. He smiled at her. “Any opera you like. Tell me and we’ll get tickets.”

“All right,” she said. She leaned back in her chair. She didn’t know what she expected—Raoul was right, opera wasn’t regularly attracting college students.

“They’re playing Falstaff in the next two weeks, I think.” Christine said. “Monday and Friday evenings. Are you available then? I think you’d enjoy it.”

Raoul paid for the check and then took Christine walking down by the Hudson for a bit, but the wind was so biting that it began to hurt her cheeks. Grabbing her around the middle, he swirled her away from the railing, and Christine shouted with surprised laughter. Together they walked down the street, he securing his arm behind her back as he pressed his scarf-covered face into her knit winter hat, and Christine smiling as tears leaked out of her eyes from the cold. 

When they reached her apartment building, Raoul pulled down his scarf and kissed Christine on the forehead. 

“I’ll find those tickets for us,” he said. “Tell me I can see you again this week.”

“Of course you can,” Christine said. “This has all been so wonderful.”

“It will only get better,” he said. Christine laughed, but it was tinged with dismay. This was the second time in the space of a few days that someone had said something like that to her—was it a bad omen? Would everything turn to dust if she tried to embrace this happiness? Christine stepped forward and hugged Raoul as hard as she could. I am in control of my own life. “Let’s go upstairs,” she said on an impulse. Raoul muttered something that she didn’t hear, and Christine pulled him along into the complex. Once they were in the elevator, she pushed him back into the wall and kissed him. It was an escape, and Raoul was warm and willing, and he pressed her even closer to him. 

The sweep of first love in a new relationship was intoxicating, and she flounced against walls and pulled him into shadows to steal a kiss before running ahead again. When they reached her apartment, Christine dragged him inside to kiss him again, but Raoul’s hands fell on her shoulders and pushed back as the door closed behind them.

“Slow down there, kitten,” he said. He pushed some hair behind her ear. Christine giggled a bit, and then dropped her arms, suddenly feeling awkward. Her head felt light from the kisses. 

She plucked at his sleeves. “Well—we could at least sit in my room, couldn’t we?”

“Of course,” Raoul said. He put an arm around her shoulder and held her close, and Christine sighed. She sat on her bed and gestured for him to sit next to her, and then she nestled herself into his arms, resting her head on his chest. 

They talked for hours, about trips Raoul had taken with his family, places he had seen, parts Christine had sung in small theatres, and adventures she and Meg had gone on during their summers off. Around one in the morning they drifted off into comfortable silence, Christine sliding her fingers up and down the row of buttons on Raoul’s shirt. 

“What are you going to do, Raoul?” She asked. “After you graduate?”

“Jobs. Consulting. I already did a bunch of interviews in December. But I guess I didn’t know you then.” He kissed her hair. 

“But you’ll have to graduate,” she said.

“Yes.”

“And leave school.”

“Well—yes. But I’m done with school. I’ve been done since last semester, think. Senioritis and all that, you know?”

Christine nodded without thinking about his question. She held onto him more tightly. 

“I’ve never really done this before.”

“What?” Raoul asked. “Cuddling?”

“No, I mean—this. I don’t know how to be a good girlfriend.”

“You’re doing great,” Raoul whispered. Christine shivered. Whispers were weird to her now.

“I have this—new voice teacher,” she said. She didn’t know exactly how to explain it to him, but it felt good to tell someone. 

“Yeah? Is that a good thing?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know anything about him. But we have our first lesson tomorrow. I’m nervous.”

Raoul let his hand drift from her shoulder and down her arm towards her hand. “Are voice teachers supposed to make you nervous?  I wouldn’t know.” He played with each of her fingers, and Christine closed her eyes. Being held, feeling secure—it was blissful, and the lateness and stillness of the hour seemed to surround them in its own kind of embrace. 

“It was just strange the way it all happened,” Christine said after a minute. It made her wonder why she was going along with this ludicrous plan. Clearly the man who was speaking to her—Erik—was hiding behind a wall or a door. Tomorrow she would demand that he show himself and explain, even if he was the owner of the Maggie. She wouldn’t be played for a fool, not with something as important as her music. 

“Raoul,” she said.

“Yes.”

“I have to tell you—sometimes I can get really moody. And sad for no reason. I—I just want you know that. I’m not easy to deal with, not really—”

“Quiet,” he said. “Let me find you out for myself, all right?”

“I guess.” She twisted in his arms and pressed her lips against his. 

“Is it too fast?” He whispered against her cheek.

“What?” She asked, flushing. 

“You said you haven’t been in a lot of relationships,” he said. “We’ve only been seeing each other for a couple of weeks. Is this too fast?”

“No,” Christine said. “I don’t know—this feels nice.”

Raoul nodded, and then kissed her cheek again. “I saw you in that café for at least a month before I talked to you.”

“Really? Why didn’t you say anything?”

Raoul shrugged. “I broke up with someone in the fall. It kind of hurt and I—I don’t know. I wanted to wait, I guess. And then I was nervous, too.”

Christine smiled. “I guess we’ll be nervous together, then.” She kissed his neck. “I’m glad you talked to me.”

Raoul made a soft noise, and Christine leaned up to kiss him again, but pulled back when she heard the front door to the apartment open and close.

“Meg,” she said, suddenly remembering the girl’s night they had planned. Christine quickly stood, put her ear to the door and heard Meg shuffling things around in the kitchen. She glanced back at Raoul, who had sat up and was scrolling through his phone.

“I should probably get back anyway,” he said. 

“Right,” she said. “Just—” Christine reached out her hand to straighten the wrinkles in his shirt.

Raoul grinned at her. “We look like we just had a wild night, don’t we?” 

“What—no, we don’t. Why would you—oh—”

Raoul hugged her close to him and kissed her again, one last time, running his fingers through her hair. 

“Goodnight, Christine,” he said. She blinked and then he pulled open her door, nodded quickly to Meg, whose mouth fell open, and left the apartment.

Christine was standing in the doorway, blushing like crazy, and Meg stared at her for a full minute before tilting her head back and laughing.

“Oh, Christine,” she said. “You look like you got caught with murder.”

Christine began to laugh a little as well, although she was starting to feel dizzy again. There were so many emotions when she wasn’t locked up in her room by herself, so many things to feel and think, whirring around her mind. How did normal people deal with it all? She put a hand to her forehead and leaned against the doorframe.

“Don’t worry,” Meg said. “You can go to bed. But tomorrow night we’re having our girl’s night, okay?”

Christine nodded. She turned off the lights and slipped under her covers, imagining Raoul still being there beside her. The thought gave her heart a jump and a thrill. She turned on her side. She had tried to tell him a little of the constant undercurrent of heartache in her life. There were so many other things he’d need to know too—about the fire, about her father, his death, her duty towards his memory and his music. Hopefully in time he’d come to understand her. That was all she wanted, she thought as she fell asleep. For someone to understand.

Erik had dragged one of his pianos as close to the wall as possible, and had then spent the early morning hours drilling holes and testing out the acoustic possibilities of playing accompaniment and teaching voice from behind a wall. Ideally, it made no sense to play behind a wall. Ideally he should be sitting there at the main piano in the practice room, being able to clearly see her and hear her. But could she be trusted? Erik knew so little of people. 

He had no idea what to expect of her in these lessons. Would she go to the police, perhaps, and never come to her lessons, assuming that he was a madman? Would she tell someone like Mercier or Reyer that she thought a deranged man was teaching her voice from beyond the pale? No doubt she’d sound absurd, but he also didn’t need people trying to find their way into his side of the building. It would be easier if he could just manipulate her with his voice, but of course that was out of the question.

In the end, he had set up the piano behind the wall, but he had also set up a little test for her. 

When Christine entered the practice room late that afternoon, she saw that there was a large screen set up in the center of the room, blocking the piano from view. She put her bags down and shrugged off her coat. After several seconds of silence, she tentatively called into the air.

“Good afternoon to you as well, Christine.”

Christine jumped a little, and put a hand to her chest to calm her heart. She had told herself she would be strong and demand for this situation to be resolved into something more normal. The whisper came from directly behind the screen, and Christine slowly approached it.

“As I mentioned previously,” the voice whispered, “I know exactly where you left off with Mercier. We need no preamble. Let us begin with scales, yes?”

Christine stopped just short of the screen. “Wait,” she said. She swallowed hard. “I’m not ready to start yet.”

“Oh?” The whisper had an edge of mockery to it. “Not ready? Why?”

Christine shook her head. “Can’t you just—can’t you just—I mean are you really crazy? This is crazy!” 

The whisper seemed to laugh at her, and Christine knew the sound was coming from behind the screen. She marched directly up to it. 

“Come out from behind there,” she said. “This is stupid. I can’t take lessons from a person I can’t even see. I don’t know why you needed to trick me like this but I don’t care. Just come out of there or else I’m leaving.”

“I can give you everything you want,” the voice whispered. “Without me you will be nothing.”

“I don’t believe anything you’re telling me,” Christine said. “How could you expect me to believe things said by a disembodied voice?”

There was a significant pause before the voice began again.

“Let me make a deal with you, then. I tell you I am a real person who sits at this piano bench. But I also never want to be seen. Concealing my identity is very important to me.”

Christine hesitated. The voice was so close to her, just behind the screen. She knew she could sneak a peek at him if she could just get him distracted.

“How do I know you’re not just some crazy who wandered in off the streets?”

“I was at your audition, wasn’t I? And at the Met.”

Christine stared hard at the blank screen. This was all just so strange.

“Can we begin with scales now?”

“Sure.” Christine shrugged. Maybe the scales would distract him enough so that she could sneak a glance at him? Just one glance would be enough to reassure her that she wasn’t locked in solitary confinement in an insane asylum somewhere, imagining all of this.

“Please remember that I don’t want to be seen. You’ll hear me fine enough from over there and I will hear you. After all, the most important thing is your voice and your music, isn’t it?”

Christine mumbled something, and then the voice ceased and short scales began. She sang cautiously, moving as slowly as possible towards the screen. The piano music moved precisely along with her voice, and she tried not to let her tremors of nerves show in her voice. There was a short break and Christine fell back a step, but then began another set of scales, and Christine moved forward. As quietly as she could, she slipped one hand around the edge of the screen and peered around it to the other side.

The music stopped abruptly, and Christine gasped. She was looking at an empty piano bench, and suddenly the voice launched forth at her from across the room.

“You seem to have misunderstood the meaning of privacy!” But there was nobody at the bench! Christine shivered, and she jumped out from behind the screen to see the rest of the room. Empty! Christine wrapped her arms around herself.

“Please—you’re scaring me—”

“Am I?” Christine jumped and turned. It was coming from the screen again, but she could clearly see both in front of and behind it, and no one was there.

“Where are you? Please tell me where you are. Can’t you see that I just want this to be normal?”

“I have told you multiple times that my privacy is of the utmost importance. You have shown that you cannot be trusted.”

“I’m sorry,” Christine said. “Please try to understand how strange this is for me.”

“It doesn’t matter,” the voice said after a moment, now resting on her shoulder. “This is what I expected. Please resume your place in the middle of the room, and we will continue with the lesson.”

“So I won’t—ever see you? I don’t think I can learn like this. Not with your voice coming from all different sides of the room like that.”

“My voice will reside on top of the piano, if that gives you comfort. Come, Christine—try to break out of your little shell. Music is all that really matters. In the end, when you are a leading soprano, will it matter to you whether or not you were able to see your teacher?”

Christine swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry. She absentmindedly reached into her bag for her water bottle. Of course, the voice was putting her right back where she had been when it first approached her and asked to teach her. Back in the place of sheer wanting, of yearning for success, applause, fame. Music. 

“Can that really happen for me?” 

“Yes. I have already told you, yes. You will be the greatest singer the world has ever seen. You will be—music itself. Beautiful music.”

“Okay,” she said. “I—I’m sorry I tried to see. I suppose you’re right about it not mattering if I see you or not. I just—well, you can understand this is a little weird, can’t you?”

The voice was silent. Christine laughed nervously. “I guess I’ll get used to it?” 

“Sing,” the voice said.

Chapter Text

Of course it was all ventriloquism, Christine knew that. She knew that was how the voice flew from one side of the room to the other when she annoyed it. But it was still so effective, and it was still so jarring, that it constantly made her jump. The voice— Erik, she told herself, although she had never called him that and he had never asked her to do so over the weeks since they had begun their daily lessons. Erik, she had to say to herself continuously, to remember that he wasn’t a ghost, but simply a man who didn’t want to be seen. Erik. Erik Erik Erik. 

Once she had gotten over her initial fear and skepticism of taking lessons from a voice, things had started to go more smoothly. The voice was always still a whisper, but Christine assumed that somehow that too figured into his grand plan to conceal his identity. It didn’t matter, and she didn’t care anymore. She could already hear slight improvements in her own voice, and it excited her. 

Over those first weeks she learned an incredible amount from him, and it seemed to her that her entire life was consumed by the music. She went to her other classes of course, and saw Raoul and Meg, but nothing seemed real unless she was singing with the voice in the afternoon. Singing had always been her outlet, the only time she really allowed herself to live. And the voice—Erik, she supposed—allowed that life to come to full fruition. 

And the voice was so talented! If Christine had had doubts as to his abilities at the beginning—of course she had, it was a headless talking thing, after all—she no longer had any now. His knowledge of music was so thorough and so complete, and his piano accompaniment was so perfect and well-tuned to her voice, that she knew he had to be some sort of musical genius. Who he really was, and why he was hiding inside of the school—well, that she chose to put aside, for now.

Outside of the moments in which she was wrapped in the bliss of singing, the lessons weren’t exactly comfortable. That eerie whisper constantly snaked its way into her dreams, and although she always looked forward to the ecstasy of singing, she never looked forward to that small, empty room. It was lonely, and it only served to remind her how alone she had felt for so long. The voice wasn’t particularly kind or compassionate; it seemed only to care for her voice and her music, and while Christine appreciated that, the isolation of that room drove her into Raoul’s arms more frequently and with more urgency. Bringing up this music forced her to face things she wasn’t ready to deal with, and Raoul was always there to make her forget.

“I still haven’t heard anything from the Met,” she said, as she and Raoul and Meg sat in a Starbucks one evening. Meg was waiting for her new boyfriend Nathan to pick her up, and Christine and Raoul were waiting with her before going out to catch a movie. “But Meg—” Christine grasped her hand and smiled. “I’m so thrilled your audition at the ballet went well.”

“Thanks,” Meg said, her face flushing. Raoul smiled encouragingly at her. “It was just so amazing. I can’t even believe the Maggie wanted me to audition. Me!”

“You’re both so talented,” Raoul said. “Nobody at school is like you guys.”

“You know plenty of talented people,” Christine said. “Your roommate—the one with the black hair, what’s his name?—he’s so good at tennis!”

“Yeah but he’s going into finance like me. I mean you guys are really passionate about something. You guys really have a thing, you know? Something to live for.”

Christine’s smiled slipped a little, and she popped the top off her drink and took a long swig. 

But Meg was still smiling. “I think about this a lot,” she said. “What would I be without my pointe shoes? But there is more to life than that, there has to be. Because eventually I won’t be able to dance anymore. And I’ll still be a person. I’ll still matter.”

Christine shifted on her seat. It wasn’t that she disagreed. No—for Meg, there would be something more. For Meg, the world could still matter when it was all over. For Christine it wouldn’t be that way. She shuddered to even consider what would happen if she didn’t have her voice. There would be— nothing. There would be utter silence, even in her mind. And Christine knew she would go completely insane.

Raoul and Meg were still talking in the background of her thoughts.

“Sometimes I feel lost,” Raoul was saying, “because I don’t have this crazy passion like you guys do. I mean there are things I like to do. I like to play tennis and soccer and I love movies a lot. But I’m not a film major. I’m not a crazed movie buff. I’m just—regular, I don’t know. I wish I could be passionate like you are.”

Christine settled a hand over his. “You’re wonderful just the way you are, Raoul. You don’t want to be like us. Being an artist is painful. It keeps you up at night; it claws at your mind. You don’t want that. You’re lucky.”

Christine felt Meg’s eyes trained on her, but she ignored them, savoring the warmth of Raoul’s expression. She wasn’t very forthcoming about her art, and she knew Meg had always been a little curious.

“It’s enjoyable though, too,” Meg said a few moments later. There was nearly uncomfortable silence at the table before the door opened and all three turned to look at Nathan, whose cheeks were bright red from cold where they stuck out under his scarf. Meg laughed and slid off the seat, swinging one arm around him. The couple waved towards Raoul and Christine, and then they were off into the night.

“We should get going towards the theater,” Raoul said. “I like to see the previews.”

“Of course,” Christine said. She wrapped her scarf and slipped on her hat. Raoul was watching her curiously as they made their way towards the subway. 

“Is that how you feel about singing?” He asked. “It keeps you up at night?”

Christine blushed. Underground it was unreasonably warm and Christine started to sweat in her coat, but it was too short of a ride to deal with the hassle of taking everything off and carrying it. “I don’t know. I don’t think I said it right. It’s complicated. But I don’t think I’d wish it on you. You’re so calm and normal. I’m—not.”

Raoul slid his arms around her and gently gripped her waist. Christine smiled and Raoul kissed her ear.

“There’s nothing wrong with you,” he said. “You’re wonderful, too.”

The train arrived, and Christine stepped out of his arms and into the car. It was nice, really, to hear someone say the words. But she knew that they weren’t true. She wasn’t even trying to be dramatic—it just wasn’t true. She wasn’t normal. 

At The Maggie, Erik was sitting at his piano, staring at the keys. The building was completely silent. He had gone from room to room, walking back and forth, not knowing what he was looking for, but feeling disappointed when he didn’t find it. He had come back to the piano with a distressed feeling lodged in his chest, one he couldn’t expunge. And now that he was sitting at the bench with his hands clenched uselessly on top of the instrument, that feeling began to turn into one of frenzied panic. The first night after he had heard Christine sing, he had felt like he was soaring, like he could finally compose again, but he had been too afraid to try, too afraid of this exact situation, too afraid to face this—the truth, the silence. 

Erik lurched from the piano further into his bedroom, but everything in there was hung with black, and he felt like the walls were closing in on him. On the far side of the room was a series of mannequin heads, each with a delicate and intricately designed face pressed into them, complete with fake noses and wigs. The early designs had been made of rubber, but later Erik had discovered other synthetic materials which both felt better on his face and allowed for more range of human expression. Despite that, he doubted that he ever could have gotten away with wearing them if it hadn’t been for his voice, which had bewitched people away from the oddness of his face. Erik hadn’t spent time truly examining the masks in a while, and now, urged on by the adrenaline running through his veins, he approached and lifted one of the masks from the mannequin. It drooped in his hands, a truly macabre mockery of a human face. He ran his thumbs over its cheeks, remembering how much his mother had hated the idea of masks.

 Pressing the mask against his face, he tried to remember what it had been like in Las Vegas, but the memories were all blurred. There had been a lot of smoke, and one girl who always liked to touch his fingers. Long and slender, she had said. Something about that had excited her. Erik couldn’t remember.

Terrible music had erupted from him in Las Vegas. Vengeful, dark, hateful music. He remembered that during his last weeks there he had walked around like a man with his eyes cut out, bumping into walls, not being able to ground himself in reality as that poisonous music pounded inside his skull. But at least he had had music, then. In the nitty gritty of teaching Christine every day he had not found his inspiration, had not found himself again. For how many more lessons, how many more weeks, years, could he go on like his?

He laid down on his bed, the mask falling from his fingertips, eyes unfocused on the ceiling. He had nothing. His soul was empty. But he found that if he concentrated hard enough, he could just hear the tail end of a sustained E over high C, and for some reason the thought calmed him.

It was nearly a week later, and Christine was sweating, trying to control the notes bursting from her throat.

“Christine, please stop. You will crack the windows.”

“Well I’m sorry my teacher can’t teach me better!”

There was silence in the room for a long second, and then Christine squeezed the bridge of her nose and closed her eyes.

“I didn’t mean that,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

“There is no time for your tantrums,” the voice said. “There is only music.”

“I’m trying.” Christine took a deep breath. She was so tired from the week and so exhausted from her own crazy emotions. She just wanted a bit of peace.

“It’s not a matter of trying and not trying,” the voice whispered. “It is just—music. Just music. Do you understand?”

“No,” Christine said miserably. She sat on a nearby chair and let her face fall into her hands. “I don’t understand. I’m sorry.”

There was an audible sigh, and Christine imagined the voice—Erik—taking on a defeated position similar to her own. 

She rubbed her eyes again, trying to block out the infuriating whisper. This week had been hell, the tenth anniversary of the Campbell Building fire all over TV, the same horrifying, sickening images playing again and again on the screen, as if she had not lived it, as if her father hadn’t yelled at reporters to keep them away from her, to keep her name out of the papers. Back then, when she had spiraled, her father had always been there. To hold her up, to let her cry. And then he had collapsed, and never come home. And had she? Or was she still eleven years old, sitting next to her unresponsive father lying in a hospital bed?

“I can’t do this,” Christine whispered, more to herself than to the voice. 

“You can do anything.”

Christine blinked. She wasn’t surprised that the voice had heard her. She looked up into the empty air. “I feel so—” she clamped down on her mouth. What was she doing? Seeking compassion from the voice? She knew he had none to give. 

“Christine,” the voice whispered into her ear. She closed her eyes again. “You may think you are a person, a girl like any other. But let me tell you, you are not. You are a living, breathing instrument. If you do not play your internal music, it will eat you alive. You will die.”

But she wanted to die. The voice didn’t understand this. Tears sprang to her eyes. This past week Raoul had called her twice every day, and she had not once responded. She couldn’t respond! She hated herself for living and she hated all her stupid emotions and she just wanted to be left alone. She felt like she was always going, going, going towards something, something big and towering and horrifying, and when she finally got to it she would just—snap. 

“I—” Christine gasped at the pain in her chest. “I want to—”

“You understand, don’t you, Christine?” the voice asked. “You understand what it means to keep music coiled up inside?”

Christine stopped, staring around the room. 

“I don’t think about it like that,” she said slowly. The voice and she had never talked about art in an esoteric way. Well, that wasn’t true—the voice pontificated almost all the time about the “true essence of music,” as he called it, but Christine had never offered her opinion, and the voice had never asked for it. “I don’t think about ‘internal music’ and ‘being an instrument’ and all that. I just think about music. The way it feels. The way it makes me feel. Sometimes a song is so beautiful that I feel like I’ve been waiting my whole life to hear it.” Christine paused, unnerved by the fact that she was saying these things to the voice, things she had never really said to anyone. “Do you—” Christine swallowed. “Do you know what I mean?”

The voice was quiet. Christine ran her fingers over her skirt, feeling her nerves vibrating in the tips of her hands. Would the voice be angry? Or maybe—would it understand her?

“What do you think about, when you are singing?”

“I don’t know.”  

“I think about water,” the voice said, “when you are singing. Waves of water on the beach. Your voice reminds me of the ocean.”

Christine wished, more than she ever had in voice lessons, that she could see the man who was talking to her.

“Have you been to the ocean, Christine?”

“Yes.” She and her father had often rented sailboats during the summer, bobbing along on the Pacific, gazing at seabirds and crests of waves.

“It is vast, the ocean. Vast and terrible and beautiful and unknown. Your voice is like that, a little.”

There was quiet in the little music room, and Christine uncapped her water bottle, feeling more at ease than she had all week. It was so much easier to tell the voice these things than to tell Raoul or Meg. The voice didn’t require her to show emotions she wasn’t feeling, or to pretend she was okay when she was screaming inside. The voice was just a voice—just a whisper in the air.

“You are not able to work on your music right now,” the voice said.

Christine glanced up, suddenly scared that the voice would become angry again.

“I’m sorry, I—”

“I understand,” the voice said, and Christine’s response died in her throat from surprise. “Sometimes—sometimes the music does not come.” 

Christine blinked in the silence that followed, unsure what to say, unsure how to respond, as if the voice wanted her to agree, wanted her to—to comfort it, as it had comforted her.

“I have kept you far too long,” it said rapidly. “Go home. Practice the aria the way I taught you, and you will have it perfected by the end of next week.”

Bemused, Christine stood and gathered her things, but hesitated at the door.

“Voice—” She twisted her hand around the handle. “I mean—Erik?”

There was a pause. “Do you need something?”

“No, I—I just—” Christine blushed. “I just wanted to thank you, for this conversation. I really needed it.” And then she burst out of the door and ran down the hallway.

Chapter Text

It was President’s Day Weekend, and the Maggie was in recess until Tuesday. Nadir was sifting through paperwork, preparing to leave for the weekend. 

“Nadir.” 

Nadir nearly knocked his chair to the ground with the force of his shock. He quickly closed his laptop and shuffled some random papers on his table.

“Erik, I—”

“Nadir,” the whisper said again. “Why are you still here?”

Nadir swallowed, completely unsure where this conversation might be leading. Erik had never bothered about his personal life before. “Is there a problem?” Nadir asked. He wasn’t able to catch a glimpse of the whisper’s tone. He wasn’t even sure where in the room Erik was, and he had gotten good at estimating over the years.

“There is no problem,” Erik whispered. “I just wanted to ask.”

Nadir rubbed his jaw, his muscles still tense. “Ask about what?”

“Do you have plans tonight?”

Nadir blinked. “Do I—what? No.”

There was silence for a moment, and then Erik said, “Maybe you will join me?”

Nadir closed his eyes and rubbed his temples. Erik in some ways was still like a small child, timid in his interactions, reaching a hand out only half way for fear of rejection. He had been that way as well when he was a teenager, and Nadir had not understood it then anymore than he understood it now. Erik had been, after all, an extremely talented musician and a handsome looking boy, although there had always been something vaguely unnatural about the tone of his skin in the broad sunlight. His eye color was certainly odd, but none of these things had logically added up, in Nadir’s mind, to a boy who set off a bomb but who did not seem able to hold a normal conversation with him without constantly glancing towards the exits, as though looking for an escape. Actually, Erik hadn’t been able to hold a normal conversation with him at all, not for years after they had moved to New York. And certainly not with that completely unearthly voice of his.

Was it his music that made him this way? Was it truly just a virtuoso’s eccentricity? But then—there had been so many deaths. Had music come from madness, or had madness flowed from music?

“What did you have in mind?” Nadir asked, feeling a twinge of sadness for his friend’s constant isolation. Imagine needing to ask your only trustworthy employee—in fact, the only person who even knew of your existence!—a man significantly older than you, for some company on a cold winter’s evening, because you had no one else.

“Just a drink, that’s all.”

He assented, and Erik began rustling behind the mirror.

“What will you have?” Erik asked. “I still have that cognac from last year—you were fond of that. Of course I have that scotch whiskey you brought back but I found it bland—”

“Whatever you’re having, Erik.” Erik’s slides from tyranny to servility were often exhausting. It wouldn’t be so damn hard to be the man’s friend if he had any discernible social skills at all.

Nadir heard the clinking of glassware, and eventually a glass with shining brown liquid appeared before him, materializing out of the shadows. He grasped his fingers around it.

They drank in silence for some time, and then talked tentatively of events in the outside world and politics within the Maggie.

“I regret that I didn’t take more interest in the singers who auditioned at the Met,” Erik whispered. “I think I could have accomplished something there.”

“Do you?” Nadir asked. He was swirling his liquid around. It was nearly too much to hope for, to think that Erik might actually put his talent to use again.

“We shall see,” Erik said.

Nadir took a swig of brandy. 

“Nadir—”

“Yes?”

“Do you think it would be better if I just—died?”

The brandy burned his throat on the way down and Nadir coughed violently. “You—what?”

“Never mind,” the voice whispered.

“Erik—”

There was the significant sound of a stopper being closed behind the wall, and Nadir knew he was going to lose him any moment.

“Erik, wait—”

“I just want something beautiful,” Erik said just under his breath. The noise was so soft that Nadir barely heard it above the sound of the building’s humming lights. “It’s there, it’s there—I want to die. I am suffocating.”

The door closed and Nadir was still standing, mouth agape, holding his glass in one unsteady hand. On the other side of the wall, Erik slid the empty glass across the floor until it bumped against the far wall. Shaking, pressing his fingers together, he stumbled away from Nadir, back into his white hell. The muscles in his arms were tensed all the way into his shoulders, and he was trying as hard as he could not to scream, or punch the wall until it fell down. Why did he search out Nadir? He had thought that talking to another person could calm him somehow. He remembered that one conversation he had with Christine and the incredible comfort that came from contact with another human being. Talking to her had been freeing, like a long overdue release.

But now his mind was so full of screeching thoughts that the only thing he was aware of was his own burning desire to die, if only to bring silence. The home he had built was empty, a mockery, a theater of absurd longing, and there was nothing to hold, nothing solid. Falling to his knees in the middle of the floor, he rained his fists upon the ground as incoherent words fell from his lips. What was he—was he even alive? 

The last few weeks he had been able to anchor himself to Christine’s voice. It had eased his mind of its loneliness, plucked away the heavy chains around his music and brought him up for oxygen for a few blissful seconds. He had even spoken to her, had a real conversation with her like a real, living human—but he had no music! He still couldn’t compose, his piano and violin lay fallow, and all he wanted was death. Escape. Silence. 

“Momma,” he said, his voice choked. “Momma.” Memories were slashing through his brain disjointed, like slanted rain on a rooftop.

 “We can’t play at that theater,” he heard his mother say. “They won’t let you use the screen.”

“Eat this,” she said, “It’s good for you.”

“It’s a wonderful composition,” William Campbell said. “We’ll take the world by storm with it, huh, Madeleine?”

“My son is dead,” Madeleine said quietly into the phone, as Erik watched her from a corner. “I’m sorry, but your records are wrong. My son died at birth.”

Raoul was driving, and Christine was drifting in and out of sleep, watching the road in front of them as they drove back to the city from the three-day weekend. The couple had traveled to upstate New York for the weekend, and Christine thought she had enjoyed herself. It was hard to tell, because she had been constantly on the verge of tears. You don’t deserve this, she’d think, when Raoul handed her a glass of wine. Her stomach would roil and protest, and she’d force the thoughts down along with the drink, as she had learned to do for most of her life. Sometimes, Christine thought, the biggest victories in her life were the tiniest ones, the moments in which she chose to be happy.

She turned her head to the side and looked at Raoul, her mind still lazily drifting between wakefulness and sleep. He looked very handsome, she thought; in control, relaxed. She reached a hand towards him and let it rest on his leg before closing her eyes again. They had talked about all sorts of things that weekend, about movies and books and art and the world. Streaming past the empty roadways, Raoul asked her to sing something for him, and she obliged, opening her mouth and willing the sweet release of music to flow through her, but it never came.

Christine blinked and sat up a little in her seat. Raoul glanced at her sideways.

“Bad start on the song?” He asked.

Christine shook her head and then tried again. She sang, but it wasn’t the sound she had become accustomed to with the voice. She tried closing her eyes and pretending she was on stage, but she could hear herself making mistakes, things the voice had corrected weeks ago, and it frustrated her so much that she had to stop. 

“You sound so nice,” Raoul said.

Christine looked at him, and then attempted a smile.

“Thanks,” she said. “It wasn’t really—I’m just a little rusty or something, I don’t know.”

“Rusty? You practice all the time.”

“I’ve been away from my teacher for a few days.” She reached a hand to her throat and massaged it, nearly affronted at its choice to betray her like this. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

“I think it sounded beautiful.”

Christine shrugged. “Untrained ears.” Raoul didn’t respond, but Christine thought she might have offended him. She grasped his free hand with hers and held it against her thigh. She hadn’t meant to be blunt, but she was frustrated that she couldn’t produce the clear tone she knew she was capable of, that she couldn’t sing like heaven outside of that practice room with the voice. 

Christine put her other hand under her chin and stared out the window, watching the trees whiz by. She was remembering a time when music had been simpler, when everything had been whole. When she, Christine, had been whole. Free of her own mind. Free of grief. She let the memory of her father rush over her like cool water from a spring.

Christine was sitting in her room, drawing a picture on her math homework, when Gustave knocked.

“Is Christine here? I’m looking for Christine.”

The door opened and Christine grinned. She held up her homework for him to see. “Look, a giraffe, Daddy!”

“It’s a good giraffe,” Gustave said. He sat next to her on the bed. “Is that how you multiply? That’s a new type of multiplication. They never taught us how to do that.”

Christine blinked, considering the question. “Yes,” she said after a second. “This is how you do math. See—” She pointed her finger to a random number on the page. “Five times eight—that’s a giraffe. Over here I drew an alligator. That’s what you get when you subtract twenty from fifty five.”

“That’s really good math, Christine.”

Christine frowned at the page and then flung it across the room. She buried her face in Gustave’s stomach.

“I hate math,” she said. “I’m not good at it.”

“Pick up the paper. I’ll try to help you.”

“Daddy,” Christine whined. “I don’t want to do math. Can we sing?”

“We can’t sing until you finish your homework. You know that.”

“But I hate homework!”

“Do you hate all homework, or just math?”

Christine crossed her arms and bit her lower lip. “I’m not going to do my homework. I hate it.”

“Then I suppose there won’t be any music tonight. Poor Christine. No music for her.”

Christine tried to gauge if crying would get her what she wanted, but Gustave merely smiled at her, picked up her homework, and handed it back to her.

“If you come into the living room, I’ll put something on the radio. How does that sound?”

Christine jumped up and followed him into the room, beaming because she had mostly gotten her way. She settled herself into the couch and drew random lines on her assignment. Maybe her father wouldn’t notice as long as she pretended to be busy.

Gustave knelt by the radio and skipped past several stations until his head snapped up and his eyes fell closed.

“Hmm—that’s beautiful.”

Christine felt her heart jump inside of her, and wondered if this was what everyone talked about when they talked about love. Her friend Marisa had a boyfriend, and he was twelve. Marisa said she loved him. Christine wasn’t sure about it. They looked happy, but did Marisa feel the way this music felt when it wafted through the apartment?

Gustave sat beside her and played with her hair, the homework momentarily forgotten. His eyes were still closed, and he tilted his head backwards.

“There is nothing like this music,” he said. Christine closed her eyes too, and began to hum in a simple harmony with the melody. She had heard the song so many times that it was ingrained on her soul, and harmonizing with the complicated notes was nearly second nature to her. The song had been played countless times on the radio since it had been released. 

Gustave soon retrieved his violin, and there was a heavenly trio—Christine’s hums, the music from the radio, and Gustave’s soft violin accompaniment. 

“Daddy,” Christine asked as the song faded into static. “Why is it called City of Angels?”

“Don’t know,” he said. He was breathing heavily. He came to sit next to her again. “That sort of music is once in a lifetime. I’ve heard that going to one of his concerts is like dying.”

“But dying is bad,” Christine said. She wrinkled her nose.

“Not like that, Christine,” Gustave said. “I mean—it’s like you become something else. You aren’t yourself anymore.”

“I don’t get it.”

Gustave continued to stroke her hair. “I wonder when he’ll write something else.”

Christine began to hum a section of the music again. Gustave looked at her. He pushed a lock of hair behind her ear.

“If he ever plays in California again I’ll get us tickets. I wish we had seen him two years ago when he came through the US.”

“Erik writes pretty music,” Christine said.

“Erik writes the most sublime music,” Gustave said. “And he plays like an angel.”

Christine frowned. “You said I sang like an angel.”

“You do, darling.” Gustave hugged her. Christine didn’t understand, but she hugged him back. 

Christine hummed that same song to herself now, so many years later. City of Angels. She had long thought of that title, and wondered still what it meant. Los Angeles, of course, was the City of Angels. But the song wasn’t about Los Angeles. Well, the song wasn’t about anything. The song was something. 

Her father had been nearly obsessed with the pianist named Erik, but so had everyone in the music world at that time. Christine had heard his music everywhere she went, especially on the city buses back from school. And it was a special treat when Gustave would improvise on the melody on his violin.

The day after her first lesson, Christine had vaguely wondered if this disembodied voice Erik was the same as the pianist who had disappeared. But the idea seemed too absurd for reality, even more absurd than taking lessons from a voice. Yes, her voice teacher was clearly a great musician, but to presume that he was that Erik—to presume that that Erik would waste his time teaching orphans to perform—absurd. Still, the idea gave her a little thrill. 

“What’s that you’re humming?” Raoul said. He squeezed her hand and smiled at her, all forgiven.

“It’s called City of Angels. It was very popular a few years ago.”

“Was it?” 

“You’ve never heard it?” 

“City of Angels? ” Raoul said. “Sounds vaguely familiar, but I don’t know. Who sings it?”

“It’s not—it was an instrumental piece. Piano.”

“Oh, cool. So you liked it?”

“I—” Christine closed her mouth. To say that she “liked” the song was like saying that she “liked” her father or that music was a “hobby.” But she had to remember that Raoul, like her, had been only nine when the song was released, and his parents probably hadn’t been as obsessed with music as Gustave had been. It wasn’t Raoul’s fault anymore than it was Christine’s fault that she didn’t know about tennis like he did. “Yes,” she said, almost as a concession. “I like that song very much. You should hear it.”

“I’d be delighted to listen to it with you.”

Christine nodded, and continued humming, not telling him that it was only available as bootlegs on the internet. She was thinking about the voice, and about her lesson tomorrow, and was hoping her soul could soar again inside that little room. She was thinking maybe she could ask the voice to play City of Angels for her. The voice would know the song.

Erik was pacing behind the wall, his heart beating quickly, waiting for Christine to appear. He had been waiting, he thought, for ten hundred years for her to arrive—where was she? What was she doing? Why wasn’t she here yet?

If he kept his fists clenched against his sides he could just keep the sound of his mother’s voice out of his mind. But Christine needed to come faster, before he lost his control. 

Erik clenched his fists tighter. Madeleine’s voice melded into the sound of the most glorious strains of music, but every time he tried to grasp them they floated away. Something needed to give, he needed to do something, something crazed, maybe—clutch someone, just to hear the musical screams, maybe set something ablaze to watch the colors—

“Voice?” 

Erik started so violently that he nearly knocked his fists against the wall. 

“Erik?”

He threw himself against the wall and peered into the room, finding Christine in an instant. 

“You’re late,” he whispered.

Christine glanced at the clock.

“But I’m not late, I just got out of class—”

“You’re late!” Erik was shaking, his frustration erupting into sublime anger. “How dare you be late!”

“I—but I’m not—I don’t understand—”

“Does music mean nothing to you!”

“Why are you—”

“I can’t teach like this!”

“Voice?” Christine’s voice trembled. “Please—I’m sorry—”

Sorry, Erik thought. Sorry. The word seemed significant to him—where had he heard it before? I’m sorry, Madeleine said, I love you. 

Christine was still talking on the other side of the wall, and Erik came to himself with a jolt, the memory of that moment bringing a grief so agonizing to the forefront of his mind that it was all he could do to choke out the words, “Sing for me.”

Christine glanced around. “Oh—okay? What should I—”

“Please,” Erik whispered. He sank down to the floor, his back against the wall he shared with Christine, staring at the wall opposite him. It was white. Everything was white. He stared and stared at that wall, the word please continuing to fall from his lips, and all at once he realized how terribly alone he was. There he was, thirty years old, and begging a young girl behind a wall to give voice to his music because otherwise he would die.

Christine began to sing, and Erik closed his eyes, trying to breathe deeply. Yes—there was peace within him, finally. She finished one song and began another, and Erik opened his eyes and found that he could stand, found that his hands had stopped shaking and that his mind was completely lucid. He sat down at the piano and began to play along with her voice, but soon an excitement grew in his chest, and he seized a pen and began to write, and write, and write. Yes, yes, yes—! He didn’t even need to play the notes, for they came to him in wild clarity.

When Christine finished singing, Erik had completed half a section, and he felt so pleasantly satiated that he lavished praise upon her, knowing that she had made several mistakes but having no heart to point them out.

Christine seemed confused. She brushed her hands on her jeans and looked around the room as she often did, trying to locate the source of the voice. 

“I know that I didn’t sound perfect,” Christine said.

“Your voice is a gift from the angels,” Erik whispered. He drew his fingers lovingly over the fresh ink on the staves. 

“But it wasn’t good—I tried to sing this weekend too and it was all wrong—”

Erik dragged his eyes away from his music and looked towards her again.

“Music demands work,” he said. “You soar like an eaglet when I throw you from the nest, and sometimes you fall. Eventually you will learn to fly. Do you understand?”

“Yes, I understand.”

“Good,” Erik said. He was eager to steal away to the sound-proofed rooms and begin composing more. “Perhaps that is all for today—”

“No.”

“What?” Erik whispered after a moment.

“No, it isn’t time yet. I want to learn more. I need to be perfect.”

Erik hesitated. He had made a commitment to her voice, that was true; but his music, his music had finally returned to him—

“You have to teach me,” Christine said. “You have to teach me!” She began to shake, and Erik could see the liquid spilling over the sides of her water bottle. “You said you would teach me and you have to—you have to—please—”

“All right,” Erik whispered, his eyes now fully focused on her. “Calm down.” He found himself vaguely wondering if she had suffered as much as he had in their three day absence from this music room. With the way that she was staring around the room with wide, pleading eyes, it was as if she too had spent the entire weekend with her face pressed into her hands.

“We will have music, then,” Erik said. Christine nodded, putting down her water bottle and assuming the correct position. Erik watched her, having never watched her so closely before. He had picked her out because her voice had touched him, but he had never stopped to consider how much she, too, might be dedicated to the music. It had never much mattered to him that there was a thinking and feeling being behind that glorious voice. His hands were poised just above the keys, and Christine was standing in the proper position, waiting, but he hesitated.

“Does this music—” Erik swallowed. “Does this music mean very much to you?” 

Christine’s stance only faltered for a second. “It means everything.”

“Why?”

“Because of my father.”

Erik pressed his fingers into the keys, and an odd, jarring, but sweet chord came to life. It was a perfect combination, he thought, and his mind was swimming with heavenly chords, waiting to be written down and given life.

“Let there be music, then,” Erik said again. Let there be music, for them. For both of them.

Chapter Text

Several weeks later, Christine was waiting by the threshold of the door to her History of Drama course, being passively jostled by the throng of students streaming into the hallway for mid-morning break, when her phone began to ring in her bag. She tried to shrug her bag off her shoulder, but was pressed in by too many bodies to even reach her hand around into the back pocket. Ahead of her, she heard Carly Guidicelli begin to shriek. 

Olivia Bell, a few paces ahead of Christine, stopped so suddenly that Christine smacked into her.

Olivia continued to stare straight ahead.

“I’m so sorry,” Christine said, absentmindedly rubbing her forearm even though it didn’t hurt.

“She got it,” Olivia said. Carly was jumping up and down, shouting at anyone who dared looked her way. Olivia shook her head. “Why did I think I could compete with her?”

Carly was suddenly was in front of them, grabbing at Christine’s shoulders. “Can you believe it, Christine? A call back! I have to tell Mercier and Reyer! Oh, Olivia, I’m so sorry.” Carly half-turned towards Olivia, who was already walking away, shaking her head again.

“Shame,” Carly said. “Christine, isn’t this exciting? Imagine me, as Lakmé, as Juliette, as Norma, as—as the Queen of the Night!” Carly struck a dramatic pose, one hand over her heart, another flung out with flare. She straightened herself and giggled. Christine was still standing stock still, watching her, things moving around her as if in slow motion as her stomach began to drop. 

“You got a call back.” Christine swallowed. “A call back from—”

“From the Met!” Carly pecked Christine on the cheek, and it took Christine more than a second to register the unfamiliar wetness and wipe it away. “Don’t worry Christine, I’m sure good things are coming for you, too. Just stop by the career office today during lunch.”

Carly twisted on her heeled boots, her brown ponytail swinging behind her as she turned the corner. Christine put her hands out, feeling wildly against the wall. She felt like she had been punched. This is what you expected. She sucked in a huge amount of air and held her breath. How could it have happened any differently? You? Really—you? The Met, calling you?

Head pounding, Christine began to sink against the wall towards the floor. Did you think you deserved this? Did you think you could accomplish this? You? You’re nothing. Christine’s phone pinged against her back and her eyes shot open. The surge of her heart made the voice in her head even more cruel. You seriously believe that the Met is on the phone for you—you’re not worth one second—you’re never going to—

“Shut up,” Christine said, shifting her hand into her bag’s slender front pocket.  “Just shut up.” She opened the voicemail and pressed her phone to her ear.

“This is Charles Newborn calling for Miss Christine Daaé.” Brief static interrupted the beginning of his next sentence and Christine closed her eyes to hear better. “—wonderful performance and would like to invite you back next week to sing again. Please contact me as soon as possible to set up your audition time. Thank you very much.”

The phone fell from her hands and clattered on the linoleum floor. 

Nadir was on his way to meet Erik to discuss the soprano callbacks to the Met when he found Christine Daaé slumped against a wall, sobbing. 

“Miss—Miss—” Nadir bent down and tried to prop her up. “Are you all right?”

He recognized the blond hair and small stature from her audition.

“Christine?” 

The girl lifted her head and met his gaze. Her eyes were swollen, her cheeks and the bridge of her nose bright red. She sniffed and rubbed a hand under her chin. 

“I’m sorry,” she said. 

“Is everything all right?” Nadir said again. “Should you be in class?”

Christine looked around her as if she had only just remembered she was in a school. Slowly, she shook her head. “No, I should go to the office. To see Mr. Reyer.”

“Okay then,” Nadir said. He stood up and offered her his hand. “Let’s get you to the office.”

Christine grasped his hand briefly, then brushed herself off, blinking. “So sorry,” she said. She grabbed her bag and quickly turned away from him in the direction of the administration offices.

Nadir watched her go, a frown tugging down both sides of his mouth. The hallway seemed to stretch in front of him as he headed towards an often unused office. He had no idea why Erik had chosen this as today’s meeting spot, but he didn’t ask questions. There was never a point. 

Closing the door gently behind him, he said, “I’m here.”

“So you are.”

“Here’s the list.” Nadir slid the paper across the desk and then turned around to count the requisite seconds in his head for the other man to emerge and retrieve it. He had not seen or heard from Erik since they had sat together two weeks ago. Two weeks ago, when Erik had told him that he wanted to die.

“Erik,” he said, nearly a whisper.

“Ah,” Nadir heard from behind the wall. “What a triumph.”

“Erik?”

“That is all, Nadir.” 

“Erik, are you—”

The man was gone. Nadir rested his palms against the desk, swearing under his breath. Pushing his chair aside, he saw only the blank wall. He knew there must be a release somewhere that operated the hidden door, but he had never tried to search for it. The papers were strewn across the chair and the floor, and Nadir collected them into a neat pile. He glanced down at the first few sheets, wondering what Erik had seen. There, in sans serif font, was Christine Daaé’s name. 

“Voice?” Christine peeked her head into the room, her hands still shaking from her conversation with Reyer. “Erik?”

Silence met her. She wandered inside, sat down at the bench of the piano, and began humming the aria from Romeo et Juliette that they had been working on. “I can’t believe I really got it,” she said. She continued to hum, resting her fingers on the keys. 

“Je veux vivre," she sang at nearly a whisper, and then stood as she began to pick up volume. “Dans ce rêve qui m’enivre, ce jour encore.” She flung her arms out. “Douce flame, je te garde dans mon âme, comme un trésor!”

A slow clap came from the doorway, and Christine opened her eyes, breathless, shocked that she might be finally granted a real-life vision of the voice. 

But in the threshold stood Carly, who crossed her arms.

“What are you doing in here?” She said.

Christine sat back down on the piano bench. “Just practicing.” 

“You did a damn good job of pretending you didn’t also get a call back.”

“I didn’t know,” Christine said. “It went to voicemail.” 

“Hmm.” Carly looked her up and down. “‘Je veux vivre?’ That’s the aria you chose?”

“Well, I—"

“I’ll sing it better than you,” Carly said. “You’ll see.”

Christine blinked. “Carly—”

“You aren’t going to take this away from me,” Carly said. “Not you, and not that short and tubby girl from the New England Conservatory, and not what’s-her-face from Julliard. This is mine.”

Christine closed her mouth. She had never clashed with Carly before, but she had also never stood out or distinguished herself in any way. 

The hairs on the back of her neck stood up milliseconds before she heard the whisper in her left ear. 

“Don’t worry, Christine,” Erik said. “She has never been able to hit the low E. And her French is truly deplorable.”

Christine suppressed a giggle. 

“Are you laughing at me?”

Christine shook her head quickly. “No, not at all.”

“She certainly makes up in pouting what she lacks in coloratura.”

Christine covered her mouth this time to hide her smile. She turned towards the piano. “I’m just going to practice a bit more here,” she said. 

Carly scoffed. “You’ll need it.”

As soon as Carly was gone, Christine ran to close the door and whirled to face the empty walls. 

“Erik—!” She clutched at her chest, her smile too wide and bursting at her cheeks. She could hardly catch her breath. 

“Congratulations, Christine.” The whisper sat on top of the piano. “I look forward to your audition. We have much work to do before then.”

“Yes,” Christine said. She breathed a sigh, the turmoil in her chest calming as she listened to him play her warm-up scales. “I just can’t believe this is happenin.” She tried to suppress the thoughts that had found her in the hallways, crying, where Mr. Khan had happened upon her. The ones that had said, you know you don’t deserve this.

The music started almost too quickly. Her voice faltered in the middle of the aria and the piano stopped.

“I’m sorry,” she said. She wrung out her hands and pressed on a kink in her neck. “It won’t happen again.”

“Are you—” The voice stopped, and the piano started again. Christine took in a breath and opened her mouth to repeat the first line of the aria.

The piano stopped again. “Are you all right?” 

Christine blew out the breath. She looked around the room. A half-smile crept onto her face, marred only by the quivering of her lips as she sat on the piano bench, standing her water bottle on the top and placing her fingers on the silent keys.

She didn’t say anything. What would she say? That she was terrified? That everything, absolutely everything, depended on this audition?

“There is much more to do than we have already done,” the voice said. “We have only just begun. Are you prepared?”

Christine nodded slightly. She tried to paste a smile on her face. “I’m fine,” she said. She stood, but the piano did not play.

“I’m fine, Erik.”

“I’ve noticed that you say this when you mean it the least.”

Christine shrugged, her hands falling against her thighs. “It’s hard to explain. Everyone’s going to think I’m crazy.”

“All artists are crazy in one way or another.”

“That doesn’t help very much.” She sat again, playing with her phone. She hadn’t told Meg or Raoul what had happened yet. Her first thought had been of her father, and her second thought—the voice. 

“I want to sing.”  She stood again, and the piano began to play this time without question. She had succeeded, somehow, in this small way, and she couldn’t let it slip through her fingers. The voice gently corrected her as the lesson went on, and she tried to mold herself into the singer he expected of her—the one he promised would hold the heart of the world. 

When the lesson was over, Christine took her time packing her bag and screwing the cap on her water bottle. She shuffled some of Mrs. Valerius’ old music papers together, and then stacked them neatly on the lid. 

She looked around her furtively, knowing that no matter how hard she squinted she would see no shadow, hear no creak, have no inkling as to where the voice was. She didn’t even know if he was still in the room. As she zipped her backpack, it occurred to her that she had never thought of the voice as existing outside of this room, outside of her auditions at the Met. Did the voice—did it have friends? Did it go out into the city at night, like anyone else? Where did it go, when it was not with her?

“Voice?” Christine whispered. 

“Yes, Christine.”

The immediacy of the response surprised her. She looked around the room again, a reflex she couldn’t repress no matter how fruitless it was.

“What are you doing tonight?”

The question came out much more provocative than she had intended. She coughed slightly and covered her mouth. “I mean, what do you do, in your free time? I mean—” She shook her head, letting out a laugh as her cheeks heated up. “I mean—” She closed her mouth.

The voice was silent, and Christine was exceptionally embarrassed. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t have.”

“You’re nervous.”

Christine hitched her bag over her shoulder. “I’m fine.”

She could feel, if not hear, the voice snort. “You only prattle on about nonsense when you’re nervous.” 

Christine furiously bit back sudden tears. “No, really, I’m fine. I should probably just go—”

“You will be great,” the voice said, and Christine shivered. She tried desperately to swallow her tears, but they spilled over onto her cheeks. When the voice said it, it didn’t sound like Meg or Raoul’s empty reassurances. When the voice said it, it sounded like a vow. “Why do you cry now? Is it not all that you wanted?” 

Her bag hit the floor with a thud, and Christine followed soon behind it. The sobs she had attempted to keep at bay during her lesson now erupted to the forefront. She buried her head in her hands. “I’m so sorry,” she said. She didn’t know if she meant to apologize to the voice, to her father, to the unnamed men and women who had died instead of her—they all expected so much of her, but she wasn’t worth it, she wasn’t good enough, she would never be good enough, not for this, not for the voice, not for her father—

The room was silent as Christine hugged her knees towards her chest and cried. She didn’t have anything to say to the voice, and it said nothing to her. Quietly, as if growing slowly from the floor, approaching gently from the walls, strains of a violin reached her, lapping at her feet, at her aching sadness, like lazy waves. The tears dried on her cheeks as the violin grew stronger. It had started out as a melody she knew—Brahm’s Violin Sonata No. 3—but it had morphed into something else, taking on a harmony to the original, and then becoming its own. Christine closed her eyes, imaging slim fingers gripping the bow, a chin pressed into the wood—

The music ended in the shrill tone of her cell phone vibrating against her leg. She fumbled for it, her stomach plummeting in dread as the music left her empty and wanting.

“Italian or Chinese?” Raoul said. There were sirens and honking horns in the background. The wind whipped past the receiver.

Christine cleared her throat several times. “What?”

“Italian or Chinese?” Raoul said. “I was thinking Chinese, really, because I know how much you loved the Kung Pao chicken a few weeks ago, but then I remembered this new Italian place opened downtown and—”

“I can’t, tonight.”

“Oh.” Jostling and static filled her ear. “Okay. Do you want to come over? I could—”

“Not tonight,” Christine said. “I’ll let you know.” She slipped her phone back into her pocket. The voice must have left by now. Not even a disembodied voice wanted to hear her stumbled over half-formed excuses. Christine brushed off her shirt and stood, retying her hair in a ponytail and then securing her bag over her shoulder.

“Thank you for the music,” she said over her shoulder as she left the room.

What she did not hear was the whisper that fell across the walls, that emanated from a man holding a violin against his shoulder, bemused as he watched the girl leave.

“You’re welcome, Christine.”

The clock was ticking closer and closer to five the next day and Christine was unable to keep her fingers from twining and untwining, from rolling her pen across her knuckles, from drawing thick, dark lines on the margins of her notes. She saw that Meg was getting irritated by her constant motion and she tried to sit on her hands to make them stop.

Several seconds later, she picked up her pen again and started drawing, this time a neverending swirl that started in the margins and then spilled over into the body of her notes from yesterday’s class. Meg reached over, grabbed her pen and slammed it against her own desk. She gave Christine a slant-eyed glare. 

“What is your problem?” She whispered between her teeth.

Christine pushed herself back from her desk and spread out her legs. She repeated to herself the corrections the voice had made to her aria yesterday. Only forty-five more seconds now, only a few more ticks of the second-hand before she would be back in that room, before she could sing again.

The class was dismissed, and Christine shot up, grabbing her bag and heading out the door before the rest of the class had really registered the end of the lecture. 

“Christine—” She felt a tug at the hanging straps of her bag. “What the hell?” Meg pulled sharply and Christine stopped, turning to look at her.

Meg shoved her notebook into her hands. “You left this. What is going on with you today?”

“Sorry, Meg, I’m just late for my lesson—”

“Mercier can wait for two seconds.” Christine had, of course, never told her about the voice. Meg pushed her hair out of her eyes and took a breath. “Look, Christine—are you okay?”

“I’m okay.”

“I heard Carly Guidicelli got a callback to the Met, and I never saw you last night.” Christine dropped her eyes to the floor, her heart rate suddenly picking up. Meg grasped her shoulders and Christine shook her head, staunchly staring at her feet. “Look at me, Christine—are you okay?”

It was too much—it was too much to tell anyone but the voice. To have them looking at her, to have them watching her, expecting, assuming. Bile begin to rise in her throat. The first audition had been nothing, just a trial, just a reach. But now that she was called back, now that this dream job was somehow actually a possibility—it was too much. 

“I need—to go—” She wrenched herself out of Meg’s grip and nearly ran down the hallway, still clutching the notebook Meg had thrust at her. 

She was breathless when she finally made it to the room and slammed the door behind her. She locked it for good measure. Here, she was safe. Here, no one could look at her, analyze her expression, force her to speak. She laid her forehead against the cool plastic of the door and tried to breathe in slowly, the way the voice had taught her. 

Her mind was skipping in a way it had not done in a very long time. Last night she had been unable to fall asleep for more than several seconds at a time, a constant string of words running through her head, sometimes speaking, sometimes shouting. 

When she was able to catch herself for one second, hold herself firm, she could see that she was spiraling dangerously close to an unbalanced edge. What she needed, what she knew she truly needed, was her father. When she had been eight, she had run off the stage at her elementary school recital, and her father had been there to hold her. When she failed this time, who would be there for her? Who would pick her up when she fell, this time? 

Warmup scales began to play behind her. Christine breathed in deeply through her nose and made her way to the center of the room, aware that the voice had been waiting for her, and grateful it had not said anything.

Closing her eyes while she sang, Christine tried to suppress the choking fear that had been snaking its way up her throat since she first listened to that voicemail. Her mind latched onto her father’s hug, her father adjusting her barrette, his rough, calloused finger brushing against her cheek—

The aria ended, and the final notes of the piano rang out in the room.

“You are singing Juliet’s death knell,” the voice said. “This aria is lighthearted and sweet. She has her entire life ahead of her, ready to give her heart away, and you would have her die before she meets Romeo.”

Christine blanched. “I’m trying my best. I can only do my best. My best might not be good enough, but it’s all I have, it’s all I can do—”

“Hush,” the voice said. “I didn’t ask for excuses. Sing it again.”

The piano started from the beginning, and Christine began again, jutting out her hip, plastering a smile on her face, twirling in place and imagining herself entering a ballroom, all eyes on her. 

“Better,” was all the voice said. Christine sat on the piano bench and dropped her head onto her folded arms. “You’re letting your fear overpower your voice,” it said. “You’ll lose control of your higher register this way. You must concentrate. I can’t teach you to stand tall.”

“Easy for you to say,” Christine said into her hands. “Nobody sees you.”

“Christine,” the voice said. She looked up, at nothing. “You have nothing to fear. This is the beginning of your career. This is the start of everything. After this audition, you will no longer be just a student at conservatory. You will be a leading soprano, and people will fall over themselves to hear you sing.”

“And what if—what if—” Christine swallowed. “What if I fail?”

“Listen to me, Christine Daaé,” the voice whispered. “I gave you my music. I shaped your voice. I stand beside you.” She shivered as the voice shifted from the piano lid towards her shoulder. “Imagine—the curtain parts, the audience is hushed. You will step out, in a gown—you will place your hands below your ribs as I have taught you—and you will fly.”

Christine sighed. It was so easy to see it, when the voice painted the picture. When she tried to imagine it later that night, walking home, all she could feel was terror crushing her like a vice. 

Raoul was waiting for her at her apartment the night before the audition. Christine had stayed later with the voice than she ever had before. The voice had lectured at length about her posture, and about remembering to roll her Rs, and coming off the high A lightly. All the while, as he had been talking, she had imagined getting the polite phone call several days later. We are sorry to inform you. The words, though, hadn’t managed to leave her mouth—I’m so scared. If I fail, I will have nothing. Before she left, she had asked the voice if it would be at the audition. I am wherever your music is, the voice had said. It wasn’t what she wanted to hear, but it was enough.

She had shared only sparse texts with Raoul since receiving the phone call, and had still not told either him or Meg about the audition. When she opened the door, Meg was sitting on the bar chair at the counter, her narrowed eyes watching as Christine dumped her bag on the floor and hung up her coat. Christine looked at the two of them, and then swallowed hard against a lump of nausea that had formed in her throat. 

“Hey kitten.” Raoul caught her around the waist and kissed her. Attempting to arrange her face into a smile, she placed one hand on his chest and gently pushed him back.

“I brought some food from the café.” He said, unwilling to be rebuffed, following her into the living room and plying her with a wrapped sub.

“I thought you’d be hungry,” Meg said, “since you skipped lunch.”

Christine sat on the couch. She had skipped lunch so that she wouldn’t have to run into Meg. She took the sub from Raoul, peeled back the paper as the two of them watched, and then set it on the coffee table.

“I’m not hungry.” The tips of her fingers tingled as they rested on the couch, her palms beginning to sweat. She shook her head to rid it of a vague, unsettling swimming. 

Raoul sat next to her and rubbed her shoulder. “Haven’t heard from you in a bit.” He nuzzled her ear and Christine had to stop herself from twisting away. The tips of her ears were tingling now, too.

“I’m fine,” she said, flexing her fingers in her lap. Come lightly off the A, she thought. If I come in too early on the seventh bar, then I’ll miss the— 

“Christine, you have to talk to us,” Meg said. 

A tightness began to form below her ribs. “I’m fine,” she said again. Come lightly off the A. Come lightly off the A. Take a breath before âme so you can make it through trésor and roll the R. In her chest there was a building, cresting, overwhelming need to escape from this room, to run, to hold her hands over her ears, to scream—

Before she was able to register it, Meg was sitting on her one side, Raoul on the other, and she was enclosed by the two of them, unable to move. “I’m sorry you didn’t get the callback,” Meg said. She took Christine’s hand. “I can’t imagine how difficult that must have been for you. But you have to talk to us. We love you.”

Darkness was overtaking her vision until all she was able to see was the small sub, sitting on the table. She struggled to suck in air. The A. The R. Roll the R. The R. I’m going to vomit. 

“Please—” She was moving through mud. “Please, let me go.” Meg released her and Christine broke free from Raoul and ran to her room, gripping the edges of her dresser, panting. It was easy, she thought, easy for everyone to assume she had not made it. Carly could walk around the school announcing her success and nobody batted an eyelash, but she, Christine—how could anyone expect her to succeed?

Meg was knocking at her door, and Christine started. 

“Hey—Christine?”

Her heart thumped. Raoul knocked again. 

“Christine?” Meg said. “Can you let us in?” The door handle jiggled.

“Go away,” Christine whispered. She heard them talking to each other. “Go away,” she said. Her hands began to tremble. 

“We’re worried about you.”

Christine shook her head. She fumbled desperately for her phone in her pocket, and then jabbed on the screen until it brought up the song she wanted. Brahm’s, Violin Sonata, Number three. She stuffed the earbuds in her ears.

“I’ll talk to you tomorrow,” she said, maybe shouted. She wasn’t sure. The strings of the violin had picked up, and her racing heart eased. She placed her head on her pillow, turned the volume all the way up, and closed her eyes. 

Erik arrived at the Met the night before, as he had for Christine’s first audition. In general, the hours following midnight were the easiest for him to travel the city. Many fewer people were out, and the ones that were did not tend to interest themselves in anyone else. He had taken to the catwalks early that morning, with a black shirt with the collar turned up, a thick black scarf over his cheeks, and a black cap pulled low over the remainder of his face. He did not enjoy leaving his home. The city was overflowing with color and light, with smells, with an unabating and unharmonious din. Even in Las Vegas his senses had been totally overwhelmed by the disjointed vibrations of the world, but then, he had welcomed it, welcomed the plunge into oblivion. 

Christine arrived with a pale blue peacoat and a white knit scarf, and Erik’s eyes were immediately drawn to her hunched stance and shaking hands. He had to stop himself from immediately berating her. After the return of his music, he had spent three days and three nights without sleep, writing, composing, conducting orchestras in his mind. Later, he had petered off into a series of three sonatas, each one more curiously soft and lilting than the next, almost like a lullaby. Last night, as he played the sonata’s second movement on one of the Met’s storage pianos, he had found himself thinking of her.

He had taken, on occasion, to watching her during her classes, following her down parallel hallways—hers in the school, his just beyond the wall, silent. Sometimes when she walked, her blond hair would sweep across her shoulder, and she would absentmindedly rub the swath of pale skin that ran from her ear down her neck. If he strained, sometimes, he could hear her humming, and the sound made his entire body tremble. 

Looking down at her now, moving forward on the catwalk as she moved towards the backstage, he saw that she was breathing deeply, hands pressed against her stomach, as he had taught her. Reyer approached her, as did Mercier, who, Erik knew, thought she was cross-registered with a voice professor at Julliard. The group shifted towards the wings, and Erik mirrored them. 

Carly Guidicelli had gone first, and was accompanied off stage by a slight smattering of applause from the audience, including Meg Giry, the ballet dancer, who was craning her neck to see the edges of the stage better. There were insistent voices from below, and he found himself staring at the top of Christine’s head, hands palm to palm and pressed against her forehead. Reyer had his hand at the small of her back, urging her forward past the curtains. Christine was shaking her head. 

Erik frowned. During this past week he had watched her wilt and cry, drawn into herself like one of his mother’s neglected flowers. He had little understanding of other people, of what made them tick, what made them cry, what made them breathe. He had tried, in the poor way he knew how, to ease her way. He had tried, with his music. 

