Too far. And yet it was nothing.
The anger slowly melt into sadness, and I cried all the anguish away, feeling deadly lonely. For some reason, I felt deeply connected to him since the first day I met him. The episode after that, when I got to know his house and to hold his hand, had been my great treasure. I know we were perfect strangers then, but still it hurt seeing that that special relationship I had anticipated never came close to the truth.
I once stopped to think that he could be behind the walls, watching me, and that made me cry harder, angry at myself for holding up illusions. However, after a while I couldn't take this idea from my mind, and some kind of paranoia took control of me: it was like being on stage all that time. I would think him behind the walls and would act pityfully, as if that was the only resource left for me to use against him, or to sensibilize him. And it meant nothing for him! "I had expected too much, out of nothing," I repeated to myself...
This omnipresence of his was irritating. But after all, what could one expect from the "Phantom of the Opera", huh? What a ridiculous existence, I thought, as if I could hurt him doing so.
I couldn't believe I spent so much time talking about this damn ghost, inventing stories, to end up finding out he not only actually existed in flesh and bone, but was also a murderer. And a cruel idiot, who used my naivity to fool me.
I never felt so dependent on someone, and I hated that condition.
It was not like he was the first man I had wanted. I've been through a few dates and relationships before meeting him, though I would prefer acting as an inexperienced child - the same trick used by most of the artists around me, who didn't want to give up the various attractive and rich men courting them, yet still didn't want a spot on their image.
No, things were different with him, and I could tell that since the very beginning. He was not the first man I'd wanted, but he was the only one I'd ever wanted so badly. And to whom I had surrendered so completely, even if he hasn't asked for it.
I stood up and walked to the the mirror. It was a small framed looking glass, sitting on a table, half covered by clothes hanging over it. I looked at my face, my hair messed, my freckled cheeks wet. I looked deep into my own eyes and saw it was useless trying to brainwash myself: I still admired him and longed for his proximity.
At a second glance, I felt extremely stupid: certainly I could find something better to do than wallow in self-commiseration.
I combed my hair, tidying it with a braid. What day was today? Was Christine back yet? I hadn't decided if I would tell her everything, but I desperately needed to talk with someone. As I walked to the door, it opened, and my mom entered the room.
"Meg, the managers put box five on sale again!"
She said that in a somber, worried voice, as she would treat all the subjects related to it. And it was nothing but that hateful Phantom! She was the one who started all that, I thought angrily. She was the one who brought the idea that this Phantom was more than a general stage superstition.
She would claim that the maniac who was blackmailing the managers, the spectre spotted often around the Opera, and the spirit who played tricks on artists--were all the same person. I wondered what other incarnations he would assume...
But she was right, after all. It would make sense that this man would blackmail the managers: he had to get money somehow, and having box five for himself at every performance was a bonus. The things my mother "knew" about the Phantom were incredibly exciting, if nothing else--and I had became the preferred resource of stories about him among the ballet girls. How ironic!
So when she told me the Phantom had lost his little privelege, I glared at her and hissed, "it's about time!" slamming the door behind me.
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