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Chapter 13

To See Your Pain

"What do you want?" Raoul greeted Bethy with. "Here to insult me?" Bethy look at him and saw his shame.

"No wonder you're not a hit with the dinner guest," She said sarcastically. She saw his shame even come through more at the comment.

"You are so much like your father," as he said this he started to shut the door. She moved forward, pressing her hand against the door, keeping it open.

"No, wait! Viscount de Changy, I want to talk with you, please, may I come in?" He looked at her and for the first time, she saw a mask covering his whole face. She had done that to him. He stepped to the side to let her pass. She walked into the foyer of the house. She saw dust covering the whole area.

"Your servants really need to learn how to dust. This place is disgusting!"

"I no longer have servants, they all left when I came back hurt and deformed." She turned back to him. So he was all alone?

"I'm sorry," she said quickly. He walked past her, sitting down on the couch. She went to an armchair across from him and sat down.

"No you're not," he said looking at the ground. Bethy looked at him. She saw his pride was gone, his flair and passion for life diminished.

"Listen, my mother and father does not know I am here, so I must be brief. I came here because I realized I had done something one would not even wish on his deepest enemy. I cursed you with what I have seen my father suffer through my whole life. I hate it, and I have made you suffer it. I see your pain just as I see my father's. I meant to teach you a lesson, but it is a lesson no one should have to learn; the pain of being hideous. Now you're all alone, and it's my entire fault. I don't know maybe you deserve it, oh I don't know! Does anyone deserve this?" Bethy had tears coming down her once beautiful flawless face.

Raoul stared at her. He realized how much she had been through in her short life. There was an old and lonely woman in front of him, not a young and spirited thirteen year old that he knew she could be.

"I've made mistakes, Miss. Elisabeth, mistakes that I am not sure I would take back but you have not. I harmed your father, and in return you harmed me……"

"No, monsieur that is my point! You harmed my father, but I killed you! I am sorry, I never wanted to make anyone suffer what my father suffered, and I have! I am more like my father in more ways than I ever wanted to be. I am a murderer! My father wanted to change me, and he hasn't, or I haven't! I don't know!

I wanted to be different from my father, make up for the mistakes he's made, but I am still dragging his name farther down! I thought I would feel good after what I had done to you; I had given you my father's curse, but I realized that that was exactly what it was; a curse! All I've felt was anger, hate, confusion and grief and guilt and I can't take it anymore! I have ruined your life and it has been killing me! I am just so sorry, and there's nothing I can do to take it back! No matter how much I want to! Please, do you forgive me?" Her tears were still falling down her beautiful face. Raoul's tears were heard with hers. Raoul's tears stopped suddenly.

There was a long pause between the two. They just looked at each other, trying to understand.

"You look so much like your mother, Miss. Elisabeth. Just, please do me a favor; take your hair down. A person with a soul like yours has to be let free to run. Your father should have had a chance to run, but he never did. Take the chance for both of you, go and run free." Another long pause followed. They understood each other. They had no reason to be enemies.

The silence was needed. Both had to get there thoughts, and Bethy tried to dry her tears. Raoul leaned his head back against the couch and closed his eyes. Bethy stood up to leave.

"I forgive you," was heard silently through the room, as Bethy left the lonely house. Raoul sat there, alone and miserable. "It's alright, Erik, I didn't touch your child," he said to the room. A cloaked figure emerged from the hall.

"How did you know I was here?" the former Opera Ghost asked him.

"You never leave that child alone for long. I knew you were there on the stage when I came to visit and met her for the first time." Erik smiled. "How is your wound?" Raoul asked him.

"Other than the fact that I can barely walk and could die any day now, I am fine. I don't care what happens to me, Viscount. You of all people should know that by know." He turned and looked towards the door. "What I worry about is Bethy."

"Erik, when she gets home, don't yell at her, she needed to do that. I didn't need or want an apology, but she needed to do that." Erik nodded.

"I was going to make no remarks to her leaving, anyway, Viscount."

"Don't call me Viscount. We are and always have been equal,"

"Not in the minds of the rest of the world we haven't." Erik snapped. There was a pause. "She….she thinks I'm a murderer. She blames me for all this. She doesn't want to be anything like me." He said softly.

"You are a murderer, Erik. You know you are. There is so much of her that is so much like you, she can't even help it. She just needs to be free."

"I can't make her free………" With that he was gone. Raoul let his tears fall, and he left the room.

The next day, in the news paper, there was a headline that read;

Viscount Raoul de Changy is dead. How he died is a mystery, all that was found, was a knife in his hand, and blood from his wrists.

It is thought that he committed suicide.