“Fly, my little dove, my Juliet,” he whispered into her ear. “Fly, Christine.”

She lifted her head from her hands and tilted her face towards the ceiling, her lips parting slightly. Then Reyer pushed her through the curtains and she finally stepped onto the stage. The first bars of the piano started, and Erik hunched down onto all fours and closed his eyes. Her sweet vibrato washed over him like warm sunlight, and he was able to relax a tension he hadn’t known was in his shoulders. This was, after all, what he had wanted, wasn’t it? To give beautiful music back to the world?

But her voice was slipping. She was nearing the end of the aria and she was faltering on the final trills. He peered through the ropes to try to get a better look at her. 

“Easy, dove,” he said. “You’re almost there.”

Christine took hold of the base of the piano and belted out her final note. 

The ballerina, Meg, stood up and began applauding fiercely. Several of the directors and assistants at the front of the stage turned back to look at her, but she was already hurrying towards the aisle, running backstage. Erik watched as she nearly collided with Christine, whose hands were shaking as she emerged from the curtain. She wrapped her arms so tightly around the blond singer that Erik thought he heard her choke. 

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Meg was saying. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Christine lifted her head from Meg’s shoulder as Meg continued to gush about her performance. Erik could see tears sitting on her cheeks. She was looking around her blindly, into the shadows, up beyond the catwalks, as she did often during their practices. 

She was looking for him.

“I am here,” he said into her ear. She closed her eyes. “I am here.”

Chapter Text

Seated uncomfortably on a bench at Starbucks, a thick slice of lemon pound cake with frosting sitting in front of her, Christine sat facing her friends, her teacup steaming with the sweet smell of honey and lavender. A light flurry was floating past the window, falling and disappearing into the street, framing Meg's head as she stirred her hot chocolate, sometimes avoiding Christine's gaze, and sometimes staring so hard at her she thought Meg's eyes would pop. Raoul sat beside her, rubbing slow circles on her lower back. 

“It sounds like a panic attack,” Meg said. “Have you ever had one before?”

Nodding slowly, Christine looked past her into the night. After her audition, she had sat with Meg and Raoul in their apartment for several hours, attempting, poorly, to explain why she had hidden it from them. To her, it had all made perfect sense, but the two of them had continued to ask her worried questions. They had both encouraged her to meet them after her voice lesson the next night, and bit by bit Christine had tried to describe how she had felt the room pressing in on her, how she had struggled just to breathe. 

“I had a panic attack when I moved to New York,” Christine said. “I was in the hospital for a night.”

“But you were coming to the Maggie, weren’t you?” Meg said. In all the years they had known each other, Christine had hardly ever spoken of her time in Los Angeles, her time with her father, and what had happened afterwards. She had never mentioned the fire.

“I was, Meg, but I was scared. I was twelve. I didn’t want to leave.” Meg took her hand, and Raoul continued to rub her back. 

“And that—that type of fear—was what you felt last week?”

“I guess.” She exhaled. She knew Meg and Raoul were doing their best to try to understand. She knew that. 

She laid her head against Raoul’s shoulder, and he kissed the top of her head. 

“It’s okay,” he said. “I’m here.”

Christine’s heart skipped a beat, if only for a moment. I’m here, the voice had told her, had whispered to her after the audition. I’m here, it had said. 

“Have you thought—” Meg paused, and out of the corner of her eye, Christine saw Raoul nod to her.

“Have you thought about seeing someone?”

Did it bother her, the obvious evidence that the two of them had been talking about her behind her back? Discussing her “condition,” likely silently worrying about her sanity. She imagined them sitting cozily on the couch in her apartment living room, maybe sharing a diet Pepsi, maybe an IPA, asking one another is this normal?

“They made me talk to someone when I was in the hospital,” Christine said. She pulled Raoul’s hand away from her back, where the sensation was starting to feel like burning. She held it in her lap instead. “I don’t think it would be helpful.”

Meg squeezed her hand. “You were only twelve. Just like you said. Maybe it wouldn’t have been helpful then. But maybe now—”

Christine shook her head. If this meeting hadn’t been so dour, she’d likely find it funny, and all the same her chest was aching with cruel, unrelenting self-mockery. She had just sung a callback for the Metropolitan Opera, and instead of celebrating, her best friend and her boyfriend had forced her into an impromptu intervention for anxiety and depression. 

“I don’t think so,” Christine said again. I always told you I wasn’t normal, is what she didn’t say. I always said I was damaged. 

“Look, Christine—” Raoul began.

Christine disentangled herself from his limbs and stood, gathering her jacket and quickly twirling her scarf around her neck. 

“I’m sorry, guys,” she said. “Honestly—I’m sorry. I’m sorry for the audition, I’m sorry that I’m not happy enough or cheery enough for you. I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you about it because I couldn’t—I literally couldn’t. I’m sorry that I’m so messed up that you had to drag me here and beg me to see a therapist. I’m sorry.”

“Christine, that’s not—”

“Christine, wait—”

She was out the door and nearly running down the block before they finished their sentences. She huffed her way past a few bars, her breath condensing in front of her. She had no clear idea of where she was going, and for the first time in many years, she wished she had somewhere to go other than her apartment with Meg. 

Slowing a few blocks away from the Maggie, she strayed towards the water, where the black waves were gently lapping against the barnacle-covered wooden pier. A few joggers passed her in the night, and a couple was huddled together on the bench. She couldn’t hear their words, but saw their breath forming between them. She rested her hands on the metal railing, the lampposts stretching before her in an endless march of solitary, twinkling lights.

The water was dark, rippling. Vast, like the ocean, the voice had once said of her singing. She had wondered occasionally since then when he had seen the ocean. Could any of these passing people, with coat collars turned up against the cold, be him? 

Christine curled and uncurled her fingers against the freezing metal, unsure why tonight she could not stop her thoughts from constantly returning to the voice. She knew she was being unfair to both Meg and Raoul. Raoul, whose sweet, constant presence should have been a balm to her soul. Meg, who never gave up on her, who only wanted her to be happy. The voice was at best an acquaintance whose face she had never seen. But when she had cried, he had played the violin.

She stretched her arms out in front of her and ducked her head between her elbows. She expected tears, but they did not come. Instead, she exhaled from deep within her. No, a therapist was not the answer. No therapist could rebuild the Campbell building from its ruins, return her father from his grave. Music had always been her therapy, her lifeline. As long as she had that, she thought she would be okay.  

“You cannot continue to skip your classes, Christine,” the voice said to her at the end of her lesson a few days later. Christine glanced up from where she sat at the piano. She supposed she was stupid for thinking the voice would not know. 

“As much as I believe most of your classes are a waste of time, you cannot continue to skip them. You have a duty to your art.”

“You think they’re a waste of time? Don’t you—I don’t know—don’t you run the curriculum or something?” It had been several weeks since she had asked him if he was the reclusive owner of the Maggie, and he had neither confirmed nor denied, and she had inferred the rest. 

The voice sighed, and Christine bit her lip, something of a smile coming to her face for the first time in days. 

“You’ve become insolent in your newfound success.”  

Chuckling, she rested her hands on the keys.

“Did you know my father always intended to teach me to play? But he never—” She closed her mouth, studying the raised black keys. They had not owned a piano, instead owning several violins. Gustave had intended to start taking her to a music studio, the year he had died. 

“You play the instrument he gave you,” the voice said, “and it is a great tribute to him.”

Christine smiled through suddenly watery eyes, and she rapidly blinked to clear them. 

“Thank you for saying that."

“But I must insist that you return to your classes.”

Christine tried not to feel chastised. She was, after all, twenty years old, and though he may be the director of her school, he was also a bodiless voice. After the audition, she had simply stopped going to her afternoon classes. She would arrive early for her lessons with the voice, and stay until he told her to leave. They were the only part of her day that she looked forward to.

“My grade in Italian Vocal Lit probably isn’t going to make a difference to the Met.”

“That is besides the point. The curriculum at this school is designed to produce performers who are proficient in both technique and—”

Christine tuned him out. She laid her fingers on the white keys and began slowly pressing them down in random orders. She didn’t need to hear another one of Erik’s soliloquies about the The Maggie founding principles.

She found middle C, and then played up the scale to the next octave. She began humming softly, and the voice stopped talking.

“What are you singing?”

Christine continued to hum a variation on City of Angels that her father had played often on his violin. 

“I always wondered,” she said after a minute, “if you would know this song. I figured you would, but I never really got around to asking.”

“Asking what?”

The hairs stood on the back of her neck. The whisper had turned suddenly harsh, and Christine could swear it was emanating from behind the right wall of the room, instead of the top of the piano where it usually sat. She snapped her eyes towards that wall and then quickly away. It was nearly impossible to believe that the man himself was standing right there, separated from her only by a thin sheaf of plaster.

“If—” She swallowed. “If you knew the song.”

There was a profound silence.

“City of Angels,” She said. She looked towards the wall again. “It was popular several years ago—” She hesitated, a surreal mockery of the words she had said to Raoul. 

There was no reply, and Christine found herself concentrating her gaze on the right wall. 

“Erik?” She said. 

She waited, maybe five minutes, maybe fifteen, in the empty room, before she stood slowly, entirely unsure of what she had done to incur his awful silence. She gathered her bag, looking one more time over her shoulder at that wall, and left.

There was no candle, this time. Erik laid on the floor next to the picture of his mother, staring at the white ceiling in darkness. His mind was occasionally silent, occasionally filled with eruptions of applause, occasionally with the feeling of Madeleine’s embrace. Her tears on his neck. Her voice— you’re my angel.

It had been early in the summer after he turned sixteen. Madeleine had opened a window in her bedroom before she left to go grocery shopping, and Erik had gravitated towards it the moment she left. Her dire warnings—never be seen, don’t lean your head out the window, don’t make any noise—could not stop him from approaching that window. He sat in the tiny alcove of her windowsill and stared out the window, the cool breeze kissing his face, for what felt like years. The sounds of the city beneath were mesmerizing. A car horn honked, a whistle blew. The sun beamed warmth and sparkling light onto the pavement, the occasional palm tree shaking its fronds in the wind. Erik felt his chest rise and fall as he watched people below him hugging, kissing, laughing, running, playing. This—this was living, he thought. That brunette walking a small dog, cell phone pressed to her face, her voice a tinkling, magical thing—that was life. And in the yearning he felt to be there, in the outside world, in his passion so strong to be one of them and feel the sun on his arms, music was born.

Before that, he had never truly composed. Before that, he had delighted his mother by playing short jukebox tunes and even occasionally jazz. He would dance his fingers up and down the keys in intricate patterns to make her laugh. But his performances had always been classical pieces, carefully selected by his manager, William Campbell. Months later, he sat his mother down after dinner and told her he wanted her to listen to something. He had played, and she had cried.

“Erik,” she had said. He was facing her on the piano bench, and she was sitting on the couch, trembling. “Erik,” she said again. She brought her shaking fingers to her face, rubbing at her eyes. “Come.” Her voice was barely a whisper. Erik left the bench and knelt beside her on the floor. She took his fingers loosely, her tears wetting his palms. 

“Momma?” He was uncertain what had happened. He had been working for months on this composition and was sure he had gotten it right, was sure it was sublime, beautiful. 

She shook her head. “Hush now, my darling.” A deep, shuddering breath shook her chest. “Oh, Erik,” she said. “You don’t even know—that’s what makes you so precious. You don’t even know.” 

She held his hands and cried. When he played the song from behind a screen to William Campbell, he heard the man jump up from his chair and exclaim. Several minutes of excited chatter between William, Madeleine, and William’s assistant had ensued before Madeleine stepped behind the screen and sat next to him on the bench.

“They want to debut your composition,” she said. Erik nodded. It was what he expected, the next natural progression of his career. 

“Have you named it?” William asked. “I want to start some publicity. Erik—the pianist—the composer—”

Madeleine looked at him expectantly. 

The window was closed, but Erik saw the glitter of the ocean beyond the tops of the buildings. “City of Angels,” he said. 

Later, the applause. Later, the standing ovation at Royal Albert Music Hall. And then, he had never played that music again. 

Erik fingered the clean marble floor below him. Shifting his cheek onto the cool surface, he faced his mother’s picture. 

Everything in his life had always been for Madeleine. The crowds, the cheering, the roses, the singing in their apartment. His whole life had centered around her. She wanted him to play for Campbell, so he did. She wanted him to travel the world, so he did. But that song—that summer day at her window—had been entirely for himself. It struck him now with terrible irony that Christine would be the first in ten years to remind him of that song. She—the timid, small, frightened creature whose voice he had coaxed and teased, he thought, for Madeleine’s sake. To bring his music back to the world. And that had been his intention, his only intention, in the beginning. 

Erik stood, feeling slightly off-balance, and made his way back to his wall of the practice room, not really understanding why. Christine had left long ago, the lights off and the door closed. He began to play a chord progression on the piano, closing his eyes and letting the feelings in his chest flow through his fingers and out into the night. As he swayed, he began to hear another melody in his head, floating atop his, melding with it, harmonizing with it, completing it. His hands moved from playing the notes to drawing them on a blank stave with hardly a pause in between.

When he was done writing, he stared at the blank spaces he had left, at the two sets of bars he had drawn. It was something he had never, ever done before, and the action that had seemed so natural while he was in the grip of the music now left him with a vague, unsettled feeling. He was a classical instrumental composer, that was his life. But this, this was a vocal piece—a piece for a soprano. 

Somehow, in some way, everything had shifted.

Chapter Text

Nadir stared at the request Erik had left on his desk for fifteen full minutes before he stood up and pressed his palms into his eyes.

“Hell.” He stood stock-still, hoping that if he squeezed his eyes tight enough the paper would disappear. “Hell.”

Christine Daaé. Erik had left a note instructing that the Maggie use its influence to arrange a debut concert for graduating senior sopranos. But the only name listed was Christine Daaé.

The night after he had picked the blond student up off the floor and then seen her name on the Met callback list, he had opened her personal file. Erik had been acting strangely for weeks, and Nadir wasn’t interested in anything that set Erik off-balance. The last time that had happened, seventy-two people had died.

Sifting quickly through her class records, ignoring teacher’s comments and grades, clicking through term papers and recorded voice projects, he couldn’t understand why she mattered. She had never won an award or performed overseas. She had never even headlined a school performance. She was not special. He had almost closed the file again, sure he had been barking up the wrong tree, when he had chanced to see that her original transcript was from West Temple Elementary School, in Los Angeles.

A terrible, deep sense of dread began to creep up on him. Sure, many students were from Los Angeles. Many, over the years, had come and gone. But how many were this exact age, from that exact part of the city?

The rest was easy to find, terrible in its simplicity, laughable in its ability to uproot their entire lives with a few measly facts.

Christine Daaé had been the little girl who had survived the bombing. Christine Daaé was the woman Erik wanted to debut.

After Nadir had found out the truth, he had wiped his computer of all its history and prayed to every God he had heard of that Erik would never find out. The man had never so much as mentioned the West Coast in ten years. He couldn’t imagine what would happen if Erik found out. 

Now, crushing this cursed piece of paper in his palm, Nadir fell into in his chair with enough force to roll him backwards from the desk, and he gripped the edges of the wood and pulled himself forward again. 

“Christine Daaé,” he said. He resisted the urge to spit. Throwing the crumpled paper into the wastebasket in the corner of the room, he stared at the black face of his computer, reflecting his own back at him. What could possibly be the connection between the two? Erik had never taken a personal interest in any student. He had never, as far as Nadir knew, made contact with any of them. He himself had said that her audition was as mediocre as the rest. And hadn’t it been?

But how had she gotten a callback from the Met?

Nadir brought her personal record up again, feeling a knot of choking dread in his throat as he scrolled. Grades, teacher recommendations and comments, paper submissions, recital pieces. What was he missing? Erik wouldn’t give up everything, wouldn’t put the reputation of his school on the line for a singer he had called mediocre. 

The request had come from Erik himself, not from Mercier, her personal voice teacher, and not from any of the other faculty. He had access to her personal records just like Nadir did. He could have seen her transcript at any time. Fingertips tingling, Nadir massaged the edges of his temples. Did he know, then? Did Erik know?

With an impending sense of doom, Nadir picked up the phone and called the manager of Meadow Hall. As he made Erik’s demands and ensured they would be carried out, he printed Christine’s class schedule. Hanging up the phone, he brushed off his suit pants and started down the hallway for Christine’s mid-morning class. 

A handsbreadth from reaching the door-handle, planning to call Christine out of class for an imagined misdemeanor, Nadir was stopped short by a whisper over his shoulder. 

“Finally involving yourself in the education of our orphans?”

Nadir let his breath hiss out between his teeth. “Erik,” he whispered towards the wall. He checked furtively to see that the hallway was empty. “What are you doing? What is going on?”

“I always monitor the classrooms. You know that. A better question, my friend, is what are you doing?”

Nadir’s fingers were still outstretched towards the handle, and he crumpled them into his palm, racking his brain for a reasonable explanation. “I called Green at the Meadow Hall and arranged the recital.” He faced the wall, where he assumed Erik could see him.

“Excellent.”

“She is in this class,” he said. Unsurprisingly, he received no reply. 

“Erik.” He swallowed. “Erik—have you spoken to her?”

The silence frightened Nadir more than the outburst of anger he had expected. He stopped himself just short of begging. 

Posters went up in all imaginable places—nearby coffee shops, the windows of the Maggie, streetlamps. The local magazines published the ad, and there was even a small one placed in the Times. Christine Daaé went from being an unknown graduating vocal student to an overnight sensation. The Maggie had never, in ten years of operation, organized a debut concert for a single singer. Music critics purchased tickets; directors wrote down the date. It was, one blogger wrote, the most anticipated conservatory recital in years. Had The Maggie finally found its crown jewel? 

Erik had never asked her if she would sing in the concert. Instead, the day the posters were mounted, he had placed one on the piano bench before their lesson started. He watched Christine enter the room, her blond curls tumbling over her back, drawn in at the nape of the neck with a golden barrette. She shrugged off her bag, shook out her arms, and was about to open her mouth when she stopped, staring at the piano. It took her a moment before she rushed forward to grasp the poster. Her name was emblazoned in white beneath the The Maggie’s logo. It read: “Music of the Night: A debut artist recital from the New Marguerite School of Music, featuring soprano Christine Daaé.”

Watching, Erik pressed himself against the wall. She finally dropped the poster and spun around, her eyes coming to settle on the exact wall against which he leaned. He drew back. 

“Erik?” She said. “What is this?”

She took a step towards his wall, and Erik took an involuntary larger step back. How had she pinpointed his location when he hadn’t said a word? He threw his voice towards another wall. 

“A concert,” he whispered. “For you.”

She didn’t seem phased by the ventriloquism. She had stopped walking, but was still staring, unbeknownst to her, directly at him. He drew in a deep breath, his heart beating rapidly. No person, not even Nadir, had looked at him in ten years. He knew she couldn’t see him, but the way she was staring, the way her blue eyes were wide and unblinking, made him feel trapped. He retreated until his back was against the opposite wall of the small hallway, her image fading into a kaleidoscope of pinprick lights.

“This is in two weeks,” Christine said. 

“Yes. It is time we advance your career. You are ready.” 

“But the Met?”

“They will take notice. They will understand that you are not at their beck and call. They are at yours.”

Hopeful that she had directed her gaze away from him, he chanced to step towards the wall again. He found her figure sitting at the piano, a slight smile tugging at the edge of her lips. He let out a breath.

“What am I to sing? Juliette still?”

“Oh no,” he said. “No. We will show them the full extent of your voice.”

“In two weeks?”

“We will simply have to practice more.” It hadn’t been something he had considered closely. William Campbell had sometimes scheduled concerts with new set lists only days ahead. Erik had never had trouble learning the piece on time. “Do you trust me?” 

Christine only hesitated for a moment before she nodded. 

“The sheet music is there on the staff.”

Christine looked through the music quickly.

“‘Marietta’s Lied.’” She ran her finger down the bars, and then flipped through the other pages. “‘O mio babbino caro.’ Erik, these are serious arias.”

“Are you not a serious artist, Christine Daaé?”

She placed the music back on the staff, barely caressing the edges as she withdrew her hand. 

“I don’t think I can—”

“Nonsense. Enough of this. Begin.”

He began playing warm-up scales with one hand, reluctant to sit and lose the full sight of her. 

Christine swallowed, and he saw a blush creep into her cheeks, but she began to sing. They worked through the first two arias, Erik painstakingly correcting her where she faltered, and Christine trying her hardest to keep up. By the time they had finished a third, she was flushed. 

“Two weeks—it’s just—not enough. This is too much—why did you—”

“Christine,” he said, throwing his voice into her ear, trying to calm her. “You said you trusted me. And I trust you. Your voice, your music. Let me handle your career. I promised you the heart of the world, didn’t I?”

Christine drew in a deep breath. “You did.”

“Then let me give it to you.” He stood from the piano, feeling an inexplicable need to visualize her again. In a second, his palms were flat against the surface, his face once again pressed into the wall.

Christine flipped her hair over her shoulders and shrugged them back several times, then she took a sip from her water bottle and sat. 

“What happens when I leave the Maggie?” She said. “What happens then?”

“You’ll be a star.”

She flit her gaze to his wall and then back towards the piano. “But—what about you?”

Erik blinked. Him? Did he exist, did he matter? “I am—wherever your music is.”

“No—Erik—” Christine fully turned on her bench to face his wall and Erik’s heart thudded, but he didn’t draw back. He couldn’t, not with her open, pale face staring at him so earnestly. She had a curl sticking out of her ponytail, falling over her ear. His eyes were glued to it. How soft would it be, falling over his calloused fingers?

A sudden memory invaded his senses, of another time, another girl, her hair in his hands, bunched against a pillow, her skin soft and scented like roses. He closed his eyes against a violent reaction from his body. He couldn’t remember her name, likely had never known it, but her face was vivid in his mind, her hands running over his chest, gripping his neck. Hoarse, fingernails digging into his skin—

“You’re there, aren’t you?” 

Her voice was much too close. His eyes flew open and—there she was. Directly before his wall. A ragged breath filled his chest.

“Sometimes I feel like—” Christine took one last step until she was flush against the wall, her eyes tracking unseeing along its length. “Sometimes I feel like you’re the only one who really understands me.”

Hardly breathing, Erik watched as she placed one palm against the wall and silently, silently, he slid his palm to cover hers. A burning began in his toes and shot up through his chest. 

“Christine.” Her name slipped through his teeth, barely a whisper. 

“Will you always be with me, Erik?” She asked. “Will you come to the Met, to—wherever I go? Is that what you mean when you say you are wherever my music is?”

It was impossible—impossible to speak. He would choke if he spoke. He would—he would sing if he spoke. 

“I can’t do this without you,” she whispered.

Erik did not breathe. He did not move. Her eyes were blue like the sparkle of the ocean from his mother’s window. This small blond soprano had shaken him as no one else had ever done. Heart racing, blood pounding, he had never felt terror more potent. 

“Erik?”  

He backed away from the wall, his hand the last to linger, slipping away from hers and leaving him wanting. He was on fire. He turned, and he ran.  

Carly Guidicelli blocked Christine’s entrance to the cafeteria the next day. She was holding the poster in her hands. 

“What is this?” She said. 

“A poster,” Christine said. She ran her fingers through her hair. Yesterday’s lesson had frayed all her nerves and she wasn’t in the mood for Carly. She tried to push her way in, but Jasmine Jammes blocked the other door.

“Three months ago you sang like a crock,” Jasmine said. “What changed?”

Christine blinked and took a step back. She looked Jasmine fully in the face. 

“I did not sing like a crock.” Erik may have vastly improved her voice, but she had made Reyer’s shortlist for the Met before she had ever met him. 

“You did, and you were going to amount to nothing. I always said it.” 

Christine looked at Carly, not allowing tears to reach her eyes. “It doesn’t matter what you said, does it? That poster has my name and not yours.”

Carly ripped the poster clean in two and let the pieces flutter to the floor. “I don’t care what it says. I will never let you get in my way.”

Christine shoved her way towards the door. “Go ahead,” she said. “Try and stop me. Right now, I think you’re in my way.” She wrenched the handle and burst into the cafeteria, the noisy din shocking after the tense silence of the hallway. Meg waved her over, having snagged a coveted table by the window.

“You look winded,” Meg said. Dumping her bag on the floor, Christine took one of Meg’s grapes and popped it in her mouth. 

“Everyone’s talking,” Meg said. “Even the dancers. Laura Sorelli spent five minutes bragging about how her rich fiancé could have set up a debut performance for her, too.” Meg snorted. “If she could straighten her leg on her grand jete, maybe.”

Meg looked at Christine and laid her hand in the crook of Christine’s elbow. “I can’t imagine how crazy the singers must be going.”

Christine shrugged once. She stole another grape from Meg’s plate. 

“They seem a little upset, yeah.”

“Christine—I mean, even I was shocked when you told me. And it’s not because I don’t think you’re great. It’s just—it’s never been done before.”

“I know,” Christine said. She tried to smile. “What should I do, cancel it?”

“Hell no,” Meg said. “No, you are going to shine. I can’t wait.” Meg stood. “Stop eating my grapes. Do you want me to get you something?” She left for the hot line, saying over her shoulder that she’d come back with a panini.

Christine turned to look out the window. The window, which was half covered by a poster with her name on it. Last night she had walked home, oblivious to the cold, oblivious to the hour. When she turned the key, Meg was dozing on the couch. Christine woke her up with a gentle pull on the shoulder.

Wordlessly, she handed Meg the poster, who, bleary-eyed, blinked at it several times before her mouth dropped open. 

“This—this is you!”

Christine had nodded.

“But how?”

She had shrugged. Sitting back on the couch, she had brought her forearm over her eyes, her heart still thrumming from the last hour in the music room. She felt she had broken some unspoken code—there had never been a question between the two of them that Erik was real person, or that he was in hiding, but it had never mattered. And yet, something in her had compelled her towards the wall. Compelled her to imagine him standing just beyond it, looking back at her.

She had said things she was embarrassed by, now. How could she ever face him again, after losing complete control like that, stepping over their teacher-student boundary like it was a dandelion in the wind? It had always been clear that Erik was a man who valued his privacy. How could she have done that to him, abused his trust like that?

But the question she was too embarrassed to ask herself was, how could she have done that to Raoul? 

Meg returned to their table with an eggplant parmesan panini, and Christine gratefully bit into it.

“Andrew Castaigne literally just said you were sleeping with Mercier.”

Christine choked on her sandwich, and Meg patted her arm. “I know, right? It’s absurd.”

Christine wiped her mouth with a napkin.

“It’s absurd, right?” Meg said again.

“Meg!” Christine said. “How could you say that?” She was trying not to be offended that Andrew, a tenor with whom she had previously sung duets, had turned on her so quickly. 

“I know,” Meg said. She glanced around them, and then turned to face Christine.

“But—really. You never really explained it to me. How did this happen?”

Christine sighed. She had once mentioned to Raoul that she had a new voice teacher, and had said nothing about any of it since. Now, it was all so much more confusing. He felt like something more than a teacher, but Christine knew that was entirely in her mind. Nothing could have been clearer than his silent retreat from her last night. 

“I, um—” Christine drummed her fingers on her fork. “I stopped working with Mercier, actually. In January.”

“And?”

“And—I got a new teacher.”

“Who is?”

“Um.” 

“Christine, what’s the big deal?”

“I just—I’ve never—his name is Erik,” she finally said. 

“Erik what?”

“Just Erik.”

“Is this some type of game? I don’t get it.”

“No,” Christine said. So much more complicated than that. She sighed. “He is very private and doesn’t share a lot.”

“But not even his name?”

Christine hid a smile, thinking what Meg would say if she also told her that she had never seen him or even heard him speak. 

“The point is, Meg, that he is very talented, and he has a lot of influence in the music industry.”

“But he has that much influence over The Maggie? He doesn’t even work here.”

“He, uh—seems to have influence everywhere.”

“Wow,” Meg said. She sat back in her chair. “And you—I mean, you’re not, like—”

“What, Meg?” Christine said. “Sleeping with him also?” She meant it to be a joke, but she immediately felt a blush climbing up her neck. She looked away.

“Well, it’s just a bit of an odd story, you know?”

“I promise, I’m not sleeping with anyone.” 

Meg raised her eyebrows, and Christine threw a grape at her. 

“I’m taking the rest of these,” she said. 

Christine stepped into the music room that afternoon with trepidation. She wasn’t even totally sure that he would be there, given her histrionics the night before. Letting hair out of her ponytail without even thinking why she was doing it, she arranged it about her shoulders. 

“Erik?” She said. She realized she had transitioned from calling him “voice” to exclusively using his name. She wasn’t sure when that had happened, either.

“Begin your scales.”

Christine swallowed. So it was back to the demanding voice teacher, she supposed. No conversation would ensue about last night. Why was she surprised?

They worked mostly on an aria from Norma, but halfway through Erik announced that her German needed practice and they should focus on “Marietta’s Lied.” 

Sifting through her music until she found the piece, Christine waited for her piano accompaniment. Instead, she heard the strings of the violin pick up. 

Shivering at the sound, she closed her eyes. She let him play her introductory bars without making her entrance, hoping against hope that maybe he would just play the entire aria on the violin. She had only heard him play once before, and it made her breath hitch to hear it now. 

Unfortunately, the music stopped. “From the beginning, then,” the whisper said. Christine nodded, and this time, did not miss her entrance. 

Her phone began to ring during a water break, and Christine ended the call without thinking further or even glancing at the screen. Erik asked her something about the meltdown Carly had had that afternoon in Advanced Acting for Singers and Christine told the story with gusto, overdoing their teacher’s English accent and embellishing Carly’s habit of excessive hand movements. Asking questions, poking fun, Erik goaded her on, until she was roiling with laughter, doubling over as her stomach cramped. She could have sworn she heard a chuckle from beyond the wall.

Insistent, refusing to be ignored, her phone pinged again, and when Christine picked it up, she noticed first that Raoul had left her two voicemails, and second that it was past ten. 

“It’s so late!” Ice filled her stomach as she suddenly remembered that she had agreed to meet Raoul for dinner at nine. Her mind raced through the conversations she had had that day, first with Meg this morning about Carly and Jasmine, then texting with Raoul throughout the day about her nerves, her stress over her coursework and her recital. He had suggested dinner, and she had been thinking about it all day—until she had stepped into the music room, and completely forgotten. “Erik,” she said, unwilling to lay the blame on herself, “I didn’t even notice—why didn’t you say anything?”

“Is there something more pressing that you must attend to?”

Christine swallowed. Was he angry, was he disappointed? 

“I just—” Didn’t she have something more pressing? Wasn’t Raoul waiting for her, concerned for her, always there for her? 

“I mean,” she said, licking her lips, “I need to get rest. I have classes in the morning, and I can’t stay up this late every night until the performance.”

“Indeed,” Erik said. The abruptness of his response made her heart pound. She wished desperately that it wasn’t a whisper, that she could have some inclination of his tone and meaning. And since when did she care so much what Erik thought?

“Um—” She grasped at words. “I mean, I’m happy to work as much as we need to, but I—”

“Go,” was all he said. And no matter how many times she called for him after that, he did not respond again. 

Christine sighed, rubbing her temples momentarily. She remembered a time when the music room and its mysterious voice were irksome and straining to her, when she couldn’t wait to leave its coldness for Raoul’s warm embrace. When had everything changed?

If she was honest with herself, she thought, as she wrapped her scarf around her neck and burst into the cold night, things had started to change when she had begun imagining him as a man and not as a voice. When he had first played the violin to her as she had cried, and she had imagined fingers on the bow, a chin on the instrument. Closed eyes, maybe. A tall man, maybe, standing and swaying, eyebrows knit in concentration. 

Christine shivered despite her peacoat. She fumbled with her phone and dialed Raoul. 

“I’m so sorry,” she said the minute he picked up.

“Hey, sweetheart, it’s okay,” he said, but he sounded subdued.

“Raoul—seriously, I’m so sorry. I just got really caught up in my lesson, you know, for the recital.”

“I know. I get it.”

“Listen—can I come over now?”

“Sure.”

Christine pocketed her phone and ducked into the subway. As she waited, she stood face-to-face with a poster for her recital. The train whizzed by her, rustling the hair she had let down at the beginning of her lesson. Christine quickly caught it up in a bun on the top of her head. 

How far she had come in three months, she thought. Not very long ago she had waited on this platform to go uptown for her audition at the Met, trembling, thinking of her father, hoping to make him proud.

Her train came, and she stepped on, holding on to a rail despite the many empty seats. The doors closed and the train descended into darkness, wisps of light soaring past them as the train rumbled. There had always been a hole in her heart the size and shape of her father’s violin, and she had carried it with her throughout her schooling and into her music. It was what drove her to succeed. Without that pain, without that ache, she felt she hardly knew who she was, but the voice—Erik—didn’t treat her that way. He didn’t see her through the veil of her father’s death, as she saw herself. He simply saw her—simply heard her. And it was her he wanted to put on the stage of the world. She didn’t know if she could ever live up to what he saw in her. 

Christine bounded up the stairs, turned right, and then ran up the street towards Raoul’s building. She buzzed his apartment with numb fingers. After a moment, she heard the return buzz and the sliding of the lock. She tried not to be surprised, as he usually would come down and meet her on the first floor. 

When she got to his floor, she approached his door, took in a breath, and then knocked gingerly. 

Raoul’s roommate Gabriel opened the door. 

“Hey, Gabriel,” Christine said. She smiled weakly. He nodded at her and she slipped past him. Raoul was just getting up from the couch.

She hesitated, looking at him. He ran his hands through his hair, and then looked up at her, a half-smile on his face, his eyebrows arched. Her heart jumped and she came to him, wrapping her arms around his middle.

“God, Raoul, I’m so sorry.”

He returned her embrace, pulling her close and letting his mouth rest in the crook of her neck. 

“It’s okay,” he said. He breathed in.

“Is it really?”

Raoul kissed her shoulder, and then the spot directly below her ear. He placed his hands on her waist and pulled back to look at her. 

“You aren’t the first girlfriend in the world to forget a date. I just need to get over myself.”

“No, you don’t,” Christine said. “I messed up. I’m sorry. You deserve better.”

Raoul gently cupped her cheek with his palm. “I’m happy right where I am,” he said. 

Christine smiled, a warmth budding beneath her heart. She didn’t deserve him, it was that simple. Instead of telling him that, she reached up and kissed him softly. Raoul responded by lacing his fingers through her hair and cradling the back of her head, his other arm slipping across the small of her back. He moved his lips towards her ear.

“This way.” He pulled her towards his room, shut the door, and then pushed her into the wall. Her breath was knocked from her as he took her face in his hands and kissed her hard. His long, lean body molded against hers, pressing her insistently against the wall. She closed her eyes, his lips moving against hers, soft and steady. He took one of her hands and laid it flat against the wall, and she was suddenly dizzy, the practice room materializing behind her eyelids, the silence as she listened to Erik breathe, the strains of his violin shuddering through her chest as she lay her hand on the wall and called his name. 

“Raoul,” she said. 

He murmured something in response, his fingers falling over her neck, trailing across her chest. 

She struggled to free her hand, and when she did, he looped them both around his neck and pulled her with him towards the bed. She tumbled on top of him and he caught her right before she fell off. 

Laughing, his hair pushed up at odd angles from his forehead, he pulled her beside him over the covers and lay there, looking into her eyes, tracing her cheek with the back of his knuckles. 

“You’re so beautiful,” he said. “My beautiful opera singer.”

Christine tried to breathe, tried to clear her mind of music room, but it faded very slowly. She tucked her head into his shoulder and laid an arm across his chest. 

“I hope you’ll come to my recital,” she said. 

“I wouldn’t miss it for the world. And when it’s over, I’m going to take you out to dinner, no excuses.”

“I’d like that,” she said. She propped herself up on her elbow and looked down at him, slipped the pad of her finger over his cheekbone, his eyebrows. Her heat thudded against her ribcage. Any woman would melt in the arms of this kind, warm, gorgeous man. Any woman would feel fire flare in her heart at the sight of him, red-lipped, cheeks flushed, his eyes trained on her, hands reaching out for her.

She leaned down and kissed him again. 

The night of her recital, Christine was pacing in Meadow Hall’s dressing room, her hands on her hips. She had skipped all of her classes that day and instead sat with Erik in their practice room, in turn going over her biggest faults in each piece and talking of nothing to pass the time. When he had suggested she leave to go home and rest at lunchtime, she had begged him to stay. She was too nervous to be with anyone else. 

Erik, for the most part, simply listened as she spoke. She talked about her father’s wedding gift to her mother, an emerald necklace in the shape of a leaf, an heirloom lost between apartments and moves. She talked about a woman who had been kind to her, after her father’s death, when she was living in her aunt’s house, a silent, terrified child. She talked about Raoul, briefly, because he had kissed her goodbye that very morning with a loving glint in his eyes, and nobody had ever been in love with her before. 

At some point, Erik told her gently that he had left a warm tea outside the door, and that she needed to go home to prepare. He told her not to worry about a costume, but that one would be waiting for her in the dressing room.

“You’ll be there?” She asked, hesitating at the threshold, picking up the tea he had left. 

“You know I will be,” he had said.

When she arrived at the Hall, an excited assistant had directed her to the dressing room. Raoul had driven her there and kissed her soundly before dropping her off to find parking. 

“I’ll be out here if you need me, Miss Daaé,” the assistant had said. “I put some tea in there for you, Miss Daaé,” he said. 

Christine had to shake him off at the door. She closed her eyes briefly when she was finally alone again, reminding herself to breathe. This was it—this was it. Erik had brought her here, to this moment—her moment to become the singer her father had always envisioned. The singer Erik had promised the first day they had met. 

She opened her eyes to behold two neatly wrapped packages sitting on the chair before the lit dressing mirror. A card sat atop them, tied with a ribbon. Christine picked it up. 

Tonight is yours alone. -E

Christine slipped the card into her pocket, feeling a bit dizzy again. She opened the bigger box, and out tumbled a silver chiffon gown with a delicate sweetheart neckline. Breathing in, she pressed the fabric against her cheek. It fell in liquid glitter around her. Tucked into a corner of the box were a pair of black stilettos. She shifted the shoes onto the floor and uncapped the second box. 

A matching necklace and earring set sat embedded in velvet. The fragile gold chain of the necklace ran like water through her fingers. At the end, a group of emeralds was clustered around a single diamond, forming the shape of a leaf. She rapidly blinked, willing herself not to cry and ruin her professional makeup. 

So he had listened. So he had been there. Sometimes when Erik encouraged her to talk, she had the distinct impression that she was truly speaking to no one. He rarely responded or even grunted to let her know he was listening. She lifted the necklace onto her neck and fastened it, staring in the mirror at its glinting beauty. He had listened, this time.

Christine slipped into the gown and the shoes, and then threaded the matching emerald earrings through her ears. When she arranged her hair in the mirror, the diamond sparkling and her makeup perfectly applied, she thought she looked like a star. 

It was with this new and thrilling thought that she headed out of her dressing room. The assistant was immediately at her side. 

“Right this way, Miss Daaé,” he said. “The audience is almost fully seated, Miss Daaé.”

Christine thought to let him know it was all right to breathe, but she was too busy enjoying the pampering. A star, she thought. She touched the diamond at her throat. 

The assistant led her to the side of the stage, and she smiled at him. 

“Break a leg, Miss Daaé.”

Christine closed her eyes, listening to the sounds of the small accompanying quartet tune their instruments. She placed her hands flat against her sternum and breathed in, as Erik had taught her. 

“For you, Papa,” she said. And for you, Erik.

Chapter Text

After the performance, he waited for her. Perhaps the hiding place itself was beneath him, but it would be worth it, when she returned. Moving several strategic pieces of furniture into a corner, Erik had set up the old-fashioned dressing screen in front, and then he had lay, covered in his black coat, on the floor behind the dresser.

He waited for her. Christine had sung with a beautiful trill in her voice, his necklace and his dress clinging to her form until she was more radiant in his eyes than an angel. Heart beating madly just at the memory, he trembled, waiting there on the floor like a madman, like a man possessed, and maybe he was, maybe he was, because he felt—he felt like—he might even speak to her tonight—he might even sing to her. He had given her his music and she had soared on its wings, taking him with her into the heights. He didn’t want to come down, and he thought if he spoke to her, if she stayed with him—maybe he wouldn’t have to. 

Feet scurried past the room. He cleared his throat several times and flexed his fingers. Everything—everything had changed. He had listened to her talk about her life this afternoon with unending concentration. Every word she said, every arch of her brow he absorbed, he remembered. 

Heels came to a stop before the door and the handle jiggled. Erik held his breath.

Sounds of clamoring voices poured into the room, Christine’s laughter above it all. The door closed and he felt the distinct disadvantage of not being able to see her. He wanted to behold her in that dress once more. But he had planned to speak—not to let her see him. That was—impossible. 

He heard the swishing of her gown as she approached the dressing table, and he threw a whisper towards her. 

“Tonight you gave your soul,” he said. 

He heard her gasp. 

“Erik!” Her voice was a hushed whisper. “Erik, you’re here! I can’t even—I can’t even begin to tell you—”

“I know,” he said. “I know.” There was a moment of silent, shared elation. 

He cleared his throat again. “Christine,” he whispered.

But there was knocking at the door, and another man’s voice calling to her. 

“One second, Raoul,” he heard her say.

Raoul. Raoul? 

“Oh, Erik,” she said. “I just—I’ve never felt this way before. I’ve never felt like I’m—bursting at the seams. I’m so grateful, and so happy. I’ll talk to you tomorrow—I can’t wait!” And she was gone. 

Moments persisted in silence in the empty dressing room, until finally, Erik stood and brushed off his pants. He climbed out from between the furniture and stood in the center of the room, off-kilter, dizzy. She had left at least three bouquets of flowers at the dresser, no doubt things that had been pressed into her hands by fleeting faces as she was escorted back to her dressing room. Erik remembered what it was like—he had always been behind a screen, but the rush of the stage, the sounds of the audience, the roar of applause was fresh in his ears from so many years ago. His mother had always been the one to escort him back to his dressing room. She would collect the bouquets and lay them on his lap. 

Erik fingered one of the roses straining above its peers. Soft and dewy between his palms, he pulled it out of the bouquet and sat cradling it at Christine’s dressing mirror. The elation of her performance had left with her footsteps, and instead his chest was quiet and numb. One by one, he plucked the petals from the rose. A roaring was beginning between his ears, and his fingers began to tremble. Her voice had been anchoring him for weeks, her music, for months. And now, on the coattails of her first true triumph, with her scent lingering in the room, he realized that it wasn’t about her music at all.

Christine slid into a booth at Le Coin du Feu, an upscale steakhouse in midtown. Raoul had walked her through Times Square like she was a celebrity, taking artsy pictures of her in her sparkling gown on his phone.

They walked arm-in-arm into the restaurant. Christine couldn’t keep the smile off her face as she snuck looks at Raoul from above her menu. 

The night was, she thought, perhaps the best one of her entire life. The stage, the cellos, the audience in their shadows, the flowers, the applause—Christine could hardly believe this was her life. 

“You are radiant,” Raoul said after they ordered. “I can’t believe the Maggie lent you that outfit.”

“Oh—” Christine’s smiled slipped only slightly. She placed a hand over the diamond. She had assumed that this was a gift, as extravagant and unbelievable as it was. She had assumed Erik had purchased it only for her. “Isn’t it exquisite?” 

“You were exquisite. I am awed by you, Christine. When we met—I mean, you told me you were a singer, but that’s all you said. And now—all this.”

“I know.” She smiled, and he took her hand. “I can hardly believe it either. But it might really be happening for me.”

“Crazy how it all happened so quickly.” Christine smiled. What was there to say?

Over their food, Raoul gushed about her performance, about the people sitting next to him, about how he had shushed them when the lights dimmed and watched their jaws drop when she started to sing. Christine watched him, held his hand. She thought of this morning, the way the sunlight had filtered through the slats of his window and speckled his face. He had reached up, his bare chest tickling against her back, and closed the blinds. 

She rubbed her neck now where he had kissed her. It was impossible to believe she was the same girl he had first asked out. She felt like she had bloomed brilliant petals after a lifetime of rain and darkness. She was riding on a wave of enchanting music, and it made her feel so free of grief, so confident in herself, that she picked up his hand and pressed a kiss to his palm. He grinned at her. 

There was only a small twinge in her heart later that night when she removed the emerald necklace and let Raoul lead her to bed.

Morning at the Maggie was hell. Christine hadn’t expected it, but she realized as soon as it started to happen that she should have. None of the singers in her year would talk to her. She draped her coat across her chair, and Olivia Bell shot her a narrow-eyed stare. Christine tried to strike up conversation with Nathaniel Hunt, one of her favorite tenors, but he had shrugged and moved away. Christine sighed. 

Carly sauntered into the room a few minutes before the bell rang. “Oh,” she stopped in front of Christine’s desk. “You’re still here with the rest of us peasants, then?”

Christine didn’t even bother to lift her eyes. “Give it a rest, Carly.” 

“Did you guys see who is in class with us today? The great, the famous, the spectacular Christine Daaé. What should I call you, then? La Daaé?”

“You don’t have to do this. I never did anything to you.”

“What kind of game do you think you’re playing, Christine? Who did you sleep with to make this happen?”

”You little bit—”

“Sit down, all of you.” Mr. Mercier entered the room without ceremony. Carly gave Christine a simpering smile before sitting in the back of the room. Mercier’s eyes scanned the room. “Congratulations are in order for Miss Daaé, who sang beautifully at her recital last night. Her voice lessons at Julliard are proving very fruitful.”

He turned to the board and began to lecture. Christine tried very hard to focus straight ahead of her. 

“They’re just jealous bitches,” Meg said to her in the hallway during the mid-morning break. “You know that.”

“I know, but I can’t go on like this until May. I don’t want to be an outcast.”

By the afternoon, Christine felt like every person in the hallway was stopping to stare at her as she passed. Her head was beginning to swim. Meg caught her before her voice lesson and shoved her phone in her face.

“Look!”

Christine scrolled through a New York Times article. An article about her. It was titled, “The New Daaé.”

“‘The crowd gathered at the steps of Meadow Hall,’” Christine read, “‘eager to hear the soprano the New Marguerite School of Music had handpicked for its singular debut recital. The setlist was alarmingly ambitious. And one had to wonder, as he shifted into his seat, if the school was finally going to take a blunder in the music world it has held captive for ten years. Out stepped the soprano, Christine Daaé, in a dazzling silver gown, and she made an even more radiant debut. Singing with confidence, power, and purpose, with both freshness and maturity, Miss Daaé, just 20, drew a deep line in the sand, staking claim to the most formidable roles available to sopranos today. We look forward with great pleasure to Miss Daaé’s next performance. Perhaps it will be Faust?’”

“My God, Meg,” Christine said. “This is about me.”

“It’s about you, you idiot,” Meg said. “Because you were amazing last night and you know it.”

Christine was shaking. “This says my name. I can’t believe it. I can’t believe it.”

Meg hugged her. “Believe it,” she said. “Everyone is going to know your name.”

Christine felt inexplicable tears come to her eyes. She tried to extricate herself from Meg. Why do you cry? She remembered the voice asking her. Is it not all that you wanted? It is, she thought. It is, it was, but—but—

Christine pressed her hands together to try to get them to stop shaking, but she was failing, and people were passing by, shoulders intentionally shoving against her, little whispers and tinkling laughter filling the hallway as it began to shrink in her vision. 

“Christine—” 

“Christine?”

“Look, it’s Christine.”

“Is that Christine Daaé?”

Christine Christine Christine. 

Meg began to shake her—or was it someone else? Or had it been Meg at all? Or was she shaking herself, or, or, or—her breath started to come in huge gasps, unable to fill her lungs as her throat closed and strained against her. Grasping at the walls, trying to walk, then run towards her practice room, Christine tears tried desperately to suck in breath as her vision tunneled and her fingers began to lock up. She was having a full-blown panic attack in the hallway of the school, and she knew not a single person would lift a finger to help her, not today. She fell on the door of the practice room.

“Erik.” She sobbed. Her fingers were vibrating and she couldn’t move them. “Erik.”

Suddenly, swiftly, she felt hands under her armpits, lifting her from the floor. An arm came across her chest and another hand draped over her eyes.

“Trust me.”

Christine choked out a shocked breath. Her was solid, he was real, and he was holding her, carrying her into the room. She shivered uncontrollably. 

“E-Erik—” Her back was pressed into his chest. If she opened her eyes, she could see the flesh of his hand. A real hand. She tried to breath.

“Relax,” Erik whispered. He pressed the hand even tighter onto her eyes and sat her down on the piano bench. His free hand came to rest on her shoulder. “Can you do that for me?”

Christine shook her head furiously, sobs racking her chest. All of her fears, her doubts, her anxieties had bundled up into one miserable morning of Carly’s taunts and the overbearing praise of the New York Times, and she just—

“Erik—” She couldn’t form another word.

“Keep your eyes closed, dove.” Suddenly his hand was gone, his presence lost from behind her. She spun, but the room was empty. She couldn’t stop herself from doubling over the piano and crying. Her last panic attack, she had told Meg and Raoul, was nearly ten years ago. Then, a social worker had held her and given her water until her hands had stopped cramping.

From deep within her, an abiding ache rose up and crashed over her heart. 

“Papa,” she cried. “Papa, please.” This is too much. Please, Papa, I wasn’t strong enough for this. Take it away. Take it all away.

The piano started from behind the wall. At first, she hardly heard it over her own weeping, her mind still too tightly wound. She banged her fist against the piano bench, raining curses at her father for leaving her alone. She drew in a huge, shuddering breath, and then she stopped. 

She breathed again. The music rose up behind her, lulling her hands into a relaxed position. Her shoulders released their tension, and the tears began to dry on her cheeks. She opened her eyes, after what felt like years, and saw that she could see the room now in perfect clarity.

Erik was sitting at his piano, beyond the wall, and he was playing City of Angels.

The hands that had minutes ago touched her, carried her, were sitting on keys, playing City of Angels. Possessed, held in the embrace of his music, Christine stood without thinking and walked towards the right wall. Turning her back to it, she slid down until she reached the ground. 

The music ended and Christine gasped.

“Again.”

He began again. Lolling with her eyes closed, her head resting against the wall, she felt let herself drift into a blank dreamscape.

When it ended this time, she spoke. “You’re him.” She was too exhausted to be shocked. “I imagined, but I never truly thought. But you’re him.”

Erik didn’t reply. 

“Please,” she said. “Talk to me. This time, please.”

“What would you like me to say?”

Christine rubbed her eyes. “I don’t know, Erik. Anything. Everything. Tell me why I am so spineless and weak. Why I cry when I’m supposed to be happy. Why I can’t have success without feeling like a failure.”

“When I was on the stage, it was only about the music. You have the misfortune of needing to also be seen, to be social, to play the game. I don’t envy you.”

Christine blinked. He had just admitted it, hadn’t he—he was Erik, the Erik, the pianist, the composer. She remembered suddenly that that musician had been famous for never showing his face, and in remembering, wondered how she ever could have forgotten.

“My father would melt into a puddle if he knew you were my music teacher,” she said. “He talked about you all the time.”

“Did he? Why?”

Christine laughed. “Because you were the most famous musician of the century. Because they said your music would go in a time capsule. Actually—did it? I always wondered.”

She thought she heard a soft chuckle behind the wall, and the sound made her warm.

“It did. It went up with a shuttle and now is probably floating around Jupiter.”

She giggled, and then pressed her hands to her mouth. It was—absolutely flooring to be speaking to this man—to Erik!—like a friend. She had idolized him as a child. He was a living legend. And he had pulled her, a sobbing mess, from the ground.

“I can’t believe you teach me to sing,” she said again. “You’re Erik the pianist. I’m just—”

“You’re Christine Daaé the soprano. Do you think I made a mistake?”

All the mystery of him, the terror of him, had dissipated. He was no longer a voice, no longer a forbidding and distant teacher with a short temper. She had felt him, felt his breath on her ear. She wanted to stay, sitting against this wall and talking to him, forever.

“Why do you whisper?”

“My voice is part of my music,” he said after a moment. 

It wasn’t an answer of any sort. She turned to look at the wall. Another thought had occurred to her. 

“How old were you when you wrote City of Angels?” The Maggie had recently celebrated its tenth anniversary, and Erik had been famous for years before that. He must be at least—at least her father’s age, if not more— 

“I was fifteen.”  

Christine blushed deeply. 

“And why—” She swallowed. “Why didn’t you ever write anything else?”

“I wrote many things. You mean, why didn’t I share them with the world?”

“Well, I guess, yeah.”

“They didn’t deserve it. I never thought I’d meet an artist who would, until I heard you.”

Christine took to brushing off imagined dirt from her pants. She was sitting with a musical genius and she had cried in this room, thrown tantrums in this room, even insulted him a few times. 

“I’m so embarrassed. I didn’t know who you were.”

“Nothing has changed, Christine.”

But everything had changed. Didn’t he see that?

“You had a panic attack. Tell me what happened.” 

She felt dazed. Erik—the pianist—was concerned about her. Erik—the pianist—had bought her emeralds and diamonds.

“You bought me that necklace,” she said. Raoul had said it was a loan from the costume department, but she had thought—maybe—but wasn’t it crazy? He was Erik. She quickly explained what had happened this morning.

“You’re so tightly wound, Christine,” he said slowly, when she had finished. “Like a bow waiting to snap. Have you always been this way?”

She considered her answered before she gave it. “For years. There was a time, when my father was alive, that I had a center, that I felt grounded.”

“And today, the prattling of your classmates, that was enough to knock you off-center?”

Christine shrugged. What did he want her to say, that she was too fragile to be what he wanted? “It doesn’t take much to get me into a thought-spiral.”

“And what thoughts are these?”

I am not worth it. I am not enough. I don’t deserve to be. 

“Christine?”

“I—” The words that eventually came out were a jumble of her thoughts. “I don’t deserve you.”

There was a short, clipped silence.

“Well. That’s ridiculous.”

His words were only somewhat mollifying, because once she had said it, she knew without a doubt it was true. How absurd was it, truly, for Erik the Pianist to be giving her singing lessons? She who had never distinguished herself in any way, never taken a prize, never spent summers at music camps, who had shocked herself and everyone else in her class by even getting a spot in the Met auditions?

“Stop it,” she heard him say. “What are you doing? Stop it. Listen to me. Christine—look at me.”

That got her attention. She had known for a while that she was right about him being behind this particular wall, but he had never acknowledged it or invited any kind of contact. She turned slowly, facing the wall cross-legged, wondering if it was going to dissolve before her eyes, if Erik the Pianist was going to take her away from here, take her into his closeted musical world and never look back. Stranger things had happened this week.

“Listen to me. What is this nonsense? You were a tremendous success. Even the Times couldn’t restrain its praise for you.”

“It was too much. And that wasn’t the praise I needed. I didn’t sing for them. I didn’t sing for any of them.” She looked intently at the wall, hoping he was looking directly back at her. 

“I think you hold the heart of the world,” came his answering whisper. “And my opinion is enough.”

She closed her eyes, tears brimming under the lids.

“Erik, I’m scared.”

“Scared of what, little dove?”

She shook her head. It wasn’t about her individual fears, no matter how desperately they knocked at her—scared of failure, scared of darkness, scared of silence, scared of losing you, Erik—it was just about letting him know that she was scared, and having him hear her. Her chest and throat were raw and stripped in the aftermath of her violent tears, and she wanted to move the conversation away from herself, from her frailties and her weakness, all things she already knew too well. 

She wanted to know him. 

“What is your favorite opera?”

An unexpected laugh came from the other side of the wall, and Christine tried desperately to imagine the lips it tumbled from, but all her mind could conjure was a tall shadow. 

“Is that your fear? My favorite opera?”

“No.” Christine smiled, feeling her shoulders relax. Her eyes flickered over the blank white wall. “I don’t know. It was just a passing thought.”

“You’ll be disappointed, I think, if I tell you that opera is not my favorite form of music.”

“Really? You would have fooled me.”

“Don’t misunderstand. If you are singing opera, I will listen until I die. For you and your voice, opera is my very favorite piece of art on this earth.”

Her mouth fell open briefly at this unsolicited, overwhelming piece of praise. 

“I—”

“But if you knew who ‘Erik’ was, then you know I am partial to classical music. I appreciate the soul in the libretto of an opera, but it will never compare, for me, to the violins in a Rachmaninoff symphony.”

“I don’t suppose you listen to light rock,” Christine said, teasing.

“Would you believe I have sung the entirety of ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ to myself many times?”

Christine was startled into laughter. “I would absolutely not.”

They talked in this way, a light banter, a comfortable exchange of breath and soul, late into the afternoon, Christine’s head swirling with all that had happened. There was still a tall shadow in her mind, but it was one with headphones, sitting perhaps on some lonely balcony, eyes closed, the swell of violins and cellos obscuring the mundane noise of the taxis and buses below. She thought, then, of another balcony she had once sat on, another city with another set of noises and lights and blaring horns.

“Can I ask you more about City of Angels?”  

“If you want to.”

“Why is it called City of Angels?”

He paused. “Entire articles have been written about that.”

“And?”

“Ask me something else, dove, something I’m likely to answer.”

She frowned and plowed ahead, the question one she had wondered about for too many years to drop now. “My father and I could never agree on the title. I said it was about Los Angeles. He said the song wasn’t about anything at all, and that it was simply music finding a home in your heart.”

“Los Angeles? Why?”

“Well, it’s the City of Angels.”

“Is it?”

Christine couldn’t tell if truly didn’t know the city’s nickname or if he meant something else indecipherable. “I grew up there, you know.” 

“Grew up there? In Los Angeles?”

She nodded. That’s as much as she had ever told anyone who wasn’t a social worker. Christine Daaé, orphaned soprano from Los Angeles. She opened her mouth, and continued. Later, she wouldn’t know why she had, why she had felt safe in this moment to tell him everything, to release the burden of her tremendous pain upon the walls of this empty room, but she had trusted him to hear her. 

“My father—you know—I’m an orphan, because I’m here at The Maggie. My father had a heart attack, and I’ve never been okay since.” She bit a trembling lip. “Did you ever hear about the Campbell Building tragedy?” 

Erik didn’t answer, but Christine was used to that. 

“It was a big office building on Reno Street, in Rampart Village. I don’t think many people knew there were some apartments in the building—something about zoning codes and being grandfathered in. We moved there after my mother died.” Christine took a deep breath, and rubbed her chest to ease the tension. 

“It was a Tuesday at four. I was just coming home from choir practice at school. I didn’t even understand what was happening. And suddenly—" Christine blinked briefly, the scene playing itself out in her mind with astounding, terrible clarity, just as it had every night for years after the fire. “Glass was smashing, and people were screaming. And—have you ever heard a fire? You don’t just feel it, you hear it, and you breathe it. It’s so, so loud. I had never—and a woman fell on top of me in the stairwell—" Christine stopped talking, her hands beginning to shake as she pressed them into her eyelids.

The comforting whisper she expected, or perhaps the strain of a violin, never came. She wiped an errant tear from her cheek, shuddering in even saying the words she had kept locked up for so long, words she had not spoken aloud since she was twelve years old. She leaned her forehead against the wall and pretended it was Erik’s steadying arm.

“My father was the only one who could stop the panic attacks, after that. I was afraid to leave our apartment. I was afraid of sirens, terrified of loud noises. He was my only friend, my best friend. He took my whole life with him when he died, and I’ve felt—lost, lost and tired, all these years, without him. Until—until now.”

She waited for him to speak. She waited, waited for the acknowledgement that always came from him—from Erik—from her teacher, her friend, her—she waited. “Erik?” Her voice shook only a little bit. “Erik?”

Across the thin layer of drywall and plaster, Erik sat on the ground, facing Christine, the orphan, the little girl Farjad Shirazi had told him about ten years ago. 

Her voice now, trembling, sweet, echoed in his head. Erik, Erik, Erik. 

“No,” he said. His voice was hoarse. He thought he spoke the word, instead of whispering.

“Erik?” She said. “What?”

“No.” He thrust his fingers through what little hair he had, his forehead coming to meet the ground. “No.” The word tore from his chest. His ears were ringing. “No, no, no, no, no—” He wasn’t sure he was making sounds anymore. “No—”

Every breath burned. “No—”

“Erik? I—I can’t hear you.”

His face contorted into a mask of utter misery. A sob climbed up his throat, and he was standing, running away from her, away from that little blond girl with the big blue eyes—

“No!” He screamed into his home, the noise bouncing off the walls. He slid on his knees towards his mother’s shrine. He screamed, and screamed, and all the while her picture watched him, placid, her beatific smile frozen in time. 

“Momma, help me.” His voice cracked. “Help me.” Madeleine smiled at him, the edges of her picture turning yellow.

She was blinking at him, unseeing, and when she grasped the nearby bookcase to keep herself from falling, he was immediately at her side. 

“What is it?” he said. “Momma? What’s going on?”

“I’m sorry,” Madeleine said. “I—” She began to choke, and then cough. Her entire weight sagged against him and he heaved her towards the couch. The cough turned into blood.

“Momma—” His chest constricted in fear. “I don’t understand. Tell me what to do.”

“I—” She clutched at her throat.

“I’m going to call an ambulance, okay?” 

She shook her head, even as her skin turned green. She gestured at his face.

“Momma—I don’t care—”

She shook her head again, her pupils dilating as she tried and failed to breathe in air. 

Tears were pricking Erik’s eyes. “Don’t leave me. Please, tell me what to do.”

Her hand fell from her throat, and she went limp against his shoulder. 

“—love—” She said. 

“No,” Erik said. “No, no, no, no—” He jumped towards the landline, fumbled with the number.

The emergency responders were there within minutes. Erik had hidden himself inside of an empty wooden hull designed to look like a dresser on the outside, a place Madeleine had always told him to hide if there were unexpected visitors. Paramedics descended upon his mother, pressing on her chest, applying an oxygen mask. 

There was no need. Madeleine was dead; he had seen the life leave her eyes. 

Erik lay panting on the floor, his arms outstretched, his tears sticking to his face. It had been the darkest hour of his life, watching his mother choke and gag in his arms, but the grief of that loss only spurred the violent anger that raged when he discovered Madeleine had not been lost but had been taken from him. 

He had stepped out of the dresser hours after the paramedics departed, ducking under police tape, running his hands along the furniture in a daze. In his shock, his mind had gone completely numb and totally blank, and he took in the sights of their apartment as if seeing them for the first time. Had she always left her hairbrush slightly askew on her dresser? Was there always a stain on the carpet beneath the dining room table? He wandered the apartment for hours, circling and circling the couch upon which she had left him, the truth of it not settling in his gut. For days he did not sleep. For days he avoided the couch, pacing, crouching, crying, screaming. She was gone, and he was alone, alone in a world that she swore would never and could never understand him. The silence in the apartment was oppressive, a physical entity that taunted him constantly with the lack of her voice. 

The little amber bottle of pills, the one a police detective had sniffed and taken away as evidence was gone, but Erik scoured the apartment for duplicates. He would not be alone after all, because he would follow her. He would follow her as soon as he could find another bottle. He had flung open medicine cabinets, searched kitchen drawers, emptied out all of the contents of her desk, and that’s how he had found the papers.

The first document was an eviction notice, served to one Madeleine Carriere, demanding that she quit the property within thirty days for being delinquent on rent. It was dated several weeks prior. Underneath that, stacked haphazardly, creased, smudged and shoved into the back corner of the drawer, were envelopes, receipts, and correspondence. 

Under a black, moonless night, Erik had sat at Madeleine’s desk and uncovered the secrets she had undoubtedly always intended to keep from him. Credit cards were declined. Collections officers were becoming increasingly demanding and rude. Receipts for payments for performances read “paid in full to W. Campbell, LLC.” At the bottom, there was an open envelope with a note in William’s hand that read “Dead things can’t make money.” Inside, there was a copy of Erik’s death certificate. As he fingered the document, Erik’s eyes traveled down the remaining documents. There were several letters from a law firm he had never heard of, detailing a lawsuit Madeleine had opened against William that had failed. She had not been able to provide evidence that the musician in question was her son. 

Dropping the letters, Erik gave the briefest glance to the death certificate. It recorded the time and date of his birth, the hospital, and the name of his mother. The name of the child: Erik Carriere. The attending doctor had signed at the bottom, but the cause of death was listed as “deferred.” He had overheard his mother on the phone more than once explaining that her child had died at birth. Once, when he asked her about it, she had said that it was easiest this way and that he was never to ask about it again, so he hadn’t. It hadn’t seemed to matter, then. 

But Erik still didn’t understand what had happened, not totally. He was still too naïve, too raw in his grief, too trusting of William, the only other person in the world who truly knew of his existence. There had to be something missing, something to explain how these letters had ended in Madeleine’s death. He spent the next several weeks working on a mask that looked at least somewhat realistic, experimenting with textures and materials until he was satisfied that with a baseball hat he could at least pass for normal. 

Then one day he walked into William Campbell’s office on the 12th floor of the Campbell building, not having thought to make an appointment, because he had never had to make one before. He approached the secretary slowly, feeling tremendously exposed when she met his eyes, and triumphant when she didn’t blink at his fake face.

