So I just discovered I am terrible at summaries. I'm pretty sure the story is better than the synopsis. And by the way, I don't own the Phantom of the Opera.

Hello! This is a story that has been languishing in my laptop for some time. I actually have this whole book written, but I am currently going through it and editing (and hopefully adding several more chapters because right now it is too short) one chapter at a time. I will try and upload at least once a week as I fix each chapter. I hope you enjoy!

Chapter 1

It was pouring down rain. The sound of it hitting the roof was almost deafening. I was having no luck concentrating on anything coming out of my teachers mouth. I heard something along the lines of 'enjoy your weekend' and then I was joining my classmates in packing up my books. It was my final class of the day and since my teacher had just let us out fifteen minutes early, I went to go wait for my boyfriend to come down and meet me outside at the school's gazeebo. It was this cute little old wooden structure someone had built years ago in the back corner of campus.

As I walked toward the door, I searched my bag for the little pocket umbrella that I had grabbed that morning before the rain started. When I reached the door and had yet to find it, I gave up and shoved my bag around to look for it. I saw my umbrella conveniently on top of all my books instead of the bottom like I had thought it was going to be. I sighed as I went down the stairs that led up to the entrance of the school- or in my case, down to the freedom of the weekend- and every so often an elbow or book bag would bump into me as other high-school students walked by or formed little groups of umbrellas as people talked about the days' happenings. Today had been pretty awesome: no homework, the teachers were pretty relaxed, and I had rehearsal later. Overall, the makings of a great weekend. But, something still felt off. I walked to the gazeebo enjoying the sound of the rain falling around me. There was no one there. I waited. And waited. When twenty minutes had passed, I got up and made my way back to the courtyard. I figured it just felt like a long time because of how early my class had let out, but I couldn't shake my uneasiness. I mingled around in the crowd for a while before I began to get impatiant. I fingered my phone in my pocket, wondering if everything was okay. He wouldn't have left without saying anything and I hadn't recieved any messages, so he hadn't texted me.

He finally appeared around the corner at the top of the stairs. He paused, looking down through the crowd of people on the stairs, around me. He pushed his blonde hair out of his eyes and continued to scan the crowd; I can only assume looking for me, like he usually did after school. After watching him look around, I felt like he was starting to look like a lost puppy. An incredibly sweet, attractive lost puppy, but still.

"Jason!" I waved my umbrella and free arm to get his attention. His eyes lit as they landed on me, then, his expression was replaced by one I didn't recognize. He walked down to me, I saw him squeezing through the crowd, and I met him with a hug. When he stiffly pushed me away, I knew something was wrong. Usually, he was warm and never hesitated to hold me. He met my eyes and I raised my eyebrows in question. "You okay?" I asked. He looked away and shook his head. "What's going on?" I asked. When he turned back to me, his face was a controlled mask, blank and impossible to read.

"Em, I have to tell you something and neither of us is going to like it. But I have no choice in the matter." Contrary to his controlled expression, his voice pleaded with me to understand. But, understand what? My heart sank as he started speaking again. "I'm sorry, but we can't be together for a while."

My breath caught in my throat. "What?" I managed to gasp. "Why? What did I-" He interrupted me before I could get any further.

"Nothing-," he began. I burst in, "Then why are you-?"

"Listen to me, Emily!" He thundered. I stopped speaking, stunned into silence. I glanced around at the people that were near us and saw them watching us. I felt my cheeks flame with embarrassment. He had never spoken to me that way before. I glared up at him as he dropped his voice to almost a whisper. "You know I love you right? You know that nothing on this earth could make me stop?" What? Confusion built inside me, along with fury. Did he really just say-? Had I heard his first sentence wrong? I looked at him and knew I hadn't. I felt like I had swallowed a lead weight as I asked, "What do you mean, Jason? Don't tell me one thing and try to soften it by saying 'I'll love you forever.' I don't understand. What's going on?" I looked up at him. He wouldn't meet my eyes, but he no longer had his cool, expressionless face. His eyes looked so sad. "I can't…" he started. He changed his mind and said, "I just want you to know that. I'll try to explain later, but just bear with me right now. Something's going on right now. I have to do this. I'm sorry." His voice broke on the last syllable.

