Twisted Every Way(Phantom Of The Opera Fic)

Chapter 37:Old Friends

Autumn had stayed in her own modest room in the Destler house in the months that followed, she enjoyed the walks in the dark, watching the plays and humming along from the shadows. 

Her and Gustave were as thick as thieves, one rarely seen without the other. She spent hours discussing music theory with Erik to his delight. 

Playing with Eli and Ilios, singing with Christine who had so desperately missed an audience, it gave her purpose, it felt like home. 

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Gustave took a deep breath, here went nothing. 

Dinner, their first dinner out at some fancy Parisian restaurant whose name he couldn't pronounce. 

His parents had funded it for a very special reason. Autumns mother had left her, cut all ties and went off chasing another fortune.  Autumn needed parental direction, needed a home and Erik feeling the ties of having no one, nothing, sought to provide her with it. 

Gustave shifted uncomfortably and then began, "Autumn, I've known you since we were kids. You were the one friend I could always count on to listen and to love and...after all these years I never realized how much I truly do need you. You are the best thing that's ever happened in the entirety of my miserable life."

"I agree." she laughed.

"Sorry what?" Gustave asked.

"I agree that your life was miserable and I was the best thing that happened in it."

Gustave smiled, "That's why I think its quite overdue but..."

Autumn bit her lip in suspense, she hoped that this was going where she thought it was going. She sat across from him at the dinner table, admiring his face free of the mask and his existence are of the Opera. The lighting of the restaurant allowed her to truly see his eyes and smile.

Then Gustave saw her.

"And that is why Anabel I would like to ask you..."

Autumn frowned, "Wait, sorry. What did you just say?"

Gustave wasn't even looking at her anymore.

 "Gustave? Hello? Were you going to ask me something."

He nodded, "Yeah yeah I was just...hold on a second," he mumbled standing up and walking away as if in a blind trance.

"Ask my Father, he can-put it better I think."

Autumn watched silently from afar. 

Gustave had gotten up and walked over to another table across the way. There he stood awkwardly waiting, seeing if someone was to return. 

Who was Anabel? 

The pain and grief struck Autumns heart. Was he going to leave her there alone? After all, they'd been? He didn't seem like the type but maybe she didn't know him as well as she thought she did.  Fredrick never would have-

The minutes turned from ten to twenty, Gustave pacing from table to table asking questions, interrogating waiters. 

Silently overcome with confusion and pain, Autumn grabbed her coat and ran out of the room in silent tears. 

Gustave didn't follow.Gustave stood once again at the empty table. It couldn't be possible...not now after all these years. 

Then he saw it.

The red coat on the tall girl checking out at the front desk. He ran after her as quick as his legs would carry him. 

"Anabel!" he yelled.

She turned and looked at him. She then smiled wider than he'd ever seen her smile and burst into laughter. He ran up and hugged her tight.

"How are you? Are you okay? Whats happened, I saw no news of you and I got worried and..." Gustave talked on and on and on, Anabel giving replies quicker than he could ask questions. 

No thought of Autumn entering his mind. 

He helped her to her table and asked her to catch up about old times. Her eyes were excited by the candlelit room.  

After a bit of discussion Gustave mumbled some question about how Jean was.

"He dead thank the lord. Kicked in the back of his head by his horse. Served the coward right I'd say." she mumbled. Her eyes raised upwards pleadingly, begging for forgiveness. "I never got over you Gustave, every year I spent married to that man I found myself pretending it was you. And that made everything okay But I did love him I suppose, enough in the end. Enough to care and feel. Enough about me, what has happened in your mystical, amazing fantastic life?"

Gustave grinned, "Well actually I met..."

He looked to the empty booth.

Then he realized his mistake.

Autumn was gone.