“Can I help you?”

“I am here to see William. William Campbell. Mr. Campbell.”

The secretary stared at him, and then glanced down, a small smirk tugging at her lips. Erik pulled at his collar and tapped his fingers on the desk, feeling smaller and more idiotic by the minute. 

“Mr. Campbell has a very busy schedule. Could I take a message?”

“Is he here?”

“He is not available.”

“I represent Erik.” 

The secretary stopped what she was doing immediately, and several minutes later William Campbell was ushering Erik into the room. Erik had decided before he had come that he would not be coming as himself. At least some part of him had worried that William was not the benefactor he had once believed him to be.

“So,” William said, looking Erik up and down as he sat behind his desk. “You are here for Erik?”

“I represent Erik,” he said, trying to repeat phrases he had heard on his mother’s TV. “Erik Carriere is my client.”

“Is that so?” William’s eyebrows lifted ever so slightly. “I was not aware that Erik had another… manager.”

The way he drew the word out made Erik blush. He pulled at his collar again and looked around the office, once familiar, now foreboding.

“As you know,” Erik began, clearing his throat, “Madeleine Carriere—” his voice faltered, and he started again. “Madeleine Carriere is—”

“Are you here about that? Again? Really?”

Erik looked at him, and William rolled his eyes. “All of that is over. Are you really a lawyer? You don’t look like one. Are you from a different firm?”

“I—”

“Is this coming from Erik? I had no idea the kid was even involved. Look. That lawsuit never made it anywhere. Yours won’t either. You want to help? Tell me where Erik is.”

“Erik—my client is—” He was stuttering, his mind racing. Had William always been this way? This wasn’t what he had remembered.

“Where is he?” William leaned forward. “We can work something out. Not with the screen, not all that nonsense, but something else. Maybe a mask.”

Erik felt his stomach drop. “A—a mask? Why—why would he—”

William laughed quietly. “You’ve really never seen? Take a look, next time you’re with him. I looked once. Behind the screen. You know why her lawsuit failed, don’t you? You ever wonder why she did it? I don’t, not anymore. He looks like he died at birth.” 

Stunned, Erik said the only words his mouth could form. “Madeleine never wanted him to wear a mask.”

“I know.” The cold smile that graced his face was one that would haunt Erik for years. “She told me that just last month. I told her that if she continued to get in my way I’d have that face plastered all over Los Angeles County.”

Erik did not remember returning to the apartment. Things in the apartment had shattered but he had no memory of touching them. William had killed her. He couldn’t remember if he had eaten or where he had slept in the weeks following. He had been spurred on by a deep and abiding rage that sometimes felt like it was choking him. William Campbell had taken his mother away from him, blackmailed her and depleted her until she felt her only recourse was suicide. He had used Erik’s face against her, and that was what had finally caused her to fold. 

At first, Erik’s only goal was to kill William Campbell and himself with William Campbell. He had spectacular visions of blowing up the Campbell building, a neat solution that ensured they’d be both death and buried. But one day he had walked past the building and seen a little girl tugging her father’s hand through the lobby, and he remembered that there were residential apartments in the building, too. 

Months later, he and Farjad had planted a bomb in Campbell’s office, carefully planned to only destroy Campbell and his name, small enough to be contained just on that floor, large enough to ensure Campbell died the death he deserved. But something had gone wrong, something in the building had caught fire too quickly for Farjad to control it, and the fire had spread, and the building had collapsed into itself like a wilting flower. 

And Erik had fled, for years, from what had happened, from what he had done, because not only had he killed his mother, but he had killed so many others, and the truth of it was too bleak and horrible to confront, that all of it had happened because of him, because of this thing he hadn’t asked for, this thing he couldn’t control, because of his face. So many people had died, and although he had run, and run, and run, the heat and the smoke and the flames would always catch up with him, would always overtake him, would always slam him to the ground before his mother’s portrait in breathless tears. And now, as he panted on all fours, staring at the floor, he saw it, happening again and again before his eyes—one wrong step, one misplaced second, one ill-fated turn back—and he could have killed Christine too. 

Chapter Text

Tears blurred her vision as Christine tore through the hallways of the Maggie, wiping haphazardly at her face and inhaling sharply through a clogged nose. Her phone was ringing, but she silenced it immediately. She didn’t want to talk to anyone for the rest of the night.

The recital, the applause, the bright, sparkling aftermath of the weekend, and even the article about her in the New York Times faded into muted sounds and colors, and in their fading she wondered how she could have ever inhabited that dream, how she could have ever thought she belonged in that charmed life. This was her life, this gutting, aching grief, the memories of the thick, black smoke steaming from the top of the building, and the awful silence in the hospital room a year later when the doctors and nurses had kneeled in front of her eleven year old self, taken her hand gently like it would somehow soften the blow, and told her that her father was dead. The words had meant nothing to her, nothing at all. She had turned to the grief counselor in the room and asked quietly, but distinctly, if they would please wake her father now. She was tired, and scared, and hungry, and she just wanted to see her father. She tried to explain this to the counselor multiple times, but the woman shook her head, and the more she shook her head, the more agitated Christine had become. 

She remembered that she had started shouting at them. The counselor had tried to touch her, and Christine had reacted violently, had opened her mouth and screamed, and screamed, and screamed.

And this horror she had kept locked up inside for so long, this reality that defined her, that mirrored her every step, that spoke in her dreams and caught her in moments unguarded, she had offered to Erik, offered with tears and with hope. Hope that he would hear her. Hope that he would understand her. Because it was his music, she had realized, as he had played City of Angels for her. It was his music that had awoken her to a world where she could sing unburdened to a stymied audience, that had whispered to her that she was allowed to feel happiness, that she was allowed to feel joy. His music answered her own. And she had thought he would, as well.

Christine exited the Maggie through a side door, the barely-warmed early spring air hanging silent and still around her. Her chest was an empty cavity, and eventually her tears dried into nothingness. Buildings and streets moved past her in an endless blur. She had never shared this with anyone but a child therapist, never even scratched the surface of her trauma with Meg or Raoul, but she had—with Erik she had dared to hope—

Losing all sense of place and dignity, Christine let out a choking sob in the middle of the street, holding her fist to her mouth as tears leaked out the sides of her closed eyes. The pain doubled her over. She had bared her soul to him, and he had whispered furiously behind the wall and then left her alone. Alone. Crying to herself in an empty room. 

Her phone was ringing again, and she whipped it out of her pocket angrily.

“What?”

“Um—” the man on the line cleared his throat. “Hi, Christine, it’s Daniel.”

Christine winced miserably as her boss’ voice came over the line. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean—” She then checked her watch and gasped. “Oh no—” She shook her head. “Daniel, I’m so sorry. I just—I—”

“Are you on your way?”

She had completely forgotten about her shift tonight. Time sometimes passed in the music room in a surreal, unpredictable way, and after everything that had happened, she hadn’t even bothered to check the time. 

“I—” The thought of plastering a smile on her face and making small talk with patrons made her nauseous. “I’m so sorry I’m late, I’m so sorry I didn’t—that I didn’t call. But, I can’t. Daniel, I’m so sorry.” The repetition was making her cringe. “I need the night off. Please.”

“Are you okay?” He said. “You sound a little shaken up. Everything all right?”

“I am, I’m fine—it’s just—please. I can’t come in tonight.”

He was quiet for a while, and Christine held her breath. She heard papers rustling, and then he sighed.

“The schedule just doesn’t allow for it. Arielle already took the day off, and so did Stacey—” Christine closed her eyes in defeat. “I’m sorry, Christine. I can try to get you off an hour early. Okay?”

Numbly, Christine reversed her steps and headed towards the subway station across the street. Rumbling beneath her feet gave her something to focus on, and she clung to the feeling, clung to the lights and posters zipping past in each station. She tugged on her uniform in silence, ignoring the passing greetings of her coworkers and choosing the most empty section of the dining room. When she wasn’t actively serving, she stared blankly into the checkered floor. 

“Christine, drinks to table five.”

Christine lurched into motion, pulling the tray unsteadily with her. She doled out the drinks and pulled straws from her apron, and then skirted to the next table that was waiting for their appetizers. She hurried back to the kitchen, dropping off her empty tray and grabbing the water pitcher for table nine

“Christine, table four.”

Christine arranged her grimace into a smile for her boss, and then turned quickly towards the table in the corner. At the very least, the constant flutter of activity kept her distracted. Occasionally though, as if a nightmare was filtering into her reality, she would stop short speaking to the chef, strains of City of Angels filling her ears. She would have to shake her head several times, try to push out the sound of Erik behind the wall, whispering, shuffling, silent. The night wore on, and when the place began to clear, Daniel came out of his office and gave her an appraising stare. 

“I think we’ll be able to manage if you leave after you finish this table,” he said. 

“Thank you,” she said quietly, keeping her eyes down. She was embarrassed by her lateness, embarrassed by their phone call and her pathetic begging to have the night off. Daniel was generally a good boss, and she had put him in an unfair position. 

He nodded at her and then disappeared into the back. Sighing, Christine wiped her hands on her apron. The remaining man at her table took a last sip of his drink and dropped a five, and Christine cleared off the table mechanically, already half-untying her apron. Her name was called three times before she heard it, and when she turned and saw the speaker, she flew into his arms. 

“Raoul.” The emotion that had sat churning in her breast all throughout her shift burst as she sobbed violently into his shirt. 

“Hey—whoa—” He steadied himself against a nearby pillar at the force of her embrace.

“Hey, hey.” His arm came slowly around her back, drawing her away from the center of the room where people had begun to stare. He maneuvered her into the alcove between the employee’s locker room and the back exit. 

“Christine?”

“Take me home, Raoul,” she said. “Please, take me home.”

“Okay. Okay. Sure. Does—does Meg know—”

“No.” Christine tightened her fingers around his back and heaved in a breath. “Take me to your place. Please.”

Raoul waited while she gathered her things, his face carefully blank. 

“Can you tell me what’s going on?” He said as he led her out onto the street. “Can you tell me how you’re feeling? Do you need anything?”

She didn’t answer him. They walked in silence and rode the crosstown bus in silence, Raoul keeping his arm securely around her. She laid her head against his shoulder, tears dripping slowly and passively from her eyelids. 

When he had shut his bedroom door behind them, Christine climbed into his bed and curled in on herself over the blankets, bringing her knees to her chest and burying her head halfway beneath the pillow. The pain of Erik’s rejection was so much deeper than she could have ever imagined. After all that they had shared, all they had achieved together, she had trusted him, and he had spurned her without a word. 

The bed depressed beside her, and Raoul’s hand came hesitantly to her shoulder.

“Sweetheart,” he half-whispered. “What’s going on?”

Christine shook her head. A sigh. 

“I thought I was coming to congratulate you on your success in the Times. Meg texted the article to me. I was so proud.”

“Too much,” she said. 

“Hmm?” Raoul gently pet her hair. “I’m so proud of you every day, Christine. You have to know that. You’re amazing.”

When she didn’t answer, the quiet only punctuated by her slowing sobs, Raoul continued. 

“Meg also said some people were being rude to you.”

“How much—” she hiccupped several times and wiped her hand over her puffy, raw eyes. “How much do you and Meg text about me, anyway?”

He laughed quietly. “It’s not like that,” he said. “We just both care about you a lot.”

Somewhere in the back of her mind, Christine realized this was going to come back to haunt her in the form of another failed intervention from Raoul and Meg.

“Singers are competitive,” she said. She removed her head from the pillow and instead turned to bury her face in his lap. “Nobody is happy when someone else is singled out.”

“Is that what this is all about?”

Christine let him stroke her hair and massage the back of her neck. 

“Yes,” she said after a moment. “Yes. That’s—yes.”

Raoul laid down beside her and then gathered her fully against him. 

“It’s okay,” he said. “You don’t have to cry. Everyone is jealous they can’t be as beautiful and talented as you are.”

Christine breathed into his neck. Erik had held her hours ago. Not like this, but he had. He had held her against him, a strong arm, a hand across her eyes, breath disturbing her curls. And then, then he had played his music, and they had talked, and she had—she had—

“Listen,” Raoul said. “This weekend we’re going to go out, just you and me. Okay? I’ll make it all up to you. It’s going to be okay.” 

Christine rolled away from him.

“I think I need to shower,” she said. 

“Of course.”

Raoul provided her with the necessities, and she let the hot water flow over her for a long time. More and more of her conversation with Erik started to invade her thoughts as she tried to calm herself, massaging her scalp and breathing in the steamy perfumes of Raoul’s toiletries as she washed the tears from her face. Half-jokes he had made about the conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Complaints about badly-tuned cellos in Prague.  

Erik. She turned off the tap and stepped out of the shower, wrapping her hair in a towel and her body in another. She sat on the edge of the tub, watching the water swirl into the drain.

Erik. He was the musician of the century. She had barely gotten enough time to process this discovery before everything else had happened. He was the musician of the century, and he chose to spend his time training her. He seemed to think—unbelieve as it was—that she could approach his own greatness. He, the pianist whose music had been sent into space. 

And somehow, he had become so much more to her than just a teacher.

Christine reached for her phone, which she had left on the bathroom counter. Scrunching her towel into her hair once more, she unlocked her screen and searched for “Erik”. Of course, nothing came up. Sighing, Christine unwound the towel and brushed out her hair with the spare brush she had left in Raoul’s bathroom, happy the mirror was fogged over so she wouldn’t have to stare into her own suffering eyes. As she applied moisturizer from a travel tube she had left there weeks ago, she tried to keep her eyes from drifting back to her phone. When she lost that battle, she settled back onto the edge of the tub, her damp hair falling across her shoulders, and typed “Erik, City of Angels”. A Wikipedia page came up, summarizing his career, listing his multiple classical music records and his single City of Angels, all of which were no longer available. Christine scrolled through the Personal Life section, feeling like an intruder.

“Known only by his stage name, Erik, the musician’s personal life has always been of interest to scholars of music, especially since his mysterious and sudden disappearance in the winter of 2005. Investigations into his family background, early life, and education have always met dead ends.”

Christine sighed, and continued to scroll. Apparently, he had always jealously guarded his privacy. She expanded the section titled Disappearance.

“Little is known about the disappearance of Erik.” Christine snorted. Was anything at all known about him? “Some scholars link his withdrawal from the world stage to the death of his manager, William Campbell, in 2005, in the Campbell Building Fire.”

Christine stared blankly at her phone. Raoul knocked on the bathroom door and she dropped it.

“You okay in there?”

“I’m—” She scrambled for the phone and hitched her towel closer around her. “Just fine!” She stared at the door, unseeing, not hearing his reply. There had been a hyperlink there, that presumably led to an article just about the Campbell Building Fire. She had never, ever looked the tragedy up on the internet. She had never wanted to see what was written about it—she had lived it, and it was enough for a lifetime.

Struggling to breath, she tapped madly at her phone until it unlocked and revealed the page again.

“The link is conjecture, but some scholars theorize that Erik himself may have perished in the fire as well. The rights to his music were withdrawn by an unknown party and his records vanished from the market in the weeks following the accident.”

They didn’t deserve it, she heard him whisper in her head. Christine clicked off her phone and tried not to cry. She was so very, very tired of crying. 

The biggest tragedy in her life, the shaping event of her entire being—and Erik was connected to it. Erik had suffered from it, perhaps, if this random Wikipedia article had any semblance of truth, as she had. She nearly dropped her towel as thoughts began to gallop through her mind. 

Erik had lived in Los Angeles. Erik had been in her very building. It was likely, in fact, very probable, that she had seen him, that one day as she was walking through the lobby with her father they had passed him, unknowing. Christine tried to imagine him, fifteen years old, maybe with a violin, getting into the elevator with a little blond girl. She imagined, looking up at him, that he would smile at her. 

Was this why he had disappeared so suddenly? Was the memory of that day, that place, as blindingly painful for him as it was for her? Slowly, her aching sadness dissipated into something that felt strangely like hope. He had been there. He knew. He knew what she had experienced in a way that no one else did. And maybe, maybe he would be able to talk about it, maybe together they would be able to share this burden, as they shared their music. 

All these years, all this time without her father, she had thought she was alone. Could it be that she had always been part of a pair?

There was a knock at the door.

“Christine? You coming out soon, kitten?”

Christine started, whipping her head towards the door. Raoul knocked again. 

Raoul.

Christine’s heart beat once. You’re a traitor,  it said. 

Christine covered her mouth and squeezed her eyes shut.

“Soon,” she said through her fingertips. He heard him walk away, and she stood up and gripped the edges of the sink

“Oh God.” She tried to breathe in through her nose. “Oh God.” 

Whatever Erik thought of her, whatever he meant by his little endearments, his extravagant gifts, his dedicated tutoring, she did not know. He was larger than life—an omnipresent whisper, a musician for the history books, a gentle and constant companion. Whatever he thought of her, she could not stop thinking of him. 

The condensation had vanished, and Christine was forced to stare at herself in the mirror. She had done the same thing the morning after she and Raoul had first slept together, but that time she had had an excited flush over her cheeks, her eyes groggy but bright. That first time, Raoul had slipped into the bathroom behind her, grabbed her by the waist, and pulled her back into the bedroom. 

Christine leaned her forehead against the cool glass. That loving, gentle man deserved more from her than this. Even if the very thought in her mind caused another round of tears to press at her eyelids, he deserved better. 

Taking a deep breath, Christine exited the bathroom, forgetting she was still clad in the towel. Raoul bounced off the bed immediately, leaving his phone somewhere in the covers. He had already changed into his pajamas, his hair ruffled adorably, and he smiled widely at her, transforming his entire face. She felt an answering smile tug at her lips, and her determination weakened. 

“I was brushing my hair,” she said meekly. 

“That’s all right,” he said, his voice low, and Christine shivered just a little bit. “That’s just fine.”

They both stepped towards each other at the same time and met in the middle of the room. He reached both hands out to grasp her upper arms and pulled her lightly against him. Blinking up into his eyes, she tried to catch her breath and remind herself what she owed him.

Slowly, he cupped her cheek, running his thumb along her lower lip, and then he tilted her chin and kissed her. 

Pulling back, Christine stared at him, feeling her chest pound with a torrent of emotions. Was she really going to give this up? Him kissing her ear and whispering something that made her blush? For what—a crush on a teacher? An impossible attraction to a whisper, to a violin? To someone who left her when she needed him the most? Christine pulled back and looked Raoul fully in the face.

“I want to show you Lakmé,” she said. “I have a recording from the Met’s last season.”

“Okay,” he said. 

Had it been a test, she thought later as she lay in bed beside him? Had she thought that if he said no, if he scoffed at the idea of watching an opera, it would give her the answer she needed? Throwing away a good relationship with a wonderful guy was always the wrong answer. That, at least, she felt sure of. She turned on her side, away from Raoul, staring into the darkness of his room. The weekend would come, and she would spend it in his arms, and she would not think of Erik. She would not. 

On Monday morning, Christine arrived fashionably late to school, going about her day with a forced cavalier air that only further convinced her that she was in over her head. The weekend with Raoul had been delightful, though. They had spent an evening at a rooftop bar, nearly by themselves due to the cold, huffing into the night air and giggling about nonsense. On Sunday, they had walked the High Line hand in hand. She had tried her hardest not to think of Erik, even when they had passed a fiddler busking in the subway.

Now however, she spent her classes watching the clock, her nerves collecting in her stomach as the day inched by. No matter what decisions she had made over the weekend or pronouncements she had made to herself about her relationship with Raoul, the prospect of being with Erik again was making her heart race. Would she start by mentioning Los Angeles? Would he? Would he play City of Angels again? Was it possible—would she see him?

Christine patted down a few flyaways around her temple and licked her lips. She thought of all of the questions she yearned to ask him, about Los Angeles, about the Campbell building, about whether he had ever seen a man with a sweater vest, a violin, and a little golden-haired girl tagging along. She pushed open the door to the practice room, the first words already on the tip of her tongue, and was shocked into silence at the sight of Mr. Mercier standing by the piano, flipping through her music. 

“Ah, Miss Daaé,” he said. “I’m glad to have you back as a student.”

“You—you—Mr. Mercier?” Her bag dropped to the floor and hit her foot. She nudged it to the side, still standing in the doorway. 

“I was surprised, of course, given your success at Julliard, but I understand when circumstances change.”

Christine blinked at him. She thought, maybe, if she stepped out, closed the door, and opened it again, he would be gone, and Erik’s voice would be there. 

“Mr. Khan informed me rather late today that we would be recommencing our studies, and this was the only available room tonight, but we can return in the coming weeks to my practice room, I’m sure.”

“Mr. Khan,” she repeated. 

“Are you quite all right, Miss Daaé? Again, I’m very sorry that your previous arrangement didn’t work out. However, I’m very impressed by your progress and delighted to continue your studies until you graduate, or are offered a position in a company.” He smiled at her. “Whichever comes first.”

Christine took one ginger step into the room, looking into all the corners, looking even to the ceiling, looking for any shred of evidence that Erik had been there, had taught her. 

“I suppose we can start where you left off with ‘Marietta’s Lied’,” Mercier said. “I think I would like you to practice some duets as well, but we can get to that.”

Christine kicked her bag into the corner. She took up the sheet music and then walked directly towards the right wall. Mercier glanced at her standing there, shrugged, and began to play the piano.

In between trills, Christine whispered, “are you there?”

The longer she went without a response, the more her heart sank. The second she left, she called Raoul, wiping a tear from her eye, refusing to look back at the empty room. 

Erik watched the entire lesson. He had been watching her since she had arrived at The Maggie that morning, heard her as she called for him. He had let his eyes rake her beautiful profile, follow the line of her neck, the curve of her fingertips. When she left, he also left. He followed her through the hallway and then out the door. She was on the phone and did not notice another bundled-up New Yorker who seemed to be taking her same path. 

That afternoon, after delivering his message to Nadir that Mercier be reinstated as Christine’s teacher, he had fished out a coat, a scarf, and a ski hat, slipping on gloves for good measure. The scarf was thick and black, and he draped it over his cheeks and lack-of-nose. The hat reached over his eyebrows, until all that was visible were his deep-set yellow eyes. 

He did not give voice to the obvious thoughts that ran through his head. He was hideous. So hideous that his mother had died to keep him hidden. So hideous that he did not even have a legitimate government identity. What did he hope to achieve by following her? He had removed himself from her lessons because he loved her, and he was a monster who had destroyed her life. He would only ruin her more by association.

And yet, when she left, he followed.

She passed a kiosk selling hot donuts, and he watched her hesitate, glance at the cart, take a few steps away, and then turn back and wait in line. He slid on line behind her as she was finishing a phone conversation.

“Thanks for cancelling on them,” she was saying. “I know you were looking forward to it.” A sniffle. A pause. “No, I—I’m fine. I just—yeah. Thanks.”

Slipping her phone into her pocket dislodged a skinny pair of headphones, which fell to the ground.

Erik leaned down to pick it up the second she did, but he was faster. They rose together, and he reached out one gloved hand to drop the headphones into hers. Her eyes met his and it tore through him like a sudden crash of cymbals.

“Thanks,” she said. She turned away, not seeing his hand tremble as he dropped it to his side. “Sorry about that.”

Erik was silent. She purchased a donut, and he waited while she wrapped some napkins around it before taking a bite. 

“You going to order?”

Erik glanced at the man in the kiosk, and then walked away briskly. She was crossing the street towards the subway station, and Erik paused at the turnstile. What was his ultimate goal, to follow her to her apartment? Then what? Whisper to her in her bed?

He shuddered, and then backed away, watching her blond head disappear into the darkness of the station. He marched up the stairs, hands in his pockets, and then turned towards the water. Walking the length of the boardwalk, he eventually sat on an empty bench, the wind whipping his eyes. 

There was only one way forward, he knew, and that was to never follow her again. To never listen to her sing again. His heart constricted. As the dark blue of the night gathered at the corners of the bay, he let images and sounds flick across his mind. Madeleine’s hand cupping his cheek. Erik, ten years old, staring at himself in the mirror, powdering his mother’s makeup over his forehead, fascinated at the grotesque result. The deafening sound of applause on some stage, some night. Lana, or maybe Lena, or maybe Linda—a red-headed girl who had wrapped her lips around him in the darkness of his hotel room. The weight of the casino chips, the fountains of the Bellagio. 

And in the center, at the end, at the beginning, Christine. Blond hair, curling on a temple. Red lips, wide-mouth open singing. Blue eyes, unblinking from the other side of a wall. Her back against his chest, her slight weight in his arms, her scent, the sound of her laugh.

Erik tore from the bench, away from the sea, and began to run. He ran past cafés and stores, past apartment buildings and quiet alleyways. He ran until the only sound in his mind and thought in his brain was the painful cold air in his lungs. Doubled over on his knees, panting, his thighs burning with the effort, he shifted his foot over a rain-sodden pile of posters that had fallen into the street.

Music of the N— the rest was cut off. Christine Daa—

Erik nudged the edges of the paper with his toe, and it came apart easily, the words disintegrating as the scraps followed the rainwater into the gutter.  

His masks sat in his room where they always had, on mannequin heads with fake noses and smooth black human-hair wigs. 

Erik picked up a head, stared into its eyeless holes.  

Days passed in a jumbled haze. If he had been asked what he had done to pass the time over those next weeks, he would have been unable to answer. He would only be able to say that he had been circling around his room as if it were an inevitable black hole, pulling him closer to the edge of disaster. The edge of sin, the edge of terror. The edge of bliss. 

Eventually, he fell in. 

The first time he put on a mask, he vomited. He didn’t go back to it for days, refused to even look at it. Instead, he tried singing, tried playing records of old musicals, tried sitting in Central Park with scarves up to his eyebrows and listening to the homeless saxophone player. The city revolved around him for two days during which he neither ate nor slept, but simply sat on a bench and watched life spring from frozen trees and icy ponds, watched men and women and children melt into a kaleidoscope of humanity in which he could never take part. 

He could never have what he wanted from her. He did not deserve it. But—to see her—to really see her, to have her see him, to have her eyes light up at the sound of his voice, to touch her—that would be enough for him. It had to be.

Madeleine’s portrait was turned to the floor before he tried the mask again. The candle had not been lit for several days. She had never wanted this for him.

Standing before a mirror he had purchased on the side of the street on Central Park West, Erik slipped a wig over his head and stripped the mask from the mannequin. He stared at it, and it stared back at him. 

Chapter Text

The pain hit her at unexpected times, intense, devastating. She would be sitting in class, the knot in her chest slowly growing until it threatened to choke her, and then she would speed out the door, ignoring the shocked stares of her teacher and classmates. She would get on the subway, climb into her bed, and stare at darkness for the rest of the afternoon, ignoring Meg knocking loudly on her door. 

Erik was gone. At first, she had dared to hope that the lesson with Mercier was some cruel, cruel mistake. Perhaps Erik had needed time. If he was as like her as she imagined, then talking about Los Angeles would be difficult, and maybe he had been as shocked as she was that they shared that history. So she had gone to her lesson the next day, hopeful. And the next day. And the next. 

The days stretched into weeks. 

Meg and Raoul circled her like bewildered parents of a baby bird. They cosseted her, bought her random sweets, planned movie nights and dragged her to trivia at the local piano bar. She went along for their sake, because she could see the disappointed concern on their faces when she declined, when she locked herself in her room and didn’t answer phone calls. She could only imagine what they thought. 

If she had been able to explain it to them, maybe she would have been able to explain it to herself. For three months, she had learned to sing as she never had before; music had become more than tone, dynamics, pitch, and posture. For the first time in her life, she had not known herself when she sang, because she had finally been free. Free of the grief, of the tremendous guilt of survival. Free to be a person she hardly knew; free, perhaps, to be herself. All her life, she had only ever been one foot out of Los Angeles. But with the voice, with Erik, with his music and his encouragement, she had stepped out, into sunlight she hadn’t known existed, and she had flown, just as he said she would.

When he left, it felt like someone had died. She didn’t realize how much she had leaned on him until he was gone. It wasn’t just about the music; she didn’t just miss his piano and their singing. She missed his whispers, missed the sensation of his presence in the room, missed his kind words, his friendship, his unending support. And now that it was all gone, all she could see was what else she would soon lose.

Graduation was closing in on her. The administration kept sending emails about graduation tickets, the ceremony time and place, and senior photo instructions. She had applied for the degree a few days ago, because she had gotten a personal email from the Vocal Arts department director stating that she was the only one in her class who had not submitted the application yet. The Maggie had been the only home she had known for the last eight years, the people inside of it the only family she had cared for or wanted since her father had died. The friendships she had made here, the comfort she had felt within its walls, to grow within her art; it would all fade away. Once she graduated, it would never be the same, and no place or time would ever be able to fill the hole that it left.

There was a knock at her door, and Christine grunted.

“Okay if I come in?”

Raoul turned on the lights, thankfully keeping them at their lowest dim setting. Still, the brightness hurt her eyes. 

“How’re we doing?” He sat next to her on her bed, stroking his hand up and down her back. “Did you eat anything yet tonight?”

He knew the answer was no. She had overheard him and Meg talking about her. If there was one thing that Meg hated more than anything, it was when Christine wouldn’t eat. 

“Do you want me to bring you something?”

Christine sighed, sensing Meg’s prodding and nagging behind this. “Sure,” she said. She cleared her throat at the hoarseness of her voice. “Something small?”

He stood up without another word and disappeared back into the brightly lit living room. Christine had never been able to explain to Meg that sometimes she just couldn’t eat. Sometimes her depression filled her so entirely that even eating one cracker or one grape was too much. The second she touched food she would lose all desire for it.

Deciding that she didn’t want to be fed in her bed like a child, Christine eventually swung her legs off the side, stretched, and dragged herself into the living room. Meg and Raoul both smiled at her, glancing quickly at each other and then away. 

“I made some tea,” Meg said. She had only made one, Christine could see that, but Meg quickly pulled down another mug from the cabinet and filled it with hot water. “I made the pomegranate,” she said, smiling. 

Christine did not point out that the pomegranate tea was hers. She took the steaming mug from Meg’s fingers.

“Thanks.”

There were quiet murmurs from the kitchen as Meg and Raoul moved around each other, Meg trying to finish up cleaning the pots in the sink and Raoul heating up something in the microwave. Christine took one sip of the tea and tried to drown the threat of nausea.

Raoul eventually returned and handed her a fork, and Christine obediently took a bite. After three, she laid the plate on the coffee table, drew her knees onto the couch, and eased into Raoul’s shoulder. His arms came around her gently, encircling her waist and pulling her against his chest, warm and solid. She willed stray tears away. Meg quietly padded into her room and shut the door, leaving them alone. 

They remained that way for a long time, Raoul holding her, Christine clinging to him, her eyes shut, trying to focus on breathing in and out without it catching in her throat.

“I’m so sorry,” she said eventually.

“Shh. It’s all right.”

“It’s not. Raoul—it’s not. You deserve so much more.” The fact that this wasn’t the first or even second time she had said those words to him made her ache even more.

“It’s all right,” he said again. He kissed her on the top of her head, rocking her gently. “It’s all right. I know it hurts. I don’t know why, and I don’t know what, but I know it hurts. And it’s all right.”

She squeezed her eyes tight. She had told herself no more crying. Inhaling sharply, she had to bite down on a sob.

“I wish I could be better, for you.” 

Raoul didn’t reply, simply held her as he had all throughout her inexplicable descent into depression. He occasionally tried to question her, occasionally tried to cheer her, but mostly he just held her. 

“I don’t know what I would have done without you,” Christine whispered.

When he kissed her, she felt guilty.

Getting through her classes was easier than going through the various hoops required by her department for graduation. She would wander from lecture to lecture, tuning out her professors and simply focusing on the things she would miss about The Maggie. The broken rail on the second-floor staircase. The creaky desks. The uncomfortable dining hall chairs. The echoes of the middle school chorus practicing a key change in a never ending loop. She had thought she was leaving her safe cocoon for greatness, thought that with Erik behind her she would be stepping up into a glorious, soaring career, but he was gone, and she had not heard from the Met, and no one had contacted her since the recital. It was as she had always feared: no one was waiting for her out in the world.

Many singers in her class already had offers in small companies, which just made Christine more depressed. Even Sienna Freeman, arguably the worst soprano in the class, had secured a spot, but Christine Daaé, the New York Times overnight success, was still floundering. She had heard Andrew Castaigne and Nathaniel Hunt whispering about it the week before. When she had tried to ask the Office of Career Services for advice, the counselor had looked at her strangely and told her to check back next week. 

Occasionally she skipped her voice lessons. Mercier didn’t mention it, but she could tell he was frustrated with her. They could both hear it—the subtle slipping of her technique, the mistakes Erik had fixed months ago. When he left, he had truly taken everything with him. 

Her anger came slowly, maybe more slowly than it should have. It started to give her a perverse pleasure to skip her voice lessons. If he would abandon her, she would abandon him too, in the only way she knew how—she would abandon his gift. If he was going to swear he’d be wherever her music was, then she would have no music at all. 

On those days, she and Raoul made extensive treks through the city. She dragged him with her because those days she dreaded the silence of her bedroom and craved the distraction and oblivion of the anonymous cacophony of Manhattan. They went ice skating at Chelsea Piers, watched clouds pass overhead on the water in Central Park, spent hours gazing at paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. They gripped onto each other, perhaps both unaware of how tightly they held on, Raoul unsure how or when he had lost her, Christine searching for something she knew she would not find. She kept them out until she fell asleep the moment her head hit the pillow, dreamless and black until the morning. 

After one such outing, Raoul and Christine were both awoken by Gabriel’s aggressive knocking on the bedroom door. Having fallen asleep in her clothing, Christine rose, groggy, her joints aching slightly. Raoul blinked at her, the knocking becoming banging, the sun casting shadows in the room. 

“What—” He rubbed his eyes. “Christine?”

“I don’t know.”

“Raoul? Man, wake up.” Gabriel continued to bang on the door. 

“Hold on a second,” Raoul said, annoyed, throwing on a shirt and running his hand through his hair. He looked back at Christine, who had drawn her knees up to her chest and hugged her arms around her calves. She shrugged and nodded, and he opened the door, slipping out into the living room and closing it behind him.

Sighing and stretching, Christine began to gather her things. Meg hadn’t said anything about her recent sleeping habits, but she had spent the last several nights in Raoul’s apartment, and she knew it was time to go home. Her hand on the doorknob, she heard the tail end of Gabriel’s muted ranting in the living room. 

“She never lets you out of her sight, and you’re changing, man, you’re not yourself, you never see us anymore, and it’s like—”

“She’s going through something right now,” Raoul said softly. “You don’t understand.”

“She’s here every single night, and I’m—”

Christine emerged into the room, her bag on her shoulder. Raoul immediately detached himself from his roommate, who stared at her with his arms crossed over his chest.

“Hi Gabriel,” she said.

Raoul touched her arm, and she looked up into his eyes, which were gentle, but, she saw for the first time, tired. “Heading home?”

“Yeah.” She pushed a tendril of hair out of her eyes, swallowing. “Meg probably wants to know if I still live there, you know?”

“You want me to walk with you? We can get some coffee.”

“No.” Christine let her eyes wander over Gabriel, who looked away from her. “I’m okay. Thanks.”

At the door, Raoul took her face in his hands and kissed her chastely, and then let his lips linger on her forehead. 

“I’m always here,” he said. 

“I know.”

Squeezing his hand, she left quickly, running down the stairs towards the bus. As block by block blurred through the window, she tried not to think too hard about what Gabriel said, about the accusation in his glance, about the way Raoul’s face had looked drawn and weary. He had never said anything, had never asked her for space, had never indicated that he needed a break. And Christine didn’t want to see the weariness on his face. She wanted to keep believing that he was strong enough for both of them, happy enough and resilient enough for both of them. He had been her haven these past weeks, his apartment her safe place, his bed her escape. She needed him.

Meg was awake when Christine got home, and her friend’s gaze only flitted briefly over Christine’s wrinkled outfit before she smiled. 

“Did you have a good day? What did you guys get up to?”

Christine hesitated at the door, her thoughts spiraling, her heart beginning to pound. 

“I’m tired,” she said. “I think—” She was losing him. She was losing him just like she had lost Erik. And everything was vanishing , everything was slipping through her fingers like quicksand, and was it her, was it her in the end who drove everyone away? 

“Christine?”

“I think I’m going to lie down again.” She began to move mechanically past Meg. She couldn’t lose Raoul too. She couldn’t lose Raoul too. She needed him.

“Christine—” Meg stood and grabbed her arm. “Sit with me. Just for a bit. Tell me how you are. I haven’t seen you in days.”

“I know.” Christine tried to ease her arm out of Meg’s grip, but she held tight. “I’m sorry about that.”

“I just want to know how you are, what you’re up to.”

“I’m fine. Really. Fine.”

“Look, I don’t know what’s going on, but—”

“I’m fine. Please, let me go.”

Meg searched her face, her fingers tightening around Christine’s arm. 

“Let us help you. Somehow. Whatever we can do.”

Christine wrenched herself away, just in time to see Meg’s defeated, stricken look, just in time to feel like she had kicked her best friend in the gut, just in time to reach her room and close the door quickly, before the tears came.

If Raoul was affected by the incident, he didn’t give any outward indication. Christine latched onto him even more tightly, especially as Meg had started to retreat to her room more often than usual, some days hardly exchanging more than a few words with Christine. They shifted from nights spent at his place to late dinners in her apartment, watching movies or listening to music. The move was so discreet that a week later, when Christine showed up at Raoul’s apartment without calling first, she didn’t even realize that he hadn’t brought her back there since that morning with his roommate. Her music lesson that day had been so frustrating with the grim silence of the white walls that she had needed to feel someone’s arms around her, and she had headed instinctually for the crosstown bus that dropped off three blocks from Raoul’s building. It was a shock to realize there were people over, something she hadn’t anticipated or even considered. In the past, he and Gabriel had frequently had get-togethers, but it hadn’t happened in a long time, at least not that Christine could remember.

Gabriel opened the door, and wasn’t able to hide his irritation before masking it with a smile and stepping aside to let her in. In between bodies, Christine saw Raoul wending his way to her, his expression bemused. 

“What are you doing here, sweetheart? I wasn’t expecting you. Are you all right?”

Christine stepped backwards, one foot over the threshold into the hallway, suddenly feeling claustrophobic with the number of unknown faces looking at her curiously. 

“I’m sorry—” she stumbled over her words. “I should have called first, I guess, I—”

“What’s wrong? Christine?”

Raoul’s arm shot out to catch her before she tripped over her own feet.

“Christine? Are you okay?”

She breathed in, deeply unsettled that he had been busy, that she hadn’t even taken a second to imagine he would be busy, that Gabriel had been right about her and she’d known it all this time, that maybe Raoul might finally break and close the door in her face and all she would hear would be noises behind the wall, unreachable, unknowable, a vast white expanse separating her from him, that would leave her alone, again, alone—

“Christine? Christine!” 

Raoul pulled her into the apartment roughly, the din of voices quieting as they watched him half-drag the trembling blond into his room and close the door behind them. In the semi-darkness of evening, only one lamp on the dresser to illuminate the shadows, Raoul braced his hands against her forearms, his eyes desperately searching hers.

“What’s wrong? Christine, please, talk to me, please tell me.” 

Her mouth opened and closed, unable to remember why she had come, what event today had made her feel so vulnerable and small. The pounding in her head matched the beat of the music in the next room, reminding her that he was not alone, he was not alone at all, that she was dragging him down into her own spiral of misery when he belonged out there, smiling, not drawing his brows together, that terrible look of panic settling over his features. 

“Christine?” He almost shook her, and she watched in fascination, nearly detached from the situation, as he brought his hands to his face and half-turned from her. An almost noiseless sob tore from his throat. “I can’t keep doing this. I don’t know what’s wrong, I don’t know how to help you—I just—” His shoulders shook. 

Christine reached her hand out to rest on his shoulder, tears pricking in her eyes. This is what I do, she thought. This is what I do to people. 

He shuddered, inclining his head at her touch. “You’re tearing me apart,” he whispered. “Watching you suffer and not being able to help you. It’s killing me.”

“I’m sorry,” she said finally, winding her arms close around him, pressing her face into his back. “I’m so sorry.” 

He gripped her arms tightly against him, and she could feel him breathing erratically, trying to control his tears. 

“I love you,” he said on a hiccupping inhale. “I love you, don’t you know that?”

“I’m sorry,” she said again, holding him tighter, her tears soaking the back of his shirt. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” 

And she had known it, hadn’t she, had known how he felt for weeks now, had seen the look in his eyes, felt the warmth of his breath on her face. She knew it in the way she knew that Raoul wasn’t really asking if she knew, but was asking her, begging her to please love him too. She knew it like she knew that if Erik had come back to her after that day, even once, everything would have been different. 

But he hadn’t, and she was here, with this kind, loving man pressed into her, and she needed someone, and here he was. Here he was. 

It took three full weeks for Christine to finally accept that Erik was never coming back. Lying next to Raoul one morning, his soft snoring barely audible with his face pressed into the pillow, Christine had been thinking about something ridiculous that had happened in class the previous day, and the stray thought occurred to her that she couldn’t wait to hear Erik’s reaction. At the tight tug in her heart, the threat of tears, still, after so many weeks, she sat up ramrod straight, holding her hand to her chest.

“Chris?” Raoul’s voice was muffled with dreams and he turned on his side and promptly fell asleep again. 

“Enough,” Christine said. She squeezed her eyes shut. “Enough.” She shook her head violently, trying to rid it of all of the hopes she had had, all of the yearning, the dreams of shadowed men with violins. “Enough.” She was done, through with fruitless longing, through with these memories, through with holding onto something that had turned into mist in her fingers. Her hands found purchase on skin, on warmth, on Raoul’s arm, and she would hold onto this, she would hold onto him, because he was solid, and he was real, and he was here, and he loved her.

She launched her body over Raoul’s, splaying her hands over his chest, pulling him round to lay on his back, and gathering him close to her side. 

He blinked rapidly at her, his hand closing over hers, warm and soft.

“Chris—what’s—hmm?”

She kissed his neck, his shoulder, his collarbone, inhaling the scent of him, the feel of him beneath her hands. Real. Real . His eyes gradually opened, his focus becoming clearer as she ran her fingers through his hair, moving to kiss his lips. He stayed her with a gentle hand on her cheek, thumb caressing her jaw lightly. She saw the naked emotion in his eyes as he stared at her, the love he had not offered again, waiting for her to respond in kind, and the patient hope that she would.

“Take me somewhere,” she said.

Fingers trailing behind her ear, through her hair, and then pressing at the back of her head to bring her closer to him, he nuzzled at her bottom lip. 

“Take you where?”

“Somewhere. Take me with you. Anywhere.”

“You want to go upstate?”

“Anywhere, Raoul. Us. Together. Anywhere.”

“Okay. I know a place upstate, I can probably book a room, they’re always available.”

“Anywhere.” She kissed him, pulled him against her, kissed him again, and later that day he made plans to spend the weekend in a cabin on the Hudson. He texted her the details, and they planned for him to pick her up directly after her voice lesson. 

Rain hit the window panes of the classroom that afternoon, distracting Christine from a particularly boring lesson on German diction. A biting winter was turning into a gray and dreary spring. She doodled slowly in her notebook, drawing the rain as she heard it, in sharp, slanted lines, and occasional bursts of shadowing and swirls. Most students were bemoaning the promise of a wet weekend, but Christine was imaging the cabin at night, a fire going in the hearth, the river rushing beyond them, the soft rain drops a comforting soundtrack to an idyllic escape. She doodled that now, a small square house with a triangle roof, a few stick trees, a light in the window.  

Exchanging her books and notebooks for staves of music at the sound of the bell, Christine confirmed the pickup time for tonight with Raoul while she hitched her bag over her shoulder and headed to her lesson. Mercier was not there when she opened the door but he was often a few minutes late, finishing another class right before her lessons.

She dropped her bag by the piano and sat, wondering if Mercier would abandon his idea of making her practice duets with Nathaniel Hunt. The two singers hadn’t spoken on friendly terms in weeks, and Christine had no interest in involving someone else in the mess that had become her musical life. The last thing she needed was Nathaniel whispering to the other singers that Christine Daaé had lost her spark as quickly as she had found it. The door closed and Christine stood, ready to give Mercier her seat, but he was not there. She blinked, and looked again, but the room remained empty. 

A tendril of anxiety began to build in her chest. The room looked empty, but it didn’t feel empty. 

“Mr.—” She swallowed against a suddenly dry mouth. “Mr. Mercier?”

Silence. Inhaling sharply, Christine closed her eyes. Get a grip. Get a grip. It must have just been the draft, someone closing the door in the hallway without thinking, without realizing someone was in there, must have just been a mistake, an accident. It was not, it could not be—it could not be what she thought, that one beating thought in her head, it was not, it was not—

She whipped around, hearing the rain pelt against the window, feeling the hairs on her arm rise—

“Christine.” 

Chapter Text

“Christine.”

He whispered into her ear and she jumped, her heart beating wildly against her chest. She gripped it, willing it to stop. 

“Eri—you—”

He said her name again, this time in the other ear. 

“Why—you—” She couldn’t form words. Erik. Erik. Erik. Her eyes began to fill and tears spilled over the edges of her lids. His voice again, in her ear, his presence in this room, after three weeks of silence— 

“Nothing to say after all this time?”

Christine choked on a sob, flinging tears from her eyes as she wiped at her face. “How dare you say that? How dare you? After all this time? You?” She gripped the edge of the piano for support. “You left me.”

“I am here now. ”

“No—No—you don’t get to—Erik—”

His name on her lips erupted into a huge, uncontrolled sob, and she sank onto the piano bench, raining her fists onto the keys, nearly delighting in the cacophony of sound, trying to drown out her own pain. 

“You left me.”

“I am here now. ”

“You left me!” Christine shook her head violently. “You said you’d always be there. You said—you’d always be there—”

He was silent, and she stood up in sudden abject terror that he had left again in the wake of her anger, that he had left and he would never, ever come back. 

“Erik?” Her voice trembled. “Erik, please—”

“Christine.”

All of the breath was forced from her body at the sound. He had spoken to her . 

“Er—I—”

It was all too much for her, and her vision began to tunnel. That voice—and he was here, here with her, not in her dreams, not a fantasy but real, and she wouldn’t be alone anymore—

“I couldn’t stay away,” he said, and his voice made her so dizzy she needed to grip the piano to stand. 

“What?” Flustered, her cheeks began to flame red, her hair falling from her ponytail and shadowing her eyes. 

“Steady,” he said.

That voice was impossible. Breathing in heavily through her nose, Christine moved her shaking hands over the piano. 

“Christine.” His voice was in her ear, and she closed her eyes, heat flooding her body. 

“Please, I—” What was happening to her? She tried desperately to grasp at the fading threads of her rightful anger, the memories of the weeks of grief he had put her through, trying to remember that he had left her, that he had abandoned her, and that she owed him nothing, nothing at all, and it didn’t matter if he had come back to her, and it didn’t matter if his voice was—if it was—

But the piano started, and he sang. 

Floating, falling. Spinning. Endless. The vowels caressed her. Breaths beckoned her. The voice—his voice—was rich, decadent, filling the room with the sweetest and most captivating sounds. Her grip on the piano slipped and she thought maybe she had fainted. 

A noise came from above her, and when she opened her eyes, there was a man standing there, offering his hand. Christine blinked, her gaze blurry. She must have fainted, because she was lying on the floor, looking up at him. She sat up on one elbow, completely unable to keep her mouth from hanging open. 

He stood above her, expression passive, waiting for her to take his hand. He was—she ran through a million adjectives in her head. Nothing could describe him. He was beautiful, and his voice was pure heroin, and he was the best pianist in the world, and he was here, again, with her, and when her fingers touched his she felt the shock in her core. He lifted her to her feet, brought her near flush with him. He was about a head taller than her, with bright yellow eyes a color like she had never seen. Fitting, she thought weakly. Nothing about him would be normal.

“Christine.”

That voice. He was still holding her hand, staring down at her, and she focused in on that tangible, physical sensation, as the rest of her senses were reeling. Otherwise, she would probably faint again.

“Your hands are cold,” she whispered.

The man—was it really him?— drew his hand away from hers and dropped it at his side, but he continued to stare at her, and she continued to stare at him. 

“Erik?” To finally stare into a face, to finally feel a presence beside her, to know him in a way she had never known him before—her voice shook. With anyone else, a face would be commonplace, a face would be the very first thing she would ever see or know, but with Erik everything was backwards. With him, hearing his voice and meeting his eyes felt too intimate.

“Yes.” He tilted his head ever so slightly 

It’s really you. She hardly knew what to say to him. “You left.”

“I will never leave again,” he said, finding her eyes. Her heart fluttered.

After one more glance over her face that felt like a caress, Erik sat on the edge of the piano bench, and as if being released from a set of marionette strings, Christine fell without grace onto the seat beside him. 

He laid his fingers on the keys and Christine’s eyes were inexorably drawn to them, fingers she had imagined time and again. They were slender, pale, and long, and rested comfortably on the piano. The longer she looked at them, the more a dull warmth grew in the pit of her stomach. 

He began to play a melody, one of the songs she had sung at her recital. Her eyes traveled from his fingers, past his thin wrists and up his arm, trying to absorb all of him at once, this image that had been denied her so long. Grey button-down shirt open at the collar, she could just see the prominent edges of his collarbone, the cut and color of his shirt emphasizing how pale and lean he was. Black hair reached just to the nape of his neck, cut short and straight and pulled away in haphazard tufts from his forehead. He occupied the piano bench as if he had been created alongside it, his arms merely extensions of the gleaming black instrument, his movements an expression of the chords he created. 

Turning abruptly, he met her gaze. Her mouth was dry. His presence was overwhelming even without the echoing, hypnotic quality of his voice weaving around her head. This was Erik, Erik the pianist, Erik her teacher, Erik the gentle whispering voice in her mind, the shadowy man she had imagined in secret moments. Trembling, without thinking, she reached out to touch him, traced one finger along his first knuckle, down the back of his hand, her breath catching in her throat. She could touch him. He was real. 

A noise like a mix between a cough and a clearing of the throat startled her, and when he withdrew his hand from her for the second time that night she flushed warm and red, her cheeks and ears stinging. 

“I’m so sorry,” she nearly whispered. “I didn’t mean—I—I’m sorry.” She didn’t know where to look, except that looking directly at him was bad, and it was much better to stare at the wall, or the piano, or her lap. Something beyond her control had compelled her to touch him, but clearly it was not what he wanted, clearly he still understood the boundary between teacher and student, even if she had been willing to toss it to the wind.

“Have you neglected your music, Christine Daaé?” He asked, and somehow even in that soft, vaguely accusatory tone, his question still sounded like heady music. 

“No,” Christine said first, because she knew that was what he wanted to hear, because she wanted to please that voice, she wanted it to turn, and smile at her, and wrap her in its sonorous embrace. But the voice belonged to a man—the voice had been a whisper but now it had sound because it came from a throat, and that man sitting beside her was not just a heavenly comforting voice, but someone who had hurt her deeply. 

“If I neglected my music,” she then said, “it’s because you neglected me.”

“I did.”

Christine breathed in steadily. “I—it was three weeks and I—why?”

He shook his head slowly. “Some things I—cannot explain. I needed time.”

“Time to—show yourself to me?”

“In a sense, yes.”

Christine tried to slow her breathing and closed her eyes briefly. Patience. The voice had always been cryptic and short about itself, and there was no reason to assume Erik would act any differently in person. 

“Sing now, Christine,” he said, and the tendrils of his voice pulled at the strings of her anger, encouraged her to turn towards him, meet his blindingly bright eyes. “Sing now, and think only of your music.”

She found herself nodding almost against her will.

“Sing.” His whisper enveloped her, his fisted hand rising before her and her body following it like a charmed snake. When he started to play the opening bars of her aria from La Bohème, she sang Musetta as if there had never been a pause in their lessons, her voice rising again as it once had, and she lost herself in the bliss of it.

“Breathe there.” 

She took in an exaggerated amount of breath at the sound of his voice when she had been expecting another whisper. 

“Gentle. Steady. There you go. Yes.”

Christine closed her eyes, settling her hand on the edge of the piano to hold herself up, trying to push the seductive tones of his voice to the edges of her mind. If she just focused on the piano, if she just focused on her own singing, it could be as it once was between them—she could grip that music again, and her soul could soar once more.

“Don’t go flat,” he said.

As she sang on and he quietly critiqued her, the tension in her shoulders eventually faded away, and she stopped jumping every time he spoke. Each joint became more limber, and she thrust her arms out before her, the music bursting from her innermost core. She could finally see him. His head tilted if she went off-pitch, his body swayed in rhythm with her, and when she hit a straight tone he nearly lifted off his seat. She was finally singing for him, with him, to him. 

The closing notes of the aria rang out into the room, and as they died around her she found herself inexplicably staring at the back of his head, smiling. She wanted to still to be angry with him, to make him answer for what he had done to her, to them, but instead, she sat next to him on the bench again, still smiling. 

“Now then,” he said, so quietly she could barely hear him. “A proper lesson.”

Christine clamped down on another wave of overwhelming desire to touch him. Instead, she nodded at the piano, hoping the hair loose at the front of her ponytail would cover some of her blush. 

“Why did you never show your face?” She asked. “When you performed?”

“My mother insisted.”

He was gazing at her in a way that made her shiver, and she swallowed, trying to keep the thread of the conversation, trying to collect her thoughts.

“And you lived with her—” She licked her lips. “You lived with her in Los Angeles?”

He straightened slightly, his eyes losing some of their brightness.

“Ah, Christine—”

She jumped at this show of emotion from him, all of her pent-up questions and thoughts and feelings over the last three weeks spilling over as she shifted across the bench towards him. 

“Los Angeles,” she said. “Los Angeles, Erik—”

“No.” His voice was soft, but it was his hand that stopped her, for the first time touching her of his own accord, his hand whispering over her own, encircling her wrist, his thumb stroking at the tender underside of her pulse. Inhaling sharply, she couldn’t stop the tingle traveling from her wrist up through her shoulder and across her chest. 

“No,” he said. “Let me play for you.”

Christine didn’t remember if she had said something or if she had just nodded, or maybe just stared at him. It didn’t matter, because he had begun to play. 

She had heard him sing, and she had thought that sound the most sublime thing she would ever hear. Voice, she had always secretly thought, was more personal than any instrument. It came from within you. But she was wrong. His music now was more intimate and private than even the sound of that amazing voice. It seemed to flow from him, his fingertips caressing instead of playing, his body a swaying conduit for something greater than himself. Dizziness rocked her as she watched him, and he seemed to almost meld with the piano as she closed her eyes. The notes were luscious, sweet. Twinkling lights played behind her lids, her skin erupting in goosebumps. The music beckoned her forward, enveloped her, and she reached out towards it, wanting desperately to be a part of it, to be entwined at its source. 

Christine felt his fingertips on her cheeks, wiping away wetness she hadn’t sensed. 

“Everyone always cries when I play,” he said, his voice almost a whisper. Christine unclosed her eyes. “I’ve never understood why.”

Another tear fell from the corner of her eye. He caught it on his forefinger, brushed her cheek with his knuckles. 

“My father said going to one of your concerts was like dying,” Christine said. “I didn’t know what he meant until now.”

He sat quietly, still looking at her, as if blinking would cause her to disappear. In a movement so sudden she hardly saw it happen, he grabbed her hand and placed it over his heart.

“Christine,” he said, and then he was silent. 

She struggled to keep her heart from racing. “Yes, Erik?”

He held her hand so tightly against his chest she felt him heave with breath. 

“What is it?” She whispered. 

His fingers loosened slowly, individually, until her hand seemed to simply melt away from his. He turned away, running his hands lightly over his hair. 

“Did you like it, the song?”

“It was too beautiful for words.” 

He nodded at the piano. Christine passed a hand over her eyes. So much had changed in such a short amount of time, and it was difficult to process it all. 

“Does the song have a name?” 

“No.” 

He stood, and they stared at each other for a long moment before he crossed his arms over his chest and backed away from her. 

“Perhaps, a—sonata, number three, if you will.” 

Before she understood what she was seeing, he had disappeared into the wall. 

Too frazzled and distracted to even consider the elevator, Christine wandered up the stairs to her apartment. She slung her bag over her shoulder, staring at the crackled white tiles. One foot after the other. 

She had looked at her phone once on the subway, and had seen the missed calls and texts from Raoul, her heart plummeting with each new notification. She had seen them, but she hadn’t scrolled through them or listened to the voicemails. Instead, she had watched the pillars of each station pass in an unending march, missing her stop and doubling back twice.

With one hand, she unlocked the door to her apartment, and pushed it open with the other. The living room was empty. Ducking her head around a half-wall, looking into the kitchen, she saw no one. She moved swiftly towards Meg’s door and stepped inside without knocking. Meg looked up at her from her desk, where she was watching a scene from the Don Quixote ballet on repeat. 

They stared at each other briefly.

“Hey,” Meg said, turning her gaze back to the screen. There was a half-filled wine glass beside her computer. “Do you need something?”

“Meg.”

Meg looked up sharply at the tone of her voice, her eyes narrowing. “What’s wrong?” When Christine did not respond, only stood in the threshold, Meg sprang from her chair with such force that the chair rolled several feet behind her. She took hold of Christine’s shoulders. 

“Christine? What’s wrong?”

Christine felt herself begin to shake. “Meg, I need to talk to you.”

“Anything, you can tell me anything.” Meg’s eyes were casting frantically over Christine’s face. “What happened? Are you okay? Did something happen?” She steered Christine onto the bed, and the two of them sat side by side. “Tell me.” Meg swallowed. “Are you—are you hurt?”

Christine stared at the floor, hearing in her friend’s voice all of the unspoken fears Meg and Raoul must have shared over the weeks. Raoul. It was several seconds before she was able to speak.

“I think I need to break up with Raoul.”

“Whoa,” Meg said. “What? What are you talking about?” Her grip on Christine’s arm loosened.

Christine choked over the words. “I need to break up with him. He—he—he’s too—he doesn’t deserve this, and I can’t do this to him—I can’t—”

“I—I don’t understand.”

“He doesn’t deserve any of this,” Christine whispered. Her heart gave a painful lurch. “He just—he deserves the truth.”

“The truth about what?”

“Just— tell me— just help me figure out what to do.”

“Okay,” Meg said, licking her lips, her eyebrows bunched. “Um—does this have anything to do with what’s been going on? I mean, is this why you’ve been so out of it?”

“No—it—I—” Christine pressed the heels of her palms into her eyes. “Yes. It’s—it’s exactly what’s been going on.”

“Okay.” Meg paused, her eyes searching. “Because I’ve been so worried about you. And I really thought Raoul was helping.”

“He was. He did.” Christine bit her lip. “He’s been amazing. So amazing.”

“So what changed?”

Christine closed her eyes, fresh tears springing up. 

“He came back.” It must have meant something. It must have meant something that he came back to her, that he showed himself to her, after months of hiding. He had been reticent, and aloof, and he hadn’t really said anything, but—but he had grasped her hand, and he had run his thumb over her pulse, and he had played his music for her—Christine shivered. 

“Who—who did? What?”

“Erik.” 

Meg paused, her eyes roving over Christine’s face. “Erik, your—music teacher?”

“Yes. Yes.”

Meg blinked at her. “I’m not following.”

Christine pressed her hands firmly into the comforter. “He came back, Meg. I thought he had left for good, but he came back. And I saw him. And I heard him. And I—I—”

“He’s been your teacher for months,” Meg said, running her hands along Christine’s arms where goosebumps had erupted again. “What changed?”

Christine shook her head slowly, nearly wanting to laugh at the absurdity of the question. Everything. Everything had changed. He had come back for her. She repeated that thought to herself over and over again—he had come back. If she repeated it enough, maybe she could drown out the voice that said but he left you first. 

“He came back for me. And I saw him, Meg. I really saw him for the first time. And—and then he played his music, and I—” She swallowed, her heart racing. And I—and I—

Meg was quiet for a long time. She hugged Christine to her, rocking gently, and when she finally spoke, she had taken both of Christine’s hands in her own. 

“Do you remember my dance teacher in sophomore year?” Meg said. “Mr. Murphy?”

Christine nodded. 

“I was head over heels in love with him. When he picked me up or spun me I felt like I was flying. I was convinced he loved me too. I daydreamed about him walking into the studio, beckoning me into the center of the room, and kissing me in front of the entire class. I really thought it might happen one day.”

Christine looked away. Meg didn’t understand—she had given him her soul, she had sung for him, and he had played for her, and—Meg didn’t understand. 

“You’re not listening to a word I’m saying.” Meg tilted a finger under Christine’s chin and forced her gaze to hers. “Look where I am now, Christine. Still at the Maggie. And Mr. Murphy is still at home with his wife.”

Christine started to shake her head and Meg sighed. 

“Christine, teacher crushes are harsh. They hit you hard, square in the chest, because you want to succeed so much and you love your music so much. It’s like a right of passage to crush on a teacher.”

 “I know I sound crazy,” Christine said. “But this is different. He—he is different.” She picked at her jeans, a wisp of uncertainty curling into her heart. He left you crying. “He came back to me,” she whispered. He left you alone.

“Christine.” Meg curled an errant blond curl around Christine’s ear. “Don’t confuse love for your music for love for him.”

She stared at Meg wide-eyed. “I—it’s not—” 

Meg squeezed her hand. “Listen. Raoul is a great guy. He’s really good to you. He never let you down. He never gave up on you. If you came for my opinion, I’ll tell you—I don’t think you should let him go.”

Christine sighed into her hands. 

“He’s so good to me, Meg.”

“I know. He’s one of a kind.”

Christine shook her head. She knew what she had to do, had known it since she had left the Maggie earlier that night. Keeping Raoul, thoughts of always having him there to catch her when she fell, were utterly, sickeningly selfish. 

Meg rubbed Christine’s shoulder in slow, easy circles as Christine told her about the ruined trip to the cabin upstate, cementing the reason why she needed to do this now.

“Just talk to Raoul,” Meg said after a minute. “I think at the very least you need to tell him what happened tonight.”

“I hardly know what I would say, Meg.”

“You’ll figure it out. Just—do me a favor, okay? Take an hour, sit and think about your relationship with Raoul. And just, before you call him, really think about whether or not you want to sacrifice that for—for Erik.”

Christine swallowed. Retreating to her room, she lay in the dark, trying and failing to not replay in her mind the image of Erik seated at the bench, slightly hunched over the keys, one leg stretched over the pedals, the long lines of his body folding and unfurling with each dip in the music. His voice , lush and resonating, stirring a warmth and a longing deep within her. To touch him. To know him. To have him look at her, only her, with those shimmering golden eyes. 

But just last night she had laid in bed, too, hadn’t she? In the dark, without him. In the dark, with Raoul. Because Erik had been gone. Without a word, without a warning. Gone. Her whole world tipped upside down on the turn of a whisper.

Twisting onto her stomach, Christine thought of Raoul, her heart softening. That first day he had spoken to her, shy and adorable, in the café. His innocent laughter and his kind eyes. The feel of his breath against her neck, the silky skin of his back. Their first drive upstate for President’s Day Weekend, his hand on her thigh, his easy smile. So easy, so smooth. Raoul’s voice, cracking on a sob. I love you, don’t you know that?

Christine closed her eyes sharply. Erik might be eccentric and strange and wonderful and exciting. He might understand her as no one else ever would. But he could never be for her what Raoul was. Solid. Dependable. 

Real.

Trepidation causing her fingertips to tremble, Christine dialed Raoul’s number and waited, realizing too late she had still not read any of his messages or listened to his voicemails.

After five rings, he picked up.

They were both silent. 

She had no idea what to say. Typical apologies, explanations, regrets, felt trite. She had hurt him deeply, and whatever she was going to say needed to be genuine.

“Raoul,” she started. “It’s because of my father.”

Chapter Text

Rain splattered on the window of the café as Raoul helped Christine lock up for the night. The whole month had been inexcusably wet, starting with freezing rain and sleet and devolving into days and nights of endless drizzling. Of course, the couple had not gone to the cabin Friday night, instead spending the weekend talking over tea, over coffee, over late-night pizza. Raoul was still thawing towards her, still a bit hesitant and a bit distant, but he was kind and listened intently to everything she had to say. 

She had started with her father. Glossing over the fire, she quickly explained that he had died suddenly, leaving her alone before she arrived at the Maggie. She tried to explain what music meant to her, in a way she hadn’t before. There was music, she told him, and then there was music. Music that forced your breath from your lungs, paled your cheeks, made your eyes hollow and empty. That music was her lifeline, her soul, her essence, and sometimes she lost herself in it so completely that everything beside it ceased to exist.

He had taken her explanation at face value. Nodding, asking no questions about her teacher or about their shared music, he had accepted her apology. 

“You always said artists were different,” he had said as they sat on his couch, eating fresh chocolate chip cookies at two in the morning. “I don’t know why I thought I could pull you into my world. I see I have to try to live in yours.”

So they had listened to The Flower Duet, and Christine had played him her favorite scenes from Aida. She explained the difference between an aria and a recitative. She pointed out her favorite tenors, her soprano role models. 