"You can't expect me to accept just breaking up for good if you can't even tell me why!" I cried softly, fury gone and an awful wrenching feeling took its place. "Another girl?" I asked quietly. He shook his head. "No! I swear. But I can't tell you the reason. I'm sorry, Em. But this isn't for good. I can promise you that."

"Then why would you do this?! Especially here? Why not wait 'till it was just you and me? Are you that much of a coward?" It was because he knew me. He probably figured I'd have to take care not to bother the people around me. I hate unnecessary attention, I get really weird and shy. It's really strange. It's almost like I'm an introvert or something. I continued, "If you can't deal with a serious relationship just say so." I paused. "If I can't depend on you to talk things out with me now, after how long we've been together-" since freshman year, "-why should I believe you would be any more reliable in the future? Why would you say this is temporary when-"? My voice broke off. He turned away. I stared at him for a few more seconds, unbelieving. I could see I wasn't going to get an answer and I considered yelling just to try and get one. I couldn't do it, though. I couldn't hurt him like that- goad him into telling me something he didn't want to even though it was breaking my heart.

I started to leave, just to get away from what was happening, when I felt a hand slip into mine and stop me. I turned back and didn't have time to ask him, just what did he think he was doing, when he pulled me to him. My eyes were open wide as Jason pressed his lips to mine. His arms were around my waist, holding me in place. My umbrella hung at my side, letting the rain drench us both; I was too shocked to do anything. Yet, I wished I could stay in that moment forever. I relaxed as he held me and had just started to kiss him back when he pulled away. He was still holding me to him. I was warm despite the rain when I met his eyes. The intense look he had was enough to make me weak in the knees. He let me go as he whispered, "Don't forget." He left me staring at the trees behind the school, rocking as the wind blew through them, watching the students filter off into the dorms. I couldn't tell if the water running down my face was tears or just rain. Or both.

"-mily! Emily!" I heard my name, distorted, and it seemed as if it was coming from far away. I tried to pry my eyes open, but I couldn't move. I got them open a crack and murmured, "Wha-?" I closed my eyes and managed to sit up. I gave my head a little shake to clear out the fuzziness that seemed to pervade everything and looked around.

"Emily, are you ready to join us?" Mrs. Carolyn asked. I nodded and tried to play it off as nothing. "I'm so sorry, Mrs. Carolyn." I gave a strangled sounding laugh. "I don't know what happened. I must have just… dozed off."

"Alright, then. Tonight, class, I want you to look at-," She continued to talk about our homework assignment for the evening that was supposed to help us study for the quiz that we would have the next day. I barely heard her. My head was too full of what had just happened to me to pay much attention. I stared out the window, watching the rain fall and the trees sway back and forth in the wind.

What had just happened to me? I had gone from staring out the window at the rain beating the ground to feeling like my head weighed a ton and then- that awful memory. I continued to ponder the odd experience when the bell rang and I started to gather my stuff, eager to get to my next class. When I got into the hall, I yelled my best friend's name. "Hey, Abby! Can you give me the homework assignment? I totally zoned out during class today." I deliberately avoided telling her what I had experienced. Didn't want any of the school gossips catching wind of my newfound craziness. I'd have to tell her later, if she suspected anything more than what I was telling her.

Abby laughed. "I can tell. You never fall asleep like that. What's up- other than the whole Jason drama? Or is that it?"

After Jason broke up with me, I ran over to Abby's dorm room and ugly cried for the longest time. She had comforted me by putting on a cheesy movie and breaking out the popcorn and ice cream. It had helped, because I mean, what can't a chick flick and sugar ease? But my heart ache didn't go away that quickly. Unfortunately.

