Alright, guys. You get an update, even if it's not a full one, because I'm taking too long to deliver, and I feel insufferably lonely over here. I'm really having a tough time with this, and it's very baffling because the last few chapters ought to be very exciting. Which they are, but I already wrote extensively about being nervous and psyching myself out.

It happened. As soon as I told myself I should sit down this evening and write as much as I could, I thought "I need alcohol" and opened up a random wine bottle. I made the equivalent of a margarita but realized this is really bad Writer's Anxiety if I'm drinking, since I rarely drink.



Brainfreeze.

So... I deliver to you a polished first part of chapter 50. The second part is still coming along and legitimately scaring me shitless. This chapter features Erik as he is drawn here:



Without further adieu,

HE'S (@) THERE
Chapter 50 – Fallen Idol


I was betrayed by my own shock. I slammed myself against the wall, which got his attention, and only then stared petrified at the twisted vision of my past love, who stared back through the gaps in that alien visage, floating in space. The window was open and had long been inviting in a chill that had covered my skin in goosebumps, and I was wearing just a thin shirt and under garments. I reached for my sheets and he cast his face to the floor, as if he were apologizing to me, as if there were any way to redeem the past or the present... Then he held something out, which he pulled apart very carefully. It was a letter. I didn't know whose, or what it said, or what to say. I wanted to scream, but the both of us were frozen in this moment of acknowledgment, which I knew to be reality but which carried all the ambiguity of my subconscious.

He lowered to his knees, closing the letter to his chest, and his body dropped below the window's light, so that I could see nothing but short, jutting hair. I held the sheets even closer.

“You wanted to know if I was okay... I just wanted to come back and tell you I tried.” I suspected he had the note I had left in the dresser, and I shriveled up just remembering what I had written: what I had hoped for at that moment. “I hope that when you reached to me across time and space the way I once did to you, that there was no expiration date on the sentiment. It meant a lot to me.”

“You're no supposed to be here!” I tried to warn him, but his silence confirmed it had never mattered to him. “I can't talk to you like this!”

“But you want to talk to me again.” He said this with such hope there was pain in my chest. “If you want to talk to me again, I won't ask for anything else. I don't want to hurt you. I don't want to scare you like that again.”

I could hear him shuffling against the floor and reached for my lamp before I could be cornered in pitch black. What the light revealed was my Erik after a long and aimless solitude; an Erik who'd lost his control, who'd chopped off his hair and shed his nice things. An Erik in a button-down and a fraying grey coat, who looked up at me with deep purple rings surrounding his eyes, my note twisting in between his fingers. He was trying to stand up, but the light caught him off guard, and perhaps so did I.

“God... You're so beautiful... I didn't want to hurt you.” My body was convinced I was back in that room, the shivering and the trembling combined into what felt like an earthquake from within me. All the while, as I had never seen him before, he slumped over like he hadn't the strength to lift his own head, and he kept clutching that note. Whatever I had told myself never to feel again came crashing like a tidal wave. The dam broke. I was slammed. I launched off the bed and threw my arms around him.

But this wasn't right!

I let him go and shoved him away. He didn't even try to stop himself from stumbling back and holding himself up again like a wilted flower. I didn't ever imagine he'd lose the fire in his heart the way that he had appeared to then. Who was he?

Come back. I clutched him again, then tore myself out when I could feel his hands just trying to reciprocate. No.

I held him, I shoved him, I held him, I shoved him.

Godamnit, react.

Why was I doing this?!

It was completely wrong to be near him, but I fell against his chest. How could we dare to fit together so perfectly? With his weary head fallen on my shoulder, his hair flattened against my cheek, his heart beating against me?

Even though the nights were not so frozen, he had every mark of being out in the cold, or was that all in his head – and my head, too?

We dropped down against my closet door, but I had to cry quietly; I had to remember that somehow he'd broken into my house and my parents were a room away. There was only one thing I could say that should have been true after so much of my trust, my privacy, and my sanity had been stolen. “I hate you...”

“I'm sorry.”

“That's not good enough... God, I hate you.”

“You can hate me. You can hate me...” He said.“As long as you don't hate me forever.”

“You've given me enough of a reason to!” I whimpered. He was unable to answer me. Couldn't I let go, now? Was I gripping him so tightly to hurt him or to soothe my own frenzy?

“I might have the capacity to do terrible things, but you know I can do wonderful things, too.”

“No.”

“I would do them over if you told me you wanted me to.”

The passion within the plea gave me the strength I needed to let go and stop letting that sharp, white face close on me.

“I don't want it done over again!” I had to pull his hand off my waist and consider that no other option would end the suffering on both our parts besides breaking out of paradigm that had always defined us. He'd seen the note he'd dropped, reached for it, and crumpled it in a tight grasp all over again. Although it felt like I was reaching in to a trap, I pulled the note out and dropped it behind me. I took his hands. “I can't be with you anymore. I can never be with you like that ever again. Because you weren't fair, and I wasn't fair, and neither of us loved each other for who we really are.”