Once, only once, he said, “you’re so passionate about this. Your teacher is lucky he gets to share it with you.” 

“Hey,” Raoul said now, as Christine wiped down the last counter. “I wanted to meet some of my friends at this get-together at a jazz club downtown.” Christine glanced up at him, and he stuttered slightly. “I was uh—well, I was hoping you could join me?”

Christine wrung her washcloth carefully and then placed it in the laundry bin. “I don’t think—I mean, I’m just not sure—”

They looked at each other, and then looked away, the discomfort of the moment lodging deep in her chest. They still hadn’t spoken of Gabriel, hadn’t spoken about why she had sunk so deep into a depression, about what had pulled her out of it so suddenly and so completely. They had discussed the broad strokes but not the particulars, had tiptoed around things that might hurt too much, answers that might cut too deep.

“It’ll be fine, Christine,” he said. “My friends want to spend more time with you. And I do too.”

She could see them in his eyes, the things they had left unsaid, the ways they were suffocating him, the doubts crowding his vision. Slipping her hands into both of his own, Christine kissed their entwined palms and held them fast to her mouth. 

“If you want me to go with you, I’ll go.”

He held onto her hand as they headed down the street.

“Are you guys getting together for anything in particular?” Christine asked.

“Senior year. The end of school. The beginning of our lives.”

They plodded along towards the subway, Christine casting about for a topic of conversation that felt light and easy. 

“Finals are soon, aren’t they?”

“They are.” There was an awkward pause, and then he continued, as if he too were looking for the words to begin building their bridge back to each other. “It’s crazy how cold it still is. It’s almost May.”

Christine made a non-committal sound, and as they sat on the train, he looked at her.

“Do you guys not have finals?”

“Oh, we do. I guess I just haven’t really thought about them.”

She felt him still looking at her, and when she met his gaze from beneath her eyelashes, she saw his expression soften. He gently ran his thumb over the back of her hand. “You’ve had a tough few weeks,” he said.

The subway jostled them, but they continued to stare at each other, Raoul just barely moving his thumb over her hand, the slight touch, nearly absent in their relationship since Friday evening, warming her to her core. Slowly, the guarded wariness in his eyes fading into affection, he brought his forehead to hers.

“It’s been a tough few weeks,” he said again. “But we’re here. And you’re getting better every day.”

Christine squeezed his hands as tightly as she squeezed her eyes shut. 

“Yes.” She breathed in sharply against the searing pain of guilt in her breast. “We’re here.” 

Raoul pulled back, a faint flush on his cheeks, still holding her hand in one of his own. He cleared his throat as they neared their stop. 

“I’ve got to start making actual plans for graduation,” he said. “Get tickets and stuff. My parents didn’t book a hotel until the last minute, of course, so they’re paying sky-high prices.”

Christine nodded wordlessly. Mrs. Giry had booked her hotel room months ago. There was no one to book a hotel room for Christine, so she had not given it any thought at all. 

“I know you’ve been stressed about jobs,” he said after a moment, digesting her silence, “but I’m sure something will happen really soon.”

“I don’t know, to be honest. I had my recital, and my call-back at the Met, but I haven’t heard anything since then. I don’t know why I haven’t heard anything. I really should ask Erik—my teacher—” Christine stumbled over her remaining words.

“Erik,” Raoul said mildly. They were exiting the train, and his profile was in shadow. “Is that his name?”

Christine swallowed, and they said no more until they came to the cozy jazz club.

Gabriel waved them over to their little gathering at the back of the café, his arm lazily draped over the back of a black-haired woman’s chair, his expression at seeing Christine on Raoul’s arm one of affected coolness. 

“Glad you could come,” Gabriel said to Raoul, pulling out a chair for him. Raoul scrambled to find one for Christine, and there was a general hubbub of motion around her, the tips of her ears burning bright red, until someone found a spare chair and pushed it towards her. She edged her chair into the most shadowed corner, wishing she could melt into the wall, wishing she had never come at all. 

Soon, though, the group moved past her arrival, drinks being passed around and peals of laughter piercing the air. Christine had been introduced to most of Raoul’s friends, but some were unfamiliar faces, smiling at each other in the dimly-lit room. Raoul’s hand rested gently on her knee as he eased into the conversation, naturally the center of attention, naturally charismatic and gregarious. Intermittently he glanced back at her, squeezed her knee, and smiled. Beside him, she felt small and out of place, judged by peering eyes, and she couldn’t help but compare this to how she felt on stage, how wonderful and free, even with hundreds of faces swimming before her, with a whisper in her ear to encourage her forward. 

Raoul belonged in this sunlight, basking in the joy of connection and friendship, and she had kept him from this, stifled him, pulled him into her own darkness. Christine shifted backwards even further into the shadows, Raoul’s hand eventually slipping unnoticed from her knee. 

A frosted glass made it into her palm, and people began making toasts at random. 

“To senior year,” a girl in the corner said, lifting her glass.

“To the end of Econ 1040,” someone else said. There was a smattering of laughter.

“To new jobs.”

“And paying back my loans!”

Glasses clinked. 

“To the beginning of the rest of our lives,” Raoul said. He was looking at her, his voice suddenly in her ear, and she couldn’t break the intensity of his gaze. She felt her cheeks color.

She raised her glass shakily. “To us,” she said. 

Monday morning dawned with Christine wrapped securely in Raoul’s sheets. She slanted her eyelids against the bright light, turning over on her stomach and nudging her head closer into the cocoon of his arms. Last night, spurred by the alcohol, and perhaps by the collective optimism and joy of his friends, Raoul had taken her back to his apartment and kissed her until she began to tremble. Their rediscovery of each other had been slow, and sweet, and right as it ended Raoul had kissed her forehead, over and over again, whispering words she didn’t hear, his hands buried in her hair. 

He stirred now, briefly, and then his face relaxed again into gentle snoring, and Christine lay watching him. She had no interest in the time, no interest in showering or getting dressed or going to class. His face in repose, without the worry and stress of the last few weeks, the concern and confused adoration all hidden behind his closed eyelids, was heart-stoppingly lovely, and she wished she could hold the two of them in this moment, wished she could repeat the words back to him that he was waiting for, wished she could be for him everything that he deserved. 

But her heart kept beating at every thought of what would come tonight, at the other man who was waiting for her, the other man who had whispered to her, over and over again. Christine closed her eyes, and she felt Raoul shift against her

“Morning,” he said. She felt him kiss both of her eyelids, and she kept them shut, feeling his breath on her cheeks, his arms scooping her close against him, their legs tangling beneath the sheets. 

“Feels like a dream,” he said. “Am I dreaming?”

“No.” 

He kissed her, slowly massaging his lips against hers, running his tongue along the edge of her lower lip. 

“Call in sick,” he said, his hand dipping lower and lower down her side.

“I—” Christine swallowed, removed his hand and cradled it between hers. Her stomach was starting to feel slightly queasy. “I wish I could.”

Raoul opened his eyes more fully, sat up on one arm, the sheet falling away from his chest. Christine felt exposed under his gaze, his eyes narrowing ever so slightly at the corners as he inspected her face in the bright morning sunlight. 

“So when will I see you again?” He said it casually, but she sensed an undercurrent in his voice. 

“Whenever—” Christine swallowed, and his eyes took in the movement. She struggled to keep her face passive. “Whenever you were thinking.”

He laid his palm flat against the bed, watching the depression it made in the mattress. 

“I was thinking that I’m available whenever you are.” He lifted his eyes back to hers. “I’m pretty free now that things are winding down at school. You’re the one with—obligations.”

The word hung between them. As she sat up, clutching the sheet to her chest, looking around for her clothing, she tried to imagine her singing lessons as nothing but that—obligations, commitments to her music. Nothing more. 

“I’ll text you, okay?” She said as she made her way out the door. If he made a reply, she did not hear it. 

She was only marginally late for her first class, which unfortunately gave her a lot of time to think. And thinking was the very last thing she wanted to do. During the next class break, Christine sought out Meg.

“You free?”

“For what?”

They sat several minutes later at the Starbucks down the street. 

“I’d be mad at you but you know I hate that class,” Meg said.

Christine clutched a steaming tea cup. 

“I spent the whole weekend with Raoul,” she said.

“I know,” Meg said, laughing. “I live with you.” She searched Christine’s face. “Do you regret it?”

“No, no.” Christine waved a hand. “No.”

“But?”

“It was good. I really—he’s really—special.”

“That’s great. That’s really good. So you talked?”

“We talked.”

Meg slung her arm over Christine’s shoulders. “He’s a great guy. I knew he would hear you out.”

Christine nodded and sipped her tea. None of it had been what she had intended to say, but now that she was here, she couldn’t force the words. The weekend had been good, and they had talked, but things were not repaired, and things were not as they had been, and somehow they had devolved from the alcohol-impassioned lovemaking of last night to the silent suspicions of the morning. 

And, weren’t his suspicions founded? Wasn’t her stomach was churning at the thought of her lesson tonight? At the thought of walking into that room and seeing him standing there?

Tea cups were finished, lunch cleared away, and afternoon classes ended before Christine could get a grip on her feelings. Meg kissed her cheek and said she’d make dinner, and Christine hardly had the chance to smile at her before she found herself standing in front of the door to the practice room.

What did she do now? Knock? She had never knocked before. But there had never been a person in there before. Taking in a breath, Christine pushed open the door, just as she always did.  

And there he was. Standing in the middle of the room, as she had imagined all weekend. Dark hair combed over his forehead. Golden eyes piercing. 

Her knees felt weak. 

Erik glanced over her form, once, quickly, and then nodded and turned from her. “I hope you had a good weekend.” 

Hearing that voice again startled her. “The weekend—yes. Good.”

“Well,” he said, half turning towards her again, “come in.”

Christine edged her way in, closing the door behind her. Standing an awkward distance from the piano, she stowed her bag in a corner of the room. She grasped for something to say to clear her mind of sudden fog.

“Erik,” she said, her voice shaking a bit, “I wanted to ask you, actually, about what’s going on with the Met, and—and my career, and everything.”

“It’s being handled. Don’t worry.”

She closed her eyes against the onslaught of his voice. Don’t worry, it said. Trust me. It was like a little lullaby in her head, pulling her away from her thoughts, away from her concerns, relaxing the tensed muscles in her shoulders. Don’t worry, she thought dreamily, and was there anything to worry about? Had there been? Erik would take care of it. Erik would take care of everything. Erik. Erik—her mind suddenly revolted, his control over her slipping the minute she sensed it. 

She cleared her throat. “Graduation is so soon. I need to know. I am worried.”

“Don’t be.” Erik skipped his eyes over her again, this time turning from her more abruptly, and she was sure she caught the faint glimmer of surprise in his gaze. He knew then, what his voice did. He knew, and he used it to his advantage as he pleased. 

She took a step closer to him. “But, Erik—”

“Many offers were made for you,” he said, his back stiffening. “When I find something that is fitting for you, I will let you know.”

Her heart skipped a beat. How long had he been hiding such vital information from her? “Many offers—but Erik—from who?”

“When I find something that is fitting for you, little dove, I will let you know.”

He said each word distinctly, turning to her once again. They stared at each other for a long while, Christine’s arms folded across her chest, but she was the first to look away, unable to stand up to the challenge in that penetrating gaze, no matter how much she wanted to. Seeing him again, hearing him again, was much more overwhelming than she had imagined. 

After a pause, Erik gestured towards the center of the room. “Let’s begin from where we left off with Musetta, shall we? Then we can move on to Desdemona if we have time.”

“Um—”

He began playing scales, and there was no argument to be had after that. Christine struggled to throw herself into the lesson, singing Musetta with a passion and pleading she had never found in the role before. He was totally composed, the stoic teacher once more, correcting her when necessary, praising very occasionally. There was no indication that the last time they had seen each other he had clasped her hand tightly to his chest, no indication that she had fainted at the sight of him and he had pulled her up close to him, nearly close enough to kiss her. 

“You’re distracted today,” he said, an edge to his voice. 

“I’m sorry.”

“Begin again. Lift your chin. Did you get enough sleep last night?”

Christine blushed, and tried to sing her entry without her voice shaking. He threw her an annoyed glance, and Christine closed her eyes and willed herself to focus. 

She managed to finish the aria with only minor mistakes, which Erik picked apart as she drank from her thermos. It was fascinating to watch him as he spoke, watch his lips form each word, watch his throat work against each consonant, hear the same litany of criticism she had received from the whisper behind the wall, now brought to life in the form of a man. There was a tension in the music room that had never existed before, one born of the acute awareness of his body near to hers, the thought that he could turn and reach out to her, at any time, turn and touch her, as he had before. 

The liquid slid heavily down her throat as she muffled a cough. Erik looked at her sharply, stopping mid-sentence, and she struggled to hide her blush behind her thermos.

“You are drinking too quickly,” he said. 

She could still feel his eyes on her, and she crammed the cap back on her thermos and turned from him, fumbling for her bag and shoving it into one of the pockets blindly. 

“I should go,” she said. She should go, text Raoul maybe, laugh with him, hug him, see him, anything else but stand here with her face aflame, her hands nearly tingling at the idea of the man behind her, this ridiculous, shivering desire that was coursing through her. She had made her choice, and she needed to stand by it.

Erik said something about their lesson tomorrow that Christine hardly comprehended over the rushing in her ears, and she nodded, refusing to look back at him, and headed for the door. Her hand was on the knob, her pulse rapid with the need to escape the room. Just one more twist until the door would open, until the hallway would light up before her and he would disappear again into the wall like the dream-like shadow that he was, dissipate into thin air behind her, ephemeral and unreal, just a whisper on the wind—

“Christine.” Something touched her hair, and every muscle from her shoulders down to her fingers tensed, fire burning down her spine, that velvet voice soft in her ear. 

She let out a shaky breath, her hand still on the knob, unable to turn around but equally unable to open the door, standing suspended, waiting for his next move. Would he say what she was thinking, what she was imagining? Would he grip her arms and pull her against him, say her name again, his breath hot on her neck? Her eyes fluttered shut.

“You forgot your bag,” Erik said, and blinking rapidly, finally turning, she saw that he was holding her bag in his hand, nudging it gently against her back and ruffling her curls.

Trembling, refusing to look at him, Christine took the bag, careful not to let their hands touch, and then turned and fled the room. 

The next day passed much as the previous one had; Christine sat in her classes, willing time to stand still, and yet it zipped past her, unaware and uncaring of the way she tore at the hem of her shirt and twisted her pencil until it almost broke. Could she really do this every day, really go into that room every night and pretend that nothing had changed, pretend she didn’t feel the things she felt? And Raoul, Raoul. Eventually, that’s what it always came back to—Raoul. 

Meg had warned her about teacher crushes, and Christine held onto that thin thread all afternoon. Teacher crushes were acceptable; they were something to giggle about, something to sigh over, something that would hurt no one. Something you got over with time. And Erik had certainly not given her any reason to doubt Meg’s words, at least not since he had held her hand so closely to his heart for those breathless seconds last week. He had not said anything. He had not given her any explanation for why he had left, or why he had come back, no assurances that it would not happen again. 

No. She could not bear that. A teacher crush. That was all it was, and all it would remain.

Responsible and hardworking student that she was, Christine skipped her last class of the afternoon and instead sat in an empty study room adjacent to the library, her back against the wall and her legs stretched out straight across the carpet, texting Raoul. The conversation was meaningless banter, intermittent and choppy on his end, and Christine sat cradling the phone in her lap, waiting in silence in the minutes between his responses, wondering what he was doing and where he was spending his day. Was he at school, perhaps only taking his phone out occasionally? Was he with friends, with Gabriel, who would narrow his eyes every time her name popped up on the screen? Maybe he was too busy to look and reply. Or maybe he sat there as she did, on his couch or in his parked car, watching her messages pop up on his screen one by one, thinking of all the times she hadn’t ever responded to his.

A stampede of feet past the library door indicated that her time was up, and feeling particularly apprehensive, Christine picked herself up off the floor and headed for the music room. As usual, there was no change in Erik’s rather professional demeanor, his formal way of greeting her, his impersonal inquiries into her day. It felt almost as if the voice had been more of a friend than the man was, that the voice had cared about her as a person, when the man chose only to focus on her voice. Christine steeled herself against this latest disappointment. Teacher crush. Teacher crush. 

They sang the first duet from Faust, and while Marguerite sung of her trepidation, her hope, her unconcealable joy at their love, Erik punctuated Faust’s begging for his lady’s favor with suggestions and corrections. Eventually, Christine dropped her last line, and Erik lifted his hands from the piano with measured patience, and turned on the bench to look at her. 

“Do you take issue with the duet?” 

Christine swallowed, standing before him with her arms hanging at her sides, afraid of his anger, afraid of the voice which never accepted anything less than perfection from her. 

He raised an eyebrow, and she tumbled into her words. “Not with the duet. With Faust, who doesn’t seem to care if Marguerite lives or dies.”

There was silence as he regarded her, as his eyes slid over her face. She subconsciously tucked a curl of hair behind her ear and shifted her weight over one hip.

“Perhaps,” he said, “you are correct. Maybe it’s time for a break. You cannot work on your acting if I don’t provide the appropriate foil.”

Christine took her cue, reaching for her water bottle and awkwardly propping her elbows on the lid of the piano. Erik sat looking at the keys, his hands moving soundlessly across them. This would have been the time the voice asked her about her classes, and she would have given a cheeky reply, or made a joke about the curriculum, or poked fun at the management of the vocal department. Instead, the only noise was as she picked up and put down her water bottle on the lid of the piano, this voice a dear friend but the man it inhabited a near stranger. 

Sighing, Christine left her bottle standing on the lid and swept around the side of the instrument to approach the bench. Erik slid his eyes towards her, his hands falling from the keys towards his lap. She perched on the very far edge of the bench and tried to remember what it had been like when he was just a voice. That person was still inside of him. That person—that person was him. She just needed to find a way to draw him out again.

“I heard—” her voice was gravelly, and she stopped and cleared her throat. “I heard that Laura Sorelli was invited to compete for a chorus dancer spot at La Scala. It’s all my roommate and her friends can talk about.”

Erik nodded, his frame completely still as he watched her. 

She waited, perhaps a beat too long for comfort, before she let out a nervous chuckle. “Um—and I was just thinking you must be very proud. I mean—of the school—I mean, it’s La Scala, and—”

“She does not hold a candle to you.”

Christine swallowed the rest of her words. 

“Right. I mean, I don’t really know how you can compare two completely different mediums like voice and dance, but—”

“She does not hold a candle to you.”

Christine looked up at him from under her eyelashes, his unblinking stare both unnerving and stirring, awakening the feelings she had barely beaten down under the guise of a teacher crush.

“What do you really think will happen for me, Erik? When I’ve heard nothing yet, when I don’t have any job offers? Most of my class has already signed contracts.”

“You worry so much, Christine. Didn’t I make you a promise?”

“The heart of the world.”

“I don’t make promises lightly.”

You do, you do. The thought beat in her head, the one promise he had made her time and again, what she had begged from him and what he had granted, without pause, without fail, until the one night he left and never came back. I am wherever your music is.

“Christine?” She felt just the whisper of his forefinger under her chin, tilting her face up towards his. “What is it?”

“I’m afraid,” she whispered, her cheeks coloring. “Afraid this will all be a castle of dreams.”

“It won’t be.” His eyes searched hers. “It won’t be a castle of dreams. Your music will be heard on stages across the globe.”

“And you?”

“What of me?”

Christine pressed her lips together. The voice had not had a problem making promises to her. The voice had always been there when she needed it. It was the man who was evasive, and cryptic, maybe even intentionally vague, the man who made her simmer with the fear that as quickly as he appeared he could again disappear, and this time, forever.

“You said you’d be wherever my music was,” she said. “You promised. ”

“And I will.”

“You lied.”

Erik’s eyes narrowed slightly, the only obvious reaction to her words. His face was curiously devoid of expression, she noticed, and in noticing, realized it had been that way throughout their conversation. Only his eyes seemed alive, constantly moving, glinting in the light. 

“Christine—”

“You lied, Erik. You lied to me. Not even a word, not even—not a note, nothing. What was I supposed to think?”

“I—”

“What do you think I thought?” Christine’s voice rose, her fingers shaking. “What do you think went through my head when I came and you were gone? After everything—everything we had shared, everything I had trusted you with—everything—” Christine swallowed hard, unwilling to let tears interrupt her. “I thought I wasn’t good enough. I thought you didn’t care anymore. I thought I was dispensable to you. And the worst part of it all was that I thought you—I really thought you—” 

Really thought you felt the way I did. Christine shook her head, closing her eyes and pressing the heels of her palms into her eyelids. She would not cry in front of him, not again, not now. Not about this. 

“I’m sorry,” he said softly, but it wasn’t enough for her, it didn’t take away the weeks she had spent in her own darkness, didn’t eliminate the deep-seated fear she still had that his presence beside her was nothing more than a wisp of shadow that would slip through her fingers if she didn’t hold tight. 

“Christine, you must never think—”

“Erik—” She shook her head again, lowering her hands and staring into her lap. It was easier to say it without looking at him, without acknowledging that he was there. It was easier to imagine the voice. “You can’t leave me again. I can’t do this without you.” 

There were several moments of silence before he spoke, Christine interlocking and twisting her fingers together.

He grasped one of her hands to make her stop. She started at the contact, but refused to look up at him. “You don’t understand,” he said. “I am not just where your music is. I—I am your music. And you are my voice.”

At this, finally, Christine glanced up at him, his hand still entwined with hers on her lap, and the intensity of his eyes made her shiver. She opened her mouth and then closed it, unsure how to respond, unsure what he meant, and Erik released her hand and rose from the piano. 

“You don’t understand. Wait here.”

She watched him, unblinking, as he once again stepped into the wall, into a door that certainly did not exist. Sighing, she pressed her forehead against the edge of the piano. Another mess of a conversation, another lesson spent in tension and confusion. It would be better if she stopped pressing, if she stopped trying to understand what had happened, if she stopped trying to make this relationship into something it wasn’t. She needed to treat this like another class. Like an obligation, as Raoul had said. Just a music lesson. Just a voice teacher. 

Erik appeared by the piano again almost suddenly, and Christine jumped, not having seen or heard him come back in. 

“Oh,” she said, standing, trying to discern his mood from his blank expression. “I—”

Erik cut her off with a curt gesture of his hand. He placed a series of sheet music on the stand, one after the other, and pointed at the first measure. 

“Begin,” he said, and Christine had to lean forward to read the tiny scrawled script as he launched into the notes with no further preamble. 

She sang, keeping up as best she could. When she faltered, he simply played through it, and as they jumped from measure to measure it finally struck her that the pages were handwritten. Her heart skipped a beat. This was Erik’s music, and it fit her voice perfectly. She closed her eyes and sang more boldly, more freely, vocalizing without the lyrics before her, and Erik began to harmonize with her, leaving behind the written notes and instead following her voice as it tripped and fell over the base chords. The blending of their notes brought her a joy so exquisite she had to repress tears. This was right. This was home. And then she was eight years old again, weaving harmonies to City of Angels with Gustave’s violin, her father kissing her on the forehead and telling her that if Erik ever made more music, she would be the only one to give it voice.

“You’re crying again, dove.” 

Christine opened her eyes and looked at Erik through her blurred vision, her heart racing. He had stood to face her.

“I’m sorry. I don’t seem to be able to help it.”

His hands didn’t come to her face this time, to wipe her tears away. Instead, she blinked rapidly and wiped her cheek on her sleeve. 

“What song was that? I didn’t know you wrote voice pieces.” 

“I didn’t. Not until you.”

He held her gaze, and her mouth fell open a little. 

“You want to know if I will leave you,” he said. “You want to know if I’ll always be there. You want to know if you’re worth it.”

He stepped towards her, reaching out his hand between them, holding it aloft in the air just above her arm. Christine held her breath.

“I will never leave you.” His fingers ghosted over the cotton of her sleeve, and her skin erupted in goosebumps. “Do you see, Christine?”

She saw, but she hardly dared to put it into words, hardly dared to believe.

“I am your music,” he said. He collected the sheets into one pile and handed them to her. She took them, her hands shaking, her whole arm tingling when her fingers brushed his. “And you are my voice. Do you see?”

“Yes,” she whispered. 

“We will astonish the world.”

“Yes.” His eyes are so yellow, she thought. So unique. Call me dove. Call me darling. Call me dove and I’m yours.

His hand traced the outline of her hair and though she trembled with anticipation, he did not touch her again.

“Go home,” he said softly, the edges of his eyes creasing as he looked at her, the depths unfathomable. “Keep the music. It is yours. Only you can sing it.”

In that moment, there was no thought of Raoul. There was no thought of guilt, of emotional affairs, of honesty. There was only the raw, vulnerable pulse of her heart, and the aching hope that Meg was wrong, and that Erik was falling too.

Chapter Text

The guilt wasn’t overwhelming. It didn’t force her to her knees and fill her throat the way that her grief had. It wasn’t overwhelming; it was insidious. It lodged itself beneath her heart and beat at it for hours until she felt physically ill. 

There was no excuse, no neat explanation for what she had done and what she felt. She could not blame someone else, she could not claim she had been seduced or tricked, she could not even say she had been blindsided by her feelings. No, she had known. She had known for a long time. Since that moment she had stood at the wall of the music room, her hand pressed against it, hoping, dreaming, wishing Erik would close that distance between them, she had known. For the weeks she had cried for him in the darkness, she had known. 

The guilt was not even for last night, for the things she should not have allowed herself to think, the trembling that should have made her blush. It was for the month before that, when she had dragged Raoul along with her into a depression that was solely spurred on by another man. It was for her tremendous fear of being alone, of being abandoned, that drove her into his arms. It was for the night he had told her he loved her and all she could say was I’m sorry.

But though she had rehearsed the conversation in her mind a hundred different ways, though she had dialed Raoul and hung up five times in a row, something had still stopped her, in the end. Something had stopped her from telling him that she was selfish, and horrible, and dishonest, that she hadn’t meant to drift from him, hadn’t even realized it was happening, but that when you heard Erik’s music, you belonged to him. Facing that, facing the reality of how she had hurt Raoul, what she had done to him, was too much. Instead, she had buried her face into Erik’s handwritten sheet music, caressed the edges, hummed the melody to herself. 

In the morning, Christine fished out the emerald and diamond necklace Erik had given her and fingered the gems in the twinkling sunlight. Metal cold against her skin, she pressed her cheek against it, imagining his yellow eyes catching sight of the piece in a store window, his long, slender fingers curling around the chain, imagined he had given it to her in person, draped it over her head and then lifted her hair aside to clasp it, his fingers brushing her neck. Heady daydreams, lighting a fire just beneath her skin, intoxicating her, thrilling her—

Christine lay the necklace down gently on her dresser. The thought that had stopped her last night had been the laughter of two shy people, she and Raoul, sitting in a café, getting to know each other, relaxing in each other’s company. It wasn’t right, and it wasn’t fair to him, but despite all of it, she could still hardly bring herself to send the text asking to see him later that night. Give herself one more day, she thought, before she had to lose him from her life, before she plunged into that unknown that, for all of its allure, was still terrifying. It took Raoul hours to respond, to let her know he was busy until tomorrow night, and she wondered throughout the day if he already suspected what was coming, if the things they had never said had nonetheless made their way into his heart, if he was already detaching himself from her. 

As she sat in class, drumming her fingers on her desk, doodling in the corners of her notebook, a pool of nerves began to bubble in her stomach. For all of it, had Erik ever actually said anything? Had he actually admitted to anything? Was she going to break Raoul’s heart over a string of hopes and assumptions? But, no, Christine fortified herself—he had given her his music. His music—no title, scrawled as if he couldn’t get the notes on the staff quickly enough, lyrics like classical poetry. Written only for her. 

If that did not say it, what would?

A pile of papers was strewn over Erik’s desk, for once not sheet music, but correspondence and contracts written in legal jargon. Traditionally the Maggie’s Office of Career Services acted as the contact point for companies looking to engage their students, but once Erik had gotten wind of the multitude of inquiries being made about Christine, he had made a note in her file that all requests needed to go through Nadir Khan. Nadir, for his part, had become increasingly agitated and quick-tempered. When he had discovered that Erik was handling her contract negotiations, he had upended a pile of papers on his desk and launched out of the room in frustration. Erik found it endlessly entertaining. One day soon he would put the man out of his misery and tell him that he already knew everything.

He sifted through the most promising options, all companies of great repute: The Houston Grand Opera, the Lyric Opera of Chicago, the Los Angeles Opera, and Lincoln Center. He knew the Metropolitan Opera seemed to Christine like the crowning achievement of a lifetime, and he didn’t want to take that from her, but he had even greater plans for her. In daydreams, staring into white walls that melded into white floors, he imagined her in Vienna, in La Scala, on the stage of the Palais Garnier, at the Royal Opera House in London. 

He imagined her constantly. He couldn’t help himself.

The daydreams had a quality of unreality about them. He saw her, a small shimmering figure, in the center of a stage, but she was the only clear thing about it; everything else was muted applause, subdued lighting, blurred street signs and faces. There was just her, and just him, in the shadows, watching. 

Erik slashed through sections of the Met’s contract that he didn’t like, and eventually made up a new copy. At length he stood up, stretched, and paced the room. This was all new, this roiling in his chest, this ache in his heart. He hardly knew how to act around her. Being a voice had given him freedom of expression and thought. Revealing himself to her was more momentous than simply having another set of eyes on him, a set of ears to hear him. It meant he couldn’t run when she started to get too close. 

Those first minutes with her, when he had offered his hand and she had grasped it, when he had pulled her up so close to him, when she had reached over and trailed her finger down the back of his knuckle, had been the most claustrophobic of his life. The urge to bolt, to run and hide himself, had never been so strong. Having her there, so close, so warm, her bright sparkling eyes staring into his— he never should have started this. He had known that, even as he had done it. But what choice was there? He craved her. 

Struck with a sudden, urgent need to see her, Erik descended the staircase to the ceiling of the second floor, where afternoon classes were in session. He tread quietly over the square tiles until he found her sitting in the back of her class, her halo of blond hair tied back in a bun at the top of her head. She was doodling, the tip of her pen swirling as she colored something in. It was just too far for him to see. The sight of her calmed him at the same time that it kicked his heart into gear.

Christine dropped her pen and leaned her head back, staring at the ceiling, at him. That face invaded his dreams.

“Miss Daaé, do you have an opinion to share with the ceiling?”

Christine slowly leveled her head, staring at Mr. Gilles, who was the no-nonsense teacher of Entrepreneurship for Singers. 

“Sorry, Mr. Gilles.” 

The rest of the class twittered, and Christine flushed, picking up her pen again and twisting it savagely between her fingers. Someone whispered behind a fanned palm, laughing so loudly that even Erik jumped. Christine nearly broke the pen in half. She had told him of how the students in her class had turned against her since she had started to succeed, but he had never witnessed it, and she had never said how badly it affected her. 

He began to throw a soft cough in the direction of one of her classmates. A few students turned and nodded at the other singer, and one said “bless you.” Mr. Gilles continued to lecture. The girl, Jasmine, glanced around, but said nothing. The coughing fit was getting worse, a veritable hacking, and pencils stopped scratching as they all turned to stare at her. Jasmine looked around, too, until she realized everyone was focused on her. Mr. Gilles was finally obliged to turn around, and he followed the gazes of his students.

“Miss Jammes, are you quite all right?”

Jasmine opened her mouth, and Erik nearly ruined the whole thing by laughing. It was just too easy.

“Mr. Gilles, I—co-ACK.” Jasmine slammed her hand over her mouth, horrified. There was an awful, still silence. A large, fat, croaking toad seemed to have invaded their classroom. 

When Jasmine dared to open her mouth again, the toad began in earnest.

“Co-ACK, co-ACK, co-ACK!”

Someone began to giggle, and then laughter erupted from the front row. Jasmine stood, her hands clamped on her mouth, and ran from the room, pointing to her throat. Mr. Gilles, completely nonplussed, simply nodded as she let the door swing closed behind her. 

“Well,” he said. He turned back to his slides, pausing for a long moment before taking up the last bullet point. 

Erik whispered over Christine’s shoulder. “Slimy as a toad, would you say, Christine?”

She jerked so much that he feared she would fall from her chair. Her head whipped around, staring in all corners of the room, even sweeping the ceiling. He suppressed his laughter, but found himself chuckling at nothing for the next few hours as he waited for their lesson. 

When she met him by the piano, she had a mischievous smile on her lips. 

“Erik,” she said. “I’m not sure if you know, but there’s an infestation in your school.”

Her hidden mirth was infectious, and he couldn’t help answering her with a smile wider than he thought he had ever smiled. 

“Is there?” He said, knitting his brows. “How absolutely appalling.”

She nodded seriously, sitting next to him on the piano bench, her lovely cheeks flushed pink. 

“Frogs,” she said. “The Health Department may come and shut us down.”

“Frogs? Are you sure? Not toads?”

Christine giggled. “I shouldn’t laugh,” she said. “It was cruel.”

“She was cruel to you.” 

Christine lifted her eyes, met his from underneath her eyelashes. His breath caught in his throat. Was she too close? Should he move away, begin playing scales, get her to stand and put her out of the reach of hands that yearned to touch her?

“I haven’t heard you whisper like that in a while. It reminded me of how it was—before.”

“Perhaps I should go back behind the wall.”

“No. Never.”

Yes—yes, she was too close. The need to run was growing in him again, to hide himself behind the wall where everything was controlled, where she couldn’t slide down a piano bench and suddenly be grazing his thigh with her skirt.

Erik grabbed the contract, creasing the papers he had taken such care to keep flat, and shoved them towards her. 

“Here. Look. A contract from the Metropolitan Opera.”

He stood, giving her the space to spread out the pages on the keys, her eyes widening as she read. 

“Oh—” She heaved in a large breath. “Oh.”

His fingers were shaking, and he clasped them behind his back as she looked up at him.

“I don’t know what to say, Erik.”

He blinked rapidly at her. Surely, surely this was what she had wanted, surely she was happy, wasn’t she? With this, with him—

All the breath was knocked from him as she launched herself at him, wrapped her arms tightly around his middle, pressed her face into his neck.

“Thank you! Thank you, thank you, thank you!”

He didn’t know where to put his arms, what to do with his head, how to breathe. This was an embrace he had never experienced before; it was Christine, not a nameless face in Las Vegas. He had no idea how to touch her. Instead he stood, stock-still, trembling, terrified that if he touched her, he would kiss her, and if he kissed her, he wouldn’t know how to stop. 

She pulled back, meeting his eyes as she tilted her face up towards his.

She didn’t know what she did to him. 

“Thank you,” she said, her voice softer now, her fingertips brushing against his sides. “I could never have done this without you.” She laid her head back onto his chest, her curls brushing against his chin. Erik sucked in a breath and swallowed thickly. “I can’t believe this is real.”

“It’s real,” he said, horrified that his voice had cracked. Gingerly removing her arms from his body and stepping away, he cleared his throat and gripped the edges of the piano. 

“My father would have been so happy. I wish—I wish he could have been here. To know you.”

“It has nothing to do with me,” he said, the idea of her father grating on him. “You are your own worst enemy, Christine, the way you hold yourself back, the way you shrink from fame and success, the way you hide your talent. Now is the time to shine.”

“With you, I can,” she whispered.

Erik clenched his fist against the wood of the piano until his knuckles turned white, but before he was able to speak, she had approached him again, sliding her arms around him and pressing her cheek into his back. 

“Christine—” He could hardly choke out her name.

“Erik, with you I feel like I could do anything. All of the things my father and I dreamed of, all of the things I never thought I could achieve, I never thought I was worth—with you I think I could.”

He closed his eyes at the sound of tears edging into her voice, at the length of her pressed against him, every nerve ending on his body alive with the feel of her. She was still talking, but his senses had gone into overdrive, and all he could think was that he needed to move away from her, that he needed to escape the intolerable sensation of her fingers skimming his chest. 

Turning and backing away from her, he saw unshed tears standing in her eyes, and his heart clenched.

“I miss him,” she said, wiping a wayward tear from her cheek. “I really wish that you could have known him. That he could have met you.”

“I know, dove.” She was so delicate, so precious and fragile, so easy to break and to cry. The loss of her father had left an indelible hole in her life, as Madeleine’s had left in his, and she was as wholly incapable of dealing with it as he had been. But he had murdered Madeleine’s killer, built a bomb and set it off when all he had ever touched was music.

Would Christine want to do the same to him, if she knew?

“Erik, I—” 

“We must sing, Christine.” He sat quickly and began to play scales. “Is this not a music lesson?”

“Erik—” He felt her hand on his shoulder and he flinched, something he regretted when she immediately withdrew, her brow furrowed. 

“I—”

“It is time to practice. We must—” He swallowed and caught himself before he hit a wrong note. What she did to him… “We must not neglect your music. Not now, not when everything is beginning.”

He began the warm-up exercise again, and he heard her step away from him at last. He collected the contract and placed it on the piano cover. Later, he would have to go through each section with her, show her all the places she needed to initial, make sure she understood her rights and her benefits. 

But first there was her voice, that glorious instrument that had set all of this in motion, that crystal sound that spoke directly to his soul, pierced his heart. He wanted to keep it, to possess it, to possess her. Wholly, fully, irrevocably.

And he knew he could do it, if he wanted to. He knew how to pitch his voice so that it was soothing and hypnotizing, suggestive and irresistible. He had done it a hundred times in Las Vegas. He could make her follow him anywhere. Already he could see how she tripped over her words when she looked at him, how she was stymied and a little infatuated with what she thought she saw: the beautiful face, the entrancing voice, the sweeping music. The lie. 

There were indisputable, irrevocable facts. The deaths of Gustave and Madeleine were both the fault of the grotesque, twisted flesh of his face. Those were facts. That face was real. He could never, ever change that. But oh, he wanted to. How desperately, sickeningly he wanted to live that lie with her—to never tell her what he had done, to never show her his face, to have her love what she saw without question. To live out in the sun with her, to travel the world stages with her. Christine.

She had finished her aria several moments ago, and now was standing awkwardly in the silence, waiting for him to speak. 

“Come,” he said, standing with a sigh. The mask moved stiffly against his cheeks, a foreign and unwelcome sensation. “Let me explain what’s in this contract.”

“Erik.” Her eyes were wide and determined, and the sight was alluring, arresting. He stood utterly still, his entire existence poised on the echo of his name on her lips. “There’s something else I want to say, first. I—I’m not sure how, but—” 

She was gazing at him in a way that made him desperately want to flee. As she took a step towards him, he took a wide, exaggerated step backwards. 

Words flew through his head, unintelligible, disjointed—please—forgive me—never wanted—please—I love you—I’m sorry—

  He shoved the contract at her again, the papers like a shield from her touch, from her eyes, and she took it from him almost unconsciously, staring at the stack in her hand as if she were unsure how it had gotten there.

“You don’t need to go over this with me now,” she said. “I trust you, Erik.”

He stared at her, his beautiful, beautiful soprano, the woman who meant more to him than he could have ever imagined, and her voice repeated in his head. I trust you, I trust you, I trust you.

“Mr—Mr. Khan. He will—advise you. On the contract. Good night, Christine.”

Erik walked steadily away from her, straight through his trap door in the wall, knowing the mechanism operated too quickly for her to follow him or even understand what she had seen. When the door clicked into place, he fell with his back against the wall. Sliding to the floor without a sound, his mask falling into his hands like rubber liquid, tears lodged in the crevices of his face.

The same nausea that had driven him from Las Vegas was beginning to curdle in his throat now. Everything was spinning. Everything was garbled and tangled in locks of golden hair. The mask had been a mistake, speaking to her had been a mistake—it had all been a horrible mistake. He could not touch what he had destroyed. He could not have what he had broken. She trusted him?

No. He loved her too much for that. 

Christine was still reeling from the events of the lesson from the night before when she approached the door once again. Hoping it was the right move, she had still confirmed with Raoul that she would see him tonight, still planning on telling him the truth. But a part of her worried that she was truly in over her head.

Erik was unfathomable, and she feared above all else that what she interpreted as restrained feeling on his part was really something else, something far less warm. She had hardly had time to rejoice over the contract he had given her for the Met; she had spent the day setting up appointments with Mr. Khan, unsure why he had been chosen instead of Erik himself, and then taking finals and preparing for graduation. In a short, private moment that morning, she had taken out the contract and held it fast to her breast, closed her eyes and hoped that her father could see her. That he was proud. 

She was in rare form at her lesson that day, taking on Norma with a depth of anguish that even Erik commented on as he ran her through her vocal cool-down exercises. 

“Audiences will cry into their programs when they see you turn to the flames,” he said. “I have witnessed Norma with my own eyes this day. You are magnificent.”

Christine gripped her thermos, unused to this type of overflowing praise from him, afraid to read too much into his words, afraid to read too little. After twisting and untwisting the cap of the thermos several times, she eventually sat down next to him on the bench. 

“I doubt I’d be playing Norma any time soon.” 

Erik hummed, splaying his hands over octaves absent-mindedly, playing simple scales in differing keys.

“What you will achieve is beyond the limits of your imagination.”

Christine breathed in deeply and then let out the breath slowly, in increments, counting to ten in her head before she inched ever so slightly closer to him on the bench. If he noticed, he did not show it. 

“I wish that were true for everyone at the Maggie,” she said. “Meg’s been a bit down recently. She didn’t get into the New York City Ballet.”

“She is a fine dancer,” Erik said, continuing to drift from key to key. “She will find a company.”

“Maybe you can find her something,” Christine said, a small smile tugging at her lips.

Erik’s expression did not change, but she heard his amusement in his voice. “If I involved myself in every graduate’s career, I would hardly have time to breathe. There is a reason why the school has an Office of Career Services.”

“But not for me,” Christine said.

“No.” Was she imagining the softer tone in his voice? “Not for you.”

Christine set her thermos on the top of the piano. She had not imagined it, had she? She hadn’t imagined any of it, not the intense way he watched her, not the music he had given her, not the way he had held her hand. She slid even closer, listening to him weave scales, slender fingers fluid and graceful. It must have truly been magnificent, to be in the dark hush of the audience at one of his concerts. 

“Will you tell me about your mother?”

Erik’s hand jerked against the keys, causing an ugly, sharp jangle of disconnected notes. 

“What? No. No.”

Erik stood suddenly and turned from her, a single hand poised on the top of the piano, shaking. Shocked, Christine breathed in, blinking at his stiffened form. She hadn’t meant to upset him, hadn’t known this would be a misstep. He had mentioned his mother briefly before, indicating that she had been as intimately involved in his music as Gustave had been in Christine’s, and she had yearned to reach for something that could connect them, something they could share. 

“I’m sorry,” she said quickly. “You said she had been at your concerts and I—I’m sorry.”

Erik didn’t respond, and Christine watched his thin shoulders rise and fall. She recognized that stance. For years after the accident, she had responded this way when people asked her about her father. Withdrawn, silent. Broken.

“Erik?”

His hand crumpled into a fist.

“What?” He said, the beauty of his voice slashed with bitterness. “What do you want to know about her? She was very gentle and very beautiful. All I had was her and all she had was me. She loved me and I held her while she died. I live still and she—she—”

Christine stood and closed the distance between them. She knew that question, that desperation. She knew what it meant to scream why at an unfeeling universe. She laid a hand on his shoulder.  

The contact startled him. He spun to face her, and her hand fell away. They drew breath in unison, Christine daring to meet his eyes. How long they stood there, captured in each other’s gaze, she couldn’t say. As their breathing quieted, Christine began to notice an odd gathering at the corners of his eyes, as if the skin there came to almost too perfect of a point to be real, as if his eyes sunk deeper into the sockets than the skin should allow. 

“I’m sorry,” Erik said in a half-whisper, and she lost focus on his face. He was so close now she felt his breath on her cheeks. “It’s difficult for me to talk about her.”

“I understand.” Her voice was as quiet as his. “What was her name?”

“Madeleine.” He leaned imperceptibly closer to her. 

“Gustave,” she whispered.

He tilted his head towards her. His eyes had dropped, lingering on her mouth, and she knew with breathless, terrifying certainty that he was about to kiss her. 

“They should have been here,” he said. In her peripheral vision she saw one of his hands reach towards her cheek. “If the world was kind, they would have been here.”

Paralyzed by fear and anticipation, Christine stood unmoving, breathing, waiting. 

“But she would have hated it here,” Erik said. His hand was falling away from her, and he was stepping back, and Christine caught herself before she stumbled, blushing and blinking hard against a torrent of jumbled and confused thoughts that assaulted her in the wake of his withdrawal.  

She turned and hugged her elbows, only belatedly registering what he had said. 

“What? Why?” 

“She lived her whole life on the West Coast.”

“In Los Angeles?” She asked in a small voice. She shuddered involuntarily.

He was quiet for a long time, and when Christine finally turned to look at him again, his bleak expression tugged at her heart, reminded her that they shared this, too. 

“My father came originally from Sweden,” she said. “It was my mother who convinced him to move to Los Angeles.”

At his utter stillness, Christine plowed ahead uncomfortably. “Did your mother grow up in Los Angeles?”

“Yes,” he said heavily. “Like you, I suppose.”

“And you did, as well?”

He nodded, rubbing his hand across his face. “Yes. Yes. And I, like you, will never go back.”

“I never said I wouldn’t go back. Actually, I’ve been wanting—I mean, thinking—about going back. Just a short trip. To visit my father’s grave.”

His fingers stilled against his face. “Where is he buried?”

“Perros Churchyard. It’s in Glendale—”

“I know where it is.”

Shifting from one foot to the other, Christine lifted her eyes towards him in the short silence that followed.

“Erik,” she said quietly, “I’ve been wondering for so long, ever since I found out who you were. I know you don’t want to talk about it, but I just—I need to know.”

He inclined his head in acquiescence. 

“Were you there? Were you there, that day? I know he was your manager, it says it online—” she swallowed and tumbled on. “I need to know, because I have always felt so, so alone, and to know that someone else shared in that with me, to know that—that I am not really alone—”

“Enough.” Erik’s entire body was shaking. “Enough, enough!” He heaved in breath. “This was a mistake.” He cleared away song sheets with a wide swipe of his arm. “This was a mistake, a mistake, I never should have—she never wanted me to—I can’t—”

“Wait—”

“Don’t touch me!”

Christine stood with her hand reaching out towards him, motionless in the air. She recognized an anxiety attack from her own experience. 

“Erik,” she said slowly, carefully. “I understand. I do. Believe me, I do. It never stops hurting, never. People say time heals wounds, but they’re wrong.”

His eyes, wild as a spooked colt, shimmered as she hesitantly extended her fingers towards him again. She made contact and he shuddered.

“Christine.”

They locked eyes, and suddenly everything was shifted—he no longer teacher, she no longer student. He breathed, and she breathed, their bodies connected by her hand on his chest.

In that moment, she knew she was his. 

Erik clamped his hand over hers, and she could feel the steady beat of his heart. She was lost in the swimming yellow of his eyes. Sing to me. Kiss me. Slowly, gently, he slipped her hand from his chest and held it in his two palms. Her heart brimming with hope, she tried to smile.

“If I could change the past for you,” he said, his voice rough around the edges, “I would. But even I cannot do that.”

“I know.” She squeezed his fingers.

“No.” He shook his head. “No. Darling little dove. You don’t know even the beginning notes of this aria.”

Her smile slipped. “What?”

“Go.” He pushed her hand towards her, releasing it. “Go home, Christine. Go home and don’t think of this again.”

“But—”

He shook his head, once. 

The sting of rejection started under her breast and sliced through her chest, and she recoiled from him as if she had been burned. Go home Christine, forget this. Her breath tore into a throat sore with the threat of tears. Go home, Christine. I don’t need you. I don’t want you. Had she truly imagined all of it? Built a castle of dreams out of nothing, out of a song and a voice and whisper? Really? All of it?  

Darling little dove. The endearment turned bitter on her tongue. She hoped he’d never use it again.

Christine swung her bag over her shoulder, forgetting her thermos on the top of the piano in her haste, and ripped the door open. Raoul was waiting for her. She would not break his heart tonight. 

Chapter Text

Nadir Khan was not in the mood. He was not in the mood to be used as a puppet and not in the mood to be kept in the dark any longer. When Moncharmin popped his head into the door of Nadir’s office to finalize some details about the school’s upcoming graduation ceremony, Nadir had turned the man out of the room and slammed the door behind him before he had even realized what he was doing. With a sigh, Nadir rested his forehead in his hand, staring down unseeing at a pile of paperwork. This time last week he had sat at this desk with Christine Daaé, going over her contract line by line, as he had been bidden to do. With each bob of her head, each twitch of her mouth, he had watched her. The little orphan, the young girl with a passable talent. What had attached the reclusive musician to her voice, compelled him to manhandle her career? 

The thought gave him no pleasure. He had hoped, over the years, that Erik would return to the world of men, that he would take his rightful place in the heart of society, leaving behind all the misery that had driven him into hiding in the first place. But this, this contact was a regression. A dangerous regression. 

He was sure by now that Erik knew who she was. When the girl had first come into his office to discuss her contract, she had said, “Erik told me to find you here,” and that was all Nadir needed to hear. Erik had made contact, he had spoken to someone. 

It was dangerous. That was what he repeated to himself as he banged out of his office and made his way towards the empty practice rooms. He had seen what obsession did to Erik, once. The boy would not sleep for days. He would hound him, call him in the middle of the night to talk plans, to draw maps of the Campbell offices. He would abruptly leave in the middle of conversations, anger contorting his face and marring his voice. 

A perverse attachment to the past, Nadir thought. A man unwilling to go forward so he chains himself to the past. Had Erik known who she was all along? And: would this also end in death?

“Erik?” He called, pressing his hands up against the wall of an empty room. “Erik, we need to talk.”

Damn the man for not having a cell phone or even an email address. 

“Erik! This has gone on for long enough!”

Frustrated, Nadir abandoned that room and raced into another, raining his fists on the walls. “I’ll find my way in,” he said, not totally sure he could follow through on the threat. “I will find you in there.”

“Will you shut up before someone hears you?”

“Erik.” Nadir rested his forehead against a smooth wall, his shoulders sagging. “Erik, this needs to end.”

“What needs to end, Nadir? What needs to end?” The whisper was spinning around his head, toying with him.

“I know you speak to her. If you speak to her, why can’t you speak to me?”

There was a pause, and in that second Nadir seized his opportunity.

“Why are you doing this, Erik? Why will you not leave the past alone? This obsession—”

“Don’t you dare talk to me about this!” Nadir fell fully against the wall. The voice was resounding in its anger and beauty. He had forgotten. Truly, he had forgotten the power of that voice, the hypnotic and dizzying quality of it. He regretted his challenge immediately. 

“You have no idea what you’re talking about, Nadir. No idea at all!”

His mind fuzzy, Nadir cleared his throat, trying to hold on to the thread of his own anger.

“You’ve spoken to her. She’s seen you.”

“What business is it of yours if she has or has not? Are you my keeper?”

Grateful that the whisper had returned, Nadir straightened his shoulders. 

“No, Erik, but surely you see that—that no good can come from this.” He looked around the room, wondering where Erik was standing now. “Surely you see that. There is so much you could do, so many people you could meet, if you would just—”

“Go out into the world? Become who I once was? You understand nothing, Nadir.”

“You’re right, I don’t understand. I don’t understand what has changed, why you have altered everything for this one girl—”

“For a person who begged me to be something for so many years you’ve certainly changed your tune quickly.”

“I’m not—it’s just—why her, Erik? She is—"

“You will not speak a word against her! You know nothing!”

“I wasn’t going to.” Nadir shook his head. “You told me you never wanted to go back there, Erik, and you meant it. Physically, but also mentally. You never wanted to go back to Los Angeles. This—this can only end badly.” He wasn’t sure what “this” was anymore. An obsession, he had thought, with the past, maybe a connection to what Erik had once lost. But his swift anger, his defensiveness—

“Erik,” Nadir started. Oh God, he had no idea how to even approach this. He had thought he was combatting a fascination with an idea, a voice, not—not—“Erik.” He faltered again. Thoughts raced through his mind. He knew nothing about the pianist’s past before he had set off a bomb, but he knew that Christine Daaé was innocent, that she had been caught up before in Erik’s madness and had ended up scarred and bereaved. Whatever this was, whatever connection Erik thought he had with the girl—it couldn’t be. And surely, surely she did not know what he had done. If she had, she wouldn’t have walked into his office so calmly with Erik’s name on her tongue. 

“My friend,” Nadir said at last, because he was worried that if Christine came out of this unscathed, Erik would not. “What have you done?”

“Beautiful music. Beautiful, beautiful music is what I have done. Isn’t that what you’ve always wanted from me?”

“Yes but—but—not like this.”

There was silence. 

“Erik?”

“I have not done anything wrong. I have not—I have not. I am allowed this—there is nothing wrong with this. And she will sing. She will sing my music.”

Nadir sighed and rubbed his hand across his cheek. 

“She deserves a life beyond this place,” he said quietly. “Away from all we did, all we took from her.”

“I’ve done nothing wrong! Nothing! I’ve taken nothing from her, I’ve only given to her, given my music and my voice and—nothing. I’ve done nothing wrong.”

Nadir swallowed, fear beginning to creep up his spine at the depth of emotion hinted at by Erik’s every word. “Erik,” he said, hushed. “You have not told her what really happened. And, when you do—”

“Be quiet, you idiot!” The voice battered him into the wall, and Nadir stood against it, his eyes closed, as unable to disobey the voice now as he had been ten years prior. Erik hissed into his ear, and Nadir shuddered violently. “If you ever speak of Los Angeles again, if you ever try to interfere, I will not be responsible for what I do. You will not take her from me.”

In the vacuum left in the absence of Erik’s voice, Nadir sagged to his knees. He was too late to stop this tragedy, maybe by months, maybe by years. 

And if Erik fell, what would happen to Nadir?

Christine went through a full week of contract talks with Mr. Khan before she actually told Meg anything about it. Partially, she had feared bringing up the subject when she knew Meg was still struggling to find a job and had been so crushed by her rejection from the New York City Ballet, and the rest of it was her own tangled feelings about it. When Erik had first handed the contract to her, her chest had burst with unadulterated joy, a type of elation she had rarely felt in her life. She had gripped the pages like a lifeline, a testament to her talent, to her effort, to her struggle. It was something tangible, something solid and real that said that everything that Gustave Daaé had hoped for his daughter had not been just a dream. But her happiness had rapidly been eclipsed by her guilt, her attraction, her infatuation, and later, her resentment for the man who had orchestrated it all.

Still, after a tense week spent with Mr. Khan, who was stiffer and ruder than she remembered him ever being, Christine had brought the contract home to show Meg, who had freaked out and wouldn’t stop demanding to know how long Christine had kept it from her. Laughing, Meg had grasped both of her hands and danced around the apartment with her, twirling Christine and dipping her over her arm until they were both breathless and giggling. 

Meg plopped onto the couch, grinning. “I can’t wait to sit in the front row and listen to you belt! My mom’s going to flip!”

Christine steadied her hand on the armrest. “I’m just going to be in the ensemble, you know, I mean it’s not like—”

“Oh, shut up. This is amazing! Christine! I can’t believe it!”

Christine allowed herself to smile. “It’s pretty great, isn’t it?”

“Great!” Meg leaned over the side of the couch, scrutinizing Christine with narrowed eyes. “Why aren’t you more excited about this? Great? It’s amazing, it’s incredible, it’s—stupendous!”

Christine laughed. “Stupendous?”

“Yes. And I stand by it.”

Christine sat next to her. “I am excited. It is incredible. Stupendous, even.” Meg elbowed her in the ribs and Christine laughed again, rubbing the area absentmindedly. “It’s just been a lot, you know? Kind of overwhelming.”

Meg sighed dreamily. “The Met. Wow. I always knew you’d make it.”

“Did you?” Christine couldn’t stop herself from saying it. It was hard not to remember that night Meg and Raoul had cornered her, assuming she hadn’t gotten a callback.

“Of course. So, are you celebrating or what?”

Christine shrugged. “I mean, I have a final in a few days, I thought I’d just—”

“You what?” 

Christine paused, Meg staring at her with wide eyes.

“Um—”

“You’re thinking about finals when you have a contract for the Metropolitan Opera in your hands?”

“Well I can’t just forget everything, I still have to graduate.”

“Oh my God, Christine, priorities!” Meg sprang up from the couch. “Celebrating is the priority! Party first, finals second. No—fifth. Come on! This only happens once in a lifetime!”

Christine shook her head, smiling. “Whatever you say.”

“Yes, it is what I say! Where’s Raoul? Is he coming? You told him already, I’m sure. I get no respect in this place. Is he on his way over already?”

Christine hesitated, blinking into Meg’s open, expectant face. “Uh—no, I haven’t—I mean, he’s not—”

Meg’s smile faltered slightly. “You haven’t told him yet?”

“Well, I only just told you. I mean, nobody knows yet.”

“Oh.” Meg sat down again. “Well, I’m honored to be the first to know.”

Christine nodded but said nothing, her gaze drifting from Meg down to her lap, where she flipped her phone up and down in her hand.

“If you want to tell him privately, I can go.”

“No, it’s not that.” Christine fingered the edges of the phone, clicking the buttons at random, the screen lighting up and darkening at the touch of her hand. 

“You don’t—want to tell him?”

“No, I do. I do.”

Meg hugged Christine around her shoulders and she stopped messing with the phone, her hands going still in her lap.

“Is this like your callback? When it was too overwhelming to tell us? I get it. I’m sorry if I’ve been too pushy about it. I’m just really happy for you.”

“It is overwhelming,” Christine said, grateful for the easy out. “And Meg—” She turned to face her friend. “I’m sorry about the ballet. I don’t mean to make it all about me.”

“Oh.” Meg’s hands fell from her shoulders. “Thanks. But don’t worry about me. Mrs. Pampin is working with me to get my name out.”

“I can’t imagine how you must be feeling.”

Meg shrugged. “Nobody is guaranteed anything, right? Not even if you go to the Maggie.”

“Oh, but Meg, you’re an amazing dancer. You know that. I always thought you’d get a job before I did.” 

“I’ll be fine.” Meg smiled at her, but Christine could see the strain in her eyes. She squeezed Meg’s hand. “I’ll be fine, really. Mrs. Pampin is helping me. She placed Marina Friar at the Royal Ballet last year, you know. I’ll have a spot in no time.”

They sat together quietly for several seconds, and then Meg stood. “You should call Raoul and let him know. I’m sure he’ll be thrilled. I’ll be in my room.” Meg patted her on the shoulder. “And if tonight doesn’t work, I’m sure we can find another night to celebrate.”

Christine nodded at her retreating form, her phone still cradled in her hand. Standing with little forethought, she grabbed her windbreaker from the coatrack and then headed downstairs to the street. 

The night was warm, hardly necessitating the jacket at all, and Christine carried it slung over her arm as she walked down the block with no particular destination in mind. The city glinted in the early moonlight, taxis and city buses sidling up alongside her, honking and braking in the never-ending traffic, the noise fading into a comforting and familiar soundtrack. She passed the local supermarket, its awning spread wide over a colorful array of flowers and fruits, a man double parked beside it and yelling at someone in the apartment above, waving his arms frantically. 

Smiling to herself, Christine continued down the block and began to hum. The song changed with her whims, and mindlessly she crossed the street and let an older lady with four dogs pass before she continued walking again, not realizing which song she was singing until she was nearly run over by a cyclist who had briefly veered onto the sidewalk. 

A shiver ran down her spine. She readjusted the coat on her arm, turned back up the street towards her apartment, and continued on without singing anymore. It was her own stupid fault for pulling that music out last night, running her fingers over the scrunched red handwriting, the ridiculous little flounces Erik had drawn on the eighth notes. But there was no escaping its beauty, the way it called to you when you were wholly involved in something else, when you hadn’t thought of it in days, the way it seeped into you and held fast. Like the man himself, it did not let go once it had taken hold. 

Christine sighed. She had wanted to take a walk to get some air, to think about Raoul, to call him, not to think of Erik. She was tired of thinking about Erik. She was tired of trying to figure him out, trying to define their relationship. He ran so hot and cold, sometimes staring at her like she was the only thing in the world, other times spending an entire lesson hardly looking at her. 

Thinking of Erik was a fruitless exercise. If she thought of him, she would begin anew to wonder why he had abandoned her for weeks, suddenly to appear in flesh and blood, why he reeled her in with his music and then rebuffed her. Last night, she had dropped her water bottle, and they had both reached for it at the same time. When their fingers brushed, he had snapped his hand back with a hunted look in his eyes, as if her touch had disturbed him to his very core. 

He did not want her. That was the beginning and the end of it. Not like she wanted him. And so she had gone that night to Raoul, joked with him, laughed with him, no matter that she had to force the smile to her face, no matter that her laughter was louder and longer than anyone else’s, no matter that it echoed in the room after everyone had quieted. No matter that she had cried herself to sleep. 

Leaning back against the brick wall of the office building across the street from her apartment, Christine called Raoul. 

“I have some news,” she said, when he picked up.

“Yeah?” His voice was subdued, and she wondered what she had interrupted. “What’s up?”

Christine tried to inflect a smile into her tone, tried to feel the excitement she had felt when Erik had first showed her the contract. “It’s big news. Exciting news.”

“Okay, hit me with it.”

“I got offered a job at the Metropolitan Opera.”

“Wow! Christine, that’s amazing! This is what you’ve been waiting for.”

“I know. It is.”

“All of that worrying and crying and look! You did it!”

She had, but only partially. It was rankling to know that she never would have made it here on her own, to know that the timid singer she had been in January never would have accomplished what she had accomplished without Erik’s help. How could she hold so much anger and so much gratitude for one man?

“Christine?” Raoul had asked her something but she had missed it.

“Yeah?”

“Are we celebrating or what?” 

“Meg said the same thing. You two think alike.”

“And she’s usually right. So? I’d love to take you out. We haven’t gone on a proper date in a while. Dinner? Drinks? On me.”

“I’d love to,” she said, before she had a second to reconsider. To wonder what she was doing, to wonder why she was doing it. To wonder why she hadn’t seen Raoul since that night after Erik had spurned her. Because she knew why. She was just too scared to face it. 

“Great!” Her heart pinched at the excitement in his voice. “Where are you? Where can I meet you?”

They made plans to meet at a bar in midtown, and Christine headed onto the subway, uneasiness pulsing beneath her heart. She breathed in deeply and tried to push it down. In the last week, she had carried around a constant hum of anxiety, a restlessness that wouldn’t let her sleep, her mind constantly replaying and reworking scenarios and conversations. If Erik had never left. If Erik had felt the same way she had. If instead of sending her away that night, he had taken her in his arms and kissed her. If Raoul had seen it on her face, demanded the words from her. 

The subway bounced and rocked her, and as it did she realized she was tired of being passively jostled by the choices of the people around her, always reacting to someone else’s emotion or decision, someone else’s question or embrace. Since she had been ten years old, she had been reacting to the events in her life, never the catalyst, never the mistress of her own actions. Even now, her greatest success in life, the one that would have made her father cry, was one she couldn’t fully take credit for. As her train pulled into the 42nd Street station, she set her mouth in a firm line.

She did not have to spend all her nights pining for something that wouldn’t be. She didn’t have to live with this guilt, with this anxiety. Erik had made a choice, and so could she. 

So could she. 

Raoul met her in front of the bar and leaned in and kissed her. He held her with both arms, feigning looking her up and down. 

“You don’t look any different,” he said.

“Why would I look different?”

“Because now you’re a celebrity. I’m dating a real-life celebrity.”

“I’m not a celebrity, Raoul.” Christine laughed. “Can you name a single famous opera singer?”

Raoul scrunched his brows at her. “Of course I can. Um—you know that guy—uh—Piangi?”

“Pavarotti,” Christine said, elbowing him. “Come on, you knew that.” 

She had started to open the door, but Raoul caught her arm and spun her, pulling her towards him with one hand at her hip. He kissed her under the light of a marquee sign.

“I don’t need to know Pavarotti,” he said. “I know Daaé.”

Christine looked into his eyes, her face inches from his, and her fingers sank into the collar of his shirt, desperately seeking purchase there, needing to feel him solid against her, to stop the aching pounding in her chest. 

“We’re in public,” Raoul said. “Aren’t you afraid of the paparazzi?”

She pulled him against her, kissing him with a ferocity that surprised both of them. 

“Christine—”

He broke away from her first, confusion settling in his eyes as he held her face between his hands.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing!” Christine pulled him with her into the bar, her grasp on his wrist tighter than she realized. Her heart was racing and she breathed in erratically, swinging him into a booth and sliding in next to him. 

“Drinks?” She said, probably too loudly. She waived over a waitress and Raoul ordered two cocktails. 

“Christine?”

She gripped the edge of his sleeve, trying to remember why she was supposed to be smiling. Raoul pulled his arm away from her, his eyes searching hers. 

“I don’t—”

The waitress appeared with their drinks, Christine’s a large hurricane glass brimming with pink liquid topped with three cherries and a lime. Christine knocked hers against Raoul’s.

“A toast,” she said.

