Before The Opera: Prologue I knew I was saved the first time I saw her. They were on the beach, she and her father. It was night, but there was enough of a glow emanating from the full#moonthat I could study her face. She was only eight years old, yet I was certain I had never laid eyes on anything so beautiful. That night finished my period of nomadic wandering, of trying to distance myself from what I was. From that moment on, there was no Erik, only Christine. Every moment I lived, I would share with her. She would be my Angel, and I would be her knight. I crafted the Mask that night, beneath her bedroom window. I made myself beautiful, someone worthy of loving an angel. I whispered my heart to her until dawn, loving the air we shared through the open window, loving that tiny sleeping form, the ring of dark hair, the soft, sweet little-girl snores. Words of love filled me, words that could not yet take form, the kind that one cannot say, only feel. My love. My love, my love, my love. My sweet love. My Angel... Someday, someplace beautiful, she would hear those words from me.

Office Talk "It hurts so much, being in love with an angel." I lifted my face to gaze at nothing. The school counselor's office stared back, an indifferent mix of eggshell-blue wall, vomit-colored tile and an assortment of office furniture, all depressingly generic in color and form. I did not want to see it. I wanted to see him. So as in reality I thrust my face back into my hands, mentally I was safe in his arms. I imagined the feeling that would come from pressing into his neck, resting on his shoulder, his lips gently caressing my ear, his warm, deep masculine voice softly promising to protect me forever. For one glorious fragment of a second I saw his face, but then it was gone, as it always goes as soon as he leaves my sight, abandoning me to myself, to my loneliness. I came back. The school counselor's office stared me into reality. She was silent, contemplating the best way to respond to me. I felt a spontaneous string of thoughts roll through that endless stretch of empty time: My love. My perfect knight. I felt him again...Stop. He doesn't love me. She found her words. When she spoke, she did so as though addressing a dying person--carefully, methodically, taking deep breaths in between phrases. Telling me I need to change the way I think, that my love for him is nothing but an illusion, that it should be more about Me than Him. The office stood righteous, staring, gloating.