Beneath the Porcelain Mask

25. So Unhappy In Love.

"Are people so unhappy when they are in love?"

"Yes, Christine, when they love and are not sure of being loved in return."

Raoul and Christine.

Gaston Leroux, The Phantom of the Opera

I'm sorry for being so evil and ending the last Nikki chapter where I did!

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For two whole minutes, neither of us spoke. Neither of us moved. Jeremy stayed on his knee before me. The ring caught the light every so often and the little diamonds would cast faint rainbows on the blanket in the patchy sunlight.

"Nikki..." he murmured at last. His eyes hadn't left mine all this time.

Everything within me had sunk, even more than when Erik had disgraced himself, more than any time I'd killed for our protection, more than when les gendarmes or the constable or, damn it all, Vladimir had caught me. What could I say to a proposal of marriage? It wasn't as if I'd rehearsed for this. 

I knew Jeremy would be hurt if I said no. But was it fairer than roping him into my life of phantoms and shadows?

Flushing, I hurried to retrieve the dagger and slipped it back into my dress, out of his line of sight.

"Nikki? Are you alright?"

I stood properly, folding my arms nervously. "I... Jeremy, I-"

"It's alright to say no," he said, standing slowly. "I won't mind."

But his voice suggested otherwise and he didn't meet my gaze when I looked back up at him. He made to put the ring back in his pocket. My heart clenched. Hardly in control of myself, I caught his arm. He looked up at me in shock, his hair falling forwards.

In that moment of hesitation, I stepped up on my toes and kissed his parted lips. He hesitated for a moment, before relaxing slightly and letting me kiss him gently. I pulled away, but his eyes stayed closed, as if he wished to stay in a fantasy world of my affection, fluttering open after a few drawn out seconds.

"I'm not saying no," I whispered, laying a hand on his cheek and stroking his hair back with the other. His hands found my waist.

"But you're not saying yes either," he said, meeting my eyes again.

I shook my head. "I need time to... to think."

"I understand." He stepped back, retracting his hands to cradle the box. I put a hand over his and kissed his cheek. Were people so unhappy in love?

~•~•~•~■~•~•~•~

The carriage jolted over the outlying stones in the road. I stared out of the window, the dagger hidden away once more. Jeremy was fiddling with the little, red satin box, visibly trying not to cry, though once or twice a diamond tear would splash onto his hands.

As we reached the very outskirts of the city, where the houses began to cluster together and filled with people, he spoke.

"It was my mother's..." he murmured, admiring the diamonds. I watched him, already feeling the shame rise in me. Jeremy didn't look up. "She always wore this. I was working with Papa when she died. He went back to bury her, and when he returned to the Opera House, he had this with him."

­His voice cracked, but he swallowed and carried on. "I never went home. Even after Papa was killed, I just stayed in my apartment and went to work, and out to Rosiers for a week or two in the summer as usual."