He glanced between their two glasses for several seconds before looking at her.

“A what?”

“A toast. Aren’t you going to make a toast for me?”

“A toast,” he said. “Of course.” He cleared his throat before standing and smoothing down the front of his shirt. 

“Oh.” Not realizing he had meant to be so formal, Christine tugged on his sleeve. “I didn’t mean—I mean you can make the toast sitting down.”

“I cannot,” he said, louder than she would have liked, drawing glances from a few people at the bar. Christine tugged on his sleeve with more force, the tips of her ears beginning to heat and the room beginning the spin before she had even taken a sip of her drink. The night felt like it was happening too fast and too slowly all at once, her senses hyper-focused on things she would wish she could forget later—the hue of his skin in the dim bar light, the bright pink of her drink, the tang of the cherry on her tongue. 

“Raoul, really—”

He banged a knife against the side of his glance, and Christine cringed, slinking backward into her seat and staring at the table.

“I want everyone to know,” he said, holding his glass high. “I want everyone to know that my girlfriend, Christine Daaé, is going to be famous, and I couldn’t be more proud of her.” He smiled down at her. “To Christine!”

A few random people applauded and raised their own glasses as Raoul knocked his back. From the other side of the bar, a particular rowdy group of college boys took shots and echoed: “Christine! Hell yeah!”

Sitting, Raoul smirked at her. “Your public adores you.”

Christine stared at him, his eyes loving and teasing, those words on his lips so innocent, so natural. My girlfriend Christine Daaé. Her heart clenched and she could barely suck in a breath against the pain. This was wrong. This was all wrong. 

“Raoul—” she leaned forward and grabbed his hand tightly, squeezing her eyes shut. “You shouldn’t have.” 

“I just want to celebrate you, kitten. I’m proud of you.”

Her fingers tightened into his palm and she could see him wince against the pressure.

“Christine, are you okay?”

Christine blinked rapidly and released his hand. 

“So, graduation?”

Raoul eyed her, his fingers curled loosely around an almost-empty rum and coke. 

“What about it?”

“Graduation,” she said again, swallowing. She had barely sipped her drink, but it had already gone to her head, the intense wave of anxiety in her chest only building as the minutes ticked on, Raoul fidgeting beside her, his eyes growing more concerned the longer he watched her. “Do you have plans? Did you make plans?”

“You don’t want to talk about graduation.”

“I’m asking you about graduation. Isn’t your family coming? Don’t you have plans?”

“Christine, you hate talking about graduation.”

“I’m fine.” She downed a too-large gulp of her drink and coughed as the liquid slithered down her throat. “I’m fine.”

Raoul grabbed her glass before she was able to bring it to her lips again, placing it on the other side of his arm, out of her reach.

“What is going on?”

“Nothing.”

“You’re not acting like yourself.”

“I told you, I’m fine.”

“What is this about? Are you scared? Are you nervous?”

“I told you, I’m fine!” Christine stood, but she regretted it the moment she did, as other customers had turned to look at her, eyebrows raised. Raoul stood, too, gently gripping her elbows.

“We’re supposed to be celebrating. What’s gotten into you?”

She inhaled sharply through her nose, the night spinning out of her control. “You’re right,” she said. “I guess I’m just—I’m just nervous.”

“Like last time?” He tried to get her to look at him, but she wouldn’t. Was it funny, that both he and Meg thought her so fragile that she couldn’t handle a single achievement without breaking down? Should she laugh, that they had both so quickly come to the same conclusion? 

“Yes.” She pulled Raoul along with her, paying the tab silently, pulling him out into the night. “Like last time.”

“So—” He wrestled his arm from her grip, forced her to stop walking as she turned to face him. “So are you all right? Do you need something? Can I do something?”

“Take me home,” she whispered, but as he began to head towards the uptown station, she shook her head violently, and with questioning eyes, concern etched around the edges, he led her instead towards his apartment. Each step up the staircase made the tips of her fingers tingle, her breath coming faster and faster as they edged towards his door. As he unlocked the front door, Christine stared at the darkened hallway, her eyes frantically trying to adjust. What am I doing, what am I doing?

“Raoul—” She reached for him at the same time he reached for her, although their intentions were vastly different. He had slanted his mouth towards her and she in turn buried her face in his neck, breathing in his unique scent, tears pressing at her eyelids. Oh God—how could she give this up, how could she give him up? She clutched tightly at his broad shoulders. 

“Raoul—”

“It’s okay, I’ve got you.”

And he had, he had held her this entire time, he had become a lifeline, a solid, reliable, bright ray of sunshine in her life. 

All in a moment, she understood. This was not a choice. Keeping him, clinging to him, running back into his arms because Erik did not take her in his—these were not choices. They were still reactions, reactions to her fears, her insecurities, her loneliness. A choice, a real choice, the only choice—was to let him go. Because in the end it wasn’t about Erik. It wasn’t about him at all. It was about her, about her and Raoul. 

“I—” Christine pulled away from him, her hands resting on his chest. There were so many words, and suddenly she was running out of time to say them all. How could she ever tell him what he had meant to her? How deeply she had loved him, even if it wasn’t enough, even if it wasn’t the kind of love he needed? 

She wrapped her arms around him again, in the darkness feeling him return the embrace, feeling his breath on her neck. He kissed her there, and she sighed, the sensation already like a memory, cherished and sweet but put away for reminiscing in a quiet moment. She hugged him tightly, memorizing him, thanking him, loving him. One last time. 

But he had leaned her backwards, kissing a slow arc up her neck, curling his fingers into her hair. 

“I’m so proud of you,” he said, voice low and husky. 

“Raoul—”

“You don’t know how much you amaze me. I’ve never met anyone like you.”

He kissed her, and she let him, let him explore her mouth, let him run his tongue along the lower edge of her lip, the way she had always liked, the way he had always known that she liked. The familiarity of it broke her heart. 

His hands wandered, and she let them, her own fingers trembling against his back. I’m sorry, she thought, as he began to unbutton her shirt. I’m so sorry, even as he whispered into her hair, I love you, Christine, and she let him, let him lift her onto the bed, his hair tousled beneath her hand, that intimate silkiness she would never feel again. Her throat was too full of tears to speak, and she could hardly breathe as he covered her skin with his mouth.

I’m sorry.

“I love you,” he whispered, when it was done. 

Christine began to cry. 

Chapter Text

There was a tree outside Christine’s bedroom window that always drew her attention, and a particularly opportunistic squirrel that occupied it and often threw acorns at the glass pane when she was least expecting it. Now that the city had bloomed, the tree was bright green, the sunlight filtering in through its clusters of leaves, songbirds perching on thin branches and then fluttering back out into the sky. 

Sitting at her desk, Christine stared at the tree, at the squirrels who were chasing each other in a circular path up the bark, in and out of holes she hadn’t noticed, the scene soothing and mindless. In front of her lay a final assignment for her Acting for Singers course, an analysis of a scene she had performed and workshopped with the class. If she was honest, it wasn’t her best work, but she had a difficult time caring. It was the last assignment she needed to submit, and after that, she would be done. Her education at the Maggie would be completed, the last nine years of her life faded in as many seconds into hazy memories.

Except, of course, for her voice lessons. Erik had not said a single word about the fact that she was graduating or the fact that, technically, her lessons with him counted as her independent vocal study course. She hadn’t even given much thought to the idea that he was likely going to put a grade in her record. The lessons were not going to end. That was understood. 

Sighing, Christine pushed her chair away from her desk and towards the window, settling her chin in her palm and staring glassy-eyed at her tree. For how much longer would it be her tree? Just the night before, Meg had excitedly bounced into her room, screaming at the top of her lungs that she had received a job offer with the Houston Ballet, where she had auditioned the week before at Mrs. Pampin’s urging. Christine had done her best to celebrate with Meg, to put on a smile and dance with her, as Meg had done for her when she had brought her contract home. But it was hard not to think of what that really meant: Meg would be leaving, and so Christine would have to leave too. She was not interested in sharing her life with a stranger as a roommate, so they would not be renewing their lease. She would lose her apartment, lose her best friend, her school, everything that had defined her life since she was twelve years old. She would be starting completely anew. 

Christine stood, and for the first time that day, changed out of her pajamas and into the first thing she saw in her closet. She had spent the weekend in her pajamas, curled up in bed, alternatively working on her assignment and pulling the covers up to her chin and staring out her window at the tree. It had been five days since she broke up with Raoul.

Grabbing her bag and slinging it over her shoulder, Christine edged out of the apartment. Official classes had ended for the undergraduate degree candidates, but her voice lessons had not, and she still arrived each night punctually at six. The subway ride to the school had quickly become her least favorite thing in her day. It gave her too much time to think.

Tonight, the subway was particularly empty, and Christine focused her attention on each slim advertisement above her head, reading every line, squinting at the fine print, attempting to decipher the ones in Spanish with her rudimentary Spanish skills. When that failed to capture her attention, she then tried to review her newest aria in her head, but that was doomed to failure before it even started, because thinking of the aria lead her to think of Erik. And she couldn’t think of Erik now without thinking of Raoul.

He hadn’t realized, at first, that she was crying. His breathing was still quieting, his face buried in her neck, arms limp around her sides, his weight fully pressing her into the bed, when he moved a hand quickly to the side of his face, wiping it and staring at his palm.

“Something is wet,” he said, rubbing his fingers together and blinking at her in the darkness. 

Christine had stared up at the ceiling, the tears leaking from her eyes, too exhausted and shattered to bother trying to hide them. Raoul’s hand found her neck, where the tears had dripped onto his face, and then trailed his hand up the track of tears to her cheeks.

“Christine?”

She couldn’t—what could she say? After the intimacy of what they had just shared, what she had just taken from him, what could she say? His hand was still on her face, his skin touching hers down the length of their bodies, and the feel of it was suddenly repulsive to her, for what it represented, for what she had done, and she launched out of the bed, collecting her things in a scoop under her arm and racing towards his bathroom. 

Breathing harshly, tears coming faster now, she dressed without looking in the mirror, raking her fingers through her hair savagely. 

“Christine?” She heard him moving outside of the door, saw the lights turn on, illuminating the rug, and her heart sank. Somehow, she had hoped this would happen in the dark. She had hoped she wouldn’t need to look at him when she said it.

She was a coward. 

Opening the door, she was relieved to see that he had thrown on a set of nightclothes. 

“You’re crying.” He looked a little shell-shocked. “Did I—did I do something? Did I hurt you? You didn’t say anything.”

Christine sniffed, rubbing her hand across her nose, helpless to stop the sob that erupted from her throat. She half-turned away from him, hugging herself around her middle and leaning an arm against the wall for support. 

“Oh, God.” She breathed in heavily. 

“Christine?” He was at her side in a second, holding her up by the elbow, but the contact hurt, it burned, and she moved away from him sharply. He stood, dumbfounded, staring at her in the unforgiving bright light of his room.

“I don’t understand,” he said, but she heard in his voice that he was beginning to understand, and it broke her. 

She sobbed into her hands, pressing them tightly against her eyelids. 

“I’m so sorry, Raoul,” she managed. “I’m so sorry.”

It was ironic, really. It hadn’t been all that long ago that she had said these same words to him, in this same room. For the same reason.

This time, though, he didn’t say that he loved her. This time he stared, and stared. 

“Why are you crying?”

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“I understand that.” She lifted her head to see that he had clenched his hand into a fist against the wall. “Why are you crying?”

Christine hiccupped, finally dropping her arms and turning to look at him. All her time had run dry. There was nothing soft or gentle left to say, not that he would hear now. 

“I—” She shook her head, breathing in deeply. “I—” God, it was so hard to get the words out. “I don’t know how to say this, I’m sorry.”

Raoul’s hand fell from the wall with a thump at his side. 

“I can’t believe this,” he said, turning from her and shoving both hands through his hair, his hands freezing on top of his head. “I can’t—I just can’t believe this.”

“I wish I could explain it better,” she said. “I wish I could. You deserve that. I wish I—I wish I could give you what you deserve.”

He remained facing away from her, fingers still frozen in his hair. 

“I can’t believe this is happening.”

“You deserve better than me.”

His hands shook. “Is that your excuse? Is that supposed to make it better?”

She shut her eyes. “I’m sorry.”

“Why?” He rounded on her, taking two steps toward her and then stopping short of touching her. “Why?”

“I’m sorry,” she said again. There was nothing else to say. “I just can’t, anymore.”

Raoul looked incredulous. “Wasn’t I enough for you?” 

“It’s not you,” she said, knowing the words were too clichéd to mean anything to him. “It’s me.”

“I tried so hard. I did everything I could for you. I just don’t—” His eyes narrowed suddenly. “It’s him, isn’t it?”

Christine blinked through her tears, her heart thudding against her ribcage.

“Raoul, I—”

“It’s him. I knew it, I knew it this whole time. You—your—everything you did was always for him.” His voice was steadily rising, and Christine shrunk back against the wall. She had never seen him truly angry before.

“No—”

“Yes. Yes. Erik, wasn’t it? I should have known. You never texted me back if you were with him. You never answered my calls if you were with him. You skipped out on so many dates because of—of—” Raoul laughed bitterly, “—music lessons! How could I have been such an idiot?”

“No, it’s not—Raoul, it’s not what you think, I swear—”

“Isn’t it?” His voice broke. “Isn’t it, Christine?”

They stared at each other, his blue eyes boring into hers, lovers turned to strangers, tears now spilling onto both of their cheeks, the room filled with the silence of their breathing. 

“It didn’t happen like that,” she said. “Please believe me. I couldn’t bear to have you think that of me.”

Raoul leaned his back against the wall, his head falling into his hands, his anger dissipated into abject sadness. 

“Does it matter what I think? Has it ever mattered?”

“Yes.” She wanted desperately to comfort him, to hold him, but she knew she couldn’t. “Of course it did.”

“But not enough. Not enough for you.”

Christine wiped the wetness from her cheeks with both palms and finally, hesitantly, she placed a hand on his shoulder. He looked up at her, tears dripping from his eyelashes.

“I loved you,” he whispered. “Wasn’t that—didn’t that matter to you?”

There were no words, not really. Not anymore. She squeezed the hand on his shoulder.

“It meant everything to me. Raoul—” Her hand drifted up to cup his cheek, and the words were at the tip of her tongue, the truth, the things she needed to say to him—you were the brightest ray of light in my life. But I can’t keep you. I bring you down. All of this darkness inside of me, it will eat you alive. You know it. Your roommate knows it. Everyone could see it but me. And now that I do, I know I have to let you go—but though she nearly mouthed the words, though she tried to say them with her eyes, the moment was lost. 

Raoul jerked away from her hand, turning his back to her and quickly collecting the stray items she had left around his apartment. 

“Here, take it.” He shoved them haphazardly into her purse, the bag much too small for everything he attempted to crowd into it. “Here. If this is what you want, then take it. Go.”

Christine had bitten her lip, the finality of his words falling like lead into her stomach. 

“I’m sorry,” she had said, but he wasn’t listening anymore. He was pushing her out the door, the hands once so gentle now herding her into the hallway with insistent pressure.  

Christine closed her eyes briefly against the memory. They hadn’t spoken since, and while it wasn’t unexpected, and while it hadn’t even been unusual for them to go several days without talking, the silence weighed heavily on her. She hadn’t yet told Meg, because she couldn’t handle the inevitable questions, and soon after Meg had told her that she had landed her job in Texas, and now everything was changing more quickly than Christine could have ever expected. Raoul was gone from her life, his happy-go-lucky smile, his bright and cheery nature, his calming, reassuring presence vanished; Meg was leaving, her loyal friendship and easy laughter soon to be only an echo; and the Maggie, that trustworthy, sturdy edifice, her home and her shelter since she was twelve years old, was thrusting her out into the world. Even her apartment would soon no longer be hers. 

Two weeks ago, her first instinct would have been to tell Erik. To confide her fears, to let his gentle humor and advice guide her. But she was learning, she was trying, to be okay getting through the changes alone. Herself. Not running to Raoul, or sobbing to Erik. Just herself. 

Christine stepped inside the Maggie’s side door, dropping off her final assignment in her teacher’s mailbox before heading off in the direction of the small practice room. The cleaning crews were hard at work in the corridors and classrooms beyond her. Christine remembered what it had been like when she still lived in the dormitories, when her summers had been spent helping out with the Maggie’s summer outreach program in the city or attending the Maggie’s arts and performance camp in the Poconos. In May, the older students would leave, the halls would turn quiet, and the only sound to be heard all day would be the gentle sounds of the carpet steamer or the floor buffer, the stray student tuning his cello or warming up his voice. 

Piano music drifted down the hallway and Christine slowed her steps, listening. Erik rarely played anything but her accompaniment. The sound was slightly muffled, but still audible from behind the closed door. She rested her forehead against the cool metal. It was far too easy to fall into the lull of his music, to close her eyes and drift along the current of his notes, to abandon herself on the shore and follow him out into the unknown. 

She was not in the Maggie anymore; she was sitting on the colorful fabric chairs of the Walt Disney Concert Hall in downtown Los Angeles, her father beside her, maybe holding her hand, maybe clutching his program, maybe pushing his glasses further up his nose as he leaned forward to stare at the stage. The pianist steps out of the shadows, his black suit crisp and the white shirt underneath nearly blinding under the stage lights. He approaches the piano in measured steps, rests his shiny black shoe on the pedal, his delicate long fingers on the keys. He plays, the hall filling to the brim with the crescendo of his music, and when he lifts both hands with an elegant curl of his wrists, the air punctuated with the momentary silence, he turns and looks at her. Only her. 

Breathing in sharply, Christine pushed open the door without knocking, and the music stopped.

“Sorry I’m late,” she said, though it was only by minutes. “The express train wasn’t running and I had to turn in a final assignment.”

“That’s fine,” Erik said. He had not turned to her as he normally might, to lift an eyebrow, or to make a passing comment about the importance of a singer’s punctuality. In fact, he had hardly moved his position at all, as if she could simply press “play” and the music would start again, looking disconcertingly as if he had just stepped out of her head, sans tuxedo. “I was occupied.”

“Am I interrupting something?”  

Erik shook his head, but even as he did he tapped his finger against a key, and then another one, and then he was playing a chord, and then he was moving again against the keys, elbows tucked in tight, his head tilting away from her. 

“I just…” He trailed off, swaying on the bench, and Christine stared. He had never played like this before, as if she weren’t there, as if he couldn’t help himself, as if the pull of the music had been too strong to ignore. She was envious of the piano, of the way he stroked it like a lover, the way he shared something intimate with it, something precious of himself. A painful pulse throbbed in her chest. Sitting at the piano, lost in the music of his own creation, he was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen.

“Erik.” 

He didn’t respond, and she inched closer to him, reaching towards his shoulder.

“Erik?”

He grasped her arm before she had even noticed him turn, his other hand still skirting over the keys, and pulled her down next to him.

“Sit,” he said. “Listen.”

The music rose around her just as it had in her daydream, and it was like being suffused with sunlight, too blinding and too brilliant to face head-on, but warm and glowing behind her eyelids. 

Erik stopped in the middle of a phrase, paused and stared at the keys unseeing. “Not quite,” he muttered under his breath, and then he began again, playing a slightly different melody, ducking his head and making a deep approving humming noise at the back of his throat. 

“There,” he said, the almost sensual satisfaction in the way he drew out the word making her shiver. “Do you hear it?” 

Christine didn’t reply, too caught up in the sight of him, the sound of him, to really hear what he was playing anymore. Crowding out her current reality, leaving behind doubts and regrets and fears, her mind reimagined that fabric seat of the concert hall. This time though, as awe and hush hung over the audience, as tears dripped down the shadowed faces of the people around her, she was gripping onto a burning, heady secret: the pianist was hers. She sat up with him at night as he composed, sat on the bench beside him while he wrought magic from his fingertips, and he kissed her sometimes instead, leaving behind the half-written staves for another type of music. What the audience only clawed at, she knew intimately; the feel of his hands, the murmur of his voice, the raw depths of his soul. And his golden eyes, so unique, so singular, so utterly him, found hers in the darkness of the theatre. I am yours, he said.

Erik was looking at her, those same eyes studying her face, but it was not the ardent, passionate gaze she had imagined. 

“You do hear it,” he said. “I can see it on your face.”

Christine swallowed and looked away. It was unlike her to lose herself so thoroughly in a fantasy. Erik hooked one finger under her chin and turned her face towards his, staring intently into her eyes, and her breath hitched in her throat.

“You heard the modulation into the minor key? Did you catch that? And sometimes I think—ah, right here—” he played a phrase that she vaguely recognized as the main melodic pattern “—a violin, no? And in the background, an embellishment—” He played the phrase again, this time adding an arpeggio. 

Teacher crush, she thought resentfully. If only that was all it was. If only he didn’t touch her like that, didn’t look at her the way he did sometimes. How could she possibly have read him so wrong?

He looked back at her, as if waiting for her approval. “No? Christine?”

“It’s lovely, Erik.” 

He looked somewhat deflated at her response, his hands falling from the keys into his lap, but she wasn’t sure why. He knew he was a world-class pianist and a celebrated composer, and he certainly didn’t need the endorsement of his unknown voice student to remind him of it. 

“Yes,” he said. “Well, it is still quite unfinished. I’m sorry to have interrupted your lesson with it. I apologize for the distraction.”

Christine sighed. “It’s all right. I’ve never heard you compose before.”

“I wouldn’t normally take the time away from your voice, but I—it simply would not let go of me.”

“It was lovely,” she said again. In some ways, his admission was one of the most personal things he had ever told her. It was as if her fantasy had been turned on its head—here she was, just as she had imagined, sitting with him as he composed, but it wasn’t her he wanted, just her musical opinion, her critique on his choice of key, and she didn’t know him in the way she craved, wasn’t allowed access into his innermost thoughts. 

She was just another audience member.

“Will we sing tonight, Erik?”

“Of course, yes, of course. I apologize, again. I’m not sure why I—yes, of course we will.”

She sang for him, her chest aching all the while, staring at the wall opposite her, trying to pretend she was on stage, and she did not see the way he looked at her, the way his lips parted and a flush crept up his neck that stopped abruptly, unnaturally, at a line beneath his chin.  

When they had run through their cool-down exercises, Christine reached immediately for her bag. 

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said. Classes and assignments done, the week stretched out ahead of her with the sundry errands and necessities of melding the end of one life with the beginning of another. She had an appointment at the end of the week to go to the Met to meet with the general music director, and was due to speak with Mr. Khan about her contract once more before that. She and Meg also had to pick up their regalia, and Meg was forcing her to go shopping for graduation dresses as well. Sometime in between then and commencement, which was in a little less than three weeks, Christine would need to do some serious apartment hunting. 

“You did very well tonight, Christine,” Erik said. She nodded in way of thanks and made her way to the door. “But you seem a little sad. Are you all right?”

Christine couldn’t contain her snort. If he were still the voice, she would have turned, maybe even teared up, and sat on the bench and told him everything. And if he were still the voice, he would have listened without interrupting her and then found just the right words to make it all seem a little bit easier. 

But he was not the voice any longer, and it was hard for her to imagine that he would sit quietly while she poured out her feelings about her breakup and her anxiety over her imminent move. He was more likely to abruptly stand up and tell her to go home and get more sleep.

“I’m fine. Just busy with everything. Graduation is soon.”

“Yes. That extravagant ceremony.” Before she could open her mouth again, Erik had stood and quickly closed the distance between them. 

“I have something for you.” From his pocket he withdrew a black thumb drive, which he twisted in his fingers as he spoke. “I was hesitant to do this, because I—well, that doesn’t matter. I saw the way the music moved you, and what it meant to you, and what it had meant to your—your father. And I know it is not available anywhere because I withdrew the rights.”

He pressed it into her palm, closing her fingers over it. 

“I meant to save it for another time, but you seem so sad, even if you say you are not.”

Christine blinked into his eyes, wishing for all the world that she would have the courage to just rise on her toes and meet him where he stood, press her lips against his and lay all her cards on the table. But instead she gripped the little thumb drive in her first, said something inconsequential, and left.

When she got home she dumped her bag on a chair, kicked off her shoes, and slid her computer onto her lap, sitting cross-legged on her bed and plugging in the drive. Within seconds, there were tears standing unshed in her eyes. On the thumb drive was a studio recording of City of Angels.

Somehow, despite everything, he had said the right thing after all. 

Meg dragged Christine the next morning to Macy’s, and then, after a fruitless hour, to Bloomingdale’s, and when Christine balked at the prices, they ended up in the H&M on 7th Avenue. Meg was in full force that day, piling dresses on one arm and shuffling Christine around the store like a multicolored maître d’hôtel. Anything that caught her eye went on her arm, even if Christine protested, especially if Christine laughed. By the time they finally made it to the fitting rooms, Christine could hardly see Meg’s face behind the pile of clothing.

“You first,” Meg said, pushing Christine into the one open room the attendant had led them to.

“Absolutely not.” Christine grabbed Meg’s wrist and tried to force the dancer around and into the small room. “This was all your idea.”

“Because you would never have done it on your own. You would have just worn shorts and a tank top under your regalia.”

“Yes,” Christine said, struggling to duck under one of Meg’s clothing-laden arms, “because it’s hot under regalia. I’m only being practical.”

“Don’t you want to look good—” Meg wrenched her hand out of Christine’s grasp and tried to close the curtain in front of her. 

Christine forced it open again. “I am perfectly happy to wear the things I already own—”

In the end, they both ended up in the dressing room together, Christine sitting on the small bench next to their purses while Meg turned back and forth in the mirror, modeling dress after dress.

“It’s too lacey, don’t you think?” 

Christine shrugged. “It depends what look you’re going for. Are you really going to wear this under your regalia for the entire day?”

“Of course I am,” Meg said, shedding the lace dress in favor of a pink sheath dress that made it just above her knees. “Haven’t you thought about graduation at all?”

Christine leaned back against the wall, stretching her legs out in front of her. 

“Not really. I like this one.”

“I like it too.” Meg turned around and looked at the back of the dress over her shoulder. “I don’t have much to fill it out, do I?”

“You’re beautiful, Meg.” 

Meg smiled at her reflection, but her brow remained furrowed as she slid her hands over the sides of the dress, studying how it lay on her from all directions.

“I’ll put it in the maybe pile,” she said, slipping into a flowy blue maxi-dress. “I know you’re touchy about leaving, Christine, but think of everything that’s coming. I mean, the Met!”

“I know. I do know. It still—it’s still hard.”

“This is terrible.” Meg shuffled out of the maxi and stood in her underwear, looking at Christine. “Aren’t you going to try on anything?”

“Do I have to?”

“Yes.” Meg searched through a pile of abandoned things. “Here—this color is perfect for you.”

Sighing, Christine shed her clothing and brought the dress over her head, the thick, stiff material emphasizing her trim waist and the curve of her hips. Without thinking about it, she let down her hair and fluffed it over her shoulders. 

“It’s beautiful on you,” Meg said from behind her. 

Christine turned in small increments, looking up and down the length of the dress on her body. Meg was right—the warm brown tone brought out the lowlights in her hair and made her eyes stand out, but more than that, the dress felt sophisticated, mature. She turned a full circle, watching her long blond curls fall over the open triangle in the back of the dress, and wondered what Erik would think if he could see her in it. 

Was she too young for him, she sometimes wondered? Was it that she wasn’t chic enough, wasn’t worldly enough, for someone who had traveled the world, been the toast of music critics around the globe? Was she just his little student, the orphan child he taught in his free time? If she came to her next lesson looking like this, would he do a double take, would it affect him as he affected her? Would this finally change her in his eyes from student to something more?

“You’re blushing,” Meg said from the corner. “Thinking of Raoul?”

Christine’s heart nearly stopped, and she turned quickly from the mirror. “I—I think the zipper is stuck. Can you help?”

Meg obliged, and Christine shimmied out of the dress and then quickly into her own clothes. 

“It’s really gorgeous,” Meg said. “Are you going to buy it?”

“I broke up with Raoul.”

“Sorry—what?”

“I broke up with Raoul.” Christine turned, and Meg stared at her. 

“When?”

“Last week.” Christine swallowed against a suddenly sore throat. “I just—I really didn’t want to talk about it.”

Meg continued to stare unblinking. “Why?”

“It’s just too soon—”

“Why did you break up with him?”

Christine hung the brown dress on its hanger and then sat on the floor of the dressing room, her hands in her lap.

Meg scurried onto the floor beside her, grasping her upper arm. 

“What happened? Are you okay?”

“We just weren’t right for each other,” she said. “He’s like—a ray of sunshine that I tried to pocket. And I couldn’t. I’m not—I’m not right for him.”

“Oh, Christine.” Meg laid her head gently on her shoulder. “I wish you had talked to me about this.”

“I just knew. I just knew it wasn’t right. I couldn’t keep going on like that.”

They sat quietly for several moments.

“I’m sorry,” Meg said eventually.

“It’s all right.” 

“No wonder you weren’t hyped for shopping. I really wish you had said something.”

“I didn’t want to think about it, to be honest.”

“You want to get some ice cream?”

Christine laughed, bringing her arm around to hug Meg to her side. 

“I want to buy this dress,” she said. “And maybe see what else is around. Maybe even some shoes.”

“Oh!” Meg popped up, pulling Christine alongside her. “This—this I can do. Retail therapy—I got you, chica.”

The pair did make a pit stop at Baskin-Robbins before heading home, their shopping bags sloshing against their legs as they walked in the waning spring sunlight. 

“Tomorrow we’ll try everything on with the regalia on top,” Meg said when they had dumped their purchases on the couch. “We can figure out how we want to pose for pictures.”

Christine nodded absently, collecting her items from amongst Meg’s within the deep plastic bags. The more Meg had chatted about commencement, the more Christine began to dread everything about it. Meg had spent the entire subway ride home planning their day, from when they’d wake up, according to her, at six, to how Christine should do her hair, to how she wanted to do a little twirl when she crossed the stage to receive her diploma. Her mother, Meg said, would film the entire thing, and they’d be sure to cheer extra loud when Christine’s name was called. 

Christine had managed a small smile. She could already see the day passing in her mind: the sun bright in the center of the sky, the smiling faces around her, the air being sucked out of her lungs as she shook hand after hand, replied to the same questions over and over, yes I’m so excited, yes, I’m going to the Met, isn’t that exciting? Yes, I can’t believe we’re done, yes, yes, yes. The friends she had made in classes being pulled away from her, into the arms of their extended relatives or adoptive families, waving goodbye, we’ll keep in touch, knowing it wouldn’t happen no matter how earnest they were. She saw it as if from above, the world she had known fracturing around her, the nine years of camaraderie whittled down to a single piece of paper, and her, standing in the middle of it all, alone. 

No, she did not want to think about graduation. She did not want to think about Meg’s mother coming to stay on their couch, no matter how much she liked Mrs. Giry. She didn’t want to take pictures, or have someone cheer for her. The closer the day came, the more she wished she could avoid it altogether. 

Hanging her new dress in her closet, she stepped back to admire it, stretching it out from the bottom. Meg had also enticed her into a pair of nude heels and black flats adorned with ruffles, but something about the dress spoke to her. It embodied the woman she wished she were: confident, appealing, strong. Irresistible. 

The minutes until her next music lesson ticked by, and Christine lay on her bed, listening to Meg begin to pack some of her extraneous things, singing along to the soundtrack of one of her favorite musicals. She knew what to expect from him tonight; it was the same thing every night. Quiet, collected, a consummate professional. Probably he would take one look at her weary face and the bags under her eyes and ask her if she was getting enough sleep. If she tried to linger after her lesson, he would send her on her way as he always did, like a child. No long meandering conversations, as it had been when he was just a voice. Not anymore. Why did it have to change? 

Turning on her stomach, Christine reached for her computer and opened the screen she had not closed since she had first opened it last night. I saw the way the music moved you. But it was so much more than just the music now. She didn’t just hear the sweet, vibrant notes—she heard him, heard the part of his spirit he had poured into this music, the part that spoke directly to hers. 

A sound from the doorway startled her, and Christine turned to see Meg standing in the threshold, staring at Christine’s computer with glassy eyes.

“What is that?” She said in a half-whisper. “It’s—”

“I know.”

Meg closed her eyes, swaying gently, and the piano played on, filling the apartment with its plaintive, pleading refrain. After taking in a deep breath, Meg sat beside her on the edge of the bed.

“You can just fall in love with this music,” she said.

“Yes.” Christine closed her eyes too, seeing what Meg did not see: the fingers that whispered over the keys, the tiny, slanted handwriting that must have made up the original score. “Yes, you can.”

Chapter Text

Between days starting to pack up the apartment, going over her contract with Mr. Khan, and her music lessons, nights were spent surfing the internet endlessly for available rentals. Naturally, Christine had started the search within a few miles of her current apartment, given that she already knew and liked the neighborhood, but the places she liked weren’t available and the places that were didn’t fit her budget or her vision for the next year. 

Expanding her search across town, Christine mindlessly tapped through listings, her eyes beginning to blur from the repeated pictures of hardwood floors and bathrooms and empty bedrooms. She had given her two week’s notice to Daniel at the café the day before, in anticipation of starting at the Met soon after graduation, but all the preparation for starting that new life was just dragging her down. Finally finding an apartment that actually seemed tenable, Christine sent an email to the realtor and then hopped off her bed towards the kitchen, where Meg had stacked a series of boxes that just said “fragile.”

“Your mom is going to end up sleeping on a pile of boxes,” Christine said. 

Meg looked up from the floor, where she was taping another set of boxes together. 

“She will swear she dealt with worse when she was a starving artist in the 70s. And anyway, we’re going to need to sell the couch, unless you think you want to take it?”

Christine glanced at the couch that they had inherited from the last set of roommates who had lived in this apartment, a flutist and a cellist who had left a majority of their furniture behind, as they had both landed gigs overseas. 

“We could just leave it for the next crew,” Christine said.

“Who do you think will take our place?” Meg stood and started piling her wrapped dishware into the box. 

“Maybe a composing student. And to balance him out, an excitable jazz dancer.”

“Maybe he’d compose the music just for her and it would be an epic romance.”

Christine’s laughed was forced. “Yeah, maybe.”

Meg held out the tape gun to her. “Can you close this box? I’m going to make tea. You want?”

Christine nodded, and set about taping the boxes closed while Meg turned on the hot water heater.

“How’re you doing, Christine?”

Christine didn’t look up from her task. “Fine.”

She heard Meg sigh. “You still set on a one-bedroom?”

“Yeah. I don’t want or need new roommates.”

Meg looked at her, and Christine waited for the inevitable comment that she could make new friends, that she didn’t need to go it alone, but the water heater dinged.

Christine finished taping the box she was working on and then joined Meg on the barstools in front of the kitchen counter. Meg slid a mug towards her. 

“What flavor did I get?” She asked, sniffing. “Ew. Mint?”

“All right prima donna. You can make the tea next time.”

“It’s not like it’s hard,” Christine said, sniffing Meg’s mug. “Oh, I’m taking this. You used my pomegranate tea!”

“Don’t you dare, Christine Daaé—”

Christine slipped her fingers through the handle and poured more hot liquid than she had bargained for down her throat before Meg was able to stop her. 

“Thief.”

Christine tried her hardest to swallow, pressing two fingers to her nose to stop herself from laughing and spewing it all over the table. 

“Would serve you right,” Meg said, pulling the other mug towards her sullenly. 

Finally swallowing, Christine heaved in several necessary breaths, snorting them loudly through her nose. “Why do we even keep that stuff around if neither of us likes it?” 

“It was free,” Meg said. 

The two of them looked at each other, and then burst into laughter. 

Meg put her arm around Christine.

“Chica, I’m going to miss you.”

Christine took another sip of tea to settle the sudden jump in her stomach. “I’m going to miss you too.”

Meg squeezed her shoulder. “It’s been a good ride.”

“Don’t talk like it’s over forever.”

Meg smiled into her cup, but it was wistful. “Who knows where life is going to take us?”

“Do you not have a cell phone? Are there not planes?”

“You’re right, you’re right. I’m going to have to come see you perform.”

“And I’ll have to come see you. Odette will be your first role, right?”

Meg laughed. “Yeah, and you’ll be Queen of the Night by the end of the summer.” 

Snorting, Christine finished her tea in one last large swig. 

“Sometimes I’m pretty sure I’ll never be able to sing any of those big parts.” 

“Yeah, that’s why the Maggie put on a whole concert just for you.”

Christine blushed at the memory of the concert and the events surrounding it. Erik certainly thought she could sing those roles. How many times had he told her she would be Norma, Violetta, Lakmé? But away from that room, it all seemed like a dream, just like the man himself.

“I hope I make friends in the company,” Meg said, sighing.

“You will.” Christine squeezed her hand. “You made friends with me when I didn’t even want to make friends.”

At that, Meg smiled and pushed her empty mug away. “Look at us, a pair of right Debbie downers. Come on, look at my senior photo proofs with me. They all make me look like I have a double chin.”

“I’m sure that’s impossible,” Christine said, following Meg, incredibly slim and built of only muscle, into her room. 

Meg opened the website and flicked through her three favorite options, pointing out the perceived flaws in each. Christine rolled her eyes.

“You look identically flawless in each of these pictures, and you know it.”

“No, I don’t.” Meg scoffed. “Artistry is really lost on some people. Have you chosen yours yet?”

“No.” Christine had gotten the barrage of emails from the photographer’s website, but hadn’t even opened the link. Who was she going to show the pictures to? 

Before Meg could suggest that they look through hers, Christine mentioned her meeting with the general music director at the Met the next afternoon.

“Oh that’s right,” Meg said. “Well there’s nothing to be scared about, is there? Other than that you’re scared of everything.”

Christine elbowed her, and Meg tittered. 

“I don’t think ‘scared’ is the right word,” Christine said. “Just nervous.”

“But you said you went over the contract a bunch with the Office of Career Services, right? You’ll be totally fine.”

Christine suppressed a wince at the lie, but explaining to Meg how she had ended up with Mr. Khan was more than it was worth, especially since she didn’t really understand it herself.

“I did, but I’m still nervous. What if I say something stupid? What if they try to negotiate the contract on the spot and I’m not prepared? I just wish I had someone to go with me.”

“Isn’t Erik going with you?”

Christine blinked. “What do you mean?” 

“Isn’t he like, your manager?”

“Um—” Christine fiddled with the edge of her shirt. “Not really. I mean, I don’t know. Not in so many words.” 

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“It means I don’t know,” she said again. “He—he doesn’t—he hasn’t—” Christine closed her mouth. 

“Christine, just ask him. Obviously your career is important to him. If you’re worried you’ll say the wrong thing, it’s best to have someone familiar with the industry there to guide you.”

“Right. You’re right.” She couldn’t tell Meg that she didn’t have a cell phone number, or an email, or even a mailing address, or any form of communication outside of their lessons other than speaking to some bare walls, and that’s precisely what she found herself doing early the next morning. She had planned to sleep in, to try to keep her mind off the meeting, not to be at The Maggie tiptoeing past the cleaning crews, feeling intensely idiotic as she slid into empty practice rooms, wondering which ones contained hollow walls. 

Not only did she not know which room other than their regular practice room would reach him, but she also did not know if he would be at the Maggie so early in the day, or if he would hear her if she called. It’s not as if he lived inside the building. This was by far one of her worst plans, she thought as she stood before a wall, hesitating. How crazy was she, that this was her last resort? Calling for a man behind a wall? 

She had no idea what the other side of the building looked like, the part that apparently existed only to shield him from the world, but she knew that he had access to most of the school, and that many of the walls were hollow. After all, he had spoken to her not only in their music room, but also in her classrooms, and he had listened to her original rehearsal with Reyer before she had even auditioned at the Met. She wondered if he listened to all of his students, watching over them like a god of music.

Christine tapped on the walls. “Erik?” 

“Erik? Are you there?” 

The sounds echoed back at her. The god of music was a reticent one.

Sighing, Christine smoothed down the front of her black pinstripe blazer, the one business outfit she had in her closet. She had even bothered to attempt to curl her hair this morning, but when that failed, she had simply put it up in what she hoped was a professional-looking bun. Meg was right. Although The Maggie offered classes like Entrepreneurship for Singers and workshops in networking, all of which Christine had attended, she still felt woefully unprepared for the realities of a job in the industry—negotiating contracts, aggressively pursuing leads, marketing and branding herself. 

Still, she felt vaguely queasy about calling him outside of the established times of their music lessons, as if she were crossing some unspoken boundary of their relationship, one that said that he did truly exist as more than a figment of her fevered imagination. He was so secretive about his personal life; would he be offended by her intrusion?

She tapped on the walls again. 

“Erik?”

She wondered briefly if she should sing instead of calling his name. To summon the god of music, one likely needed to bring a sacrifice.

“I need a better way to get in contact with you,” she said, half-laughing. “This isn’t really very effective.” And then, just to amuse herself, she sang the first line of the aria they had last worked on. 

“Christine? What’s wrong? Are you all right?” His voice came suddenly and frantically to her right shoulder, and she suppressed a chuckle.

Not a god, but, something not quite real. 

There was a pause. “Christine? What’s the matter?”

Shaking her head, she looked about her, expecting to see him emerging from one of the walls. “Will you not come out? I want—I need to talk to you about something.”

There was no response for quite some time, and as she turned circles on the floor around her, she wondered at the silence, wondered at the fact that despite her misgivings about standing at walls and calling for him, she had actually made contact and he had actually been there. What had he been doing at the school so early in the day during summer break?

His voice, when it came, sounded strained, and emanated from the wall directly adjacent to her. 

“I cannot—at this time. I cannot now.”

“What does that mean?” She turned to face that wall, her eyes darting across the white solid mass as if she could make out a face within the shadows and lights. “Erik? I need to talk to you.”

“I am here.”

“No—” Christine bit her lip, trying to quell the beginnings of frustration. Was this such a difficult request? “I need to see you and talk to you, like a normal person.”

“I am here,” he said again. 

“How hard is it to just come out?” She said, exasperated. The wall remained quiet, unmoving, unapologetically secretive. “I know you value your privacy, Erik, but I see you every day at my lessons—what’s the difference?”

When he did not answer, she dropped her briefcase to the ground, massaging her temples with the tips of her fingers, her thumbs pressing into her cheekbones. How tired she was of playing this endless game of tug of war with him, always questioning, always wondering, suffering through the doubts, the pauses and silences, yearning for the small intimacies that shaped normal human correspondence. 

“Erik? You know what? It’s okay. It’s fine.” She sighed, a long, slow breath expelling itself from deep within her. “We can talk like this. It doesn’t matter.”

She waited a space between breaths.

“Erik?”

She heard it before she saw it—the crack of light in the wall, the opening of a door she would never be able to find again when it was closed, Erik stepping out from the shadowed hallway, eyes fixed on her.

They stared at each other. Christine went through several emotions quickly; first, the little hitch of her heart every time she saw him, then, surprise that he had actually come at her request, and finally, uncertainty. Erik was nearly pressing himself up against the wall, crossing his arms over his chest, his fingers gripping his upper arms so tightly that his knuckles turned white. 

“I am here now,” he said. 

“Yes.” She watched him, wondering if his discomfort was because she had forced him out, because of the odd hour, or something else altogether. 

“What is it you want?” He said. His gaze repeatedly flickered from her face to the opened door of the practice room and back again. “Christine? What is it?”

The air around them felt charged with heavy feelings she could not decipher, and though she had been sure when she left her apartment this morning that Erik would love nothing better than to accompany her to the Met to help further her career, she was now no longer certain. 

She cleared her throat and gestured to her briefcase.

“I have a meeting with the Met’s general music director this afternoon,” she said.

He nodded, once. “I know.”

“Right.” She forced out a chuckle, watched him swallow and look again towards the door. 

“Christine?” He said. His voice had a nearly imperceptible crack to it, and it forced the words to tumble from her. 

“Will you come with me to the Met?”

The eyes within that passive face widened until she could see white completely surrounding yellow. He shifted, if possible, even closer to the wall. 

“I’m nervous,” she said, her eyes darting between his own, looking for something in the depths, for recognition, for understanding, for some semblance of the confident teacher she had known all these months. “I’m scared of saying something stupid and messing it all up. I know you’ve done it before. I wouldn’t be scared if you were with me.”

“I can’t.” He breathed out the words, still staring at her wide-eyed. “I—I can’t. I—I’m—”

Christine closed her eyes briefly, her heart sinking.

“Please. I need you.”

“I can’t,” he said again, nearly a whisper. “Oh Christine—I—I’m sorry—” He spun, opened the hidden door again, and closed it into a seamless layer of white paint. No one would ever know it was there. No one would ever believe her if she said he had been there. 

She let out a breath she didn’t know she had been holding, the weight of her crushing disappointment carrying her to her knees. If Meg had never brought it up—if she hadn’t gotten the idea in her mind of his smooth voice carrying her across the threshold of the general music director’s office, his commanding, unyielding presence behind her, supporting her, she wouldn’t feel now as if she had lost something vital. Christine sucked in air against a throat tight with fear and the threat of tears. His rejection was as inexplicable as it was hurtful. He had given her her voice back, melded it with his own music, personally handled her career. How could he leave her alone like this?

Again?

His wide eyes, his trembling voice, echoed in her mind. I’m sorry—but then disappearing with no further explanation, not even a word of encouragement, just like before. If he couldn’t—or wouldn’t—come with her, at the very least she felt she was owed an explanation. She knew he was different, that their relationship was different, that he, for whatever reason, had chosen to live in extreme isolation. She didn’t think about it often, as she saw him every night of the week for music lessons, but she knew that the famous pianist had withdrawn from the world years ago. But if he had chosen to put that all aside to teach her, then he owed it to her to act as a real teacher, a real guide and mentor. 

Struggling to her feet, Christine gripped her briefcase and headed resolutely out the door, swallowing the ache in her throat. She wished she had never come. On the way towards the café, where her boss had asked her to drop in for a quick word, Christine suppressed the urge to call Raoul. He wouldn’t have abandoned her. He would have offered to go with her to the Met, to sit outside and wait for her until she was done. And all the time, she still would have been wishing he were Erik.

Shaking her head, breathing in deep to relieve her anxiety and irritation, Christine entered the café, knocked on her boss’ door, and went in upon his summons. Several blocks away, in a white room separated from the Maggie’s main dance studio by a thick, sound-proof wall, a man wrapped himself in layers too warm for the weather outside, fear and nausea clanging together in his head as he pulled his collar up fully over his face. 

The general music director of the Metropolitan Opera kept exact time, and Christine was ushered in at the chime of the hour by a gregarious man with a receding hairline and glasses hanging around his neck on a chain. Mr. Auster made several minutes of small talk about the Maggie, making jokes about how Mr. Reyer had always been a stickler for the rules in conservatory and how the Maggie’s last five graduating classes had nearly monopolized the classical music scene. Did the elusive owner actually know anything about music? That’s what he wanted to know. He had a bet running with the manager at the Royal Opera House that the owner of the Maggie was actually a tone-deaf tycoon who had struck lucky and was now too entrenched to get out.

Christine gave him a close-mouthed smile.

“Well!” He said, spreading out the papers of the contract on the surface of his well-polished desk. “We are delighted to have you aboard, really we are. What a fine instrument you have, with such character and shape. Tell me who taught you primarily, was it Mifroid? Mercier?”

“Mr. Mercier, mostly,” Christine said, urging herself to keep the smile on her face, attempting to stretch it out and remember to crinkle her eyes at the corners so she didn’t look like a sociopath. 

“Ah yes, excellent work he’s done, although I expect a lot of it was your natural talent. Trained by the Maggie, that’s nothing to sneeze at, nothing at all. You should be quite proud of the recommendations you’ve received. Not only did you perform at the Maggie’s very first senior debut recital, but you have the most effusive recommendation letters.”

Christine blinked at his kindly, rounded face, certain that she had never once asked a single teacher of hers to write her a recommendation. 

“I—I’ve enjoyed my time at the Maggie,” she managed to say.

“And well you should have! Now, down to business.” Mr. Auster extended his hand over the papers in a grand gesture. “I presume you’ve gone over this with your fine folks at Career Services. Lord knows I’ve had enough to do with them over the years. They always manage to—well. You know you’ve made some interesting requests here.”

Christine tried to wet the top of her mouth with her tongue, but it had all gone dry. Alarm was creeping up her sides in long, spindly tendrils. She had no idea what changes Erik had made to the contract, or why, and the thought of being sent here—abandoned here—on her own, in the most important first step of her career, made her seethe with anger. 

“Yes?” She said.

Mr. Auster’s eyes flickered over her briefly. “Yes. You see here, you’ve asked that you be guaranteed two premieres in the season. Now typically, as a beginner, with a beginner’s ensemble contract, this would not be guaranteed—” 

The more he spoke, the deeper Christine sank into her seat, despair and resentment filling her by turns. Mr. Auster’s words were tuned out for the gibberish they were to her. Mr. Khan had read through the contract with her mechanically; he had expounded little, and at the time, Christine had not thought to ask for more. He had explained each line without telling her what the alternatives were, or even suggesting that they may be questioned by the general music director. She had not been prepared. Erik had apparently preferred to see her abandoned in her ignorance than deign to come and help her, and now she was going to look like an idiot before she was even hired.

“—and furthermore,” Mr. Auster said, dragging the tip of his capped pen over the list of her benefits, “you have asked that your contract be binding until the end of the season, which is not at all typical, as ensemble members are under constant review, and contracts can always be changed as different needs arise. For example—”

There was a knock at the door, and Mr. Auster frowned heavily at the closed wooden panel.

“Yes?”

There was no answer. Christine sat miserably in her seat, trying to wrack her brain for any semblance of a response to his requests. She had been taught about basic contract negotiation, but the sad truth was that in recent months she had hardly paid attention to those classes at all. At the time, she had lived in a dream world where Erik would take care of everything. Her stupidity, so trusting and hopeful, only fueled her anger. She had no idea how she would face him at their lesson tonight. In fact, for the first time since they had ever started their lessons, she wasn’t sure she would go at all.  

Mr. Auster made a staying movement with his hand, got up from his desk, and opened the door to look out into the hallway. Christine turned her head just enough to see that it was empty, and in the moment it took the general music director to lift his eyebrows and peek into the hallway once more, she heard the voice.

“You will tell him that you were guaranteed three premiere nights by the Lyric Opera of Chicago as well as the Los Angeles Opera. ”

Christine sucked in a breath so loud that Mr. Auster turned to look at her as he closed the door behind him.

“My secretary was knocking, perhaps? Are you all right? She should have brought you a drink, but I’m unsure where she’s gone. It’s unlike her.”

“Never mind,” the voice said. “Repeat after me. This meeting doesn’t need to be long.”

If she hadn’t been so angry, she would have been relieved.

“I’m fine,” she said.

“Of course. Now, as I was saying, Ms. Daaé—”

“Mr. Auster,” the voice said in her ear, and Christine curled and uncurled her fist to relieve the tension.

“Mr. Auster,” she said, trying consciously to smooth out the shake in her voice as she spoke, carefully repeating each word Erik fed to her. “I understand your concerns. And while I am absolutely delighted and thrilled to be considered for an ensemble position in this opera house, I do have other considerations if we are unable to reach an—um, agreement.”

“Now you let him squirm,” Erik said.

And he was right; in the end, the meeting was much shorter than Christine would have expected. Erik’s words, perfectly balanced between aggressive and compromising, accompanied by a few well-placed compliments and several subtle threats, had done the job. Mr. Auster had handed her a pen, she had initialed and signed and dated, dotting her Is with extra force, crossing the only T in her name with a curving flounce. When she was done, she had only a brief second to stare at her own name in drying black ink, to feel the wonderful course of accomplishment and satisfaction and joy that ran through her, before Mr. Auster collected all of the papers and opened the door. He handed the contract to his secretary, and she made a copy for Christine.

“Well,” Mr. Auster said. They shook hands. “Delighted to have you aboard, Ms. Daaé. I’m sure you’ll do well here. Best of luck with graduation and all that.”

Christine managed to smile prettily as she made her way out of the building. She did not stop, as she had meant to, to stare starry-eyed at the stage, or to peek around the dressing rooms. Instead she walked with singular purpose down the red velvet staircase, burst into the street, and headed towards the subway.

“I hope you’re keeping up,” she said.

They arrived at the Maggie at the same time, although Christine had not seen him following her and did not know how precisely he mirrored her movements throughout the town. She had stared hard into the faces of every person around her, squinted at the platforms as the train pulled into each station, but she had seen no one who even resembled him in height or carriage. Still, she was certain he had followed her back here.

She frightened a young cellist out of their practice room two hours before their lesson was supposed to start, something she’d feel bad about later. Now, there was only her bubbling fury.

“Erik? Erik! Where are you?” She slammed the door behind her and locked it for good measure.

“Come out!”

She made herself count out twenty seconds before she spoke again.

“I know you’re there. Come out.”

“Calm yourself.” His voice came from the usual wall on the right. 

“Come out now, Erik. We need to talk.”

“I am coming. Be calm.”

Within seconds the secret door had opened and Erik appeared, his dark hair curlier than she remembered it having been this morning. He closed the door behind him and slowly turned towards her.

“I am here.”

Christine tossed her copy of the signed contract towards him onto the piano lid. 

“There’s the contract you negotiated,” she said. “Where were you hiding? Behind a wall? In a closet? Does the whole world have secret passageways for you to hide in?”

Erik held his palms out in a gesture of placation. 

“I’m sorry, Christine—”

“Are you, Erik? Are you?” Her chest was tight and burning. “Sorry for what?”  

His eyes searched her face, and he stepped towards her, palms still outstretched.

“Christine—”

“No!” She breathed in quickly through her nose. “No!” How dare he stand there, so collected, so controlled, trying to soothe her? 

“What do you have to be sorry for? What do you want to apologize for? For not coming to the Met with me? Is that it? But then following me anyway? Do you feel bad for jerking me around with your weird, arbitrary social rules?”

Was that what he wanted to say sorry for, when he had left her for three weeks and never once apologized for it, never once explained it?

“I do not make—arbitrary—”

“I don’t care!” Christine flung her arms out. “I don’t care! What else do you have to say? What else do you want to apologize for, Erik? Anything? Anything at all?”

Erik expelled a breath, his hands dropping to his sides, eyebrows bending into an almost unnatural crease. 

“I am sorry, Christine. More than you could ever know. For all of it. For everything.”

Despair welled up in her throat and she turned from him, covering her face with her hands, sucking back a sob. Her shoulders shook with the effort of it. Tears came despite her best efforts and she wiped at them angrily, swiping them off her cheeks in haphazard strokes. The room echoed with her quiet weeping.

“Oh, Christine.” Erik came up behind her, fingertips gliding along her upper arms. “Don’t cry. Please don’t cry.”

Christine shook her head. “I just want—” She inhaled and wiped her nose on her sleeve. “I just want to understand why. It’s so hard for me to not know why, Erik. Every time I need you there, you’re gone, and I never know why.”

He continued to run his hands lightly up and down her arms. 

“I’m sorry.” She could feel the whisper of his breath on her neck. “Please don’t cry anymore. Not because of me.”

She turned to face him, stepping back slightly and blinking away tears. “Then will you tell me what happened today? Why you always hide? Why you couldn’t come with me in person?”

Erik looked at her for a long time, and she looked back at him, wishing she could read something in his gaze, decipher what thoughts lay behind the dark depth of emotion in his eyes.

“All right,” he said eventually. “Okay.” He guided her to sit on the bench, and she sat facing the piano while he faced outward, his back to the instrument. He laid his palms stiffly on his knees, staring unfocused at the opposite wall. As he breathed in, his posture slightly hunched, Christine suddenly realized what he was doing—mentally placing the wall between them, protecting himself from her gaze, positioning the two of them as if they were each seated with their backs against opposite sides of the wall, as it had once been.

Watching him, uncomfortable in her presence, kneading his fingers into his pantleg, she felt her heart soften. She was still angry, and she was still owed an explanation, but she couldn’t help feeling sympathy for him. She had no idea what kind of life had led him to exile himself to the point that he felt so uneasy in the presence of another person, but it had clearly been difficult. She hoped he was about to tell her.

Erik took a deep breath, and in deference to him, Christine tried to keep her eyes focused on the piano, only assessing him in her peripheral vision. “It’s not—easy for me to—” He shook his head. “It’s not easy for me to talk about this. With you. With anyone.”

“That’s all right,” she said, trying to infuse her voice with as much calm and caring as she could. She wished her voice could be as soothing and melodic as his, that she could ease his nerves just with a few stretches of her vocal cords. “Just tell me what you can.”

Erik pressed his fingers against his forehead, at the top of his hairline, and then, slipping down, seemed to push firmly against his temples, thumb traveling over his cheekbones, as if relieving a headache. She slid her eyes towards him and then quickly snapped them back again, willing herself to give him the privacy he so clearly craved.

“Are you okay?”

“Fine.” His voice was a wisp of what it usually was. “Just a moment of discomfort, is all.”

They sat quietly for several seconds, Christine fisting her hands in her lap, feeling more badly by the minute that she had forced him into this conversation. 

“I haven’t—” Erik cleared his throat. “You have to understand, Christine, that I—” He stopped again, and then chuckled hollowly. “I can hardly even say.”

“Erik.” She started to turn towards him. “You don’t have to—”

“No.” He held up his hand, and she turned from him again, staring at the piano keys as hard as she could. “I will. You’re right. You deserve an explanation.” 

“Okay,” she said. “If—if you think you can.” 

“You are the first person to hear me speak in ten years,” he started, the words coming quickly, and she opened her mouth in shock, and then closed it. She focused her vision on one single black key and tried to keep her body as still as possible. “You are the first person to see me, in ten years.”

When he did not say anything further, she said in a hushed tone, “But Erik—why?”

“Why,” he repeated dully. “Why. Yes, why?”

Christine knew instinctively not to speak. She waited in that heavy silence, feeling that whatever was about to come next would change their relationship forever.

“Everything—everything was—finished. My life—the things that I had loved, the things that had meant everything to me. They were all gone.”

Christine nodded, though she was sure he wasn’t looking at her.

“What happened?” She whispered. “What changed?”

“My mother died,” he said, and Christine knew the moment he spoke it that the answer could never have been anything else. It simply fit; the two of them fit. Gustave and Madeleine. Erik and Christine. 

“I’m so sorry, Erik.”

“My mother loved me,” he continued. “She loved me too much. And so—she died.” He shook his head again, and from the corner of her eye all she could see was him leaning his head back to look at the ceiling. “I should have died.”

“No.” Christine inched her hand across the bench, feeling for his, but he lifted his arm before she could reach him and passed his hand over his eyes. 

“I held her while she took her last breath. Her last word was—she said—” He suddenly crumpled over himself, hugging his arms around his middle and bringing his face nearly to his knees. “I can’t talk about this, I’m sorry.”

New tears were brimming in Christine’s eyes, for once not for herself, but tears for him and the intensity of his pain.

“It’s all right,” she said. “You don’t have to. I understand. I understand completely.”

“Yes.” Christine closed her eyes, her chest aching at the sound of tears in his throat. “Yes, you do, don’t you?”

She yearned to reach out to him, but his posture was so dejected and the moment was so delicate that she wasn’t sure how it would be received. 

“I’ve never spoken about it,” Erik said. “To anyone.”

“Never?” 

“No. Never.”

Christine swallowed a lump of tears. She had not been a particularly good patient in the therapy her aunt had placed her in, often sitting sullenly in the chair as the therapist tried to engage her, but she had talked about that day, had spoken her grief to someone else. She couldn’t imagine having carried that burden in silence all these years, alone. 

“Oh, Erik. Why?”

Erik sighed from deep within him. “My mother was all I had. She was my first and best listener. My music was special because it was special to her. When she was gone, everything became warped. My voice—the way people responded to it, I couldn’t stand—and my music had been—violated, and it all became so repulsive to me that the only thing I could do to keep myself sane was to make it all end.”

“For ten years, though?”

“I would have gone on like that, for the rest of my life.”

The unspoken words, that they both heard, were if it weren’t for you.

“You must understand I’ve been alone for so long, intentionally and willingly alone. This morning when you asked me, it was painful to have to deny you. But the thought now of—of going out, of having strangers see me, having them hear me—it’s too much to bear. I can’t do it. I no longer know how to do it.”

They were both quiet. At length he straightened himself, and Christine took the risk of turning towards him, giving him a full minute to see that she was looking at him and decide if he wanted to turn away again. He stayed, instead, half-facing her, looking at the floor. She reached her hand out and laid it on his sleeve.

“Thank you for telling me.”

Erik looked up at her for the first time in the conversation. There were tears standing unshed in his eyes, though his voice had recovered its full richness. 

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. 

“Don’t be,” she said fiercely. “Don’t be. Not ever. Erik—thank you for telling me. All I want is—all I need is to understand.”

His eyes slid from her face to where her hand lay on his arm.

“I—” He picked up her hand, twisted it, and drifted his thumb over her palm, watching his own movements with a glint in his eyes. “Christine—” He breathed in deeply. “You couldn’t know how much I—” He looked up at her again, and Christine, her heart beating rapidly in her throat, smiled at him.

He let go of her hand. Releasing a long sigh that sounded like a word she couldn’t fathom, he said quickly, “It’s been a day, hasn’t it?” He reached over to pull her contract from the lid. “You did very well. I can’t hope to keep you away from celebrating this achievement. Why don’t we take a break for the night, and we can restart as usual tomorrow?”

Christine took her contract from him and stood to file it away in her briefcase. She felt as if she were seeing all of his actions in a new light. How many times had he abruptly directed her home at the end of the lesson, and she had left feeling resentful and hurt at how cavalierly he dismissed her, how little she had apparently meant to him? But now she saw it for what it was—his need to escape, to distance himself, his inability to express his deep unease and hidden fears of being exposed. And with this new knowledge came new strength in her own desires.

“If it’s all the same, Erik,” she said, turning to him and standing by the bend in the piano. “I want to stay. I want to sing.”

His eyes glittered as they watched her take her stance. Without further words, he began to play. She knew that nothing she could have said or done in that moment would have meant more to him than her music. She offered it freely. 

Chapter Text

It was only later, as Meg chatted away about her grades on her finals, that Christine began to think that something was off. The lesson had been short, but had given them both the necessary comfort of shared music. No more had been said, about the Met, about Erik’s past, or about The Maggie’s upcoming commencement ceremony. She had simply touched his elbow, and he had given her a half-smile, and then ducked his head and said he’d see her tomorrow. 

She had traveled home in the warm cocoon of her thoughts and memories of that conversation: Erik’s gentle but hesitant touch on her hand, the quaver in his voice, the trust of his secrets. In all the time she had known him, he had always seemed ephemeral, appearing out of thin air as a whisper to teach her to sing, then walking out of a wall as a man with a voice like honey, and then disappearing back into that wall like a phantom. These sparse words he had given her, with great effort on his part, had finally made him into a man. Just a man. A man who still retained those qualities—a beautiful voice, a seeming master of illusion and artifice, reclusive and reticent—and yet, for all of it, still just a man. It grounded him in her reality, finally allowing her to imagine that instead of vanishing into thin air after their lesson, he went somewhere, alone, sat at a kitchen table, maybe, alone, laid himself on a bed at night, alone. It allowed her to wonder if he thought of her, when he did.

But when she had gotten to her apartment, when she had settled herself onto the couch with a steaming mug of tea in her hands, Meg stretched out on the opposite couch with her legs hanging off the armrest, chattering away, Christine had started to really think about the things he had said. She replayed each statement in her mind, mulling them over as she sipped her tea, and the longer she thought about them, the more it became clear that he had only told her a very small part of the story.

Something was missing. Pieces did not connect. As much as Christine understood the abject grief that could accompany the loss of a close parent, she did not understand how it had led him to hide himself from all human contact for so many years. Parts of what he said had hinted at something more disturbing, something more traumatizing—she loved me too much—and so, she died—as if he blamed himself for his mother’s death. And then—my music had been violated.

What happened to him all those years ago? It hadn’t escaped her that he had specified ten years—the exact amount of time since the Campbell fire. There was something there, underlying all of this, something she could not grasp, but was pulling at her unceasingly.

“You’re a terrible listener,” Meg said, her arm hanging over the edge of the couch and onto the floor. 

Blinking out of her reverie, Christine tried to focus in on Meg. “I’m sorry. I had something on my mind.”

“Anything you need to talk about?”

“No.” Christine leaned back onto the couch and pulled her legs up underneath her, sitting cross-legged. “You were saying something about the moving company?”

“No, that was like five minutes ago. Ugh. What were you thinking about?”

Christine waved a hand in the air. “Ah—nothing. You know. Stuff.”

Meg peered at her, running her free hand through the thick shaggy strands of their living room rug. “Stuff? Did your meeting not go well?”

“Oh, it went fine. Great, actually! Mr. Auster, the music director, is really nice, and everything’s settled for me to start. I’m supposed to get a schedule for rehearsals soon.”

“Erik came with you, then?”

Christine blinked, her cheeks reddening. She held her mug in two hands in front of her face, hoping to shield the worst of it.

“Yes. Yes he did.”

“Good. I’m glad.” Meg was still looking at her, running her eyes continuously over Christine’s face, and it made her nervous to escape that scrutiny. Even as she shifted uncomfortably and looked away, the first thought she had was this is how Erik feels when someone looks at him.