“You're wrong...”

“Well I couldn't have loved you, because I saw you suffering and let you keep the reasons to yourself, because I wanted- I wanted to be selfish, wanted to be doted upon, wanted you to be Erik. But you obviously can't do it, and I'm not going to let you try...” Repeatedly, he was shaking his head, turning my touch into a hold of his own until the pressure on my fingertips halted my words.

“Don't tell me what I can't do...”

“You're hurting the both of us by trying. Stop this facade and tell me what you're running from. You got to know everything about me, enough to see why I can't leave, to see my friends do care about me. And all I-

“Am I not your friend?” I could feel a strength in his grip that would soon pull me against him and fought it instinctively by pulling out my hands. With a deep, agonized sigh, he dropped his face.

“No, you're- you're more than my friend, but I don't know what you are.” He had nothing to say, but he could see me in his peripheral, backing towards my bed, trying to hear for signs of my parents stirring. “You're not the one you said I could trust, who respected me more than anyone... who'd stop if I asked.”

“I wanted to be.”

“I'm asking you to stop right now. You can do more than want to. I have some faint idea of what you're doing, Erik. I'm not an idiot. You're an outlaw. Just tell me what you did.”

He seemed to hold his breath before crawling towards me. “I'm not here to talk about this,” he answered, coming closer and closer. I jumped on the bed and hid my thighs with a pillow.

“Then there's nothing else.”

His gaze slowly dropped to his lap when he could find no more words. The silence extended so far that I began to worry that someone passing would see my light through the cracks in the door. I grew tired of standing and lowered to the bed, but even under my scrutiny Erik was in another world. He thought he was still holding something, still planning, still avoiding the failure that I knew had happened months ago. I wanted to tell him he had to leave, but I didn't think he'd hear me.

When he looked at me again, his hands sunk to his sides. “I'm not going to be here anymore,” he told me. “Telling you why wouldn't save me from that.” All of a sudden, I felt tears behind my eyes, out of pure outrage.

“Is that the only condition you'd ever tell me? If it would help you?” I asked, as difficult as it was, but he didn't even understand. “Can you think how selfish that is for a moment? That I don't get to know? How do you expect anyone to love you like you want to be loved if you put up such a barrier? When I have to actually tell people 'no, he's real,' as if I have any idea what I'm saying...”

I couldn't see anymore for a moment, but I knew in just the time it took me to rub my eyes that he had leaned over the edge of the bed, clawing the comforter just by my feet. “I would have told you, but believe it or not I had my own concerns about trust. It felt just as it does now – that you would never accept what you heard. And I was too addicted to you – I still am.” He made no attempt to keep down his voice this time, and I inched away from his hand, meagerly trailing that he couldn't be here. He couldn't be here anymore. “Can I never be close to you again?” He asked, reaching for my wrist atop the pillow. I tore away. I kicked myself against the wall, but his hand fell on my leg and brushed at my ankle with an obvious hunger for the feel of my skin. “I swear to God, I'll wake them up, if I have to have you arrested-- don't make me do that.” Though his touch ceased, his hands hovered over me before they covered his face. “You won't see me anymore,” he repeated with a tone of almost mourning. I hugged my knees to my chest.

Stop saying that.

“Why can't I just know what you've done, then? If it makes no difference to you at all?”

“It makes a difference, Christine, it makes all the difference to me...” He turned his back on me and I could hear him starting to hyperventilate, but I held my ground.

“Please, just stop calling me that.”

“I want to be above that in your mind. I don't want you to see me like that. I just want you to remember your Angel. I want you to remember you'll never lose him, no matter where he goes.” The image would be frozen in my mind, and I'd dream of it for many nights: his shoulders trembling, his beautiful locks hacked away, and my own mutilated letter of love at his side.

“I remember my Angel, and that's all I'll ever be able to do!”

* * *

In the morning, I wandered around the house looking for traces of tampering at any possible entrance. Every window and door was locked, except the side door leading into the garage, but that wasn't unusual for us. Life had carried on. My parents were already at work. After coming back empty handed as to where he had entered our house, I had to sit at my bed, right where I had been, and tell myself calmly that the goodbye I had wished for had happened as well as it ever could.

No weapon seemed to make him weaker than feeling my disdain, my fear, and my hatred, I realized. It attacked him like a spell until being there with me was unbearable. He listened to me when I ordered him away, mostly because by then he was unraveling, and he didn't want me to witness it, but he told me he had no purpose but to love me. He couldn't promise he'd go on much longer without that purpose. He said he wanted to witness me perform before he left permanently; that on my last day he would come back and watch from somewhere safe, and that he was sorry he didn't support me the way I deserved to be supported. He didn't say anything about Westin.