"Emily?" Abby's voice brought me back to the present. "Yeah. I'm okay. It's nothing. I'll see you later, okay?" I bolted for the stairs before she could question me further. "Bye!" I yelled over my shoulder. My haste still wasn't fast enough to evade the concern I saw in her eyes. My thoughts drifted back to the blackout. Why had it happened? Why did this keep happening? Every time this happened, my thoughts whirled in the same cycle. I was surprised that I managed to stay aware enough that I responded when people said hi to me as I drifted down the stairs.

I finally let my thoughts take over. That was the fourth time a blackout had assaulted me. Each time, it seemed it was because my surroundings matched an emotional memory. Why? I had no idea. I wiped away a stray tear that I only noticed because it ran down onto my lips. That memory had been the most painful. The other three had been happy. The first had been a memory of my 6th birthday: mermaids, under the sea theme, the whole nine yards. The second, when I received an award for reading the most books in my whole elementary school for the yearly read-a-thon thing, the third, a holiday memory with my grandmother, who had passed away a few years ago. That one had made me cry. It had been so good to hear my grandmother's voice again. But this one was different because it opened fresh wounds.

I walked down the stairs and looked around, hoping to avoid Jason on my way into the theater. I had hoped, at the beginning of the year, that it would be fun to have a class together. We both loved to act on stage and we used to make stupid little duet videos that we would post on YouTube. But, now, this wasn't turning out quite the way I had hoped. I checked around me to make sure I hadn't missed him, even though I was supposed to be avoiding him. He hadn't passed me going down the stairs like he usually did- sometimes he liked to race to the theater to see who could get there first. I pushed the endearing thoughts about him away and continued to look for him. He wasn't in the hall leading to the theater, either. Where was he?

I decided to ignore him if I saw him. I opened one of the squeaky doors to the theater and headed to a seat. When I sat down, there was a tap on my shoulder and the creak of old craftsmanship as Jason jumped over the row of old theater seats. "I need to talk to you," He said, "about last Friday." I glared at him, tears filling my eyes, making me more angry that he was about to see me cry. Why were boys so stupid?

"I'm not ready to listen to you yet. I'm not sure I even want to talk to you again. Remember the last time I did that? Yeah, let's not." I got up and walked back stage with him calling my name. I brushed the tears that had fallen away as I walked. He called me once more and I looked back at him. "Can't you just give me a few days?" I asked. I couldn't meet his eyes. I slipped behind the curtain and into the green room to wait for class to start.

The day finally over, I sat on my bed at home and contemplated what I was going to do about my miserable love life. I didn't want to ask Jason for a reason and I wasn't ready to let him tell me. Life. Why does it have to be so complicated? I grimaced a little at this and thought, because then it would be dull. Where would the excitement come from? Where would theatre be without complicatedness?

Theatre was one of the best things I'd ever gotten involved in. I had been in all the community theatre productions since I could carry a tune. It went along from there. As it turned out, I wasn't bad. Far from it actually. My first voice teacher told me I was one of the few she taught that had "natural ability". Theatre was my passion. I loved it. I felt at home on the stage and the applause at the end… that was something I lived for. I didn't really know why. It wasn't fulfilling or anything like that. It was just… it made me happy to hear people clapping for me, and even that didn't describe what I felt. I couldn't really explain it. I just felt like I was meant to be on the stage. It was where I belonged. I settled back to try and fall asleep, glad to be home and not in the dorms. In a way, it was good that my parents were out of the country. Usually, students had to stay on campus during the week, but I had gotten special permission to watch the house for however long my parents were away. Man, was I glad of that today. I needed to process everything that had happened in a place with no outside influence, or looming ex-boyfriends wanting to talk while I was still emotionally unstable.

Well, there's the first chapter. It's one of the slower ones full of info that is important for later on in the story. And I just realized that I might not be able to update for two weeks because it is currently dead week at my university and the next week is finals. I have a whole bunch of projects I need to finish and tests to study for. Yeah. Woo! But, after that, I will have until the end of January to go through this! So I will probably be able to update more than once a week through December. Thanks!