“Did something happen? Christine?”

“No—Meg, everything is fine. I’m just a bit jumpy from the whole day. It was stressful, you know.”

Meg frowned at her, but turned away to lay back down on the couch, staring at the ceiling. 

“I was saying about my new apartment. One of the girls in the company connected me to someone who was leaving, so I’m going to take her spot. It’s with two other dancers, so—”

Christine nodded along, making noises of affirmation when required of her, but her mind wouldn’t stop drifting back to the music room, thinking of tomorrow, thinking of how it might be different. Now that he had broken his silence, what else might he tell her, share with her? How else might he let her in? Now that she knew there was no one else, she wondered if she hadn’t been dreaming after all. If he was so shy, so unused to people, so isolated, maybe he just didn’t know how to tell her, how to express his feelings. 

But maybe she knew how to help him.

“I need to work on something,” Christine said abruptly, standing up. Meg stopped in the middle of a sentence. “For my lesson tomorrow,” she said by way of apology.

Meg narrowed her eyes. 

“What’s going on?”

“Nothing.”

“I don’t believe you. What’s going on?”

“Nothing, I just—have to work on a piece of music, that’s all.”

Meg stared at her for a long while, and then adjusted her position on the couch so she was sitting upright and facing Christine directly. “Is this about Erik?”

Christine stuttered over her words, her cheeks warming again. “No, it’s—I just have to practice, I—”

“I thought you were past this.”

“There is nothing—nothing to be past. It’s fine.”

“So why are you bright red?”

“I’m—” Christine ran a hand through her hair. “I’m just—”

Meg sighed and sank back into the couch. “Christine, I’m not here to police your feelings. I don’t really understand what’s going on between you and your teacher. Just, be careful, okay? I don’t want to see you get hurt.”

Christine nodded, feeling slightly chastised. Retreating to her room, she hesitated at the door and looked back at Meg.

“That music from the other night—that song that made you cry? It was his.”

Meg blinked at her, and opened her mouth, but Christine edged behind her door and closed it before she could respond. Turning towards her nightstand, she opened the first drawer and pulled out the sheaves of handwritten sheet music. She had other things she needed to do—she had two voicemails waiting from realtors and had to be up early the next morning to see a few apartments on the West Side. But she tossed her phone face down onto the bed, and stood holding the notes in front of her. 

Taking a deep breath, she began to sing.

The music that had interrupted his lesson with Christine had coalesced into a prelude, instead of the orchestral piece Erik had originally imagined. There was no violin in the end, just the piano, its solitary beauty haunting and captivating. After all these years, the piano still spoke to him in a way that no other instrument did. He had more than a passable talent with the violin, the cello, and the guitar, but none of them seemed to capture what was in his soul the way the piano did. When he played, quietly, after dark, in his secluded palace, he sometimes felt like he left the confines of his tortured existence, like he melded instead with something greater, something sublime, something beautiful. 

New melodies caught him up in sweeping, rapturous daydreams almost constantly, gripping him in the gray hours before sunrise, keeping him up at nights much past midnight. He wrote unceasingly, music more blindingly sweet and riveting than he had ever produced, but still none of it approached what he heard in his mind. What he saw in his mind—her. He played, he wrote, he created, he imagined—but none of it was the same as being with her. 

It was difficult not to imagine bringing her here, to watch her light up the austere black and white of his home the way she had lit up his life, to have her voice bounce off the perfect acoustics of his walls. Just to sit beside her at night, to not be alone anymore, to listen to her talk about the latest thing that had annoyed her, the thing that had made her laugh on the subway. To hold her. To kiss the top of her hair. 

Erik breathed in deeply, walking through the halls, the echoes of his latest composition still reverberating in his head. Would she like the windows, even though they were frosted? Should he pull curtains over them? Did she like curtains? He walked on, trailing his fingers along the walls. He would take her all over this side of the building, show her all of the nooks and crannies of the school he knew she loved. Maybe she would smile, running ahead of him, opening doors and guessing what was inside them, and he would let her, he would tell her his home was hers, that everything—everything he had was hers. And he would take her hand and show her all of it, everything—

His hand trembled now over the door he had shut weeks ago. The door he had not shut once before in nine years. He would take her everywhere, but not here. Never here. 

Erik turned resolutely away from that door, shuddering, blocking Madeleine’s ghost from his mind. This was why he never came here anymore—this was why he had avoided this hallway like the plague since the first moment he had plastered that mask on his face. He couldn’t bear to look at Madeleine’s picture, couldn’t look in her eyes through the fake, silicone eyelids of a mask, couldn’t see her fading disappointment, her disapproval. Couldn’t see his own guilt reflected in her eyes.

Erik returned to his bedroom, the hallways having lost all of their imagined charm and appeal. Was this where he thought he would bring Christine? To these empty rooms, more like a tomb than a home? Into this life, this solitude, this grief?

Sighing, Erik stood in front of his one mirror and once again brought the mask over his face, carefully adjusted the sides of the wig until they lay naturally over his ears. It was a handsome, expressionless puppet that stared back at him, and the sight nearly made him queasy. But it was the price he paid for Christine.

He was beginning to learn that he would pay almost any price for her, and the realization terrified him more than he could say.

Their lesson began early, as each of them had arrived much before the hour, but neither commented on it. They moved through slides, pitch glides, and trills, and then Erik suggested Christine take a drink before they started working on her next piece.

Christine approached the piano, her water bottle in hand.

“Erik?”

“Yes, dove.” 

Christine faltered for only a second, opening her mouth and then closing it quickly. She took a sip of water, and then set her water bottle on the lid of the piano. 

“I thought we could sing something different today. Something—new.”

He waited a beat for her to continue, but instead, her cheeks bloomed bright pink and she looked away from him. 

“I am always open to suggestions, Christine.”

She nodded, her hands fidgeting together, twisting and turning the bracelet she wore on her wrist. 

“Christine?”

She nodded again, turning from him and pulling sheet music from her bag. She set each page one by one on the piano, smoothing them out as she did. 

“I’ve been working on this recently,” she said. “I thought—I thought we should practice it.”

Erik stared at his own red handwriting, the papers slightly crinkled now, creases near the top where she might have held them in her hands, reading over the notes, singing them to herself. An unexpected, painful surge of love and desperation tore through his chest, and he clenched a fist against his knee to keep himself from gasping. He swallowed against a mouth that had gone completely dry. 

“You—you’ve been working on this?”

“Yes.”

He flexed his fingers once, twice, the tips tingling, the blood rushing between his ears. The first time he had heard City of Angels performed with full orchestration at Carnegie Hall, he had cried, the tears falling onto his hands as he played behind his screen. The elation, the joy, the completeness of hearing his music, his creation, his very soul, come to life around him. But this—Christine singing the music he had written only for her—it was totally overwhelming, too intimate, too vulnerable.

“I—” His throat closed over his words, and he struggled to make any sound at all. 

“Let me sing it for you.” Her voice was almost at his ear, and he shivered violently, feeling the caress of it down the length of his body. 

He put his hands on the keys, but he wasn’t sure that they would work. His hands were shaking like they had the very first time he had ever gone on stage at nine years old. He had written these notes for her, imagined her voice singing them, but somehow had never—somehow had never realized what it would mean, how it would feel—

“Erik.” Her hand fell on his shoulder and he closed his eyes, curling his fingers inward over the keys. “Start right here.” She stretched out the index finger of his left hand and then pressed it down onto middle G, and his thumb and pinky followed, finding the chord, and then he started to play, his eyes still closed, not needing the notes to remember the song, remember the frenzy he had written it in, remember the comprehension, the shock, the fear, when he had understood what it meant, understood how he felt for her. And she—Christine sang, more perfect that he ever could have dreamed, like honey, like wine, sweet and full and intoxicating, and though she had hardly sang through the first verse, Erik stopped, drunk on love, and stood abruptly, facing her, and she stopped too, staring at him, waiting, the faintest trace of a smile on her lips.

Breathing rapidly, trembling, he brought both of his hands to her face, just barely tracing her skin, afraid she would see how badly he shook, afraid she would know what it meant. But Christine only tilted her head up towards his, her lips parting, and he bent to meet her, his eyes fixated on her lips, his own tingling, his fingertips burning, before he remembered that it would not be his lips that touched hers, but the fake, pink-tinged lips of the mask, that he would hardly feel her at all, and he backed away sharply, his legs hitting the piano bench, hands pressed tightly to his sides. 

Christine bowed her head and he watched her, his heart still racing, unable to see her expression but desperate to know what she was thinking, what she was feeling. She sighed softly and ran a hand through her hair, and then turned to grab her water bottle and take a long drink. 

Erik fell onto the bench, clutching his hands into his thighs. He needed to say something, needed to find a way to clear the air of this heavy tension, to bring them back to where they were comfortable, to where it was safe, to teacher and student sharing music together, but Christine sat beside him, too close for teacher and student, facing the opposite direction from him as she had last time. He inhaled deeply, trying to steady his breathing.

“I—” Erik cleared his throat. “I—” 

“It’s a very moving piece,” Christine said. “One time we will have to sing through the whole thing.”

“Yes.” He nodded at the wall. He wasn’t sure if he could survive hearing her sing the whole thing.

“Do you plan to do anything with it?”

“Do I—what?”

“Do you plan to release it? As a single?”

“Of course not.” Somewhat shocked out of the remainder of his daze, he shifted to look at her. 

“Why not? It’s gorgeous.”

“I don’t release music anymore. You know that.”

“You said you didn’t, but you didn’t say why.”

Erik inhaled slowly and rolled his shoulders back. “It’s complicated, Christine, but I have no interest in—”   

“I could sing it.”

That stopped him, opened a world of possibilities he had never dreamed of. Yes, he had written the song, and yes he had written it for her, but he had written it in a fevered dream with no further thought or plan. He had written it because he had to, because it was inside him and beat to get out, because it was the only way he knew how to give to her. But now, now he saw it, as clear and obvious as it should have been to him the moment he had set pen to paper— a recording studio, a piano accompaniment, a single released by the celebrated new artist, Christine Daaé—

“You could. Of course you could. I can set it up immediately, in fact. I have no idea why I didn’t think of it sooner.”  

His mind was whirring with the plans. Nadir would have to contact the same man who had let Erik into the studio for the private recording of City of Angels, but that would be easy—a small bribe and a promise of future business, and Christine would have as much recording time as she needed. As to the marketing, she would need a good publicist, and someone to manage her online presence, and maybe she truly needed an album, maybe he needed to write more for her, maybe he needed to select a few choice pieces from her repertoire to complement what he would write, but wouldn’t it be glorious, wouldn’t she feel exactly as he had the day he had been approached to make the album that he had never gotten the chance to record? 

Wouldn’t this make up for all of that?

“Erik.” Christine grasped his hand, and he laid his other on top of it, leaning towards her.

“We are thinking too small,” he said. “Not just that song, but a whole collection. You’ll really leave your mark on the music world like this, and then people will demand you in concert wherever you go—”

“Erik.”

He looked down at their hands, saw she had cupped both of his inside both of hers. 

“Who will I say wrote this amazing music that I’m singing? Me?”

“No, you—” Erik frowned, wondering how much of the expression really translated across the mask. “Maybe—Nadir Khan.” He laughed. Nadir had always said he didn’t know a thing about music. Wouldn’t it be the joke of a lifetime to suddenly make him a closet composer? 

“Mr. Khan?” Christine’s brow furrowed, but her hands gently massaged his, and he blinked at the warm current that shifted through his body. “You always default to him. Does he know you?”

“He is—a friend. From a long time ago.”

“From Los Angeles?”

Erik swallowed and tried to pull his hands away, but Christine held fast. The sensation, seconds ago soft and endearing, now felt restricting, and he tried to resist a burgeoning panic.

“Yes,” he said. “From Los Angeles.”

Christine was quiet for a moment, and Erik jumped in on her silence.

“An entire album. Think of it. You may not even have to be part of a company—that is, if you don’t want to. Of course, if you did want to, that could be easily arranged, but—”

“Erik, I don’t need a whole album. That’s not—” she sighed. “That’s not why I wanted to sing it for you.”

“Oh.” Erik paused, waiting for her to speak, but again, she was silent. “Why—why did you?”

Christine shook her head slowly, and then released his hands. He buried them in his lap, and swung his legs around to the piano, facing the same direction as she was.  

“You know I got my schedule for rehearsals this morning,” Christine said. “Starting in a few weeks for the summer recital series.”

“You must be very excited.”

“Definitely.” 

She was silent again, and Erik wondered at her sudden reticence, her face nearly obscured by a sheath of curls that had fallen from her ponytail. He lifted a hand, just the backs of his knuckles really, to brush them away, tuck them behind her ear, but he lost his nerve, and pulled back his hand quickly.

They sat instead, in a silence Erik could not interpret, tense for reasons he did not understand. He wished he had the right words, the right joke to make her laugh, the way he had always been able to do when he had only been a voice, when everything had been easier, when he hadn’t had to pretend, but could be wholly himself. Whoever and whatever that was, it was not this mask, this hair, this voice. 

Sighing, Erik reached for the keys, the only solace he could provide for the both of them in that moment, an etude by Chopin. Every once in a while he nudged against her when he reached up the octave, and he imagined what it would be like to take her back with him, even though he knew it was wrong, even though he could not keep her in that cemented prison, to have her sit beside him each night as he played, to brush her hand as he passed, to have her fall asleep as he sang her a lullaby. 

The reverie was interrupted by the ringing of Christine’s phone, and she jumped up and sifted through her bag to turn it off.

“I’m sorry,” she said, fumbling with it and then sticking it in her pocket. “It was probably a realtor. I forgot to silence it because I was waiting for her call.”

“A realtor?”

“Oh, yeah.” She sat on the bench again, this time much further from him. “Meg’s moving out. She got a job in Houston with the ballet. So now I need to find a new place, and it’s been a disaster.”

This was what he had missed—Christine trusting him, telling him the struggles and developments in her day, leaning on him, relying on him. He turned towards her, rapt, determined to be that support to her, to show her that he still could, even if the wall between them had disappeared.

“What has been a disaster?” He said. “Why?”

She waved her hand in the air. “I don’t know. All of it. Calling places, looking around, photos being nothing like the real thing, show apartments being all jazzed up. And the rent is crazy. I mean I knew the Maggie price-controlled the apartments for us, but—” She sighed. “And really, the lease is up at the end of the month, and before that is graduation and then suddenly I have to move out and then start rehearsals and—it’s a lot all at once. It’s a lot.”

Erik stared at her, her hands just barely trembling over her water bottle, her lips turned down, frustration and anxiety creasing her forehead. He could not bring her behind the walls of the Maggie and let her into that part of his life. That would not end well for either of them. And he could not do what he imagined a real partner would do for her—coming with her to realtor appointments, making phone calls, signing paperwork. But—but—there was something he could do, something he never would have thought of, something that seemed both ludicrous and almost too obvious all at the same time. It would take days of organizing, of cleaning, of inspecting all the appliances and lifting ten years of dust and neglect, but it was beautiful, and spacious, and it had huge French windows and bright open sunlight, and if Christine wanted it, it would be hers. 

She lifted her eyes towards him, blushing slightly as she caught his gaze.

“I think I have an apartment for you,” he said.   

Chapter Text

For three days Christine sat in limbo. Erik had made a cryptic statement that he had not since qualified, other than telling her at the end of each lesson that he would give her details about the apartment soon, assuring her that she need not continue with the realtors. It was difficult to keep her anxiety in check, watching Meg continue to stack boxes, knowing that she would need to hire movers, change her address, and get comfortable with a new neighborhood, all while commencement loomed in less than a week and her job at the Met soon after. She was starting to worry that trusting him again had been a bad idea.

But early on Friday morning, Christine received an email on her school account from the Vocal Department that simply included an address, a time, and a single letter “E” at the end of it. Bemused, she read over the email several times as if there were some hidden code or obvious message she was missing, but it remained with just the three sentences, no punctuation, and no capitalization. She allowed herself two thoughts: one, that it was for six in the evening, the same time as their usual lesson, and two, that she had always assumed Erik would be the type to use formal grammar in an email. Regardless, at five, she hopped on the subway, her hair freshly washed, armed with a pencil and a journal to take notes on the apartment complex. 

Leaning back on the hard plastic chair, hugging the notebook to her chest, she thought of their last several lessons. Singing his music to him had shaken him in a way that she hadn’t expected. She had hoped to bring out feelings she deeply wished were there, and in the beginning she thought she had. He had turned on her in the middle of the song, star-struck, looking for all the world as if he were about to kiss her senseless. But he had backed off so suddenly, all of the passion she had seen in his eyes immediately disappearing, and she wondered if it was the music that did that to him, if it had always been the music, and only the music, that he loved.

The subway whizzed past Grand Central Station, and Christine again looked at the address, thinking to herself once again that he might have made a mistake, or that perhaps they would walk together from this meeting point to the apartment complex he had in mind. There was a mix of confusion and anticipation brewing in her chest, and a little bit of resentment—he had told her, quite explicitly, that he did not go out in public. This apparently meant so much to him that he was willing to let her go to her meeting with Mr. Auster unaccompanied. What had changed now that he was willing to meet her in broad daylight in the middle of the city? He had seemed so sincere in his explanation, in his private trauma, that she had never thought to question him. But, at the back of her mind, she had not forgotten all of the many missing pieces to his story.

Christine moved off the platform amongst a throng of people, surfacing into the sunlight,  the warmth glowing on her face, and then turned down the street and headed towards Central Park, hoping one more time that Erik had typed the address correctly, and wishing he had a cell phone. She turned down the cross street, slowing her pace as she counted out numbers, and eventually reached the address, an unassuming gray high-rise with a green awning and a doorman. Smiling awkwardly at him, shifting her weight between feet, she stood just to the side of the entrance and waited. Perhaps he would whisper in her ear, let her know he was there, and tell her where to go next? Maybe he would follow her silently, like a shadow, even in the middle of the city?

The minutes ticked by, fashionable ladies with even more fashionable dogs passing her by, walking towards the park, and Christine tapped absently on her phone, refreshing her email as a last resort, hoping for some sort of contact or instruction, but there was nothing. She turned again towards the building, the green awning flashing the correct number, but Christine could not believe he truly meant to have her look at an apartment here. Here, on the Upper East Side, right next to the park, where she was sure rent was more than four or five thousand dollars per month? Was he really that out of touch with her reality?

About fifteen minutes after the hour, Christine noticed the doorman motioning to her, and she smiled and waved, and then turned from him, her cheeks burning, hoping he would ignore her. She knew she looked odd, standing there in her jeans and her t-shirt, her wet hair in a bun, straining her eyes into the street for telltale movements, for shadows, for Erik.

A tap came on her shoulder. “Miss?”

Christine cringed and closed her eyes. She turned, holding her hands out in a submissive gesture, and attempted to look sheepish. 

“I’m so sorry,” she said. “I know I’m probably not supposed to just hang around here, but I’m waiting for someone, and I—”

“Are you Miss Christine Daaé?”

Christine swallowed the rest of her words. “Wha—yes?”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know it was you. I’ll bring you up now.”

“Oh—oh. Right. Thank you.”

She wanted to ask more, to ask where he was bringing her, and if Erik was already there, but the man seemed very focused on getting her to where she needed to be. They stepped into a chic elevator, inlaid with faux-marble tiles with dark wooden borders, and the doorman inserted a key into the elevator’s keypad before hitting the button for the sixteenth floor. Christine swallowed, watching the numbers above her climb, and when the elevator finally dinged, she stepped into an empty hallway gleaming with polished wood floors. Christine turned to the doorman, to make a joke, to say something about the marble she was beginning to think was very real, but he had stayed behind in the elevator. As she stared at him, the doors closing over his face, he gestured to his left. 

“It should be open for you, Miss.”

Christine looked over her shoulder in both directions, and then hesitantly began to walk in the indicated direction, now certain that Erik was not going to be meeting her tonight at all. Had he set up an entire apartment viewing for her? Would she be meeting a realtor inside? How would she tell that person that it had all been a mistake, that she couldn’t possibly afford this?

The ornate double wooden doors of the apartment gave easily with a push, and Christine stood in the threshold, gaping. If before she had thought Erik was somewhat uninformed about her finances, or that he was reaching just a bit too high for her first year ensemble salary, now she was convinced he was just crazy. The doors opened into a wide foyer, the city and the park clearly visible in the huge windows across the expanse, the sunlight streaming in and fractured into a million sparkling pinpoints as it caught the dangling crystal of the magnificent chandelier. To her left, two French doors led into a living room, where she could see a fireplace and wall-to-ceiling bookcases. Christine hardly took a breath, hardly took a step in, afraid she must be intruding on someone’s home, afraid it had all been a mistake, that the doorman must have taken her to the wrong floor, that he must have thought she was someone else. Edging out of the room, closing the doors quietly behind her, Christine turned and ran towards the elevator, frantically pushing the down button, her heart racing, bewildered tears pooling in her eyes. Why would he put her in a situation like this? How could he— 

“Christine?”

She turned, dumbstruck, to see Erik poke his head through the doors she had just closed. 

“I thought I heard you. Why didn’t you come in?”

She gestured wordlessly to the view behind him, her mouth slack and useless.

“Come.” Erik held the doors open and extended his palm, and Christine just barely gave him her fingertips, snatching them away the second he closed the doors behind them.

“I don’t understand,” she said in the silence that followed the soft click of the latch. 

Erik’s face contorted into an odd expression, one that seemed not quite right for any particular emotion, and he lifted his hands once out towards her, dropped them at his sides, and then quickly clasped them both behind his back. 

“It’s, uh—well, should I show you around?”

Christine followed him warily. They turned from the foyer through the French doors and into the living room she had seen before. The room was even larger than she had thought, the bookcases deep and stuffed with colorful bindings, exotic bookends, and vases overflowing with white and red tulips. She turned a slow circle in the middle of the room, taking in the cream leather couch, the dark wooden coffee table, the sleek black fireplace, and the large grand piano that sat by the window, fallboard closed over the keys, the lid, music rack, and feet edged in gold. 

Erik stood beside her, and as she approached the instrument, he followed close behind.

“A Bösendorfer,” he said. “Impeccable quality, one of a kind—”

But Christine had already moved away, half in a daze, and she wandered through the hallway, past a kitchen that appeared as if it were fully stocked, and towards the main bedroom. She barely glanced into the master bathroom, hardly seeing the elaborate tiles and marble bathtub, before she stopped at the threshold of the bedroom. She heard Erik stop behind her. 

“This is insane,” she said under her breath. The high ceiling, the warm beige tones set off by the twisting iron-wrought headboard, the gray throw pillows piled high on the otherwise white bedspread of the huge king bed, the plush carpet under her sandals, the sweeping curtains pulled back to reveal a terrace that looked out on the park—all of it was absolutely, certifiably insane. 

Christine spun on her heel, racing back towards the front door, and she had almost reached for the knob when Erik stopped her, his hand on her elbow.

“Do you not—do you not like it? I can—anything you don’t like can be changed, I—”

“Erik.” She closed her eyes and inhaled once, trying to school her anger, her irritation, her complete bewilderment. Letting the breath hiss out between her teeth, she turned to him. “I’m not sure if you just don’t—” She sighed and counted to five in her head. “I appreciate you—setting this up, and thinking of me, but you must realize that this is not remotely within my budget.” She raised her arm towards the window. “What is this? The penthouse? How could you possibly think this was right for me?”

Erik twisted his fingers together, looking around the room, and then slowly brought up one hand to smooth over his hair.

“It is the penthouse,” he said. “I only thought to help you. You seemed so distraught over the situation.”

“But, Erik— ” She couldn’t suppress a small snort. “A penthouse doesn’t help me. That’s crazy. The rent must be something astronomical. Six thousand a month? Eight thousand? It’s not even—it’s not even within the realm of possibility.” 

Erik blinked at her, his shoulders relaxing slightly at her words. “Oh. Is that your concern? There is no rent, dove. If you want the apartment, it’s yours.”

“What do you mean, no rent?”

“It’s not for rent. It’s mine. I have no use for it, but if you are in need of an apartment, then I’d like nothing more than to give it to you.”

Christine stared, several meaningless strings of words coming to her and then dying on her lips. “This—is yours?”

“Yes. I don’t live here, not anymore, but I still own it. I never saw a particular reason to sell, and now I’m happy I didn’t.”

“Where—” Christine shook her head. “Where do you live, then?”

Erik looked away from her, but not before she caught the flash of something in his eyes. “Near the school. It was much easier to run things from there than being uptown.”

“Near the school,” she said, stepping towards him, feeling that pull of the untold pieces of his past, “or in it?”

Erik took a step back from her, so small she wondered if it was conscious.  “Yes,” he said quietly. “I suppose there is no hiding that from you anymore. It was just—easier, in the end.”

She could not imagine what had happened to make him think that living inside the walls of a school was better and simpler than living in his own penthouse apartment. 

“What is it like, behind the walls? Is it like a real house?”

“It is larger than you’d think. And to the best of my ability, like a real house, yes.”

“But—” Christine turned around in the foyer, sweeping her hand in a circle around her. “All of this? Why would you give this up?”

“It was easier.”

Christine gazed up at the elegant chandelier, twinkling in a kaleidoscope of sparkling white above her head, the light now brightening the room as dusk gathered outside the window. His words were suddenly hitting her, more real than they had been minutes ago.

“You own this?” The rooms flitted across her mind, the marble, the piano, the fireplace, the terrace. Dazed, she asked the first tactless question that came to mind. “How much did this cost?” 

“Ah.” Erik shrugged. “Quite a few million.” 

She dragged her gaze across the room once more, noticing for the first time the moldings, the brass doorknobs, the oil paintings of Paris that hung on opposite walls. Finally, her eyes landed on the man himself, standing at an awkward distance from her, his hands twitching nervously at his sides. 

Quite a few million, and he was offering it to her without a second thought. A man who had determined never to share his music again, but had shared it with her. A man who had sworn to speak to no one, to see no one. Except for her.

Christine took a decisive step towards him, her eyes locking with his, and he stumbled backwards.

“Why would you give me your penthouse apartment?” 

“You needed an apartment, and I wanted to help you.”

Erik fell another pace backwards, and Christine continued to take small, measured steps forward. 

“Your penthouse apartment?” She saw him swallow, saw the way his eyes darted around the room, trying to avoid hers. “Is this what you normally give your students?”

“You know I have no student but you.”

“And is this what you give your student?” She was advancing on him, his backward strides larger and more exaggerated the closer she got. 

“I—I don’t know what you mean.” His back hit the wall and he gasped softly, staring down at her now with wide eyes, his chest rising and falling unevenly.

She took the last step to close the distance between them, drawing so near that she could feel his breaths tickling her hair. She tilted her face up towards his, her heart beginning to race. If she was wrong, if she had misinterpreted everything, if it had always been just about the music, and never about her—but it was now or ever. 

Breathing deeply, she laid both of her hands on his upper arms. His shudder ran through her. 

“I think I know why you gave me this apartment,” she said, so quietly that her words barely mingled with their breaths. 

“And why is that?” He whispered. His eyes nearly glowed in the soft light of the chandelier, staring, staring so deeply into her own. 

She gripped his sleeve to steel her nerves. It could just be the music. But it was now or never.

Tilting onto her toes, driving him backwards into the wall, she pressed her lips against his.

For a split second he completely froze, inhaling sharply against her mouth, and Christine felt an awful rush of dread and humiliation, but then he was surging forward, one arm tight behind her back, the other digging into her hair and cupping the back of her head, slanting his mouth across hers with crushing urgency, and if she had ever doubted, if she had ever worried that he did not feel the way she did, all her fears evaporated at the insistent pressure of his mouth, his fingers tangling in her curls. 

Her chest fluttered, heat spreading through her body as she clung to him, reaching for him as desperately as he reached for her. He devoured her, caressing her mouth with a sweep of his tongue, an almost inaudible moan at the back of his throat as she responded, inviting and teasing with soft strokes of her own. His fingers splayed across her back, and she slid her arms up, wanting to touch more of him, to hold more of him, but he caught them, folding both of her wrists into the grip of one hand and securing them behind her back.

Surprised, she opened her eyes, but he had reached for her again, tilting her chin up towards him with his other hand and claiming her mouth, her cheek, her brow, his breath hot against her skin. Her eyes drifted shut, her pulse racing, beating frantically where he dipped his head and kissed the side of her neck. A sigh escaped her lips, her fingers flexing against his grasp, her mind a fog of overwhelming, shivering sensation. He guided her backwards, stepping carefully between her legs, and the one thought, the only thought she had was finally, finally.

“Christine.” He whispered it in her ear, his tongue tripping over the sensitive ridges, taking her earlobe into his mouth and grazing his teeth over the edge. Her breath hitched and caught in her throat, and she strained to release her hands, to feel some part of him, but his grip was iron. 

He pushed open a door she hadn’t seen with his free hand, and in the darkness of that room he slid his fingers under her shirt, nibbled at her collarbone. They fell together onto the bed, her wrists pinned on a pillow above her head. 

“God, Erik—”

She struggled to catch her breath, the long length of him pressing her into the satiny bedsheets. 

“Christine.” His voice was nearly a whisper, rough and sultry, his face pressed into her neck, his chest rising and falling erratically. “You don’t know how long, how desperately I’ve wanted you. You consume me. And I’ve tried—I’ve tried to stay away—”

“Don’t stay away,” she breathed. His hand slid by inches down her chest. “Oh—Erik—don’t stay away, why would you—oh—”

In the aching, breathless moments that followed, there was no room for thought, no room for questions, just the feel of him against her, the sounds he made that caused her to burn with need, the blinding, soaring bliss in finally coming together.

Passion-drunk, feverish, they sank deep into the night, and losing herself within his arms, she did not notice that he never let her mouth stray anywhere but his lips, and he never, not once, let her touch his face. 

Chapter Text

Erik Carriere was dead. Erik Carriere was dead, and yet still he stood, leaning against the floor-length windows and staring out over the city, the gray linen drapes enshrouding him.

The man named Erik tilted his head forward until it met glass. The mask wouldn’t leave a mark on the window the way the natural oils from human skin would. Following the path of a bird that dipped lazily from tree to tree with his eyes, Erik dared to reach his fingers up under the wig and massage his temples. The last time he had worn a wig or a mask this long had been years ago in Vegas, and it hadn’t been comfortable then either, but nothing there had, nothing there had made sense, nothing there had mattered. Mornings in Vegas had been a haze of cigarettes and hangovers, groaning, tripping over strewn heels and misplaced bras. It usually wasn’t long before he was left alone, before he could finally remove those restricting props he needed to become human. But none of this had been planned, none of it possibly could have been expected, and though his face was sweating and chafing beneath the mask, and though the wig sometimes made his head ache and pulled at what little hair he had around his ears, he would not take it off, not even in the locked bathroom. 

Erik Carriere could not intrude here. 

The Erik who had been pronounced dead at birth, the one without a face, the one whose death certificate Madeleine had kept in her secret drawer even as he cried in her bedroom—that person was not him, not today. Today he was not a man whose face was made of plastic, not a man whose mother had died rather than expose him to the world. Not today.

This is what he told himself.

Removing his hands from under the wig and gripping the ear flaps to return it snuggly to its place, the clips pulling painfully at his hair, Erik turned from the window and drew the drapes closed behind him. In the grayish light that remained, dust motes floating gently before him, he could see Christine nearly buried under the white comforter, just the ends of some of her curls spilling out over the edge of the bed. Careful not to jostle her, he slid beside her once more, fitting himself to her curves. Sighing into her hair, his heart throbbing in his chest, he closed his eyes, breathed in, and tried not to sob.

Erik Carriere might have a death certificate, but he was here, he was here, and she smelled like fresh citrus shampoo, and he had never imagined in his life that he would love someone the way he loved her, the intensity of it, the blinding, shocking force of it. And all of his noble intentions, all of his moral reasonings, the realities that said he could never have her, could never deserve her—they meant nothing before the heat of her kiss, the sound of her cries, the silk of her skin beneath his mouth. Now that the line had been crossed, he didn’t know how he could possibly let her go.

Christine shifted under his arm, and Erik pulled her to him more securely. She moved her arm over his, sliding her fingers over his forearm until she reached his hand and entwined her fingers with his. He sighed and kissed the top of her hair. 

“Hi,” she said, twisting to face him. She kissed his knuckles.

“Little dove.” He leaned forward and kissed her, long and slow, the heat of it flooding his body. There was no Erik Carriere. There was only her, only Christine, only the sweet purring noises she made, only the brilliant smile she gave him when she pulled away. 

It was impossible to think when faced with that smile, impossible to focus on anything other than the twinkle in her eyes. But she was too close, and her eyes were already straining in the dim light, raking over his face, no doubt catching its unnatural gleam, the features that were nearly impossible to get right no matter how much he had tinkered with it. Gently he turned her shoulders away from him, pushed her to her side, and brought her back against his chest once more, folding her arms underneath his across her stomach. 

“Are you more comfortable like this?” She said.

“What do you mean?”

“Like this. Without me looking at you. Like you’re behind a wall.”

She was more perceptive than she gave herself credit for. Last night, in the darkness, there had been no need to worry about what she might see, only the need to keep her hands away from his face, to keep her from touching what she would immediately realize was not regular skin. Even his voice couldn’t override that kind of tactile sensation. 

Instead of answering, he tangled his legs with hers, drifting the open lips of the mask across her neck. “Did you sleep well?” 

“The bed is luxurious,” she said. “This isn’t even the master bedroom, is it?”

“No.” 

“It may as well be.”

“I wasn’t going to furnish the other bedrooms at all, but at the time, Nadir protested.”

“Nadir.” Christine twisted her fingers around his, running her thumb along the inside of his palm. “Are you very close with him?”

“It’s complicated.”

She made a sound suspiciously like a snort.

“Erik?”

“Yes.”  

She kissed his palm. “Tell me something about yourself.”  

Erik blinked into the hazy room, his heart thudding. I once licked coke off of a Vegas Showgirl’s stomach. I lost five thousand dollars on split aces at a high-limit table at the Palazzo. I never thought anyone could mean as much to me as you do. I think I almost killed you in the explosion.

“I—" 

“I’ll start,” she said. “It’s dumb. I’ve never told anyone else.”

“Okay.” He breathed in deeply, hoping he could distract her, hoping she would forget she asked. The weight of his memories, the weight of his life, the weight of Erik Carriere was pressing in on him, making him dizzy.

“I’m terrified of the open ocean,” she said, and Erik let out a breath against her hair, closing his eyes and a hollow smile finding its way to his lips. “Absolutely terrified. If I can’t feel the sand beneath me I start to have a panic attack.”

This was her big secret. This was what she thought to tell him, huddled up against him in the gray morning. The depth of what she did not know, the depth of what he could not tell her, if he wanted her to stay, if he wanted her to love him, and he did, he did, he—

“I know it’s dumb,” she said, “but I just can’t help thinking of how deep and dark it is. I imagine all sorts of awful things living down there. We don’t even know half of what lives down there!”

Erik swallowed. She had paused, and she was waiting for him, waiting for him to say something light and innocent, something frivolous and sweet, something couples said to each other the next morning in bed. As if he had ever been sober or clean or sane enough for conversation in Vegas. As if he had remembered their names. As if they had remembered his. 

His hold on her tightened.

“I will never abandon you in the middle of the ocean, Christine.”

She laughed, and he had the sense that his response was too serious, that he should have made a joke, or kissed her, or teased her.

“Now you,” she said. 

Erik racked his brain as quickly as possible for something to match her admission. 

“I am—I am afraid of bridges.”

“What?”

“I don’t like driving over bridges. I have an irrational fear that they will collapse beneath me.”

“That sounds awful.” Christine turned her face ever so slightly towards his. “I’m sorry I asked, now I’ll think about that every time I get on the GW.”

“Don’t open Pandora’s Box, sweet,” he said, kissing her ear. 

She let out a little breathy moan that kicked all his senses into high gear. “Erik—” She squirmed against him as his hands began to wander. “Erik, we have to talk about this.”

He ran his hand over her hip, lightly caressing the skin there with his fingertips. He hadn’t talked much last night, had hardly thought at all, too overwhelmed that she had kissed him, that he had kissed her back, that she had wanted him as badly as he wanted her. But now he was fully lucid, fully aware of his body responding to her small whimpering, to the way she shivered when his fingers dipped over her thigh. 

“Erik—” Her breath hitched.

Now he could be skillful about the way he touched her, not mindlessly reaching for any part of her as he had last night. And he could use his voice as he had not last night, pitch it low and deep, smooth like whisky, in a way he knew she could not resist.

“We can talk, Christine.” He kissed her neck, where he had discovered she liked it. She bit her lip and arched back against him, her eyes fluttering closed.

“We can talk about anything.” He touched her slowly, teasing, nipping gently at her neck. “Anything you want, just say it.”

“I—mmm—” 

“I’ll tell you what I want,” he said. He shifted her body to lay slightly on top of his, pulling one of her legs back and over his hip. “I want you. All of you. Everything.” His thumb traced her cheek, gently pulling down her lower lip, one finger just barely pressing into her mouth. “Tell me you want that too.”

“Yes.” 

He pulled her chin roughly towards him, and his mouth descended on hers.

After Christine had showered and ordered takeout that the doorman had delivered directly to the penthouse, she sat with him on the couch in the living room, her head on his shoulder, her legs curled underneath her. His fingers were combing through her hair, as he had wanted to do for weeks, for months, pulling gently at the strands, silky and damp. The quiet, contented moment nearly overfilled his chest. The things he could have, the life he could live with her, if he never told her, if she never found out, the bliss he could hold in his palm, with her by his side. 

She had broken every other rule he had ever had: he had spoken to her, showed himself to her, shared his music with her. Why not this one, too? Just a little white lie, a silicone face, an altered history—to have her, wouldn’t it be worth it? 

Christine hummed as he kissed her forehead. 

“Erik,” she said, her voice partially obscured where her face was pressed into his shirt. “I still think we need to talk about this.” At his protracted silence, she leaned her head back to look at him. “Everything is different now, you know?”

He pushed her back slightly more, slightly away from his face, and then tucked a curl behind her ear. 

“Nothing has changed, little dove.”

Christine sat up straight, her eyes widening. “What do you mean, nothing has changed?” His hand fell from her cheek as she shifted fully away from him. He opened his mouth, but her cheeks were rapidly turning red. “What do you—how can you say that? Didn’t this—didn’t this mean anything to you? I—”

“Christine—”

She wrenched herself away from his outstretched arm, scrambling to her feet and stepping away from the couch.

“Do you think I’m just going to show up at our next lesson like nothing has changed? Like every other time something happened between us and you just pretended like everything was the same? I will never sing for you again—”

“Christine, please—”

He caught her arms, forcing her to look at him, her threat shooting cold fear down his spine. 

“Please.” He swallowed, maintaining his grip on her arms to steady himself. Even said in anger, even if she didn’t mean it, the idea of never hearing her voice again was spiraling uncontrollably in his mind. “I—I misspoke. I—Christine—” His fingers were shaking, and he had to release her, turn away and hug his arms around his chest. “Please—” He closed his eyes. “Please tell me you didn’t mean it. Please. Please.”

She was quiet for several seconds, and he saw the years unfurling endlessly in front of him, the same blank, empty, meaningless years he had spent before he had heard her sing for the first time, caught in the prison of his own mind, the white and black tiles he had laid himself, the unending silence, the shut door with his mother’s portrait, always smiling, always still. If forced back into that solitude after knowing this bliss, he knew he would go insane. 

From behind him, he heard her fall back into the cushions of the couch.

“Is it really just about the music? Is that all this is?”

The music, he thought. The music. Her voice tripping off the high C, the way she shaped her vowels, so smooth, so rich, the symphony in Paris, the rush of the string section behind him, the applause, the cellos, and then his mother’s voice, his mother’s hand cupping his cheek, kissing him on his forehead—you have your music. And whatever else happens in life, you’ll always have your music, won’t you?

He sank to the couch beside her, his face falling into his hands, the mask cool to the touch. His mother had never told him that when you shared your art you altered it, sometimes irrevocably. His mother had never told him that when it was all you had to give, it would become all you had to lose. 

“Erik?” Christine laid a gentle hand on his shoulder, shaking him from his thoughts. He stared at her, eyes wide and nearly unseeing, trying to force himself to focus on her. She must have seen something in his gaze, because her hand slipped from his shoulder and she held both palms up in a vaguely placating gesture. 

“I’m not mad,” she said. “It’s okay. It’s fine. I didn’t mean it. I just—I need to know. After all of this, I need to know.”

“Need to know what?” His tongue felt thick, like he hadn’t used it in years, and he repeatedly swallowed, unsure when his mouth had gone dry.

Christine sighed. “I need to know how you feel. It’s like I’ve been chasing a ghost for months. I never knew what you were thinking or what you were feeling. Every time I thought I knew, I—” She ran a hand through her hair. “I need to know now.” 

Erik breathed in slowly, finally seeing her clearly again, finally seeing the doubt and uncertainty in her eyes, the downturn of her mouth. 

“I gave you my music.” 

Christine closed her eyes briefly, shaking her head. “No. No. Erik, that’s not what I mean. I—” She twisted both of her hands in her lap, her brow creasing deeply, and then she looked up at him again, pressing a hesitant hand to the center of his chest. “I need to know how you feel—here. Not the music, not our lessons, not any of that. Just—here. You and me.”

Erik swallowed, his fingers trembling as he covered her hand with his own, pressing it against his heart, wondering if she could feel the erratic beat. I gave you my music. Didn’t she understand? Didn’t she know it was all that he was? 

“I—” 

“I need to hear you say it,” Christine said, her blue eyes wide and blinking into his own. “How you feel about this. Us. Me.”

“I love you.” It came out as an almost-choked whisper, and the second the words had left his mouth he wished he could gather them back in, where they were safe, where they were his alone. 

Christine’s mouth fell open slightly as she stared at him, and then she was smiling, her fingers gripping his, her eyes misty as they reflected what he feared the most—love. 

He kissed her before she could return the sentiment, cupped her chin and brought his arm tight around her back, savoring the taste of her lips, the sweep of her tongue against his own. It was a poor defense, because she whispered the words right back to him seconds later as she ended the kiss and hugged him tightly, and he pretended he hadn’t heard, pretended she hadn’t said it, even as he felt the pain aching deep in his core.  

When she pulled back fully, it was to the vibrating of her phone.

“Oh, it’s Meg! Oh my God, she’s going to be freaked—I’m sorry I just have to tell her where I am—hey girl—yeah, I know, I’m sorry—” 

Christine edged away from the couch as she spoke, chattering, sweeping her wet hair off her neck and into a ponytail. He watched her wistfully, moving around his old apartment like she belonged, a glittering butterfly flickering in and out of his sight, one he knew he could never really catch. 

Hanging up the phone, she jumped back onto the couch next to him, her hand on his arm. 

“I should get back. I think she’s going to have an aneurysm if she hasn’t had one already.”

“Who?”

“Meg. She never thought this was going to happen. She thought I was delusional.”

Christine handed her phone to him, and Erik looked at her blankly. 

“I think it’s about time you put your number in, no?”

“I don’t have a number.”

Christine blinked at him, and then smiled uncertainly. “You mean—you don’t—no cell phone at all?” Erik shook his head and she laughed, her brow furrowing. “I always assumed you just didn’t give the number out, you know, another one of your privacy things.”

“I’ve never had a use for one.”

“How will I—I mean, how will I contact you? I can’t just bang on the walls of the Maggie every day, can I?”

Erik held her hands lightly in his own. He hadn’t thought past this morning, not really, not more than daydreams that could never come to fruition. How long could he reasonably expect to keep her from touching his face? To always keep his wig in place? He hadn’t imagined that she would already be thinking of tomorrow, of a future together. How little she really knew him.

After a bit more teasing, a few more kisses, a plan to have her things moved into the apartment the week after graduation, and a promise to meet Monday night at the Maggie for their lesson, Christine finally floated towards the elevator, her face glowing, waving to him as the doors closed in front of her. Swinging the keys to the penthouse idly around his forefinger, Erik stalked the length of the terrace, looking in vain to the street below for a flash of blond, a hint of beauty. 

He wanted to be amazed. He wanted to hold those words she had said to him, savor the sound of her voice shaping each vowel, keep them buried in his chest. But they were meaningless.

I love you.

Of course she did. Of course she wanted him like this, this face, this voice, this hair. They all had, hadn’t they, all of those women, all of those nights. Some of them had said it, loudly, screaming, sighing, drunk. He didn’t want to hear that from her. He didn’t want to see that in her eyes. 

He wanted what he couldn’t have. He wanted her to know him, to really know him. He wanted her to love the small boy he had been. Erik Carriere. All of him.

The dream was as absurd as it was alluring, and he tucked it away somewhere deep in his heart, somewhere he would never look again. Their days together were numbered. It was only a matter of time until she realized something wasn’t right. For the first time in his life, he understood why his mother had been willing to die to hide his face.

Their days were numbered, and he would have to pack a lifetime of love into those precious minutes. For now though—for now he would get a cell phone.

Christine arrived at her apartment early in the afternoon, giddy and unable to stop herself from smiling like an idiot. Her heart finally felt unburdened and free, all of the anxieties and uncertainties of the last few months falling from her like a piece of silk. When she swung open the door, tossing her bag carefree towards the coat rack, she felt absurdly like she wanted to twirl across the floor, to cast open all the blinds and bask in the warm sunlight. 

Meg was sitting on a closed box, one ankle resting on her knee, wrapping her dishware one by one and stacking them into the open box before her. She glanced up when Christine came in, and then returned her attention to the salad bowl she had just picked up. 

“Must have been a nice apartment,” she said. 

Christine smoothed her fingers down her shirt, aware that it was the same outfit she had said goodbye to Meg in the day before. 

“It was beautiful. Breathtaking.”

Meg placed the bowl in the box, and then stood to begin taping it closed. 

“He owns it,” Christine said, forcing the smile to stay put on her face. “I didn’t know before I went. I thought he just knew a realtor or something.”

“So he lured you to his place?”

“What? No. He just didn’t tell me it was his. I think he was nervous. Or he just didn’t think about it. I don’t know. Erik is—he—” She pressed her lips together. 

Meg stretched the tape gun over the length of the box, the loud scrap of the tape against the roll deafening in the tense silence of the room. Setting the gun on top of the box, Meg crossed her arms and looked up at her again.

“So your voice teacher told you that he found you an apartment to rent and asked you to meet him there, alone, and you went, alone, and it turns out it was his own place, and you just happened to stay the night?”

“I get how it sounds weird when you say it that way, Meg, but it wasn’t like that, I promise.”

“So how was it? Because it sounds like your voice teacher manipulated you into breaking up with an amazing guy so he could sleep with you.”

“Erik had nothing to do with my decision about Raoul, and he—”

“Oh right, I forgot. Erik. And what do you actually know about him? Erik? Can you tell me more than five things about him?”

“Meg, please.” Christine stepped towards her, refusing to allow her words to penetrate the fog of happiness that had surrounded her, even if they were true. “I know how it sounds. I know. But Erik isn’t like other people. He’s not open like other people. But he’s special. And he—he makes me feel special.”

“He’s your teacher, Christine.” Meg’s eyes darted between her own. “Don’t you see how this isn’t right?”

“He’s my friend. He has been for a long time. He’s always been more than just a teacher. We understand each other.”

“But he is your teacher. He set up that recital for you, as if he was trying to bribe you—”

“He wasn’t, I promise. He’s more dedicated to music than you could ever know. He would never use it like that.”

“I just don’t get how you can do this to yourself.”

Christine stiffened. “I’m not doing anything to myself, Meg. I’m happy. For once, I’m happy. Why can’t you be happy for me, too?”

Meg shook her head. “I watched you sink into the worst depression I’ve ever seen you in for three weeks because he suddenly disappeared on you without even a word. And now you’re telling me that he’s the perfect guy?”

“He’s not perfect. He’s complicated. Really complicated.” Her voice cracked, and Christine flicked a stray tear from the corner of her eye. “But I love him.”

Meg let out a long sigh, her eyes dropping from Christine’s face to the floor. “I don’t want you to get hurt, Christine. I’m afraid—I’m afraid that you don’t know what you’re getting into. I’m afraid he’s going to hurt you badly.”

“You just have to trust me.” She tried to smile again, but Meg’s expression didn’t change.

“And do you trust him?”

Christine swallowed, the tension of the smile frozen on her cheeks making her face ache. “Of course I do.”

Chapter Text

Christine thought she must be dreaming. And when it was clear she wasn’t, when she did something so mundane and banal that she knew she must be awake, she still felt like she was soaring. Wasn’t it a dream every time she remembered nuzzling into his arms on the couch, his lips on her forehead? Wasn’t it a dream when she remembered how he had clutched her hand to his chest, trembling, and told her he loved her? She rifled through her drawer to where she had stuffed his emerald necklace in a moment of anguish, and let it slide through her fingers, held it up to the window and let the light throw fractured green pinpricks onto her walls. Thinking of him was no longer a guilty pleasure, and she spent long hours on her bed, staring into the sunshine, replaying in her mind every time he had touched her, every place he had kissed her, every time he had ever sang to her or played for her, her chest buzzing with giddy delight. 

She hardly saw Meg for the rest of the weekend, which seemed to suit them both. Meg’s silent judgement whenever they passed each other in the living room or kitchen made her squirm, and she hurried back to the safety of her room, where she could close her eyes and see him in front of her again. They didn’t have plans to see each other until Monday, and although it was only two days away, it seemed like a lifetime to wait to be with him again. She spent her time haphazardly packing odds and ends into small boxes, mulling over old photographs or long-lost books more than actually organizing anything. 

On Sunday night, while Christine was sorting through her dishware, vaguely wondering if she would need any of it at all given Erik’s fully stocked kitchen, her phone buzzed with an unknown number. 

“Hello?” She cradled the phone between her ear and her shoulder while she placed beloved items in a box and stacked the rest back into the cabinets, where she would leave it for the next residents. 

“Christine?” His voice was hushed and nearly a whisper, but the sudden rush of heat to her cheeks, the jolt of her heart, made her fumble a glass, and she dropped the phone while she swept to the ground to catch it before it shattered. Breathing faster than she expected, Christine shoved the glass onto the counter and clutched her phone back against her ear.

“Erik?” She leaned heavily against the counter, her heart racing. “Is this you? Is this your number?”

“Yes. My number. I got it for you.”

She closed her eyes, her fingers trembling against her cheek, his voice like honey in her insides. 

“I miss you,” she whispered.

“Little dove,” he said softly. She imagined where he was standing right now, what he was doing, what he was thinking. His mouth against the phone. 

“Tomorrow seems so far away.” She knew she sounded like a love-sick teenager, but she couldn’t stop herself. 

“Come early,” he said. “I’ll be waiting for you.”

They hung up, and in a daze, Christine headed to her room, ready to turn in early for the night, if only to bring tomorrow faster. Humming one of her arias to herself, she brushed out her hair in front of her mirror, and then swept it into a braid. Meg’s drawn face suddenly appeared in the mirror above her shoulder.

“Hey.”

Christine set her brush down on the table and turned to her.

“Hey.”

Meg twisted her fingers into her slouchy cardigan. “I just wanted to remind you that my mom is coming on Wednesday.”

“Right. I remember.”

“Right. So. I hoped we could all spend some time together. Before commencement.”

“Sure. Whenever you want. I’m just packing and stuff.”

“To move into his apartment?”

“It’s mine. He said it was mine. He doesn’t live there.”

Meg opened her mouth, paused for a second, and then closed it. “Okay.” She sighed. “Look, I don’t want to argue about this. I don’t even want to talk about it again. You know what I think already. And if I’m not going to change your mind, then I just want to forget it. I don’t want our last days together to be like this.”

Taking a deep breath, Christine nodded. “I don’t want that either.”

Meg took Christine’s hand and squeezed it. “It’s always been you and me, chica. No matter who else came in or out of our lives. Nothing will change that.”

They smiled at each other, each trying to hold back tears, and then Meg laughed off the moment, removing her hand and brushing hair from her eyes. 

“Okay, well—I guess—we’ll just make plans tomorrow, how about?”

“Sounds good. We’ll have a packing date.”

Meg hesitated, her fingers sliding against the threshold of Christine’s half-closed door. “I spent most of the day video chatting with my new roommates,” she said, glancing at Christine from under her eyelashes. “They were a little bit crazy, I think. But in a good way.”

She wanted to go to bed. She wanted to pull the covers up to her chin and turn on her side and think about the way it had felt to wake up in his luxurious guest bedroom, his arms winding around her middle, his body pressed against hers. But Meg was smiling at her uncertainly, and graduation was at the end of the week, and after that they might never live in the same city again.

“Yeah?” Christine said. She scooted onto her bed, crossed her legs, and patted the space next to her. “And you think you’re the sanest of the bunch?”

They chatted and laughed, and for the first time in a long time, Christine slept in, relishing the fact that she did not have to set an alarm and that she could close her eyes again even though the sun was shining brightly through her blinds. Late in the morning, skirting boxes on her way to the kitchen, she made a cup of tea and heated up a frozen croissant while Meg negotiated a Craigs List sale of her matching set of end tables. When she was finished, she plopped down on one of the barstools and stole a piece of the croissant. 

“We have so much to do today.”

Christine took a sip of her mug and forced the too-hot liquid down her throat. “We do?”

“Yes. Of course we do. I want to do a graduation photoshoot. Don’t you think that would be fun? Balbine and Amanda had a student at NYU take their pictures and they came out amazing. We should try to book for today or tomorrow.”

“Uh—”

“It’ll be a good test run for what you’ll wear that day. And hair and makeup, I guess.”

“I’m not sure—”

“Oh, come on. You’ll thank me in a year. These are memories we’re going to want forever.”

Christine drained the rest of her cup and then pushed the plate with the half-eaten croissant towards Meg.

“Here, you can finish it.”

“Look, Christine—” Meg swiveled on her chair to face Christine as she retreated from the kitchen. “I get that graduation isn’t your thing. I know you’re not into it. But I promise you won’t regret preserving this memory. You love the Maggie—don’t you want something to remember it by?”

Christine swallowed hard. “Sure, fine. Set something up. Just let me know the time. I have to go.”

“Go? Go where?”

“To school. To my lesson.”

Meg blinked at her. “You’re still having lessons?”

“Yes.”

“With him?”

“With Erik, yes.”

Meg’s shoulders slumped. “Okay. I thought they were usually later at night.”

“We changed,” Christine said swiftly. “School’s out now so the practice rooms are always available.”

“Oh.” Meg swung herself slowly side to side on the stool. “Okay.” There was a moment of awkward silence, and then Meg swung back to the counter to finish the croissant. “I’ll let you know about pictures.”

Christine launched out of the apartment, and on the subway she regretted not putting more effort into her appearance. She was showing up hours and hours early, surely not what he had intended when he had told her to come early for their lesson. Trying to fix her hair in the flickering reflection of the scratched window, she wished she had put on some mascara, or at least some perfume. At Times Square, three girls got into her car dressed in their full regalia, giggling and taking selfies as they gripped the handrails. Christine didn’t recognize the colors of their regalia or which college they came from, but the sight of their square hats and swinging tassels made her stomach clench.

She turned away, staring out the window behind her into the blackness of the tunnel. Maybe it would have felt like an achievement if her father was going to be there to see it. She wondered if he would have stayed in the apartment like Mrs. Giry or if he would have found a place. If he would have liked Mrs. Giry. If he would have liked Erik. If he would have cried when her name was called. 

The Maggie was empty even of cleaning crews at this odd early afternoon hour, and Christine meandered through the vacant halls, unsure if Erik would be ready at such short notice. She found herself wishing that instead of a key to his penthouse, he had given her a key to his secret passageways behind the walls of the school. 

Stepping into the music room quietly, she closed and locked the door behind her, and then began to call for him. She turned circles in the room, calling his name, before sitting herself at the piano and spreading her fingers across the keys. She was early enough that it was possible he wasn’t anywhere near this side of the building. But just being here, knowing that soon he would be beside her, was enough.

By no means was Christine a piano player, but she had learned the very basics of scales and chords when she had first arrived at the Maggie in an after-school piano class she had elected to take so she wouldn’t have to return to the dorms alone. Plucking out key after key, she hummed to herself, trying to match the sounds of the piano to the ones in her head. When she hit a wrong note, she’d simply substitute her voice. 

“A fascinating interpretation of City of Angels,” Erik said from behind her. Christine whipped around so fast her ponytail flung from one shoulder to the other. “Perhaps lacking in the details.” 

She was torn between running to him, hitting him, and continuing to play just to spite him. 

“Perhaps you are lacking in imagination,” she said, half-standing, her decision taken from her as he quickly closed the distance between them, gently grasping her arms and pulling her against him. Her eyes fluttered shut as he pressed a kiss to her forehead. 

“If you wanted to reach me, you could have called my phone, now that I have one. You no longer need to summon me with music.”

“I forgot.” She twined her arms around him, nestling her cheek into his shirt. She had forgotten, too, the boniness of his chest, the thinness of his shoulders, details that always seem to slip from her mind the moment he started talking. His skin was cool, welcome against the flush spreading up her neck.

They stayed wrapped in each other for some time, hardly moving, just breathing, an unbroken circle of belonging and content, a depth of solace Christine thought she had never felt. 

“Should I play for you?” He asked, his breath nuzzling her hair. “I can even play with both hands at the same time.”

That time she did hit him, smacking him on the chest, and he caught her hand and kissed her knuckles, an impish gleam in his eyes. 

The lesson proceeded mostly as normal, the only real sign that things had changed during her water breaks, when she would sit beside him on the bench and he would brush the hair from her face, staring intently into her eyes as she talked about Meg’s plans for the week. 

“I think I’ll be happier when it’s all over,” she said. 

“This place will never be lost to you, Christine.”

“It will, a little. It will never be exactly what it was.”

He ran the backs of his fingers over her cheek. “Nothing is. Nothing can be brought back. You can only move forward.”

Christine smiled slightly. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

He held one of her hands gently in her lap. “Don’t be afraid. You will always have a home here. But your future is brighter than you can imagine.”

“And you?” She squeezed his hand. “What will you do? Bask in my fame?”

“If you will have me.”

She giggled at his serious tone, his eyes searching hers. Had she not made her feelings abundantly clear already? 

“And what about your music?”

“It is yours.”

“I mean, will you release more? The elusive Erik?”

He withdrew his hand from hers and turned slightly away. “No. Only what you need for your career.”

“But Erik—”

“No. What do you want? More concerts in Carnegie Hall? I did it all already.”

“But there’s so much you could share with the world, Erik. So much beauty.”

“I can’t. Please don’t ask me to.”

Her eyes slid down his rigid frame, the whiteness of his knuckles against his pantleg. 

“Okay.” She took his hand again and kissed his palm. “Okay.” The tension didn’t leave his body, but he nodded, and asked her if she wanted to keep singing. 

Abruptly, in the middle of an aria, he stopped playing and started talking, so rapidly that Christine didn’t even realize she was still holding a note until he stood and began to pace. 

“You don’t understand,” he was saying, “and you could never understand. What he took from me—and what I gave up—what I lost—you can’t understand.”

“I understand loss, Erik,” she said quietly, but he didn’t appear to be listening, as he continued on with hardly a pause. 

“I had it all written. All of the music. Fourteen pieces. City of Angels was only supposed to be the beginning. I was paid the advance for the record. It was going to top all of the classical charts, maybe even more mainstream.”

Christine stared at him as he ticked off his fingers.

“Movie soundtracks. Television. Symphonies. That’s what they said. That’s what they promised.”

“I’m sorry.”

He looked up at her suddenly, as if only just remembering she was there, and in his eyes she saw the boy he must have been, the dreams that had brightened his eyes, before they were ripped from him in ways she didn’t understand. 

“I’m sorry, Erik. I can’t imagine.”

He hesitated, his hand twitching by his side, and as she watched, a tear fell over his eyelashes onto his cheek. 

“She never heard it. It was meant to be—to be a surprise. When the album was finished.” 

“Oh, Erik—”

He turned resolutely away from her, holding onto the piano instead. “So you see, I cannot release an album. That is finished. All of it.”

She swallowed, softly drawing her fingers up the taut muscles of his back. 

“I’m so sorry.” The things she wanted to say—to encourage him to honor Madeleine’s death with his music, to release it not in spite of his mother but because of her, to tell him she would be proud—she tucked down deep. His pain was still so raw, in some ways worse than her own, as if it had just happened, as if he were constantly reliving that trauma, never able to divorce himself from it, and though she yearned to understand, she knew now was still too soon. 

“I love you,” she said, hugging him to her from behind. He made a soft noise, grabbing her hands and pressing her palms against his chest. He leaned his head back and breathed in deeply. 

“I do not deserve you.”

“I said that to you once,” she said, splaying her fingers over his heart. “You told me I was ridiculous.”

Erik turned to face her, his eyes darkened with emotion, and pushed her gently against the piano. The backs of her legs hit the keys, compressing a soft, dissonant chord, and Erik caged her in, his arms resting on either side of the fall board. 

“You were ridiculous,” he said, leaning in, his lips almost grazing against her ear, “for thinking that. I told you.” Christine shivered, and he kissed her neck. “You are a diamond.”

“I believe you said,” she started, her voice rough as he dipped his tongue into the hollow of her neck, “that you needed to chip away the rough earth around me.”

“So I do.” His fingers slipped under her shirt and traveled up her back, unhooking her bra.

“Erik!”

“Just a bit of earth, dove.”

Meg sprang the pictures on her two days later, cornering her in the almost empty kitchen early Wednesday morning and shoving her regalia into her arms. 

“Our appointment is at nine,” she said. “Time to make tracks.”

Christine blinked sleep out of her eyes and dumped the gown on the counter. 

“Meg—”

“No ifs ands or buts. You agreed to this.”

“I was forcefully volunteered for this.”

“I am not sorry.”

They stared at each other, and after a minute, Meg was the first to crack a smile. 

“Do it for me, then, chica, if not for you.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Christine muttered. “I just don’t want to be late for my lesson.”

“When’s your lesson? How long are these lessons anyway? You’ve been going out for hours and hours.”

Christine blushed but didn’t say anything, instead busying herself with tea in a Styrofoam cup, since all of their other dishware was packed. 

“Where are we supposed to meet the photographers?”

“They’re students, but their stuff looks great. I thought it would be nice to get some stuff on the terrace in the park, maybe on the lake too. Thoughts?”

“Sounds good.” 

Meg chattered endlessly about what they would wear, following Christine from the kitchen into her room, pulling things out of her closet and then returning to Christine’s room to get changed. Mindlessly, as if it were happening to another person, Christine put on the outfit Meg picked out and applied light makeup, tuning out whatever Meg continued to talk about in favor of pretending she was getting ready for an opening night instead of graduation pictures. 

“Aren’t you going to do your hair?” Meg said, staring at Christine in the mirror. 

Christine swallowed the sharp words that bubbled to her lips. “I think it’s fine this way,” she said after a moment. 

Meg shrugged. “Suit yourself. You ready?”

Already exhausted, Christine followed her out of the apartment. 

“So my mom is getting in around seven. I thought we could all go to dinner since we have nothing to cook with anymore anyway.”

“Sounds fine.” Christine felt the breeze on her face as they walked towards the park, heard the rumbling of buses and the occasional shout or laughter. Humanity of all kinds had descended upon the park in the warm spring air, tourists and denizens alike. 

Posing with Meg in some of the most iconic sections of the park, she knew she would never look back at these pictures. They captured water and smiles and blond hair and laughter, but they didn’t capture what she loved. They couldn’t. It was transient, slipping through her fingers as her moments at the Maggie stumbled towards a close.

It felt strange to realize that this city had not become her home as she traveled through the heart of the subway to meet Mrs. Giry for dinner. To realize that it wasn’t the park or the harbor or the subway or the twinkling lights that meant anything to her. To know that if she was moving to another state to perform in a different opera, it wouldn’t be New York she would miss. It would be the Maggie. The building. The façade. The creak of the door of the Voice Department office. The elevator button that only sometimes turned on. That was home. And that was disappearing. 

Sighing, Christine tried to be pleasant during dinner. She had always liked Mrs. Giry, but she wasn’t in the mood for company. Even the thought of going to Erik’s plush apartment made her feel vaguely queasy, and she knew it wasn’t the sushi Meg had pressed her to try. Sure, he had said the apartment was hers, and yes, she loved it, and no, she could never have dreamed of more luxury or comfort. But it wasn’t home. Nothing was anymore. 

Mrs. Giry settled in Meg’s room while her daughter took the couch, and so Christine felt confined to her room, afraid to have Meg confront her, unsure what she thought Meg would say in the first place. Instead, she paced the length of her small bedroom, her hands on her hips, her thoughts spiraling. Commencement, Mrs. Giry had said at dinner, her eyes twinkling. I can’t imagine a happier day. 

Christine glared at the floor. There were a million other things she’d prefer to do than go to this stupid, overblown, awful day—what had Erik called it? That extravagant ceremony, with a bite of acid in his voice, as if he understood too, as if he also knew what it was like to hate the end, to dread the end, to not want to celebrate something that only meant that everything familiar would be stripped away from her, that she would have to start anew. Again.