But, somehow, I just didn't believe that he could know so little. Or maybe I'd broken his heart more than he wanted to admit.

* * *

I told Mariam that he'd gotten “a hold” of me and accepted my rejection, but that I was scared. I told her I was scared he'd kill himself. Of many things, that was my first suspicion. I was convinced that this perfect, thorn-pricked, superhuman being that he'd sought to become was all that made Erik's true self stand. No matter how much it had been cracked and punctured, to let it fall all of the way was to expose an empty void; to once again wish for nonexistence.

Carrying on with the new day feel like complacency, down to each second, and while Mariam asked if there was someone I could warn, I was too afraid to confront the manager of the theater, at first. Instead, I went into the bathroom stall once I was at the theatre and couldn't calm myself down for ten minutes straight. I was terrified to think of speaking to that distant lurker of our world, telling him I lied about my name, admitting to have been here after hours, in the middle of the night, with his son... That's who the owner was, obviously... Erik's father. I was shaking just thinking about seeing him here, and I returned to the backstage suffering the after-effects. Many of my cast was already in their make-up chairs, including Westin, who had a good view of me. He had been carrying on like a few less things had happened between us, smiling at me like he would have three weeks ago, and he'd been speaking less to me, so that I didn't feel smothered by him, I assumed. But he saw that my face was red.

Without giving anyone else notice me, I went to my own make-up chair and pretended to be preoccupied with my phone. Leslie, Joey, Patrick and the others were all polite enough not to embarrass me by asking why I had clearly been crying, but Westin seemed bothered by what he'd seen and got my attention before we'd gotten our costumes.

“You feeling alright today?”

“No.”

“Do you want to tell me what's wrong? It's okay if you don't.” He kept some space between us and kept his hands dangling, directing a weak but hopeful smile somewhere not quite reaching my face. I had enough guilt even without seeing how much aversion I'd truly shown him after that kiss.

“I can't talk about it.”

“Oh, alright. That's okay.” He wanted to touch me – he looked ready to brush my forearm, nothing too much – but he didn't do more than close the space between us with his arms crossed. “Well, sometimes when I have a bad day a show will fix everything. Or if it's too complicated, it will help me realize what to fix myself. I hope that happens to you tonight, 'cause you deserve to be happy. All the time.”

He tried to smile and back away, but I caught him and hugged him dearly. He gave me a full squeeze that mended in my mind what had come loose when I'd arrived. Such a lovely boy. Fuck that anyone saw.

We danced on the threshold to things my future now could hold, and Westin kept entertaining me at a distance when we were both between scenes. If he wasn't with me, I still could hear his voice booming at the other end of the curtain.

No messages from Erik on my phone, in my bag, or in any other way.

After the show, I approached Mrs. Vardega with a letter that had been written with haste and asked her to hand it to the manager.

* * *

There was no way to tell if I'd done any good, or if this man was in any position to judge the likelihood of my concerns, or to stop Erik should he truly be a danger to himself.

I'd been slacking off on my homework again. Couldn't focus on anything, couldn't just sip my tea. It was too dark to ride my bike. I didn't really feel like asking for Mariam's company, provided she was free, and even though she was online and willing to chat, it wasn't enough to just sit in the study staring at the computer screen. I would get up like I had somewhere to go and look out the windows.

* * *

On the day that I would play Bat Boy for the third time, I realized that The Phantom of the Opera had simultaneously been my entire life for something close to eight months, and only a memory encapsulated in simplicity and naiveté. The book was collecting dust in my bedside drawer. I no longer wrote shitty poetry about being Christine in my notebook. I hadn't seen a single film again because I didn't want to give myself impractical expectations about what might happen. And I realized I had stopped speaking even a word about it to my parents.

The monkey music box was in the darkest corner of my closet most of the time, only out in the past if I planned to be in my room for a while, alone. I'd even forgotten I had quite a lot of money saved for New York in a box in my dresser, since I made enough working not to need to steal from that stash anymore.

You would almost think, from a distance, that I had gotten on with my life completely, but standing at the epicenter I had nearly every reason to believe I had actually stopped time. I'd jumped through a portal that put my life on pause so that I could roam the wilderness of my mind. When I saw these things over again – a DVD case, the money, my poetry, I was back to the beginning, but there was a horrible taste in my mouth. Iron-rich blood. My heart beating in my throat.

The script on my desk reminded me we were not still in October, and that there were amazing new people in my life, but this wasn't the only change. There was much more – things that I wished I could undo.

I wondered if no one ought to love anything too much. I got nervous about the shadows outside. I was afraid if people knew all the choices I'd made, they wouldn't quite like me anymore. And I'd be the last person to even smile if one of my cast heard an odd sound up in the fly system and uttered under their breath: “he's here, the opera ghost!”

To be continued...



So, can't wait to hear back so I feel a little less alone, here... Hope you like it. I'll post more Bat Boy pictures soon, too. I found more!

♥, J