At three in the morning, after hours of laying on her bed, staring at the dark ceiling, trying in vain to fall asleep to Bach, she called Erik.

He answered immediately, and she wondered what he had been doing. “Christine? What’s wrong? Where are you? Do you need—”

“I’m in bed.” She turned on her side, holding the phone tight against her ear. “I’m okay.” 

“You are okay but you are calling me at three A.M.”

“Why aren’t you sleeping?”

“Why aren’t you?”

Christine sighed, too tired to argue with him.

“Are you at home? Can I come?”

Erik hesitated, and Christine opened her eyes enough to finally question what she had interrupted. 

“It is very late, Christine. You should be sleeping.”

“Does that mean I can’t come?”

“What do you need, dove? What can I do for you? Should I sing you to sleep? Would that help?”

It would, she knew. It would put her to sleep, if she let his voice guide her into peaceful submission, if she let him take over and clear her mind. If she let him.

She sat up, running her hands through her hair. “I want to come, Erik. There. To where you are. To the Maggie.”

“I can meet you at the penthouse, if you like. I can meet you there in less than an hour.”

“I want you to show me,” she said. “Show me all of the Maggie. Show me your side. Take me home.”

“Little dove,” he started, and she knew he wouldn’t give in. “Let me sing for you.”

In between the moments where he began to sing and her mind drifted away from her, she wondered why he would not share that piece of his life with her, why he wouldn’t give her that small bit of home, a slice of the Maggie she could never lose. 

Mrs. Giry and Meg spend the morning incessantly talking about and planning for the next day, and Christine sat in the kitchen sullenly, listening but not hearing, seeing the detritus of the apartment disappear into boxes and not fully believing. When had it happened? How had it come to this? It was as if the week had passed in a fog of apathy, time marching on despite Christine digging her heels in as far as she could. The day was already upon her. Graduation was tomorrow.

Feeling sick, Christine pushed herself off the taped box she had been sitting on and announced that she was going to the school. Both Meg and her mother stared at her. 

“You can’t possibly have a lesson today,” Meg said. “No way. Commencement is literally tomorrow.”

She didn’t have a lesson, it was true. Erik had said that the school would likely be overrun with eager parents and their families, and that it might be best to wait until the entire weekend was done. 

“I just need to pick something up,” she said. “Just for a minute.”

“Remember we’re ordering in Chinese,” Meg called as she grabbed her bag and pulled the front door closed. 

“Big day!” She heard Mrs. Giry shout as the lock clicked into place. 

The hallways weren’t crawling with people, but Erik had been right that they were far from empty. Making her way towards the back of the building where the older music rooms were, she ran into Nathaniel Hunt, two older men who could have been fathers, uncles, or brothers, and Meng Lin, his long-time girlfriend, a year their junior and studying the oboe. 

The two singers stared at each other for a brief second before Nathaniel smiled quickly and gestured to her.

“Christine Daae,” he said, “my classmate.”

She shook hands with the men who turned out to be his adoptive fathers, and made the obligatory small talk with Meng, itching to slip past them, to find quiet and peace. 

“Christine is a bit of a star of our class,” Nathaniel said, his smile not completely friendly.

“Nate says you had your own concert,” one of his fathers said. 

“Just for you,” Meng added. Her eyes were cool. And for a second, just a fleeting moment, Christine hated Meng beyond any reason or sense. Not for her comment, but because she had more time. Because she didn’t have to leave. Because she wouldn’t appreciate it until it was gone. 

“So nice to meet you,” Christine said, forcing out a laugh. “Can you believe I left something in one of the classrooms? Just realized it while I was packing. Can’t wait to see everyone tomorrow.” The words felt like ashes on her tongue. 

Inside the music room, her music room, their music room, Christine closed her eyes, leaning her head against Erik’s wall, the cool material soothing on her heated skin. She braced her palms against it, willing it to open, willing it to let her in, willing it to obey her as it did him. Willing it to be hers. 

There was only silence.

She wouldn’t cry now, she told herself. It wasn’t time for tears. Instead, she would imprint this moment on her mind. Imprint the feeling of a wall, the hum of a building, the quiet of a summer afternoon in her favorite place in the world. She would remember. She would hold it with her forever. 

The touch came lightly on her shoulder, but she did not flinch. She had been expecting it.

“Dove?” His voice was gentle. “What’s wrong?”

Christine pushed against the wall again. “Make it open.”

“Christine—”

“I want to see. Make it open. Take me.”

“No.” He spun her softly to face him. “It is not for you, back there. It is not for you.”

She blinked up into his beautiful face, his eyes beginning to blur as her vision filled with tears. 

“My darling,” he said, as he folded her into his arms. “Please don’t cry.”

“I don’t want to go. I don’t want to leave, Erik.”

She sobbed into his shirt, and he let her, stroking her hair, slowly swaying with her as she cried. She knew he wouldn’t be at commencement the next day, and the thought just made her cry even harder. No one would be there for her. Not Erik. Not her father. No one. She wished she had somewhere, anywhere else to go.

Sucking in a huge breath, she suddenly pulled away from him, tears leaking onto her cheeks, her eyes wide. 

“Christine—”

“I don’t want to go.”

“I know. I know.”

“No. You don’t understand.” She stepped away from him, wiping her tears away on her sleeve. “I don’t want to go tomorrow. I’m not going.”

Erik tried to reach his hand towards her cheek, and she caught it and held it against her chest.

“Come with me.”

His eyes searched hers. “I don’t—”

“Come with me, Erik.” She closed her eyes and pressed his palm against her cheek. “Please.”

He was silent, and she squeezed the fingers that were beginning to stiffen against hers.

“I want to go back,” she said, opening her eyes and meeting his gaze, seeing the fear and understanding form simultaneously in the depths. “I want to go home.” 

He tried to move his hand, already shaking his head, but she held on tight. “I’m going home, Erik.” The words felt right on her tongue, and her heart was swelling even as she watched him begin to pull away from her. “I’m going home.” Finally. “And I want you to come with me.” 

Chapter Text

Six hours and twelve minutes expected flight time, the co-pilot had said. Cruising at forty-nine thousand feet. Overcast skies and mild turbulence expected. The meaningless words rolled over him as he clutched the edges of their seats, staring rigidly out the window as New York City disappeared into the darkness. Six hours and twelve minutes. Six hours and twelve minutes until he was back in the city he had never meant to see again. A lifetime of running. Six hours and twelve minutes was all he had left.

The ambient hum of the plane assaulted his ears, the din making his skin crawl. Talking to the small crew of their chartered jet had been hell, curious eyes and too-loud mouths everywhere, no safe place to turn, no place to hide, no comfort even in Christine’s gentle hand on his back, her voice in his ear. Since they had left the Maggie his thoughts had been spiraling, an endless loop of what would come on the other side, of what would be waiting for him on the streets he still saw through a teenager’s eyes—his mother, again and again, William Campbell’s face, the little bottle of pills, the policeman sniffing it, the fire, his mother, and again, Madeleine, laughing, crying, falling in his arms, breathing her last I love you—

If he had been in his right mind, he would have said no. There never would have been a question. Travel to Los Angeles? Insanity. But if he had been in his right mind, he wouldn’t have been standing there next to her in a mask and wig, talking to her with his real voice. He hadn’t been in his right mind since he had met her.

He had wanted to say no. He had tried to say no, but the word had stuck in his throat as she had stared at him, pleading, holding his palm against her chest as tears spilled over their hands. She had needed him, and in that moment there had been no room for him, for Erik Carriere. 

It had been a fleeting moment. 

Did she even know, he wondered, feeling her fingers sliding up and down the inside of his palm as he stared resolutely out the window, did she even know how much she was asking from him? Did she know how deeply he had once sunk himself into drugs and sex and gambling to rid himself of the memory of this place? 

“Erik?” He felt her caress the skin beneath his ear, and he turned abruptly, encasing her hand in his, hoping she hadn’t felt the feather-thin lip of the facial prosthetic running behind his neck. Mask, prosthetic, horrid piece of plastic and silicone—whatever he chose to call it, it was still ultimately the same—a lie. 

Christine’s eyes were too bright in the darkness of the cabin, unblinking and wide, shot through with red from exhaustion and wary anticipation. 

“Are you all right?” She asked. “Is it too much?”

Surreptitiously he ran a hand over his wig, smoothing it, feeling that all the hairs were in place and none of the net had been exposed from the jostle of take-off. 

“Go to sleep, dove,” he said, leaning forward to gently kiss her forehead. He dropped her hand and turned away from her, hoping she would take the hint, and feeling his chest turn to lead when she did. 

Of course she didn’t know. She had no idea, not even close, because he had never told her, would never tell her. She would never know that the face she saw and loved was a hyper-realistic mask. She would never know how deep his hatred ran for this city. But he would fly across the country for her, he would grit his teeth and see those snow-capped mountains rising above the skyline again, for her. 

He closed his eyes to block out the reflection of his face in the small round window. 

For her. 

Bright sunlight filtered through the too-thin curtains of the airport hotel they had booked in-flight somewhere over Missouri, illuminating the room in dark grays and casting long shadows over the bed, where Christine and Erik both pretended to sleep so as not to wake the other. They had fallen into bed in the early morning hours, talking little, each lost in his or her own thoughts, making no plans for the coming day, facing away from each other during sleep. Christine stared at the light and shadow dancing slowly on the wall, her thoughts running circles too fast to corral. She was here. She was here. It wasn’t just a wall, it wasn’t just a light, it wasn’t just a curtain. It was a wall in Los Angeles. A curtain in a hotel in Los Angeles. She was home.

Coming had been a wild decision, made in a split second of desperation, built from a thousand moments of longing and regret over the last ten years. How many times, how many ways, had she imagined going to her father’s grave, talking to him, sitting with him, simply being with him again? Now that she was finally here, now that it was finally real, she could hardly believe it. What would she say to him? What would he think of her?

Swinging her legs over the side of the bed, Christine grabbed her phone and headed to the bathroom. Erik had not stirred since they had arrived, and though she was surprised, as he usually woke before her, she was glad he was sleeping. He had been tight-lipped and agitated since they had boarded the plane last night, and though she knew the trip would take a massive toll on him, she sensed that his emotions ran even deeper than she could fathom. 

Sighing, she closed the door to the bathroom and sucked in a breath to make the phone call she had been dreading since she had left the apartment the night before. 

“Where in the hell are you?”

Christine closed her eyes and leaned her forehead against the bathroom mirror. 

“I’m sorry—”

“Christine, what the hell? Where are you? Are you with him again? Seriously?”

“Meg—”

“This was our one day. Just this one day. I’ve been planning it and planning it and you know I’ve been waiting for this.”

“Meg, listen—”

“So you didn’t want to get ready with me. Fine. So you don’t want to do the hair and the makeup. Whatever. But where the hell are you now? The ceremony is going to start soon and I’m sitting here by myself like an asshole—”

“I’m not coming.”

There was a deafening pause, and Christine opened her eyes and watched her face disappear as her breath fogged the mirror. 

“What the fu—”

“I’m in Los Angeles. I’m not coming.”

The silence filled the room, overpowered the hum of the bathroom lights and the vague sounds of the crowd Christine could hear in the background of the call. She counted to ten before she spoke again. 

“I’m sorry, Meg.”

“I don’t— I don’t even—I don’t even have words to say.”

“This was something I had to do for myself. I’m sorry.”

“He’s with you, isn’t he?”

An ugly feeling filled her chest. She was too tired, too emotionally fragile, to deal with Meg’s accusations right now. “Meg, this has nothing to do with him—”

“It has everything to do with him. Everything. Everything is about him! Don’t you see it?”

“Seriously, I don’t want to talk to you about this right now.”

“You don’t see it! You really don’t! You’re totally blinded by him, and I have no idea what he did to you—”

“He hasn’t done anything—”

“—ever since you met him you’ve been so different. You never had panic attacks until him. You never disappeared for days at a time until him. And you definitely never flew across the country without telling me before him! It’s absolutely insane, it’s like he brainwashed you, like you can’t make decisions for yourself anymore, and—”

“I had panic attacks,” Christine said, gripping the phone. “I had them, I just didn’t tell you. I never told anyone. I had panic attacks, and I cried, and I screamed, and I never told anyone. Not until him.”

Meg breathed in deeply. “I know you think that he—”

“No, Meg, I’m done. I’m sorry. I’m sorry that this is what you think and that I can’t change your mind, but honestly, I don’t care. I came to Los Angeles because I needed to be with my father, and Erik is here to support me. I’m sorry that I left you alone, but graduation means nothing to me, and I think you know that.” Christine paused briefly, then pulled the phone away from her face. “I hope you have a good day,” she said half-heartedly. “Congratulations.”

Placing the phone face down on the counter, Christine stared straight ahead of her, unseeing. It had been a long road from the last time she had sat on the edge of a tub, feeling herself at a precipice. That time, Raoul had been waiting in the other room for her, kind, open, full of optimism and full of life. Now, the other room held a man chained by his own demons, and beyond their hotel room door, ghosts awaited both of them.

“Christine.”

The knock on the bathroom door startled her so completely she let out a small yelp. She stumbled for the doorknob but Erik opened it first, framed by the darkness in the bedroom behind him. 

“I heard you on the phone,” he said, glancing from her face to the counter. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine, I—” She raked her eyes over his face, amazed by how cool and collected he looked, how cool he always looked, his skin always so perfect, as if he never got a pimple, never had bags under his eyes from lack of sleep, never had a wrinkle in his skin from the tumbled side of a pillow, as if his face was drawn on with perfect makeup, like a mask—

“Christine?”

His voice jolted her back to herself. “How are you?” She said, her breath rushed. “How—how are you?”

The look he gave her was measured, and it somehow made her feel very small. 

“Why don’t you go down and get some coffee? I’ll be ready soon.”

She swallowed, and he slipped past her into the bathroom and shut the door, closing her out physically just as he had closed her out emotionally since they had left New York. She took a shuddering breath as she stared at the closed door. Lifting her hand, she was seconds away from knocking before backing away quickly, her heart in her throat, tears threatening to collect at the corners of her eyes. Instead she took his advice, racing down the steps towards the hotel’s complimentary breakfast area, pacing, holding a hot tea for warmth and nothing more. In New York, last night, blood rushing past her ears, asking him to come with her had seemed like the obvious choice, the only choice. She had known it would be hard for him. She had known it would be taxing. But she hadn’t realized that maybe it would be harder for him than it was for her, that maybe what was waiting for him in this city was not as loving and kind as what was waiting for her. He had always said that his mother had loved him, but he had said she loved him too much, that she had died because of it—she shuddered, dropping her Styrofoam cup on a table, its contents spilling violently from the sides. 

“Watch you don’t burn yourself, little dove.”

She spun quickly, and he handed her a napkin. 

“Did you have anything to eat?”

She grasped at his elbows, shocked and a little unnerved by his monotone pleasantries. 

“Erik—” Her eyes searched his, her fingers reflexively pinching the fabric of his sleeve. “Erik, I’m sorry.”

He began to shake his head, but she barreled on. 

“I didn’t think, I didn’t—I didn’t realize—" 

“Don’t. Please.” He caressed her face lightly. “It’s easier if you don’t.”

“But—”

“Please, Christine.”

She swallowed her words, still searching his face, looking for the vulnerable teenager who had once lived here, the boy who had lost his mother, the pianist who had lost his music, but he was unreadable. 

“We’re here now,” he said. “We’re here.”

“Yes.”

He took a breath and looked slightly past her. “Tell me where you want to go, and we will go.”

“Perros. The churchyard.”

He nodded, but he had starting nodding before she had even spoken. 

“I called a car.”

“You knew?”

“Come. He’s almost here.”

The Uber was a black Lexus with clinically clean leather seats, water bottles in the seat pockets, and phone chargers hanging from the center console. They rode together in silence, bouncing forward with every jerky stop the driver made as traffic inched forward on South Sepulveda Boulevard. Every time they passed something familiar Christine yearned to point it out, pressed her hand against the glass as if she could touch it, keep it, these pieces of her past, but when she turned to show them to Erik, he was staring straight forward at the driver’s headrest, unblinking, unmoving. Hesitantly, she reached her hand towards his, and then abruptly turned away to look out the window again. 

She had been to this cemetery a few times before she had come to New York. Social workers and occasionally her aunt had led the lonely little girl by the hand, weaving their way through the neatly kept gardens and walkways, waiting for her a few respectful feet away as she sat and sobbed at her father’s grave. It had been so many years now, and there was so much to tell him, so much she had to describe, so many ways to say I wish you had been there. I wish you had seen.

The car pulled up alongside the entrance to the cemetery gates, and the driver turned back to look at the two of them.

“Um—” he cleared his throat. “Would you like me to drive you inside? Do you know the plot number?”

Christine chanced a glance at Erik, who continued his unblinking vigil as if the driver had never spoken. Sighing, she tucked an errant curl behind her ear.

“This is fine. Thank you.”

They stood together in the dust kicked up by the car’s retreating wheels, and in the ensuing silence, Christine finally worked up the courage to speak. 

“Erik, I want to go in now. To see my father.”

He was facing the open gates, his expression blank.

“Erik?” She touched his elbow and he flinched away from her suddenly, taking two unsteady steps backward.

“No. No. You go. You go in. I will wait for you. Go.”

Her heart sank in her chest. “I wanted to—”

“No, please. Please. Please. Christine, please.” He had wrapped his arms around himself and turned slightly away from her, his own personal wall against the world, a gesture she knew well at this point. 

“Okay. I’ll—okay. Are you going to be all right?”

“Yes.” He breathed the word with too much force. “Yes. You go. I will wait.”

“Okay.” Uncertainly, she reached for him again, gently laying her hand on his arm. “I might be a long time. I have a lot I want to say to him.”

He nodded. “That’s fine. Take all the time you need.”

Finding herself without anything else to say, without the understanding or the words or the insight to begin to comfort him, Christine squeezed his arm and walked away. She knew this path, after all, had traveled it many times in her imagination over the last ten years. Past the little chapel and down the narrow lane lined with palm trees. Down the second row, seven plots in. 

And there he was. 

Kneeling, she placed her two palms flat against the earth, resting her forehead against the cool stone. She was finally able to breathe. Ten years, and she could finally breathe. Her chest filled with joy frayed with long-held grief, twisting and curling inside of her until she felt lightheaded. She was home. She was home.

“Hi Papa,” she whispered, her tears falling unheeded onto the tops of her hands. “I have so much to tell you.”

He had said he would wait for her, but he regretted it. He needed to go, he needed to leave, he needed to go—anywhere, anywhere that wasn’t here, any place where the sky didn’t burn and the trees didn’t sway with mocking music and the memories weren’t so dense and tangled. For ten years he had been half-alive, drowning in his isolation, and Christine had saved him, she had ignited his soul and unclosed his eyes with her music, only to drag him back here, here, to the one place he could not escape. 

He needed to run. 

Rushing started in his ears and a pressure began to build in his chest, an enormous wave of guilt, and anguish, and regret, and anger, so powerful that he had to suck in a breath and viciously push it down, turn away from the cemetery and begin to walk, anything to take his mind off of what was waiting for him inside the gates. 

His vision was tunneling. He thought he was going to be sick. The tighter he gripped his elbows, the tighter he squeezed his eyes shut, the more the bile rose in his throat, the more the dizziness pressed in on him, the more the smoggy, oppressive air caught in his chest, but nothing could block out the stark image, flashing behind his eyelids, of the gates of that cemetery, the path Christine had walked down, the trees, the headstones, the unforgiving blue sky. Nothing could stop him from imagining, again and again, what would have happened if he had followed her in there, if he had seen—if he had seen—

It was a mistake to come here. It had been arrogance to come here, to think he could handle it, to think he could see this sun-scorched earth, ride along these traffic-infested highways, feel the beat of the sun on his neck and not think of her, of her, of his mother, of William Campbell, of the music, of that day when she had died in his arms, and how could Christine think that he could go in there with her, walk among those pathways with her, holding her hand, supporting her, when he had nothing to support himself, when his legs were shaking so badly he thought he’d collapse on the street in front of the cemetery? 

No, no, there were limits, there had to be, there had to be limits to what he could do for her, how far he could push himself, how much he could hold before he would break. No—no—he couldn’t go in there, couldn’t even bear to look at the gate for one more minute. 

She wanted him to walk with her, sit with her at her father’s grave, knowing that their lives had nearly ended because of him? How many other victims of his revenge were buried in that graveyard?

And what would happen when he saw it, saw the headstone he had never seen, the grave he had never visited, the plot around which his entire world spiraled? No. He squeezed his eyes so hard that tears leaked over the cheek of his mask. He wished he could rip it off. 

He couldn’t. And he couldn’t go inside. 

No—because somewhere, somewhere in that graveyard, his mother was buried. 

Chapter Text

Erik had started to walk, unseeing, unfeeling, just, away, when he felt Christine’s hand on his shoulder. He faced her, but he didn’t know what movements her mouth was making. His mind was too jumbled, too frayed at the edges, to process what she said, what her facial expression might mean, how he was supposed to respond. He stared at her instead, seeing the fresh tear tracks on her reddened face, trying to parse the tears with her smile, with the clear, contented look in her eyes. 

“Are you all right?”

How did she look so calm, when she had just seen her father? Didn’t she know? Hadn’t she heard he was dead? Didn’t she know they were all dead and it was his fault? Why was she smiling at him?

“Erik?”

“What?” Maybe he said it too harshly, maybe he had pulled away from her too roughly, because her eyes were clouding now, and he was sure that wasn’t what he wanted, sure that he wanted that lightness back in her eyes, but he wasn’t sure how to do it, and he was just sure he needed to leave. He needed to leave, and then everything would be better. If he could just—leave—

She was talking to him, and he reached his arm out, felt skin and gripped, and found himself holding her shoulder, Christine having stopped in mid-sentence to stare at him. He forced himself to focus on her eyes, to block out everything but those gorgeous, swimming blue eyes, to center himself on her as he had so many times before. 

“Christine.” He found his voice, and his dizziness receded just a bit. 

She pulled his hand from her shoulder and held it between two of her own. Meeting his eyes, she kissed his hand. “Can I take you somewhere?”

Anywhere but here.

“It’s somewhere I used to go with my father.”

Erik blinked. There was no escape for him, not this time. There was no Detroit, no Las Vegas, no Manhattan. Only the bludgeoning against his heart, again and again, of her smile, her eyes, the same eyes her father probably had, her father who lay dead somewhere beyond the gates with his mother. When would they leave?

“I’m not ready to go yet. I need more time.”

Erik hadn’t realized he had spoken out loud, and he tried to pull away from her, tried to turn, but she held tight.

“Erik, you need to look at me.”

Let me go, he thought. Let me go, let me hide, let me run—

“Erik.” She placed her palms on either side of his face, and he stepped back so suddenly that she stumbled and he had to catch her before she fell. His heart was racing as she stared at him again. Had she felt the silicone of the mask? Did she know?

But there was only confusion and pity in her eyes. Pity, he realized, for him. 

Was it better than her knowing? 

“Erik—” She shook her head. “God, I’m so sorry.” She stepped out of his arms and closed her eyes. He was sweating underneath his mask, his clothing too warm for the Los Angeles heat. “I should never have asked you to come.”

“Let’s leave,” he whispered. “Please, let’s go. The charter company can get us a jet whenever we want. We can leave in an hour.”

“I’m not ready,” she said again. “I’m sorry, but I’m not ready.”

They stared at each other, Christine’s eyes crinkling in concern.

And suddenly, he hated it. He hated all of it. Hated her pitying expression, hated himself, hated what he had done, hated William Campbell for forcing him to do it, hated Farjad for helping him, hated this city for watching it happen, this godforsaken, hideous, repulsive pile of concrete and ash. He hated the stupid, heavy mask sitting on his skin, hot as hell and dripping foul, burning sweat down his neck. He hated his wig, always leaving his scalp raw and red at the end of the night. And most of all, for a horrible, bitter moment, he hated her. He hated her with all of his being, hated that he needed to wear the mask, for her, hated that he needed the wig, for her, hated that he was standing on this cursed ground, all for her.

Then he reached for her hand and kissed her knuckles. 

“It’s all right.” He gripped her hand harder than he meant to. “Wherever you want to go, we can go.”

For her, he told himself. He would do it, for her. He was doing, had been doing it all this time, for her. 

It didn’t matter, none of it mattered. He would crush Erik Carriere as far down to the dungeons of his psyche as he could. As far as his mother was buried under the earth. 

For her. Even if it killed him. 

The sun was low in the sky by the time they reached the ocean. Christine had picked their way down one of the rickety staircases from the park towards the beach, the coastline rocky and speckled with tidepools, and as empty as she ever remembered it. It was a beach not often visited by tourists, with its huge boulders and ragged green cliffs, the shoreline curving around the horizon, dark blue water kissing the cloudless sky where her eyes could no longer see.

Taking Erik here had been a gamble. Doing anything with him after the cemetery other than heading directly back to New York had been a gamble, but she hadn’t been able to let go, not yet. Being here again, feeling the sun on her face, feeling the cool ocean breeze whip across her cheeks as it had all those years ago brought a comfort to her heart that she rarely felt. It was all still here, just as it had been. Her father could be just coming around the bend. 

Inhaling deeply, the sea air stinging her lungs, she sat on a rock as she always had with her father, staring into the rippling waters filled with barnacles and starfish, anemones and crabs. She liked to imagine it was the same anemone she had once seen with her father. 

“Anemone, Christine.”

“Ame—ameno—aneno—”

“A-ne-mo-nee.”

She smiled at the memory, dipping her fingers lightly into the water. She didn’t know how long they lived, but she could imagine. She could hope. 

She took several moments to herself, several precious moments to recapture that carefree feeling of a child skipping over boulders as her father watched, smiling, laughing, before she looked up from her memories to see the man who was actually standing beside her. The soft churn of the waves on the rocks did nothing to soften his expression or release the tension he held so tightly in his rigid back or clenched fists. Sighing, Christine ran a hand through her hair and returned her gaze to the blue horizon.

The taxi ride had been tense, but silent. She still hadn’t had a clue what to say to him, how to help him, and he refused to talk, only stared forward as he had on the drive there, the only evidence that they had ever been at the cemetery the dust on his shoes. So, as she had on the first drive, she turned away from him, in turns exasperated and worried, unsure if this was a barrier that would prove insurmountable to them.

The address she had put into the app was one she had been thinking about since talking to her father in the cemetery, the beach he had always taken her to when either of them had a tough day, the beach he told her was their private little secret. When she had thought of it, staring at her father’s name engraved on the stone, her heart had skipped a little at the idea of sharing it with Erik, but when she had returned to him, he had retreated so far within himself that she wasn’t sure he would even be aware of where they were going.

He had shocked her, then, by suddenly leaning forward in the middle of the drive, his knuckles turning white as he gripped the edge of the center console, nearly shouting at the driver to make a left.

“Not here, not here! Take the 110!”

The driver had given him a confused, almost fearful look.

“I don’t think I can get over—”

“Now, go! Turn the car around, then!”

The driver glanced helplessly at Christine, who pulled Erik’s hand from the console and tried to hold it in her lap, but Erik ripped it from her and instead clawed the edges of the driver’s seat. 

“Take the 110, by the hospital. Don’t you see it? Merge now!”

The driver swerved into the lane, earning himself several vicious honks, and Erik leaned back in his seat, his hands falling limp in his lap. He didn’t say a word to her, didn’t even look at her. But she knew, because she knew these roads like the back of her hand. Had he forgotten that she had lived here, too?

He had directed the driver to a longer, more circuitous route. To avoid passing the site of the Campbell building.

It was something she assumed they would talk about, even if they didn’t physically go there. How could they come all the way here, thousands of miles from New York, and not talk about the violent past they shared, the past that had shaped both of their lives so thoroughly? Was he really not going to let her in now?

“Erik,” she said, narrowing her eyes against a sharp slap of wind, the wisps of her hair flying into her face. “Sit.”

He made no motion to move, so she latched onto his arm and pulled him down next to her. He fell clumsily onto a rock, trying and failing to find a dry place for his long legs and eventually spreading them out across two clumps of sand, the water lapping at the edges of his shoes. Not saying a word, but not letting go of his arm, she waited. And waited. Until finally, he looked up at her. 

“This was my father’s favorite beach to take me to,” she said. She searched his eyes, searched his face, for some kind of recognition. “We would come here all the time.”

He stared at her, his eyes glossy. After a moment, much too long for a normal conversation, he nodded.

“It was our place.” She squeezed his arm. There was nothing more she could say. “I wanted to share it with you.”

Eventually, as the waves kicked up spray just beyond their faces and the wind continued to blow in gentle gusts, Erik placed his hand over hers and slid it onto his lap.

“I’m so sorry, Christine.”

She held his hand for a long time, letting the ocean speak between them. There was little for her to forgive, but so much she wished she knew. So much she wished she could help him forgive. 

“Did you ever come to the sea,” she asked, hoping it wasn’t the wrong question, “with your mother?”

Turning her hand over in his lap, he shook his head. “No. Never.”

The meekness of his response surprised her, emboldened her to continue down the path he usually barricaded. 

“Why not?”

He was tracing the lines of her palm slowly, running the back of his nail over the soft part of her hand. “I don’t know. I never asked. I never thought to ask.”

“Did she ever take you anywhere?”

“All over the world. London. Paris. Tokyo. She was always with me.”

It made sense, Christine thought. He had been a child performer. It was likely a legal technicality for him to have a parent or guardian with him at all times. But why didn’t it seem like just a technicality?

“How did you connect with your manager?”

Erik shook his head slowly, almost just a shift from side to side, still staring directly at her hand and not at her. 

“No, Christine. Please.”

“Aren’t we going to talk about it?”

“No. I can’t. I’m sorry.”

“But—”

“Christine—” He finally looked at her, and in his eyes she saw deep, pained weariness. “Please. I don’t want to fight you anymore. But I can’t give you this. I can’t. Please understand.”

Was it really so important, she thought, as they sat there watching the waves in silence. Was it really so important to her to hear the words from him? She had gone ten years without sharing it with anyone. She could wait until he was ready. It was the least she could do for him. 

As they walked up the stairs towards the street, Erik already grabbing his phone to call a cab, she suggested dinner, but he pleaded with her to order room service instead, and she accepted, trying to do any small thing she could to ease his way. Over hamburgers and fries, of which he ate very little, he asked her multiple times when they would be going back.

“I want to see a little more of the city still. It’s been so long. I still want to go back to the aquarium, and see the studio where my father taught. Just one more day, maybe?”

He shrugged, dropping a half-eaten fry onto his plate, and she grabbed his hand, forcing a smile, trying to make light the heavy burden of darkness he was carrying.

“Did you used to like the aquarium?” Her voice was upbeat with half-feigned enthusiasm. “I loved it. I used to beg my father to take me. I think it could be fun if we go.”

“I went once to an aquarium in Las Vegas,” he said, his eyes nearly unfocused as he looked at her. “I was tripping so hard on acid I stared at the jellyfish tank for three hours before they asked me to leave.”

Momentarily shocked, Christine dropped his hand without intending to. He had never spoken about Las Vegas before, not that she could remember. He was saying a lot of things tonight he had never said before. 

“They move with such terrifying beauty. Did you ever think that something terrible could be beautiful? My mother said so.” He rubbed his hand over his face as he stared at her, and then he pressed both of his palms against his cheeks in a bizarre, abrupt move. “No, she never said that. Did she? I am tired. I don’t know what I’m saying. Christine, I can’t go into the city with you. Please don’t ask me to. You may take all the time you want. But please don’t ask me to come.”

Gingerly, she eased out of her chair and came to kneel beside him, leaning her head onto his lap. “I’m grateful you’re here with me, Erik. I’m sorry it has to be so hard for you.”

His fingers came to play with the frizzy wisps of her hair, brittle with seawater and salt. “You could not have known, little dove. How could you have known? Christine, I love you more than anything I have ever loved in my life.”

Her heart skipping a beat, she lifted her head and kissed his hand, smiling gently at him.

“Look at you,” he whispered. He grazed the side of her cheek. “You’re the most beautiful thing in the world.”

“More beautiful than a jellyfish?”

Confusion filled his eyes, and she suppressed a laugh, instead standing and pulling him to his feet beside her. 

“Come to bed, Erik.”

Mutely he followed her, sitting on the bed as she turned out the lights and drew the curtains. After hesitating briefly, she came to sit next to him on the bed, running her hands along the tense lines of his shoulders. 

“How can I make this easier for you?” She asked, massaging the rigid muscles of his back, placing feather-light kisses along the fabric of his shirt. “Erik?”

In the silent shadows she pushed him gently down onto the bedspread, beginning to unbutton his shirt from the bottom. 

“Erik.” She kissed his chest. “Let me help you. Let me help you forget for a little bit.”

Moving slightly atop him, she caressed the exposed skin in the ways she knew he liked, exploring and speaking with her fingers the words she could not form with her mouth. A long sigh escaped him, and he pulled her up by her arms and settled her into the bed beside him, his hand looping around her neck as he brought his mouth to hers. What began as a slow, sweet melding quickly turned into a crushing need, his tongue thrusting against hers as he hooked one of his legs over hers, his fingers splaying out from her hips to travel up underneath her shirt. In a blur of pleasure tingling down her spine and calloused fingers on her thighs and breathless moans from her lips, she reached for any part of him she could, finding him firm and warm against her palm. 

Abuprtly, he tore away from her.

“I’m sorry.” She closed her eyes, already knowing what words came next. “I can’t.” He shifted off the bed and stood in the darkness, his hand paused in his hair. “I’m sorry, Christine. I just—not here. Not in this… place.”

She was fooling herself if she thought he meant an airport hotel room. It was this place, this city, these streets that were wearing him down into nothing, grinding the last shreds of his sanity into the ground. Turning on her side to stare at the wall, she heard the faint sounds of the shower being turned on. In the penthouse, she would have waited for him, pounced on him, teased his towel away from him until she lured him back to bed.

Tonight, all she could do was hope that tomorrow would be a better day. 

Hot water sluiced over his shoulders, droplets running over his sparse hair into his eyes. Erik stood in the shower for much longer than was necessary, his ministrations long over, just watching the water swirl and swirl and disappear into the drain. In his home inside the Maggie, his bathroom had no mirror, and in Manhattan, he gotten used to always facing away from it. Here, though, here in this place, where his mother had once giggled over brushing his hair in her bedroom vanity, he stood with his hands braced against the sink, forcing himself to stare into his brightly-lit fluorescent reflection. 

Arms too thin and sinewy, shoulders bony and pale, a chest concave and skeletal. Veins bulged green and purple from his hands and elbows. His scalp was barely dusted in gray-brown hairs clumping into locks in some places, others sporadic and scant. And his face. Of course. His face.

He couldn’t feel disgusted by what he saw. No, this was what he was, and he had always known it. At one point in his life, it hadn’t mattered to him at all. His mother had stood behind his reflection in the mirror innumerable times and told him that he was beautiful. That he was smart. Talented. Incredible. 

Later, in Las Vegas, he simply hadn’t cared. He had become numb. It was only now, now that he had something to lose, now that he had tried to make his life into a lie, make himself into a lie, that he had a hard time looking in the mirror. What did Christine see when she looked at him? 

Slipping back into his clothes, he replaced his mask and wig, and when he looked once more into the mirror, the shock was as great as seeing Michael Myers standing suddenly behind him. How did no one else see how eerie this mask was? How fake? How lifeless? He touched the cheeks, his fingertips burning. Could Christine have loved him without it? Hadn’t his mother?

Sighing from deep within himself, he stepped out of the bathroom and slid under the blankets. Christine was asleep, her arm tucked under her chin, her hair spread out haphazardly across her pillow. He turned to her, watching her silently as she breathed, her face a true picture of timeless beauty as she slept. He marveled at how easily she had met her past, but then, she had never had anything to face but grief, never had to shoulder the terrible burden of guilt and regret and hatred and anger that had pushed him into solitude all those years ago. 

It was easy to ignore her when she woke up in the morning, easy to pretend he was sleeping, easy to wait until she had left the room before getting up and staring at the empty bed beside him. She had left a note saying that she had gone out and would call him later.

Ironically, in this place that had stripped him of his music, he wished he had his violin, or a piano, or a keyboard, or anything on which to flex his fingers and release his tension. The need grew throughout the day as he paced the length of their small hotel room, and eventually, numb to what he was doing, as if watching himself from the outside, he left, heading blindly, stupidly, recklessly towards a music store, his eyes trained on the ground, a ground that could have been in any city in the world, if he told himself that enough times. An inexpensive violin was procured and tuned, and then he lifted his chin to the wood and began to play, weaving past people, his eyes half closed as he walked, just playing and playing and playing until he could no longer hear the thoughts in his own head. Whether people followed him or not, he did not take notice; whether crowds gathered around him when he finally sat on a sparse piece of grass and leaned against a tree, he did not care. All he wanted to do was play, feel his own tears run over his cheeks and onto his bow hand, take back what had been stolen from him, even if he could never fully recover it, even if he himself had destroyed it and burned it and buried it in ash. All he wanted was to feel, for one moment, what he had felt when he was sixteen. City of Angels. A young boy who just wanted to be loved, for more than just his music, for more than just a name, a crowd, a crescendo. For himself. As himself. 

Sighing, the music petering out as his emotions ran dry, his chest stinging and raw, the violin fell to his lap, and he opened his eyes to hazily regard the applauding crowd. Looking from face to face, he wondered if any among them had heard him once before, if any among them had stared at a screen and listened to his music fill an auditorium. He inclined his head, feeling disoriented as he got to his feet and began to walk away, and this time he couldn’t ignore the palm trees, the blue skies, the seagulls. He walked slowly, watching the sparkling pavement in the sunlight, hearing the blaring horns and the rumbling buses. There wasn’t enough time in the world, not enough strength within him, not enough words in a thousand books to say what he needed to say, to make his amends with this city, so instead he had given his music, and hoped it was enough. 

An hour later, violin case still in hand, Erik picked up a call from Christine, who said she was just leaving her father’s old studio. 

“Are you still at the hotel?” She asked.

Erik shrugged. “Are you coming back now?”

“I can,” she said, “if you want me to.”

“But?”

“Well—” Erik swallowed thickly in her silence. “I wanted to go back, I think. Just one more time, I think. Then I’ll be ready to leave.”

Erik stared at the ground, his thoughts swirling. Another person to make his amends with, another person to play his music for. Gustave, the other violinist, the other man who treasured Christine.

“Erik? I—I know you probably—”

“I will meet you there.”

“No—I mean, if you want, but you really don’t have to—”

“I will meet you there,” he said again, unsure why, unsure what he thought he was doing, unsure why he thought he could do it. But just this—just this one last thing, and then they could leave. 

For her. 

He met her at the entrance to the cemetery with a small bouquet of white lilies, and she took them from him, bemused, thankful. 

“For your father’s grave,” he said, somewhat unnecessarily, and Christine nodded, unmoving by the gate, looking at the violin case in his hand. 

“I did go out,” he said. “Briefly.”

“Did it help?”

“In a way.”

“Good.” She took his hand, still hesitating, still not looking at him. 

“Are you sure about this, Erik? I can go alone.”

“Do you want me to come with you?”

She slowly looked up to meet his eyes. “Only if you think you can.”

Erik cleared his throat, the constant questioning and wavering picking at his resolve. “I will go with you,” he said. “If you want me to.”

Nodding again, she turned from him and moved into the cemetery, leading him by the hand. He stared at her hair, at her back, at the sun in the sky, following her without thinking, without seeing. If he didn’t look, it would be fine. 

Christine led in silence, her face curiously drawn and pensive, twisting her way down the shaded lanes as if she had traversed them many times before. And perhaps she had, for all he knew, before she had been sent to New York. Perhaps she had spent every evening here, every morning, perhaps she had shared every high and low with her father, every secret, every heartache. Don’t look. Perhaps she had even planted flowers for him. Don’t look. Wasn’t that what people did at cemeteries? 

“Here,” Christine said, stopping a little bit beyond the chapel under a patch of exposed sky. “Here he is.”

Her voice was just the smallest bit strangled, and as she knelt to press her palm to his grave, he did so as well, feeling the cool stone on his fingertips, a rush of regret and pain so deep it nearly brought him to his knees.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, to Gustave, and not Christine, who smiled sadly at him, who thought she was speaking to her. “I’m so sorry.”

“Papa,” she said, sitting cross-legged on the ground, “this is Erik.” She laid his bouquet of flowers at the base of the headstone. “I’m so happy you’re finally getting to meet him.”

Overwhelmed, Erik took a few steps back, glad he had never learned the names of any of the seventy-two victims of the Campbell fire, glad he had not seen their graves, glad he had not met the lovers and daughters and husbands they had left behind. It was too much, he knew it would be too much, he knew that, and at the same time, if he had to be here, if Christine needed to be here, then he would give the only thing he could. For her.

Falling to the ground against the back of another stone, his hands shaking, forcefully expelling all thought from his mind, he retrieved the violin from the case, and for the second time that day, began to play. 

It was an apology, it was a peace offering. I love her, he said, I’m sorry. He played until his fingers ached, until he felt the day’s heat begin to move off his neck, the sun dropping lower and lower in the sky. 

Christine had been sitting for some time, her eyes closed, listening, tears gently tracking down her cheeks, and when he finished, replacing the bow and instrument in the case, the silence and the breeze deafening in his ears, she opened her eyes and smiled. 

“Thank you. For the flowers, and for the music. And for being here.”

He nodded, watching her in the dying sunlight. Was this peace? Was this as close to peace as he might ever get?

“I’m ready to go if you are,” Christine said after a moment. “I’m ready to go back.”

Peace. The thought washed over him, warming him in a way that the Los Angeles sun never could. It was over. It was finally over. They were going back.

Standing, Erik brushed off his pants and held out his hand to her, and she pushed off from the dust and moss and rose to her feet. Together, they made their way past the chapel, walking slowly down the lane, and Erik breathed out, his heart rate already calming at the thought of the flight, the distance between him and this city, his penthouse over Manhattan, Christine in his arms. Soon. He gripped her hand tighter.

Christine stumbled on a jutting bit of stone in the sidewalk, and one of the flowers she had saved from his bouquet went tumbling from her arms. He bent to pick it up, but the stem had been tossed slightly to the side by the wind, and as he rose, he made the one, small, fateful mistake that would change everything. 

He looked. 

And he saw.

Chapter Text

Erik had never imagined Madeleine’s headstone. He had never thought about the plot, the ground, the dirt, the weeds, the sky, the temperature of the ambient air. The existence of her grave, the fact that she was physically buried somewhere in the Perros Churchyard in Los Angeles, had never meant anything to him in any real sense. He had never intended to see it. Never intended to touch it. 

It was never supposed to be real.

Her name was etched into the stone, deep, hollow. Curves and edges and points that some journeyman had carved out of a rubber stencil with a sharp, pointed scalpel. Chiseling. Plucking. Not a word, not even letters. Just points, all parts and no whole. M is made of two Is and a V. L is just a line. I just a dot. He saw it over and over again. The peeling. The tracing. A rubber mask being pulled back to reveal what he had never accepted:

Madeleine Carriere.

Death.

It hit him with a force that knocked all the air from his body. Death. Her breath was gone, and so was his. Her breath had left him with a whisper of her voice, her body sinking into his. Still warm. Still soft. Death.

“Oh God.” He choked on his own saliva, his mouth not working, his throat closed and painful, his vision swirling as he fell to his knees in the brown dirt. He was sweating, his fingers trembling.

M. A. D. E. It was a mad dance of letters before his eyes. L. E. I. N. E.

A sob ripped, visceral, from his chest.

“Erik?” Christine’s voice was light, worried, behind him.

Oh God. No. No. No. No—

“Is it—is it your mother?”

“No—”

Christine knelt beside him, gently laying her hand on his shoulder, and he tore at the earth, grounding again and again against the dry, solid dirt. No—it wasn’t her, it wasn’t real, no, no, no—

Christine tried to speak again, tried to touch him, and he lunged at her throat, his hands sliding from the hollow of her neck to her breastbone as he thrust her in front of his eyes. He looked unseeing, watched unhearing as she struggled to escape his grasp, gasping from the pain, because it was easier to look at her, easier to stare at her in her confusion and fear, than it was to face what was behind her.  He couldn’t see, he couldn’t look—he couldn’t see how weather-beaten her headstone was, how bare the grass was, how no one had ever come to weed or lay stones or plant flowers, how he had never come to tend her grave because he couldn’t, he couldn’t—his fingers involuntarily dug into Christine’s arms as he sucked in huge, painful breaths, his head shaking, his entire body shaking—Momma. Momma. Oh God, oh God, Momma—

“Erik, stop—stop it—”

She clawed at the backs of his hands, and when she managed to rip herself away from him and stumble onto her heels, he fell forward onto his elbows, prostrate before her grave. And he wailed, and he screamed, the depths of his anguish filling the empty cemetery as Christine looked on, dumbstruck, horrified.

“Momma.” Each syllable of her name dragged out, pulled from him, ripping his chest raw, and he crawled, his face—his mask—against the earth, crawled until the top of his head hit her headstone, but it wasn’t enough, it wasn’t enough, and he slithered his hands up the sides of the stone, pulling the dead weight of his body along with him, pressing his cheek against the letters of her name, hoping to feel their indentations, their coolness. But he didn’t, he couldn’t, because it wasn’t his cheek, and it wasn’t his hair, and it wasn’t his nose against the grave, and all he wanted in that moment was to shred the rubber and plastic and rest his real face next to his mother. 

“Momma,” he whispered. He curled his fingers around the edges of the stone and hugged himself to it.

Hesitating, her fingers trembling, Christine touched his shoulder, barely whispering his name.

He shook his head, empty of energy to shrug her off, but curling inward and away from her nonetheless. So much had been a lie, he and Christine no more than the rest of it. For years he had thought of the rest of them, of the men and women who had died, of the fire, of Las Vegas, of his own music dashed into pieces, but it had all been a lie, a pretty, self-indulgent lie to wallow in, to drown in, so that he wouldn’t have to face this, so that he would never have to face her. Madeline. Because he could fool Gustave, and he could fool Christine, and he could fool himself, and he could fool all of Los Angeles, but he could never fool her. Never Madeleine.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m so sorry.”

Everything he had never allowed himself to think was so clear in this graveyard, all the images he had forced down with alcohol, and sex, and unbearable, hellish silence, stood before him now, vivid and painful and clear. What Madeleine’s life would have been without him, without her son without a face. What Madeleine must have thought the moment he was born. The horror. The fear. The disappointment.  

Madeleine, paying a doctor to sign a fake death certificate. Madeleine, looking her deformed son in the mirror and telling him he was perfect. Madeleine, looking at her own tired, defeated face in the same mirror, downing a bottle of pills and waiting for it all to end. 

Erik shuddered. There it was—the end of it all, the beginning of it all. He had killed her, and he had known it all this time. From the moment he had been born, he had killed her. 

How could she ever have loved him? How could any of it have been true?

“Erik?”

He flinched, having forgotten that he wasn’t alone, having forgotten Christine was there at all, and he turned his face away from her, staring at the groove between the headstone and the blades of grass nestled beside it. 

“Please,” he whispered. “Please leave me alone.”

There had been many times in his life when he had wanted to die, but never more than now, never more than this moment in which he had finally admitted to himself what he had always known: Madeleine had not loved him. Madeleine could not have loved the child who had ruined her life. She had played it so well—so well she almost believed it, so well that Erik had held onto that belief for years, so well that she had pretended that his music filled the void that he had created in her life. 

How had she been able to stand it? Every night and every morning with his skeleton face staring back at her?

“Erik—” Christine was whispering too, kneeling beside him again with her hand hesitating over his shoulder, and he stood suddenly, backing a full step away from her.

“Please go,” he said, curling his arms around his body. “Please go and do not come back.”

Christine’s eyes crinkled in some form of misplaced pity, some kind of presumed insight into what he was feeling. “Erik, I know it’s hard—”

“You do not know.” His voice was strained, hard, devoid of all of its beauty, stripped bare and nearly as ugly as his face.  

“I do,” she said, and he could see her eyebrows bending, the emotion stirring behind her pupils. “I know what it’s like—”

“You don’t know.” He stared at her in the harsh dying light of the day, every whispered intimacy between them, every tender tendril of her feelings for him now clearly revealed for what they were, what they had always been—lies. He didn’t want this. He had never wanted this, not really, and he had known it, but it had been so beautiful, so blindingly, unbearably sweet, that he had let himself believe it for a little while. Let himself pretend that Christine, like his mother, could love him even without the mask. 

Laughable. It was laughable. It was so funny, so absurdly funny, that suddenly he was laughing, clutching his sides and bending over with the force of it.

“I don’t understand,” Christine whispered.

“Of course you don’t.” His laugh was horrible, guttural . “Of course you don’t. You don’t know me. You don’t know me at all.” 

“Erik—I love you.”

“Ha! No you don’t. You can’t! You don’t know me at all!”

Christine’s face began to crumple, and the laugh in his chest stuck, stuck so hard that breathing was painful, and he had to turn away from her before he cried, before he fell to her feet and begged.

God, how had he let it get this far? 

“Can you tell me?” She asked quietly. “Can you tell me what’s going on?”

For a moment, staring at the dark blue clouds gathering over the snow-capped mountains in the distance, the rows and rows of neat headstones sleeping peacefully under the burning sky, he imagined what it would mean if he were to tell her. He imagined, just for that moment, if he said, “I am wearing a mask,” and if he took it off, and if he showed her, really showed her, showed her himself, his mother, their past, and what it meant to him. And if, when it was over, he knelt before her and begged her to love him anyway. Without the mask. Without the music. 

Just him. 

He turned to her. He thought of a million pretty words. A thousand speeches filled his mind, conversations that went on for days. Him explaining—her listening. The fire, he would say. It was an accident. Can you forgive me?

And she would say, yes. Yes, Erik. I forgive you. I see you. 

And he wouldn’t need any of it. Not the piano. Not his voice. Not the music. No—because, if she saw him, really saw him—then—wouldn’t—wouldn’t she—?

He tried, for a second. He tried to speak. She was looking at him so hopefully, her hands just reaching out for him, but nothing came out. He had no words. He had no face. He had nothing.

He was nothing.

As if mocking him, he suddenly heard his mother’s voice loud and clear, light and loving as it had always been, speaking in his ear above his shoulder, just ruffling his hair. 

You have your music. You have your music, Erik. And whatever else happens in life, you’ll always have your music, won’t you?

Beside Christine’s legs, a little space away from the path, was the abandoned violin case. He staggered towards it, Christine flinching away from him as he did, and he pried the instrument from the velvet casing. Raising it to the sky, he held it up as a toast—to the best musician in the world—before he drove it into the earth before his mother’s headstone, the scroll cracking as it divided the ground, the pegs flying off in every direction. The shattered violin stood, erect and broken, a tombstone for the living. 

A tombstone for Erik Carriere, the son she had killed at birth.

After an unbearable moment, he left, and Christine stood, still, silent, watching the strings hang limply in the wind. 

The thing she hated herself for the most was expecting him to come back. After arriving back in New York, alone, the seat next to her on the chartered plane conspicuously and painfully empty, Christine told herself that Erik just needed time. She had known, after all, how difficult the trip to Los Angeles had been for him, had sensed for a long time how much he had never faced his own trauma. It was almost a forgone conclusion, she told herself, that he would react poorly to being confronted with his mother’s grave after so many years. All he needed was time. 

Meg long gone to Houston with nothing but a scribbled note about the security deposit, Christine finished moving out of her apartment alone, making small talk with the new tenants, asking about their class schedule in the fall, joking about the cafeteria pizza. All the while, she told herself that Erik just needed time. She did not think about the way he had grabbed at her, the bruises that still speckled her upper arms. She did not think about the violin, splintering into pieces as it hit the ground. She did not think about the disturbing, unearthly howl of pain he had unleashed at the sight of Madeleine’s grave, as if he had never seen it before. As if he had never cried for her before. 

No. He just needed time. 

Half expecting to see him, nervous about how he would act, anxious to know he was all right, Christine arrived at the penthouse with her remaining things, as they had discussed. But he was not there. Not there, she told herself, of course, because he just needed more time.

She unpacked and took the spare bedroom, the one that had once been Nadir Khan’s, weary with worry and constantly replaying that final scene in front of her eyes, day and night. The way he had cried. The way he had flinched. The heart-wrenching, hopeless way he had clutched at his mother’s grave. Still, she waited for him to come back. Because she was sure he would. They had made it so far, had made it through so much. And she knew she could help him, if only he’d let her in one last time. 

So she waited, and waited, scrolling mindlessly through social media, her head lolling off the side of the couch, eating takeout with no mind to her dwindling personal accounts, sure he would come back. So sure, that when the knock finally sounded on the door, she leapt to her feet, sans bra and in flimsy pajamas, not even bothering to check herself in the mirror before answering it. 

So sure, that when she swung open the door, Erik’s name on her tongue, only to lock eyes with Nadir Khan, all she could do was stare, and stare, and stare.

Nadir looked her up and down, once, and she snapped out of her stupor, slithering her arms over her chest and feeling the heat climb her cheeks. 

“What do you want?”

Nadir lifted his eyebrows. Without waiting for an invitation, he stepped inside, slowly shutting the door behind him. 

“I didn’t expect to see you here,” he said. 

Christine blushed again, and turned away from him to grab an oversized sweater off the couch and throw it over her head. The state of the apartment, of course, was a bit of a disaster, and if she could think of anyone in the world she would not want to share this last week of hell with, it was Nadir Khan. Tossing empty Chinese food containers into the garbage and draping throw blankets over her piles of dirty clothing, she tried to hide the worst of the damage, stalling until she had to face him again. She stacked book upon book, pretending like it made a difference, all the while her stomach sinking lower and lower into her belly, until all she felt was a raw, searing pit. Because it hadn’t been Erik. And she had been an utter, utter fool to think it would be.

Swallowing against an aching throat, she threw a careless glance at him.

“What are you doing here?”

Nadir didn’t answer right away, and she forced herself to turn fully towards him, only to see that he had leaned himself up against the wall, his arms folded, as if she was the intruder, not him. 

“I could ask you the same question.”

She stiffened. “I live here.”

Nadir watched her, flicking his fingers against his nails repeatedly, a move so smug and infuriating that she would have snapped at him if his next statement hadn’t plunged her into ice.   

“I am here to see Erik.”

Christine felt her face drain of color, her arms falling from her chest, no longer caring how she looked or what Nadir saw. “What do you mean?”

Nadir’s hand motions stopped, his fingers stuck with the nails pressed against the pads, the first indication that he was unsettled. 

“Erik. Where is he? I want to talk to him.”

Christine stared at him, her heart crumpling in her chest, wishing this conversation was some sick joke. “He’s not here,” she said, her voice catching. “I don’t know where he is. I thought you were him.”

Nadir pushed abruptly away from the wall, moving towards the balcony doors and the rapidly setting sun, and then turning quickly away and pacing around the couch.

“When did you last talk to him? When was he last here? Did he say anything when he was here?”

Every question was a new prick to her heart.

“Nadir—” She swallowed hard, and he gave her a sharp, penetrating glance. “If you haven’t heard from him—if he’s not back— then I don’t know if he’s ever coming back.”

“Back?” He rounded the couch and gripped the edge of the armrest. “Back from where?”

“Los Angeles.”

Nadir’s fingers flexed against the armrest, his entire body stilling.

“What?” His voice was a rasp.

“We went to Los Angeles. Last week. But something happened, and I came back without him. I thought he’d follow. I would have thought—I would have thought you’d have seen him, by now.”

Nadir’s chest rose and fell heavily as he stared at her. “He went to Los Angeles?”

“I asked him to come with me. To visit my father’s grave.”

Nadir’s eyes fell closed, removing his hand from the couch and pressing it against his forehead. “Dear God.”

“Nadir—” Christine took a step towards him, and then stopped. 

His head continued to shake slowly back and forth. “I can’t believe it,” he said under his breath. 

“Is—” She swallowed. “Is he going to be okay?”

Nadir swept past her and reached for the door. “I don’t know. I don’t know if he’s going to come back. He never wanted to go back there.” He gave her one, brief, accusing glance. “I’m sure he thought he was doing it for you.”

Reacting as if she had been punched in the gut, Christine swung her arm out and slammed the door shut.

“What the hell does that mean?”

Nadir looked away. “It doesn’t matter. Forget it.”

“I think it matters a lot. Look, I didn’t force him to come with me. I asked him, and he said yes. It was clear he didn’t want to, but he still decided to go. He still booked the jet himself.”

“Forget it. You don’t understand.”

“Oh, that’s a line I haven’t heard before.”

Nadir narrowed his eyes. “You truly have no idea what is going on here. If you had even one clue, you wouldn’t be here now.”

“What is that supposed to mean? You don’t know anything about our relationship.”

“I know a lot more than you think I do. I know a lot more than you do.”

Christine laughed bitterly. “You two make a great pair. No wonder you used to live together. Do you write your vaguely threatening one-liners together?”

“I’m glad you think it’s a joke. The last time Erik disappeared, he didn’t come back for a year. Excuse me.” Nadir cut past her and opened the door, and Christine slammed her hand against the open door, shouting after his retreating form. 

“But what’s the big deal? What’s the big goddamn secret about Los Angeles? He’s not the only one who suffered! He’s not the only one who survived the fire!”

Nadir stopped mid-motion, his finger inches away from pushing the elevator button. The look he gave her was scathing. 

“You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Enlighten me then! The two of you love to tell me how much I don’t know!”

“You don’t want to know.”

“Oh, please—”

“Trust me. You don’t.”

Christine snorted, but the air stuck in her chest at the look in his eyes. She had to try to force the venom back into her voice. “I already know about the Campbell building. I know he’s grieving—”

“You don’t know anything. And if you did, you would never come back here.”

“Why do you keep saying that?” Christine fought down a sudden rush of tears. “What do you mean?” She threw her arms out to the sides. “What does any of this have to do with me?”

Nadir’s hand fell from the buttons to his pants with an audible slap, the sound deafening in the sudden silence. 

“What does it have to do with me?” She whispered.

He paused just long enough to make her shiver.

“Everything.”

Chapter Text

For hours after, days after, Nadir’s words still rung in her head. It was so much information, condensed into so few, uncaring, impersonal words. So we set off a bomb. Staring at the ceiling, watching shadows move as the days passed by, she heard him. The fire was an accident. Accepting even more takeout she couldn’t afford with a hoodie cinched over her hair, avoiding the doorman’s eyes, she imagined it. An Erik ten years younger, a Nadir with no gray hairs. Planning their entrance into William Campbell’s office. Planting the bomb. Running, coughing, scared in the black smoke of the ensuing explosion just like everyone else. Just like her father. Just like her.

The beginning days of summer passed her by in a blur of anger, a bit too much alcohol, and a lot of self-pity. Rehearsals at the Met didn’t start for another few weeks, so Christine had a lot of time to fester, a lot of time to poke around the penthouse, getting righteously indignant about Erik’s pretentious piano, his snobby collection of books, his taste in color combinations, his choice of cookware. She delighted in methodically going through his dusty cabinet of wines and spirits, ransacking his sheet music, and throwing open the floor-to-ceiling windows all hours of the day and night, having little care if the furniture discolored or if his expensive paintings faded. It was her apartment now, wasn’t it? Isn’t that what he had said?

Sometimes, she was nearly choked with disgust. Was she supposed to feel bad? Was she supposed to pity him, that faraway teenager, regretting setting off his little bomb, feeling guilty that he had ruined so many lives? He fled after that. And then he hid himself away and never spoke again. Was his vow of silence supposed to be some kind of penance? Was it supposed to make it better? And she would take a small comfort in throwing some of his expensive wine off the railing of his wrap-around balcony. 

Other times she would wallow in her own grief, drowning her tears in his luxurious master bath, soaked in bath salts. When she was feeling particularly bad for herself, she would play Liszt and let the melancholy pianist’s sounds wind their way into her bitter heart. She had loved him so much, trusted him with so much of herself, and he had betrayed her in so many ways. He had known, all this time, known all along, every detail of what had happened to her since she was twelve years old, and he had never said a word, never tried to reach out, never tried to comfort her. And then, when all of it was done, when she had gone through her anger again,  reminded herself of her litany of grievances, ran through all her misery, she would simply sit in the cooling bath, staring blankly ahead of her. 

When there was a nice breeze out Christine would walk down the length of Central Park towards Lincoln Center, familiarizing herself with her short commute. It was about a mile by foot, a pleasant walk that she could intersperse with meanderings through the park in the spring or fall, or a quick bus ride stopping a few blocks from her apartment building. On one of these walks, after laying in the sun by the lake for several hours, watching the clouds move, feeling the grass beneath her neck, Christine called Meg, hoping she was as unwilling to give up on their friendship as Christine was.

“Long time no speak.” Meg’s voice was subdued, as Christine could have expected.

“How are you? How are things in Houston?”

Meg paused just long enough for it to become uncomfortable.

“So we’re really doing this? We’re really going to pretend like nothing happened?”

Christine sighed, rubbing her hand over her brow. “Can we? Just for now?”

“Is he there with you right now?”

Christine suppressed a snort. “No.”

“Fine. Sure. Whatever. I like Houston. My roommates have been great. Rehearsals are starting soon. What about you?”

They made small talk for a bit, until the conversation petered out into awkward silence that stretched until Christine had made it all the way back to the penthouse. 

“Look,” she started, but, sitting on the couch in the living room, she had no idea where to even begin. “I know I hurt you, and for that, I’m really sorry.”

“It’s not even about me. Not really. Yeah, I was super pissed off. And yeah, I think I had a right to be. But Christine, it’s not about me. It’s about you. I was worried about you. I still am.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

Meg blew out a breath. “I just don’t know how to talk to you about this anymore. If you’ve made your decision and you’re going to be with him, then I just think it’s something we can’t talk about. Maybe one day I’ll come around to him. If I see that he treats you right. If he earns my trust.”

Christine pressed the speaker phone, tossing the phone down on the cushion beside her and massaging her temples with both hands.

“Meg—”

“I know, I know. I don’t know him. I’m all wrong about him. I get it. We should just talk about something else.”

Christine leaned her head all the way back into the plush couch and closed her eyes. She wasn’t ready to tell Meg what had happened. She wasn’t ready to detail the devastating end to her trip to Los Angeles, and she especially wasn’t ready to talk about what she had learned afterwards. She wasn’t sure what she wanted from her. Just a friendly ear. Just someone who cared.

“I’ve been taking a lot of walks through Central Park,” she said. “So many more than I ever did when we were at the Maggie. There are so many talented artists just sitting on sidewalks.”

“I’m glad you’re finally getting to enjoy the city,” Meg said, and Christine was grateful that she was willing to pick up the new thread of conversation. “Houston has so much nightlife and street life, I’ve just been dying to sink my teeth into all of it.”

They chatted for a bit longer, Meg raving about a viral video she had seen recently that Christine absolutely had to watch, and when Christine laughingly agreed to film her reaction, Meg texted her the link. 

“You have to tell me as soon as you watch it,” Meg said, sounding more like herself than she had the entire conversation. “You’re absolutely going to die, I just know it. It’s totally your thing. I have to go, okay? But let me know.”

“I will.”

“Promise?”

“Yes.”

Christine puttered around the apartment for the next few hours, making dinner, washing dishes, and then sprawling out on the couch with the breeze filtering in through the windows, her legs propped up on the armrest while her head nestled into the corner of a cushion. She scrolled aimlessly through her phone, re-reading emails from the Met about her first day of rehearsal, trying and failing to avoid posts from incoming students at the Maggie, and looking up free things to do in the city while the rest of her break stretched on. Eventually, she remembered to open Meg’s link, a YouTube video that had almost nine million views in the week since it was posted. The little rectangular space of her phone ran through two ads before it switched abruptly from a car commercial to the shaky camerawork of someone filming a violin player on the street.

Christine’s eyes skittered away from the video, bitter that Meg had sent her a video of a violin player, resentful that Meg wouldn’t have had any reason to know it would bother her. The video quality wasn’t great, and there was some general murmuring and talking beside the camera that distracted from the grainy music. She let it play in the background of her thoughts, unable to unsee Erik slamming his violin into the ground, splintering the wood again and again before her eyes. Swinging her legs over the edge of the couch, she was about to turn it off, unsure why the video had gone viral, when the extraneous voices quieted and the camera suddenly zoomed in on the musician, his back propped up against a tree. 

A palm tree.

Christine sat ramrod straight, her fingers squeezing and pinching the image until his face was a blurry mess of pixels and her eyes were filled with frustrated tears. Was this what she needed now? A video with five million views and endless comments about how this violinist had changed their lives? 

Throwing her phone down, she burst through the door onto the balcony, gulping huge breaths of fresh air. Why? She shouted into the blue oblivion, her throat sore with tears. Why? That was what kept her up at night—not her grief, not her anger. Why? Why had he done any of it? Nadir hadn’t known, Nadir hadn’t been able to explain why Erik had hated William Campbell so much or why he had opened a music school for orphans or why he had secluded himself for years. All Nadir had been able to tell her were the details, the nonsense of it, the mistakes, the decisions. He hadn’t known the why. 

All she had ever wanted from him, all she had ever asked, had been why. She had never known why she had been a victim of the fire, why the universe took her father, why she had had to scrape and claw and scream for things that came naturally to others, like fitting in, like an ordered mind, like a calm heart. She didn’t know why Gustave had died and left her with an indifferent aunt, why the social workers who should have championed her let her fall through the cracks, why it had happened to her when others lived their lives without fear. And she would never know why these things had happened, because they were luck of the draw, they were the shortest, ugliest stick, they were plain dumb and hideous luck. 

But Erik—he knew why. He had known this entire time and had had the ability to ease even a little of her anguish. And he hadn’t. In a cruel, random, cacophonous world, he could have told her one little why. Just one. 

Bowing her head between her elbows, Christine stared at the floor, at her shoes, at the city beneath her. She hated him. She hated him. She wanted to yell, to punch, to make him feel all the horrible, sickly, suffocating emotions she felt in his betrayal. Banging on the railing, tears flying from the corners of her eyes, she cursed him, again and again, cursed his voice and his hands and his music and every sympathetic, pitying thought she had ever had for him. And still, the soft, incessant lilt of his violin stung her ears, hardly muffled by the din of the city, reaching out to her despite being buried somewhere in the carpet. 

She grabbed her phone, ready to the hurl it from the balcony, consequences be damned, when her eyes stuck on something in the street. Someone. Phone held high above her head, she froze. The small dots of humanity stirred below her, a whirling of cars and buses and taxis and bicycles and pedestrians, but one figure remained unmoved, a black smudge on the earth, unmistakable in a scarf and a hat and a long coat thirty degrees too hot for the summer, staring up at her as she stared down at him. 

In the blink of a moment he disappeared, but she had seen him. She had seen him, and there was no going back now. He had started this, and she would end it.

Christine burst into the Maggie, the security guard remembering too late that she wasn’t a student and needed a visitor’s pass. She charged down the hallways, flinging her hair out of her face, fury churning in her chest. If he wanted to see her, he would see her. If he wanted to stare at her, she’d give him a nice long look. 

She didn’t know how to get into his side of the building, but it didn’t matter. She would figure it out. Throwing open the doors to their practice room, she shouted into the abyss.

“Erik! I’m here. I know you’re in there!”

The wall he had disappeared behind so many times was just as opaque as it had always been, but she had never been more determined. She dragged the piano bench flush against the wall and climbed on top of it, feeling all around what she knew was a door, looking for the release. 

“I’m coming back there whether you want me to or not!”

After a good ten minutes of banging, scraping, pulling, and shouting, she stepped off the bench, kicking it to the side. Nadir had said there were many entrances, one of them in his office. If this one didn’t open, she would find the one that did. One last time she turned to the wall, furiously clenching her fingers into the unmoving mass, when she felt it. The small depression that should not have been there, the weight of a spring against her hand. She pressed her whole body into it, waiting, breathing, unsure if in her desperation she had finally gone mad.

The entire section of the wall shivered for a moment, as if made of light and smoke, and then it went still, and she was just about to turn away again when the wall suddenly lifted and spun, turning from blinding white into near pitch-black. 

Stepping gingerly over the threshold, nearly disoriented and trying to find her footing, she squinted in the darkness, holding out her hand before her. She heard a breath, a hitch that wasn’t hers, and she whirled around in the blackness, her hand grasping at emptiness, swiping the air before her in a desperate attempt to make contact. 

“Erik?” Her voice was a shrill whisper. “Erik, I know you’re there!”

The space behind the wall was narrow, and as her eyes adjusted to the light, a shape began to take form just beyond the reach of her fingertips. He shifted, and in the sliver of illumination from the wall of the music room, she saw something that didn’t make sense, a vision so jarring that she dropped her hand in shock, and then he turned and ran, and she wasn’t sure at all what she had seen, or if she had seen it, or what it even was, but after a moment of indecision, a tendril of fear creeping up her spine, she darted after him into the darkness. 

“Erik!” Her thighs immediately began to burn, sprinting as fast as she could, trying to keep pace with him—with the man she assumed must be him—grasping the walls for support when her shoes slipped on the tile flooring, her eyes trained on his back even as he rounded a corner ahead of her. She hardly had time to take in her surroundings, the vast rooms going past her in a blur, leaving only the vaguest impression of emptiness. Breathing harshly, she called out to him, clutching at her side, but he only ran faster, and despite every muscle in her legs screaming, she forced herself ahead, nearly gaining on him before he reached an open door, the light within cutting a sharp angle into the hall, and slammed it shut behind him. 

She slid forward onto her knees, her chest heaving, each breath tearing at her, raw and shallow. 

“Erik!” Her forehead fell against the door, elbows and hands braced above her. “Erik!” She banged her fists against the door, unrelenting, her eyes filling with tears from the effort, feeling the shock of each blow against her skull. Hammering her hands and wrists, raining punches upon the unyielding surface, she called his name over and over, until she finally slumped forward, her hands falling uselessly into her lap, her voice dissolving in a sob. “Please.”

His voice was so close to her ear it nearly startled her.

“Christine. I’m sorry.”

She laughed bitterly, exhausted. “Do you think that makes it better?”

When he didn’t respond, she sighed, clutching her fingers into the door as if she could feel him across the thin barrier, the same way she had once yearned for him behind the wall of the music room. 

“Can you come out so we can talk?”

“Christine.” 

“Why are you doing this? Why do we need the wall again?”

“I’m sorry.”

Christine closed her eyes, fisting her hands and resisting the urge to punch the door again. 

“Erik, you don’t need to hide from me. But we do need to talk. Now.”

“No.” His voice came out like a little moan. “I should not have come to see you. I’m sorry.”

“Erik.” She took a deep breath. “We need to talk about what happened.”

“No. No. Please go. Please go, Christine.”

“Dammit!” She slammed on the door. “Erik! You’re the one who came to me!”

“I know. I will not do it again. I’m sorry. Please go.”

“I am not going anywhere.”

He didn’t reply, and instead they sat in deep silence for the next few moments. Christine was struck by how truly silent the room was; she vaguely remembered him once telling her that his side of the building was soundproofed, but it hadn’t occurred to her that he also would have made it light-proof. The only windows were high up, frosted, allowing little light, admitting no sound from the streets. It was as dark and hushed as a tomb. 

As her eyes adjusted, she began to notice other things. The faintly glimmering tiles. The marble inlays, the gilded artwork on the walls, so reminiscent of the penthouse apartment. It wasn’t a tomb, she realized. He had lived half his life here, shut up by some misguided sense of self-pity and regret. When she had wondered what the voice did at night, and where it went, it came here. Always here.

It was not a tomb. It was a cage. An elaborate, sophisticated cage. 

Shifting off her knees, she slid her back against the door and faced away, staring into the darkness. She had spent so much time asking herself why he had done the things he had done, why he had set off a bomb, why he had hidden himself away, why he had agreed to accompany her to Los Angeles if he truly could not have handled it. But maybe, she thought now, maybe she had never asked the right questions. Maybe she had never seen the whole story. Because, before all of it, hadn’t Erik the Pianist always played behind a paneled screen? Like a cage?

“Erik?” She asked. “Are you there?”

It was a while before he answered. “Yes.”

“Was your mother at your every performance?”

“Please, Christine.”

“No, answer me. Answer me now. No more hiding. No more secrets. No more lies.”

“I don’t have anything to offer you,” he said, his voice muffled as if his face was pressed into the door. “Not anymore.”

“Why?” She dug her nails into her knees. “Why? Because of your mother?”

He didn’t answer, and her agitation only grew in his reticence. Here she was, leashing her own anger, her own heavy sense of betrayal, in an effort to understand him, and he wasn’t even willing to try.

“I’m sorry I ever started this,” he said suddenly, each word piercing her heart, unexpected and brutal in its frankness. A prickling tide of heat tore into her chest, her fists clenching against her jeans. 

“But you did.” She returned his cruelness in the only way she knew how. “You did, all the while knowing what you had done to me.”

There was a distinct sound of movement from behind the door. 

“You did,” she said again. “You started this. I didn’t ask you for this. I didn’t ask you for any of this.” 

“If you know,” he said, “then why are you here?”

She waited, counted to ten, and then counted to ten again, waited for him to say more, to fill in the blanks, to apologize, anything—

“Is that it?” She burst out. “Is that it? Is that all you have to say?”

“I can’t give you what you want.”

“And what do you think I want? What do you think I want, Erik?”

She had turned back towards the door on her knees, her hands up, ready to do battle, but she was still facing a blank, unseeing slab of wood, and he had fallen silent again.

”All I want is why! All I want is why!”

She banged the door aggressively, incessantly when he didn’t answer. 

“Don’t you run away from me, Erik! Not this time.”

“There is nothing left for you here. If you do not go, then I will. I will go away and I will not come back.” 

“And do you think that will fix anything? Running away?” She cursed the stupid door, jiggling the locked handle to no avail. “Has it ever fixed anything for you before?”

“Christine, you don’t—”

“What? What?” She sat up straighter, her hand still gripping the doorknob fully. “What, I don’t understand?”

He sighed. “No. You don’t.”

“Then make me understand! Tell me the truth, Erik.”

“You already know—”

“No, I don’t. I don’t know anything!” She pushed against the useless barrier with her other arm. “I don’t know why. Why did you do any of this? Why?”

“Christine—”

“No—why—why? Can’t you just tell me why?”

“Christine, I—”

“Don’t you dare tell me you can’t!” She slammed her fist against her thigh. “Don’t you dare!” 

“There are some things you will never understand.”

“Oh my God.” Christine sucked in a breath through her teeth. “Do you and Nadir both think I’m an idiot? Everything is such a big secret and Christine is too stupid to understand?”

“This has nothing to do with you.”

“Does it? I don’t know, I kind of think that blowing up a building I lived in has a little something to do with me.”

“It has nothing to do with you. You don’t understand. Nadir doesn’t understand. None of you could, not ever.”

She stood quickly, too quickly, the blood rushing straight from her head towards her feet. “I lost everything because of you!” She banged on the door, twisting the knob again and again. “And I trusted you. And I sang for you, Erik, I sang for you!” 

“And I gave you my music! It’s all a very funny thing, isn’t it? Trusting someone you love?”

“You tricked me!” Her tears crested over her eyelids, falling in thick strips down her cheeks. “You tricked me! I came as I was, I didn’t have any secrets. I followed you so blindly.”

The slam against the door, from the other side, shocked her into stepping backwards. 

“You don’t understand, Christine. You think I tricked you, you think I did this all on purpose? You think I wanted this?”

She wished she could slap him, her hands instead lying useless at her sides, wished she could make him feel the merciless blow of his words, wish she could slam him into the wall and make him say it to her face.

“If you didn’t want me,” she said, grounding the words out, “you did a hell of a job pretending you did.” 

He pounded the door again, making her jump despite herself. “It’s not about you! It’s never been about you! You think I tricked you? Sure I did. Of course I did. How else would I have ever been able to talk to you?”

“What—”

“You think I deceived you? Of course I did. I lied to you the whole way through. Did you think any of this was real? This voice? This face?”

“Erik—” 

“You think you know what it’s like to be lied to? You think you’re the first? Did you know—did you know that I am dead?”

Her heart thudded against her chest, hard, knocking her breath out, and everything in her told her to go, to run, to turn and never look back, to save herself from him before it was too late. And if she hadn’t been so in love with him, she would have.

“Erik?” She asked shakily.

“Are you shocked? Are you surprised? You haven’t seen, so you couldn’t possibly know. I look like I died at birth.” 

And then he laughed, a frightening, hysterical sound, and her chest hollowed out with fear. 

“You’re scaring me,” she whispered. She had come to confront him, to demand answers for the Campbell building, for the bomb, for the fire, for the months he had been with her and never said a word, but instead she had stumbled onto something else, something much worse. He had told her time and again since Los Angeles that she didn’t know him, and she had never believed him until now, holding on so staunchly to the man she thought she had known, but now, in this dark, secluded, empty place, their voices echoing off the walls, bizarre and warped, she knew true fear. 

And in that moment when she stood, indecisive, ready to flee, he opened the door. 

Chapter Text

Christine hadn’t appreciated the faint light coming from underneath Erik’s door, hadn’t realized how much she had been relying on the very faint gray tinge to her surroundings until he opened his door and turned off the lights, first blinding her with the sudden flash of white and yellow, and then snapping them off, plunging them into an even deeper darkness. The vaguest impression of the room and the man flared before her eyes, streaks of light fading rapidly from her sight until all she could make out was the faintest outline of him, her heart beating so loudly in her ears that she almost missed his next words.

“You want to know why?” She heard rather than saw his hand lift, heard it slice the air. “You want to know why the Campbell building came down? Oh, it was an accident. I’m sure Nadir told you that.” He stepped forward, and Christine took several staggering steps backward, unable to rip her eyes from the black form towering over her.

“I’m sure he said I was crazed, a teenager hell-bent on murder. All I wanted was to kill William. But just killing him wasn’t enough. I wanted to take away everything from him the way he had taken everything away from me. I wanted to destroy it all.” He had backed her up against the opposite wall, in a way she had once done to him, but it was all wrong, all sharp and cold, this little black world of his so far removed from the summer of the city outside that she felt like she was spinning, falling into a nightmare of her own creation. 

“I didn’t want anyone else to die. I just wanted him to suffer. And I did all of it—all of it—for her. And do you know the funny thing, Christine? Do you know?”

If he hadn’t said her name, she would have sworn that he had forgotten she was even there. He gave her shoulders a little shake, and she squeaked out a sound between a grunt and a gasp. 

“What?”

“She wouldn’t have done it for me. She wouldn’t—she didn’t. She killed herself instead. Because of me.”

It explained so much, of course—his unending, bottomless grief, his sudden anger in the graveyard, his unrelenting guilt, even if it still didn’t make sense, even if she couldn’t piece it all together. 

“Ah, you wonder,” he said, somehow reading her face in the darkness. “You don’t understand. You say, but you were Erik the Pianist. You think—that’s what you asked me, wasn’t it? ‘Was your mother at every performance?’”

She regretted that now, she regretted asking, she regretted coming, she regretted not leaving when he had told her to, not believing him when he said it was all over. She could feel his breath over her face, hot and angry and unwelcome. 

“That’s the lie, Christine.” He was even closer to her now, so close that she had to strain away from him just to breathe. “She was always there—and I was always behind a screen. The screen was her invention, her stipulation. Her son would not play without a screen. You could have the child prodigy, you could have his music, but you couldn’t have him.” He broke away from her suddenly, and in the pitch black, she didn’t know where he had gone. She started to feel the wall behind her gingerly, wondering if she could steal her way back towards the music room where she had entered.

“That’s the lie!” His shout made her jump, and she began to inch away from his hulking black shape, making ready to turn and bolt. 

“I am not just my music!” He cried into the echoing room. “I am Erik!” 

Silence followed this declaration, the hollow walls reverberating with the tones of his voice. He fell to his knees, and then fully to the ground, a great, wrenching sob filling the space between the two of them. Christine, pressed against the wall, still on the tips of her toes, adrenaline still rushing into her fingertips, stared at him, stared and stared as he wept until she could finally make out the outlines of his hands, the edges of his clothes. Against all sanity, against all reason, she went to him. 

“Erik.” She breathed, shifting towards him, bending until her knees touched the ground, slowly slipping her hand over his shoulder. “Erik.” 

He remained prostrate, arms braced against the floor, heaving and shuddering under her touch.

“Erik.” She tried to lift him up, and he followed, uncurling himself from the floor, allowing her to push him back onto his heels. Still for just a moment, his hands began then to search in her lap, feeling their way past her torso and up her arms, palms coming to rest at the base of her neck, his fingers splaying behind her ears and into her scalp. Goosebumps erupted down her spine as he pulled her closer, his head hanging low between them, the top of his head just inches from her mouth. 

“Love me,” he whispered, so low and so soft that she hardly heard him.

Trembling, she asked, “what?”

“Love me.” His voice cracked, and he gripped the back of her neck, the pads of his fingers making ten tiny imprints on her skull. “Please.”

Each response that came to her lips she shook away, first I do, and then, why, each not close to the truth of the moment, each too shallow and too trite for the way he held her, the way he cried. 

Instead, she let a tear fall from her cheek onto his hair, let his breath steal across her lap before she said, quietly, “you were right. I don’t understand. I don’t understand any of it.” 

He lifted his head then, and their eyes met.

“Why did you do it?”

“I hated him,” he said hollowly. “He destroyed my life.”

“But you had so much, Erik. You had so much. You had your—”

“My music? ”

“Yes,” she said uneasily. “But—you had more than that. You had your whole life ahead of you, even if—even if—” She couldn’t say it. She couldn’t even form the words. Because she still didn’t understand why Madeleine was dead. Instead, she laid a palm over the hand on her neck.

“Erik, you knew. This whole time, you knew. You could have told me. You could have—you could have comforted me. I—I could have—I could have learned to forgive you, if you had just told me.”

“No,” he said. “No.” He dropped his arms from behind her neck, the shadows enshrouding his face completely. “You couldn’t have. She didn’t. Not at the end.”

“I am not Madeleine.” Christine took a deep breath. “I am not Madeleine, Erik.”

“And it doesn’t matter. You would do the same as her. Keep me behind a screen. As long as you had my music.”

“I—” Christine swallowed. Unsure of her words, unsure of her ability to keep this promise, she said, “let me try, Erik. Let me show you. Let me have you. All of you.”

“You still don’t understand, Christine.”

“Well, here I am,” she said. “Here I am. No more hiding. No more secrets. Can you explain it to me?”

Erik searched her face, his eyes darting across everything at once, his pupils wide and cavernous in the darkness. 

“Trust me,” she whispered.

 He reached for both of her hands, and with a deep breath, pressed them against his cheeks.

“Touch me, then,” he said. “Touch me, and you’ll know.”

It was a moment before she realized that she had never touched his face before, that he had always, always kept her hands away from his head, always redirecting her or distracting her. It was another moment still before she realized that it wasn’t skin, and the second she understood this, she tried to pull away, her heart starting to beat rapidly against her ribs.

“No.” He held her wrist so tightly it began to smart. “No. You wanted to know. So touch me.”

Holding her gaze with a ruthless, naked misery, he forced her fingers over his skin, snaked them into his hair. Unwillingly, closing her eyes against the evidence of her senses, she felt the net of a wig where there should have been scalp, felt the unbearably smooth and unremittingly artificial texture of what should have been skin. 

“I’m not real,” he whispered. “None of it is real.” 

Shaking her head, not understanding, Christine jerked her hands away from him, a startled, horrified gasp escaping her lips.

Erik either didn’t notice or didn’t care. He remained sitting across from her, their knees touching, his hands having fallen limp in his lap.

“This is why,” he said. “This is why my mother kept me hidden. This is why I never went to school. This is why there is a death certificate with my name. This is why she is dead, and this is what Campbell threatened her with.”

He nearly smiled at her, a brief quirk of his lip, and she could only stare, fear immobilizing her limbs breath by breath.

“This is why.” He hooked a thumb under his hairline in a way that should have been impossible. “Why I stayed away from you for so long. None of it—the music, the voice, the face—none of it was me. This is me.” He lifted the wig off of his head, discarding it somewhere in the shadows, and while her eyes were rapidly adjusting to the state of his hair, his real hair, which was thin, and sparse, and hardly covered the mottling of dark spots and veins running across his skull, he lifted a flap of skin at the base of his chin and peeled it away. The face of the man she loved collapsed, gauzy and diaphanous, into his palm. 

The face that remained, the face that was, stared back at her now, even as her mind reeled at the sight of the skin—the mask—pooling in his hand, the cheeks spilling over the sides. She stared at it—the mask, not the face—stared at it for long enough that she nearly expected it to take human form again, to speak to her, to comfort her. But it was as silent as it was fake, and finally, finally, Christine lifted her head and looked at him, really looked at him, and saw him—himself, and nothing else.

His eyes were the same. That was the fact that kept coming back to her, every time her gaze skittered across an eyebrow, an ear, or a mess of flesh she couldn’t identify. The eyes. The eyes were the same. They were a homebase of familiarity in a landscape that was suddenly and entirely foreign. She didn’t see it all at once—couldn’t take it in all at once. She absorbed parts of it at a time, each blink of her eyelids a new frame, slowly constructing the reality that was him—sharpness where he should have been soft, jutting edges that should have been smooth, flesh and sinew gone that should have covered gum and cartilage. 

The eyes were still there, the whites nearly glowing in the darkness, watching her, seeing her, seeing her seeing him. All of her thoughts had come to a screeching halt, her mind filled with gibberish fragments of words and sentences, of images and memories and sounds. Into this void, he began to speak. 

“I was born with an inoperable facial deformity. My mother decided to keep me hidden. I don’t think I ever left the apartment until after I turned six, when she brought me to meet William Campbell.” 

His voice was the same, she thought dimly, as the mouth that could not and should not be animated formed the syllables. He talked on, spanning the time between meeting his manager and killing his manager. The words she had needed for so long floated hazily across her brain, and she heard none of them, understood none of them. Eyes unfocusing, staring at nothing, she thought: his voice is the same, his eyes are the same. His voice is the same, his eyes are the same. His voice, his eyes—

All at once the room exploded with a high-pitched keening, and before she realized the sound was coming from her own throat she had lunged forward, her fingers scraping for the mask in his hand, her screams filling the room, piercing her skull, shattering the dream-like stupor that had enveloped her the minute his face had been removed. She grasped the mask, a rubbery, flexible slab of unreality, warm and moist on the inside where it had touched him, and she screamed. It was not a nightmare, it was not a hallucination—it was real, it was all real. The mask wasn’t just moist, it was humid, it was damp, and her fingers slipped inadvertently through the eye holes, her nails protruding through the space where his eyes had once been. Shrieking, she flung it from herself, kicking her legs where it fell against her—get it off, get it off! Blind, deaf, she screamed, kicking, peddling herself backwards, just away, away. She hit the opposite wall, screaming, screaming, unable to breathe, unable to stop, wringing her hands against her thighs, against her shirt, anything to wipe away the dank, clammy wetness of the inside of that mask, of the feeling of his skin, of the net of his wig. 

Desperate to run, she stood too fast. Shaking her head over and over, her hair thrashing across her cheeks, she began to lose feeling in her fingertips, a buzzing warmth rolling over her scalp. Dizzy, nauseous, she sagged as a welcome, numbing blackness almost totally eclipsed her vision. She fell, not to the floor, but against him, for he had leapt after her, flinging his arms desperately around her middle.

“Please,” he shouted, he whispered, wrenching her back from the brink of unconsciousness. “Please. Don’t go.”

The sounds of their harsh breathing mingled, Erik holding her to him so tightly she thought she would break. Her ears were ringing from her own screaming, from the silence in its aftermath, and his voice hardly registered. Still faint, her legs billowy beneath her, she tried to break his grip.

“Don’t go.” He whispered into her ear, his breath blowing curls against her neck. “Don’t go, Christine, please.”

“Let me go.” Her lungs were so devoid of air her voice was a gravelly, hoarse bark.

“Please.” She tried to move forward again, but he held fast. “Christine.” He buried his face into her hair. “Don’t leave me. Not like this.”

“Let me go.” Her throat was burning, her eyes stinging. “Let me go, Erik.”

“I love you.” His voice cracked.

“I would have forgiven you,” she whispered. “I would have forgiven you all of it, if you had just told me.” She pushed against his arms, and they finally fell away. 

“All of it,” she said, turning to face him, searching his face, his real face, with her eyes. “All of it. If you had just told me.” 

Their hands at their sides, he stared at her, and she stared at him. 

Eventually, wordlessly, she turned and walked away. 

Chapter Text

Christine attended two rehearsals at Lincoln Center before she decided to leave. It seemed an abrupt decision, especially when she saw the absolute shock on Mr. Aster’s face and the confusion on the conductor’s, but for her it had been days, maybe weeks, maybe even years in the making. It was so much easier than she ever could have imagined to walk away from those big arching columns she had dreamed about for so long. She just simply pushed open the door, and left.

The penthouse was claustrophobic, and she tried to spend as little time there as possible, roaming through streets and loitering in coffee shops and jazz cafes until the wee hours of the morning. When the silent oppression of Erik’s overwhelming absence in the penthouse became too much, she called a landlord of a building she could hardly afford, stared blandly at the small, dull, off-white bedroom, and the small, cramped, off-white kitchen, and made the second decision of that summer that felt fated: she bought a one-way ticket to LAX. 

On her last day in New York, she packed her meager belongings into one suitcase and closed the heavy wooden doors behind her. She took nothing else with her, as nothing had been hers. Walking away from the building towards Central park, putting one foot in front of the other, she watched her shadow on the sidewalk. She could disappear into the park, she thought, disappear and no one would ever come to find her, not Meg, not Erik, no one. Just herself and the park, herself and the trees. Herself and her thoughts.

Rhododendrons bloomed on either side of the path, bright pinks and purples and yellows dotting her vision. The too-warm summer air blew through the leaves, green and sumptuous, carrying the sounds of birds and children on its back. She didn’t have a destination, or even a real purpose in walking, other than that she was walking away, away from the penthouse, away from everything that had happened there, and that if he wanted to find her, he would have to come for her himself. 

Her suitcase was dead-weight behind her, and eventually, she left that too, shed it off as easily as she shed off the intervening ten years. New York had given her what she needed, and she was grateful. But now it was time to go home.

By herself. For herself. 

Using the channels she assumed all of her classmates had used, those without masked (masked? She still could hardly comprehend the concept) managers-turned-lovers, she contacted her former professors and the Office of Career Services, and was pleasantly surprised when Mercier and Reyer jumped on the phone to make calls for her. The general grumblings of this being “highly unusual” and her very late application were silenced the minute she began to sing, and amongst hushed whispers, Christine signed with a small opera company in Hollywood within weeks of arriving in Los Angeles. It may not have been the Los Angeles Opera, but it was something. Something she had done herself. 

She settled into life there, into the city she had longed for and never forgotten, remembering the rhythm of its streets as if it had always run in her blood. When she read about Carly Guidicelli’s debut on a stage in Italy on the Maggie’s alumni website, she smiled to herself and clicked off her phone, dropping it in the clear plastic organizer bin she had picked up from the thrift store to decorate her narrow little dressing table. Come September, she would stock it with the makeup and jewelry she’d need to ready herself for her roles. 

“Hurry up, Lotte.” Her chorus mates, Emilia and Natalie, appeared in the mirror behind her. “You know Delgado already has it in for you.”

They hauled her up and she followed them, still smiling slightly to herself, happy to be unknown, happy to have the stage director a little irritated at her for showing up in the company in the middle of their block rehearsals with no warning from the management. She could recreate herself here, with no angry, jealous classmates, no history, no baggage. She could be Christine, she could be a chorus member, she could be Lotte, the nickname Natalie had given her when she had been selected as understudy for the solo role of Juliette. 

The summer faded, Christine in her little studio apartment overlooking a parking lot and an alleyway. She spent evenings on the beach, watching the waves with her arms crossed over her knees, her hair spilling over her arms. It was quiet. She should have been happy. She wanted to be happy. 

Why do you cry now? Is it not all that you wanted?

What did she want? What did any of them want, but peace? Trust? To go home after becoming the naive Micaëla from the Spanish countryside, after being a proper lady of the court in La Périchole, and be just herself? 

The irony of having a career in the arts was that she saw masks every day, wore masks herself, became a new person with a new tragedy every night, reborn from makeup and smoke and lights and mirrors. She saw prosthetics so intricate that she hardly recognized her coworkers out of costume, saw men so gentle they cried at butterflies become ruthless fighters in the space of an hour, saw women cry real tears at the death of a sister played by a colleague they snubbed on the bus home. She saw her face be transformed, brushstroke by brushstroke, into someone else, as swiftly and simply as pulling off a rubber mask. How easy it might be, she thought, to slip into a new persona, a new costume, a new wig, for a minute, for a night, for a lifetime? After the fire, after her father’s death, might she not also liked to have done that?

Once, she had followed a YouTube tutorial for Halloween makeup, after an evening show had ended, after her friends had left and the building was quiet. She started with the black first, the brush skinny and soft, the lines appearing comical and clownish on her cheeks and around her eyes. But she persisted, drawing circles and circles of black eyeliner around her eyes, willing them somehow to sink into her face. Lines formed across her cheeks and dug into her nose, two large skinny triangles on both nostrils attempting and failing to create a cavern in the center of her face. She painted teeth where lips should have been, uneven and jagged. The tutorial said to fill in the gaps with white, but white wasn’t quite right. Instead, she mixed yellow and white and brown and gray, swirling the paints on her tray until the color stuck in her memory, until she painted it on her cheek and her stomach lurched and her hand trembled. 

Laying the brush gently on her desk, she stared at the monstrous thing she had created. Sickly, gaunt, lurid. Her eyes darted from the black depths, the whites discolored by the pallid shades surrounding them. 

It was makeup. It was fake. It would wash off with a swipe of her cleanser. 

Shuddering, she turned away, washing her face in a dark bathroom, the colors swirling in shadows around the drain. She skipped dinner, nauseous, holding her arms across her stomach and rocking in bed in silence. 

And then she screamed, and then she cried, huge, heaving sobs that left her throat raw and throbbing. 

“More bravado, Miss Daaé.” 

Christine sang, her chest expanding against her ribs and her belly filling with air as she lifted on her toes and completed the recitative, knowing she had done well, and knowing that Mrs. Evans wasn’t going to be satisfied no matter what she sounded like. 

“You’re going flat on your last note. You’ve done it every time today. If you don’t practice more, you won’t be ready for the part, and I’ll be telling Delgado and Maria as soon as we’re done.” 

Resisting the urge to roll her eyes as Mrs. Evans kept talking, Christine silently packed up her music and re-tied her hair into a high bun.

“It takes more than just a flight from New York to impress me, you know, and you can’t just waltz onto this stage like it’s nothing. We may not be the Met, Miss Christine Daaé, but we are still—”

“Thanks, Mrs. Evans,” Christine said. “I’ll be sure to watch the note. I appreciate your feedback. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Waltzing into the hallway, a little half-smirk on her face, Christine left her voice lesson knowing that every time she ignored Evans’ jibes, the woman turned a little more sour and a little more desperate for Christine to react. What did she want, crying on the floor? Tearful begging to be accepted into this company, apologies for not crawling on her knees when she started the season late? Asking for a new voice teacher may have made a difference, but Christine didn’t want to make any more waves than she already had. So she let the woman berate her and insult her, poke at her perfect technique and find fault with her coloratura. She knew who she was. She knew what she could do. 

Despite Evan’s threats, Delgado and Maria, the vocal director did not remove her from the roster, and she played Micaëla nightly, facing off against Carmen. She lived and breathed now for the stage, for the blinding lights, the deafening music, the false eyelashes and fake noses, the drama, the unreality, the applause. There were not nights and days, not weekends and weeknights. There were instead matinees and evenings, late night dinners with the cast, holed up in the top floor of the theater, swinging their feet from the rafters, giggling at flubs and lyrics sung wrong and audience members clearly filming bootlegs from the mezzanine. 

It wasn’t until well into November, after they had already finished Roméo et Juliette and were into their second week of Don Giovanni, that Christine finally visited her father again. The last visit was still too fresh and too raw in her mind. She was afraid to face the abandoned remains of the violin, the dead and trampled lily that had been the harbinger of disaster. But the sun hung low in the sky, warm and inviting, the trees gentle and softly whistling in the breeze, the city inviting her home. 

Entering through the gates, she tried not to see the pale ghosts of themselves walking alongside her, tried not to see and hear every word they had exchanged, tried not to remember each string of his violin popping off the bridge one by one, his fingers trembling as he walked away. Passing the chapel, she saw herself standing stock still in the middle of the cemetery, the gentle wind rippling her hair in absurd contrast to the deafening echoes in her mind. Christine bowed her head now as she walked, the glimmers of last summer fading behind her. She allowed herself, for the first time in a long time, to think of Erik.

It had been months. Months since she had left New York behind, months since she had become the opera singer that all of them, Erik, Christine, and Gustave, had dreamed of. And she hadn’t heard from him. Not a word, not a phone call. Not an anonymous text. Not a shadow on the street. Sometimes in those nights when the audience was sparse and the mood was low, she would look for him. Search the crowd for those yellow eyes. But he was not there. His voice was always ringing just beyond the sounds of the orchestra pit, the heat of his gaze behind her eyelids when she took her bow, winking as bright as the stage lights. But he was not there. He was never there.

Where was he? What was he doing? Was he still shaking, silent, still, on the floor of the mausoleum he had called a home? Was he still unmasked, head bare, pleading for her love?

She shivered, the sweat on her temple turning cold. 

This was why she never thought of him, why she directed her every thought resolutely away from the man with the honeyed voice, away from his hands like silk against her shoulders, his breath warm on her neck. That had been real—hadn’t it? You couldn’t—you couldn’t mask breath. Could you?

The graveyard was quiet, empty. And though she sat against Gustave’s gravestone, yearning to speak to her father, all she could see was Erik, sitting against the opposing tomb, playing his violin, as he had all those months ago. The curve of his hand as it gripped the bow. So much tension in those knuckles. So much elegance in that wrist. He had known, all along, what he was hiding, what he was risking. He had known that the sun was not touching his own face. 

It was stupid to ask why. She knew why. Nobody would question why he had chosen to hide his face from the world. Whether it was fair, whether it was right, it didn’t matter. 

But sometimes she wondered—sometimes she thought—why had he hidden it from her?

It was that, more than anything else, that struck against her heart, made her gasp from pain, sharp and deep. She had loved him so deeply. She had known him so truly. It didn’t matter what he said—I am not just my music—she knew that already. She had always known that. And he wasn’t his voice, and he wasn’t his face, either, no matter what he said or thought. He wasn’t even the Campbell building, although the truth of that was still hard for her to swallow. 

No—he was just Erik. Not the pianist, not the owner of the Maggie, not a criminal. Just Erik. When would he see that that was enough?

Her eyes began to wander, counting rows and rows of tombs and monuments, silent angels and towering crosses. Was the answer there? If she went back, all the way back, to the beginning?

Without any active thought or intent, Christine rose, her fingers sliding off Gustave’s tomb in farewell, her feet moving of their own accord. She scanned the rows of names, unknown and maybe forgotten by time, husbands and sisters and wives and sons, beloved and cherished, laying silent. Her memory of that day was hazier than she had thought, more feeling and color and noise than sharpness of detail. Each stone was so similar to the last that she eventually passed Madeleine’s without even realizing, before doubling back as the name eventually registered in her mind. 

The grave was as bare as it had been in June. In the interim, workers had removed all traces of the smashed instrument, filling in the earth again, smoothing it over. Masking it. 

Christine stared at the headstone for a long while, tracing the name again and again with her eyes, wondering what she had looked like, this woman whose death had so influenced and changed Christine’s entire life. Had she been beautiful, as Erik had said, or was that the recollection of a small, lonely child? Had her hair been red, or black? Brown, with thick, frizzy curls? Had she laughed? Had she taught her son to sing?

Speak to me, she thought, kneeling finally onto the ground. Who were you? Were you scared? Did you love him? 

The ground was crumbling at the edges of the stone, dry and cracked. So impersonal, so silent. A wall. 

Christine placed her palm flat against the earth. 

“I’m here,” she said. 

Emilia’s nose was buried in September’s volume of Opera News, her feet up on her dressing table as the ringlets of her wig cascaded over the edge of her chair, waiting for their cue in the middle of the first act.

“Why do you read such old news?” Christine asked, slowly twirling herself around in her chair, seeing the room spin round and round in a whirlwind of shadow and color. 

“It’s only December,” Emilia said, turning a page. “They haven’t even published this month’s yet.”

Christine leaned her head all the way back, watching the ceiling fan spin in the opposite direction of her chair. 

“What’s with you, anyway?” Emilia asked. 

“Nothing.” Christine dug her foot into the rug to stop herself. “Nothing at all.”

“You’ve been acting funny.” Emilia folded back a new page.

“I know her,” Christine said, not intentionally trying to change the subject, but succeeding nonetheless. 

“Who, her? Oh, did she go to the Maggie?”

Carly Guidicelli’s face was smiling, slightly pinched, as she stood off to the side of a small picture nestled into a column below a larger advertisement. Christine could almost feel her resentment.

“She debuted as Amelia when the diva got the flu. I can’t imagine how she feels being stuck into the chorus again so early in the season.”

“Some patience might do her some good,” Emilia said. Then her eyes slid off the page to meet Christine’s.

“There is no way she is better than you. I still can’t believe you ended up here.”

“What’s wrong with here?” Standing, Christine brushed down the skirt of her costume. “Come on, we have to go down.”

“You know you don’t belong here. You showed up in the middle of rehearsals, fresh out of the Maggie. With a voice like that, no way something serious didn’t happen. You’ve always been so quiet, but I know that always means the juiciest stories.”

Christine rolled her eyes, but Emilia continued as they brushed past dancers scurrying into outfit changes. 

“So, spill. Dish, little Lotte. Did you sleep with the stage director of the Met? Did you break up a marriage? Embezzle a million dollars?”

Snorting, Christine imagined the small, anxious little man who had just taken over as stage director at the Met, his reedy voice still grating on her ears months later. 

“I’m a spy,” she said, as they approached stage right. “Placed here by the Russian government.”

“Seriously, Christine.” Emilia bent quickly to adjust her petticoat, and when she looked up at her, Christine looked away. “I hear you practicing. We all do. We know you are supposed to be solo and not in the chorus. Anyone with ears knows that. What gives?”

“We’re on. Let’s go.” 

Christine felt Emilia’s eyes on her throughout the first act, and she took pains to paint a smile on her face and stare unfocused into the crowd, making small talk with another cast member as she pretended to re-do her makeup during intermission. By curtain call, Emilia had either forgotten or given up, and Christine was able to leave the theater, unknown and unburdened, for at least one more night.

The truth was, Christine could confidently say without hubris or conceit that she was miles above the company’s soloists. She knew that, and she was sure the soloists did as well, as they tended to be the least friendly to her during rehearsals. But she hadn’t left the Met to become a diva anywhere else, and she hadn’t given up her life in New York to recreate a lesser version of it in another city. I am not just my music, she thought. I am not just my voice. I am Christine. They may not have been her words at first, but they were now. 

So instead of attending the music lessons she knew her contact required, she often spent her time in the aisles of Chestnut Hill Nursery, stacking pot upon pot into her cart, and then riding on the bus with a tote bag filled with soil. 

It had started slowly, haphazardly. There had been crabgrass growing in the corner of Madeleine’s grave, so Christine removed it one day while returning from visiting her father. She had seen it out of the corner of her eye, and after standing with indecision for several seconds, she huffed out a breath and yanked it out on her way back towards the street. The next time she visited, there had been a group gathered in Madeleine’s row, so Christine had hurried past it, not looking back, harried with both guilt and relief. 

After that, the grave had been impossible to ignore. Whether she stood looking at it from the pathway with her hands on her hips, or she sat beside it staring into the distance, Christine could no longer pretend that she was visiting the graveyard only to see her father. So she would do little things each time, dusting off a collection of leaves, or pulling out a weed here or there, not understanding why she was doing it and not wanting to find out.

Seeing the advertisement for the nursery on her way home from work one night had been purely an accident, but on her next day off she had stopped in and asked the girl in the green jumper what type of flower would thrive without much tending, and had left with a pot of poppies and instructions on how to plant them. For the first time in her life, she arrived at Perros Graveyard with no intention to see her father, and instead headed directly to Madeleine’s grave and began digging. 

After months of sowing, weeding, and fighting off rabbits, Christine had surrounded Madeleine’s grave with brilliant whites, blues, and lilacs. Sometimes, she lay amongst the flowers, her hand over her stomach, staring up at the sky. 

I understand you, she wanted to say. But I don’t forgive you.

A woman who visited the cemetery often passed by, on her regular route towards the mausoleum in the back. They had never acknowledged each other, other than brief eye contact and the smallest tilt of the head. 

You destroyed him, she thought.

The woman turned left, away from the chapel, as she always did.

You ruined him. 

Three steps away from the tree, and the woman’s eyes found Christine lying in the sun.

And he ruined everything else.

A nod, a jut of the chin. The mausoleum held her long-dead husband, Christine knew. She had followed her one day, read the gravestone, found the obituary. There was a skull etched into the stone above his tomb. He had been dead long enough that Christine wondered if his face looked just like that skull. Or if it looked more like Erik’s.

She turned over on her side and stared at Madeleine Carriere’s engraving. Mother. Beloved. Forever grieved in death. 

Erik Carriere, you are not dead. 

You’ve been alive all this time.

Come back to me. 

Chapter Text

He had wanted to run. That was his first, visceral, most overwhelming instinct. Run. Leave. Find a new place, a new sky, a new sun. Anywhere but here. Any sound but the silent echoes of her screams. 

He had gone so far as to schedule his jet and direct the captain to a private airfield in northwest Iowa, one of those small little towns with two churches and a cemetery and nothing in between, where he could catch a bus and disappear. 

That would fix it. That would solve it. Make it go away, the way he had made William Campbell go away. Make it so he didn’t have to think, didn’t have to remember, didn’t have to see and hear again and again the way she had screamed. Kicked. Clawed.

Trust me, she had said.

He wanted to run. 

Last time, there had been Campbell. Always Campbell. When Erik had spent nights beneath the stars, huddled up under a bench, there was Campbell. There was the anger, the betrayal. The blinding, red hot fury that had first sent him into Farjad Shirazi’s workshop. Something to wrap his mind and soul around, something to anchor him. 

Someone to blame.

It was Campbell who had first exposed Erik to the horror of his own body. Campbell who had taken his music, his identity, his personhood, and pummeled it into dust. Not Madeleine. Not the woman, the only woman, who had cradled his bare cheek in her palm, and told him that his music was beautiful. Not her. Never her.

But now Campbell was gone, and Madeleine lay quietly, innocently, in the grave she had dug for herself, and who was there left to blame?

So he tried to run. 

The jet was scheduled for the following day, and he had planned to bring nothing with him. A fresh start, like last time. But pacing the hallways, hour after hour, the frosted windows belying the changing light beyond them, he started to sweat. He started to shiver. Maskless, wigless, he ran his fingertips over his face. His face. The only one he had ever had. The only one he would ever get. 

Trust me. I could forgive all of it.

He shut his eyes. He shut his ears. He packed his masks into a suitcase, neatly stacking them nose on top of nose, and then he threw them all back on the bed, a jumble of black hair and tumbled wefts and bent cheeks with twisted eyeholes. The flight was leaving in a few hours, and he would go with just a hat and a scarf. Iowa was cold at night, anyway. 

He would go somewhere nobody would ever find him again, somewhere he could unwrap his scarf and pull off his hat and put his face up to the sun, as he had done that day he was sixteen in his mother’s bedroom, and he had not been scared, and he had not been ashamed. 

Frenzied, terrified, his mind whirling with all that had happened and all the silence that would follow, he did something reckless. Something insane. Something he never would have done, had it not all been finished. Had it not all seemed like it was already a fading dream.

He opened his window. 

First, he pressed his fingers to the frosted glass. There were no city sounds, no rustling leaves, no stray shouts, the way he had always wanted it. It was not cool or hot, simply smooth and silent. Then he slowly, painstakingly, wound the handle until the window began to creak. Ten years of inoperation groaned and scraped, the gummed paint and mildew and dust of the casement grating as it reluctantly gave way. With one massive, final push, using both arms to bear down on the handle, Erik finally heard the pop, and when he turned his head, he was looking out onto New York City. 

By dawn, the pink tips of dusty light just warming over the Hudson, he knew he would not leave.

He didn’t go to the penthouse at first, in fact, not for weeks. Instead, he left the little window open in his bedroom in the Maggie, letting the air in, letting the wind blow on his cheeks, whether they were pitted or not, sneezing profusely when some dandelion fuzz floated past his exposed septum. Touching it with the tips of his fingers, mucus and saliva pooling over his nails and trickling down his knuckles, he laughed.

Once the window was open, of course, he couldn’t tolerate closing it again, couldn’t tolerate the silence, the darkness, the stillness. And slowly, day by day, he began to yearn for the penthouse. Not just for Christine, but for the big, wide open windows of the living room. For the stretch of balcony that wrapped around the corner of the building and looked out on Central Park. 

When he finally arrived at the penthouse, he did not call. He did not page the apartment or have the concierge check if she was home. He didn’t know what to say, how to express all the things he had failed to that day in the dark. She had asked for the truth, and he had told her the facts—William Campbell, Madeleine Carriere, Erik Carriere. But he had not been able—he hadn’t been able to think, hadn’t been able to do more than cry, and scream, and plead. He had not been able to tell her who he really was. What he really wanted. What it felt like to play the piano in a hushed stadium, how he wanted to fly when the first violin of the philharmonic sounded his opening phrase, how the music never stopped in his head, only swirled, and hummed, and played unceasingly behind the bony protrusions of his skull. 

He wanted her to know, but of course, she was not there. And the inevitability of it, the fated necessity of her departure did not surprise him. What was there left for her here, in an apartment she had not owned, with a man she did not know? 

It did surprise him though, later, when he saw that her name had been erased from the Metropolitan’s list of current artists, but it shouldn’t have. Without investigating further, without even searching her name online, he knew where she had gone like he knew the sound of her breathing in the morning and the scent of her freshly washed hair.

She had gone home. 

The weeks he had spent, wondering what it would be like to see her again, to see her seeing him, to know that she knew, to stop pretending, to stop hiding. The hours he had passed imagining his next words to her. Instead, he was alone.

Erik trailed his fingers along the edges of the apartment furnishings, as if she had just touched them, as if the breeze from the open window was just the whoosh of her body moving behind him, laughing, her eyes alight with mischief. 

Sitting at the piano bench, he opened the elegant gold-fringed fallboard and exposed the pristine keys. For months he had written music for Christine in a blind, love-hazed frenzy. For years before that, he had made music only for Madeleine, only for the curling, yellowed portrait of her that still sat in a locked, darkened room behind the Maggie.

Now, alone, truly alone, it was time to play for someone else.

After all, he had said it himself. He was Erik.

He was an immediate phenomenon, and Erik hated it. Despite the press release that Erik would take no interviews and give no quotes, the demand for him, his face, his voice, his story, was overwhelming. Skeptics who announced that it was impossible for the same artist to surface again after so many years were silenced when his first single was released, one of the pieces he had written as a companion to City of Angels before his mother had died. After that, the speculation started. The questions, the news articles, the musical podcasts. Wondering, guessing. 

Nadir had handled most of the paperwork and the legal matters, acting as his manager and the face of his brand. The man had said very little when Erik had told him that he was going to release an album, and even less when he heard the first piece. Instead, he had simply nodded, and kept nodding for a long, long time. 

The first album was Erik, and it hit top ten on the Billboard Top 100, and stayed there for a week before falling into the low tens and twenties. If people were surprised that a classical album topped the charts that week, it was only because they had not heard Erik ten years before. The radio was alive with remixes and covers, talk shows and podcasts, and just like when he had been flying all over the world to perform, he suddenly could not go anywhere or do anything without hearing his music playing in a store or behind the moving pictures of an advertisement. 

Requests flooded Nadir’s inbox, for live performances, advance information on new albums, licenses for movie soundtracks. In general, Nadir was good enough at managing, leaving Erik time to finish the collection he had started the year before, when Christine had still been there. The album he had promised her. 

After months of hesitation and indecision, Erik finally acquiesced to occasionally sitting in the same room as Nadir, with a rolled up turtleneck and a hat. To his credit, Nadir did not ask, did not even blink. The day Erik finished writing the last piece, he was sitting in a studio room with Nadir, who was glued to his laptop.

“It’s done,” he said. 

Nadir grunted, his fingers moving quickly over the keyboard.

“It’s done,” Erik said again. 

“Amazing.” Nadir didn’t look up. “Title?”

There was, of course, only one title to sum up the album, and when Erik didn’t respond immediately, Nadir finally met his eyes over the brim of the computer. Through the sweating and itching and heat of his scarf, Erik saw the world only through a small, fuzzy, blurred black slit, his breathing loud and echoing in his ears. 

“When can we start recording?” Nadir asked.

Abruptly Erik rose, the humid air in his mouth making him nauseous. He heard Nadir sigh behind him, no doubt expecting him to disappear for a day or a week. But all he wanted to do was move his hat off his forehead and rest it against the cool window. Just for a moment.

“Will you ever perform in person again? I can’t fend them off forever.”

He didn’t care about the reporters, the editors, the conductors. Pushing his skin against the damp glass, watching the street below, he heard the music in his head. The pianos. The violins.

A month ago, someone in the alumni office had posted a cutout from Opera News of the last-minute understudy solo performance of Christine Daae in Los Angeles, California. A sensation, the title said.

“I will.” He splayed his hand fully against the pane, saw the outline of his long, spindly fingers, his stretched skin, the vaguest reflection of the deep, sickening depressions above his hairless eyebrows. 

“In Los Angeles.” He leaned back the tiniest bit, his eyes, sunken in their depths, shadowed in their own misery, his cheekbones jutting where the nose should have been. 

After her soloist debut, Christine was cast as Violetta in the company’s spring production of La Traviata. When the announcement was made, Emilia had smirked at her, waggling her eyebrows, and Christine had rolled her eyes. But training to perform as a soloist, not just a one-off fill-in, was more challenging than anything Erik had ever put her through, even her senior performance at Meadow Hall. The physical, mental, and emotional strain was nearly overwhelming, and Christine spent even more afternoons and early mornings shoving her spade into the pliant dirt of the little garden around Madeleine’s grave, weeding, pulling, and packing her stress deep into the earth. 

When March came, there was no one there to witness her debut. Not Meg, who she had not told, not her father, and not Erik. She stepped out onto the stage alone, lifted her arms, and blinded by the lights, soared on the high of her own achievement.

Emilia forced Christine to attend an opening week party at the upstairs of a loft bar, and her friends surprised her with a cake and a bouquet of flowers.

“Oh don’t blush, Lotte,” Natalie said. “You know we love you.”

As she cut into the cake, smiling and shaking her head, Christine’s friends and coworkers filled the gaps of her thoughts, filling the room with comfortable noise, light and warm. 

“You were amazing,” one of the chorus girls said as Christine handed her a slice with a frosted flower. “Honestly. Incredible.”

“Thank you.” 

“Shove over, prima donna.” Emilia butted Christine out of the way, and she nearly fell on top of the girl, who scooted towards the wall. “I’ll serve. You celebrate.”

Linking arms with Natalie, Christine wandered the room, accepting congratulations and compliments, feeling as out of place as she had when the LA Times had interviewed her the day before.

To what do you owe your success? They had asked, while she squirmed and searched for an answer.

Can you tell us more about your musical education?

What was your journey from LA to New York and back again?

She hadn’t made the front page, of course, nothing of the sort. Opera singers didn’t make the front page. She was nestled neatly into the theater section, as so many artists before her. You didn’t make the front page of the LA Times if you were just a musician. 

Unless you were Erik.

The first time she had heard City of Angels playing on the city bus again she thought she was having a daydream, a pleasant, warm, sunny memory from her childhood. But another man next to her had sat up ramrod straight and exclaimed.

“Is this Erik? Is this Erik?”

Staring at him wildly, Christine had sat up as well, rubbing her eyes and blinking at the bus driver, at the other passengers, wondering if they were all just part of her dream. 

“Oh my God, it’s him. It’s really him.” The man stood up, and another few passengers crowded around him, scrolling frantically on their phones.

“Did you know?” They said. “Did you hear?”

“I saw him once in Chicago.”

“I can’t believe it.”

“It’s been so many years.”

The radio station quieted, and the whole bus quieted with it, humming with pure anticipation between the end of the last note and the announcer’s voice.

He cleared his throat and it reverberated under the seats of the bus. 

“That was City of Angels, by Erik, the pianist, written and first debuted in 2004. Some of you may remember the strange affair of the pianist’s sudden and abrupt disappearance in the winter of 2005. After a silence of more than a decade, the artist has resurfaced with his new album, Erik.”

That night, at work, the chorus had been abuzz with the news. Christine had sat in her chair, staring at her reflection, wondering if Erik was there, now, behind the mirror, looking back at her.

Meg had called her, left a message, sent her a text in call caps. Christine hadn’t said anything. 

But she had smiled a little.

Now, eating cake and toasting champagne with her friends, she thought about the debut party that Erik never had, the celebration of his music that he had always deserved. Was he sitting alone in his dark, empty, silent room, the windows shaded and frosted, the empty-eyed masks staring at him, his only audience? She wondered where he was, what he was thinking about. 

And she listened to Erik, the album, every night and every morning, on her way to work and when she was walking down the street. She heard it in her dreams, hummed it when she didn’t even realize it. Played it out loud while gardening near Madeleine’s grave. Each note, each key change, each track was seared on her heart. 

“It’s called Erik,” she had said one day, to Madeleine. “Erik.”

That summer, the company dispersed across the country for various training programs, smaller stages, and family, leaving Christine alone with her thoughts and her flowers. Emilia visited her often, dragging Christine around the city as Meg would have done, for coffee, for beaches, for movies and concerts. She frequented the Opera for her music lessons and acting training sessions, and in mid-August quietly turned down an offer from the Los Angeles Lyric Opera, and instead accepted a full-time soloist position with her company. Emilia was ecstatic for her. Posters for the season were printed with Christine’s name in bold serif font, a photograph of her from last year’s production, with stark brown curls and a full hoop skirt filling the background. Seeing herself plastered in various places around downtown reminded her of the first poster to ever sport her name, the Music of the Night concert that Erik had set up for her. How far she had come since then. How much she had accomplished for herself. 

Your move, Erik, she thought, a wiry smirk on her face, an extra spring in her step.

Her new dressing room was small, but cozy, and though she missed being next to Emilia and Natalie, there was something giddy about seeing her name written on the door every time she pushed it open. 

It was only a week into the season when she received her first piece of mail, placed on her dressing room table, not in her mailbox. When she had arrived that morning and seen the brochure, she had ignored it, too tired from last night’s performance to quite register the small piece of paper. She had warmed up her voice, put on her wig, and started her makeup in earnest before looking down and finally realizing it was there. Picking it up, she only read the first line before darting out the door to look up and down the hallways. Empty, of course, from the chorus dressing room all the way down to the bathrooms and the staircase. What had she expected?

But had he been there?

Sitting down again, she flipped the brochure from back to front. There was no picture, not like her posters. Just words.

For the first time in over a decade: Erik, in concert. 

This Fall, at the Walt Disney Concert Hall, accompanied by the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

Tapping her nail against the edge of the brochure, she set it down, gently pushing it to the side as she picked up her blush brush. 

So he was coming. Let him come then. She was ready. But she would not go to his concert.

Christine first heard about it from Toby, the costuming intern’s purple and pink pixie cut bobbing across her forehead as she flashed by Christine’s dressing room in a blur of black tutu and fresh coffee.

“Erik’s concert was amazing! You have to go.”

“I didn’t know you were going,” Christine said, smiling at her. “I’m so glad you enjoyed it.”

“He debuted a single from his new album. It’s called Christine! Isn’t that funny?”

The intern was gone before Christine could close her jaw. 

But she still would not go.

Emilia pestered her about the album title constantly, niggling her between costume changes and after the curtain dropped. 

“Isn’t it crazy that he named it Christine? ”

“So weird,” Christine said, adjusting her perfectly-laid bejeweled belt.

“Such a coincidence,” Emilia said, staring at her. Christine pushed onto the stage two beats before her cue. 

Meg called her, texted her, and Christine swiped the notifications off her phone. Meg could say what she wanted. Emilia could wonder. Christine still would not go. 

She was aware of his presence in the city, like eyes burning into the back of her head. If she turned a corner at night, she would suddenly become convinced he was behind her, walking parallel with her on the other side of an alleyway, waiting just behind a door, or a window, or a wall. When she visited Madeleine, she waited patiently and silently until the caretaker asked her to leave for the night, sure Erik would come. The radio blared his music constantly, and though she yearned with all her soul to hear those sublime notes become alive again, she would not go. 

Two weeks into his concert series, one of the box office staff showed up at Christine’s door before rehearsal with a ticket, printed in stark black and white, the time and date stamped with her name and a central orchestra seat number. 

“Someone dropped this off for you,” he said, handing it over before turning on his heel.

“Wait.” Christine trotted after him, pulling her drooping costume onto her shoulders. “Do you know who it was?”

“I wasn’t really paying attention. Guy was in a rush, though.”

“Can you take it back?” She shoved it into his hands, the bewildered man taking it more out of surprise than anything else. “And if he comes back, can you tell him no?”

“What—I— listen, I was just doing what I was told.”

“You keep it, then. Enjoy a world class concert. I don’t need the ticket.”

“It has your name.”

Christine clucked her tongue against the roof of her mouth. “Just do me a favor, okay? If he comes back. Tell him that if he wants me to come to his concert, he can ask me himself.”

“His— his? Wait, his concert? Wait, Christine—”

But she had already started back down the hallway. 

The invitation came, of all the people, from Nadir Khan. Christine had been called to the manager’s office early that morning, unsuspecting, and when she made to swing into Ms. Lichtenberg’s comfortable chair, she came face to face with Nadir.

“Oh.” She stopped dead in her tracks, one hand twisted onto the back of the green fabric, the other held comically in the air. 

“Christine,” Ms. Lichtenberg said. “I’m so delighted to introduce you to Nadir Khan, the manager of Erik, the pianist.”

Nadir held her gaze, and she slowly lowered her hand, meeting him with a level stare of her own. 

“Do—do you know each other?”

“Thrilled to see you again, Miss Daae,” Nadir said. He did not hold out his hand.

“What brings you to our charming company theatre, Mr. Khan?”

Ms. Lichtenberg sat back in her chair, opening her mouth once, and then closing it. 

“Mr. Khan has come to invite you to sing with Erik on stage at the Walt Disney Concert Hall. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you what an honor this is. It will launch your career globally.”

“Has he?”

Ms. Lichtenberg, never one to mince words, sat forward in her chair. “I seem to be missing something. I thought this would be an amazing opportunity for you. Why don’t I leave the two of you to catch up? I’ll be back.”

Standing without further ceremony, Ms. Lichtenberg swept past them both, reaching for the door and nearly slamming it shut before Christine caught her arm.

“No need for that, Sarah. My answer is simple. I will not sing.”

Sputtering, Ms. Lichtenberg backtracked into the room.

“Christine, surely you realize what an opportunity this is—”

“I realize.”

“The possibilities—” 

“Oh, I’m sure.”

Speechless, Ms. Lichtenberg finally pleaded, “will you do it for us? For the company? The publicity will do wonders for us.”

All the while, Nadir had remained silent, watching her, his expression unreadable. At this, though, he stood, and handed her a sheath of music. The red handwriting was unmistakable. 

Shaking her head, Christine tried to hand it back.

“I can’t. Tell him I can’t. Not like this.”

“Meet him halfway,” Nadir said, a crack finally opening in his eyes, the slightest crinkle of warmth snaking onto his face. “This is the only way he knows how.”

In the silence that followed, Ms. Lichtenberg staring between the both of them, Christine fingered the edges of the music. Little Dove, it said, written across the top. She knew it all by heart.

She took a deep breath. “I will come. I will come. But I will not sing.”

Nadir grasped her hand once, and then he was gone.

This time, there was no box, no prepared gown with matching shoes, no sparkling emeralds and diamonds. There was no dressing room, and no signs with her name. Instead, Christine wore a simple black dress, combing her hair behind her head with a clip. She wondered if he would be able to see her, despite all the lights, despite the screen behind which he sat. She was sure he would, somehow.

The lights dimmed as the conductor announced his name, the audience clapping wildly, and in a surreal moment, Christine realized she had been here before, in this concert hall, listening to Erik play, in a daydream long ago, when she had not known anything, not about him, and not about herself.

The sound of his shoes on the wooden surface pulled her out of her reverie, her eyes immediately locking onto the screen enshrouding him, the audience watching as one as the screen approached the piano and stopped. For two hours, he played, and the world was suspended between ecstasy and love, heartbreak and sublime, terrifying grief. During intermission, some people remained in the bright lights, stunned, while others wandered out towards the lobby for refreshments, holding onto the banisters for support as they passed. 

Christine simply sat, watching. Waiting.

At the end of the last piece in the program, the conductor laid his baton on his stand, lifting a hand to halt the audience’s wild applause. As the members of the philharmonic filed out on either side of the stage, the conductor reached for a microphone.

“Thank you very much for coming tonight. I cannot say what a privilege it has been to conduct alongside the greatest musician of our generation. Tonight, he has asked to play one final piece, without the rest of the orchestra. From what I understand, it has not been heard before. Please, no flash photography or recording during this encore. Thank you, and goodnight.”

Placing the microphone stand to the side, the conductor left stage right and sat in the front row of the audience, turning his attention back towards the stage. Whispers raced back and forth, the buzzing in the room growing louder and louder until it came to an abrupt halt at Erik’s first notes. And Christine stood.

She made her way past the knees and boots of irritated patrons, craning their necks behind her moving form to stare at the never-changing screen. In the aisle, her path lit, the little twinkling lights encouraging her forward, she imagined that any of these dark turning heads might be her father. Smiling. 

As she approached the stage, an usher caught her arm, his face incredulous.

“You can’t go up there, ma’am,” he whispered, furiously dragging her back towards the aisle.

“Don’t worry,” she said, pushing his fingers off her elbow. “I am Christine.”

In his brief moment of shock, Christine climbed the stage, and the music stopped. The theatre filled again with whispers, voices rising at her solo figure drifting across the empty stage. Theatre security got halfway down the aisle when they suddenly stopped, leaning into their earpieces. Her footsteps echoed into the conductor’s microphone, and, detaching the microphone from the stand, she held its solid weight in her palms, taking her last, deep breath. Then she switched it off, turned around, and walked to the piano. 

He didn’t speak, and neither did she. But she was finally here. And he was finally ready.

She stepped behind the screen.

“Hello, Erik.”

Chapter Text

Epilogue

He didn’t wear a mask, not behind the screen. He never had before, and he had not started now. Instead he faced her, naked, unadorned, his hands resting on his knees and his foot still on the pedal. Her eyes took him in all at once, hungry, blurry from tears and squinting in the lights.

“I didn’t think you would come,” he said.

Throat raw, the corners of her lips trembling, Christine held out her hand.

“Here I am.”

Standing, he closed the short distance between them, cupping her burning cheeks in his palms. His golden eye searched hers.

“Are you really here?”

“Always, Erik.” She blinked tears that fell across his fingertips, her heart surging within her chest. “But I need you here, too.”

“I’m here. Christine, I—”

“No.” She stepped away from him, and held out the microphone. “Here, with me. This is the only way I can do it, Erik.”

He stared at the microphone, at her outstretched hand.

“This is the only way. For us. For both of us.”

“You know I can’t,” he whispered.

“Take the bow you deserve,” she whispered back. “See the standing ovation. They are all here for you.”

Erik shook his head, but Christine caught his chin, sweeping her thumb across his lips, along the rigid edges of his cheeks. 

“I love you, Erik. Just you. All of you.”

Gold turned brown with unshed tears.

“I’m sorry, Christine. I’m so sorry—”

“Too late for that. Too late. I’m here now. You’re here.”

Erik pressed his face into her palm, his eyes fluttering closed. 

“Let me have you,” she said, “just as you are.”

He remained there, cheek pressed against her hand, for a long moment.

“Are you the one who planted the flowers?” He finally said.

Christine barely smiled. “What do you think?”

Erik took several deep, shuddering breaths, before opening his eyes and grasping the microphone, entwining his fingers with hers. 

“Will you sing?”

“I will stay,” she said. “And I will sing. Every day, and every night.” 

He switched on the microphone. 

The night that Christine Daae sang with Erik the pianist was one that was remembered for years. It was a season of firsts for both artists: the rise of the soprano to international fame, the return of the composer-pianist to the world stage. But that night, that one night, after a vocal performance that stunned the audience, the stage lights suddenly turned towards the auditorium, briefly blinding them, and two figures stood in shadow on the stage, one unmistakably the young soprano, and one, tall and thin, his head bowed, presumed to be the reclusive pianist himself. 

The audience went wild. The standing ovation lasted for twenty minutes, so the story goes. Christine Daae grasped his hand and held it high in the air as bouquets of flowers were thrown at their feet, and although the man did not move, and did not speak, some say they saw him smile. They couldn’t be sure, in the darkness, and audience members would argue about what they saw that night for months. When asked, of course, Christine Daae wouldn’t say either way. 

The pair traveled the world, hers the only real voice that did justice to his music. Rumors flew about their relationship, about the album titles Erik and Christine, but neither would comment, keeping their interviews strictly about work. Some said it was a great romance. Others were jealous.

While the world wondered about them, while the world typed and texted and printed about them, the two musicians laid quietly in each other’s arms, completely oblivious. Waves crashed onto the sand beyond their bay window, the glimmering night of the City of Angels sparkling on the white caps of the water. 

They had each other. And they were home. 

Fin