The Phantom's opera

A bet lost

"Nina, work started an hour ago." Erik whispered in my ear. Being still drowsy from waking up, it took a couple of seconds for what he said to set in. I quickly shot out of bed and got ready for work as quick as I could. I didn't even bother having breakfast or taking the passage to the outside of the opera house, I just sprinting up the passage way that would take me directly to my workroom. At this point I didn't even care if I aroused suspicion, I just needed to get to work as soon as possible, and what double sucked was that I lost the bet.

I was able to get to work just fine. I arrived with nobody in the workroom. I was lucky that Gertrude wasn't there because it would be hard to explain why I was crawling out of a wall. I threw myself into work immediately and not soon after the manager walked into the workroom.
"Ah Miss Chevol, I came around early to see you but you weren't here. Good thing I came again. " he informed me.
"I'm sorry, I was a bit late today for some personal reasons." I apologised.
" It's all fine child. I just wanted to tell you that Madame Berger's daughter came today to tell us that Madame Berger won't be coming in today because of her health." He explained. I gave him a quick thank you for letting me know and we both exchanged a 'have a good day' before I was alone again. Having Gertrude away was not a massive loss, since she didn't sew very fast, yesterday I had been able to sew a whole new outfit in the time it took her to mend a hole.

While alone with my work, it occurred to me that Erik had stayed out an hour later than the performance ended. I hadn't noticed it last night, mainly because I was excited to tell Erik about my day. I had ended up staying up to tell Erik when I would have up been in bed if I had told Erik before the opera that night. Finally it clicked and almost immediately I could feel the anger rising up in me. Erik had planed to leave the moment I got home, and knowing that I would stay up to tell him, he stayed out extra late so that I would be tired in the morning and lose my bet. I was really angry at this point. I couldn't believe that he would manipulate me like that in order to win some dumb bet. It kinda hurt knowing that he used my friendship with him like he did. I knew I couldn't tolerate this with Erik. I knew exactly where this manipulative behavior would get him and who it would hurt. I knew that both Christine and Erik would get hurt if I didn't teach him that manipulating feelings was wrong, and I wanted to protect them both.

I poured out my anger into my work which resulted in me sewing furiously for hours and a lot of pin pricks. I got so lost in my work until I realised that it was 9pm and the opera was starting in 30 minutes. I wasn't in any rush to get home to Erik today so I decided that I would take the longer route going via the outside passage. I was intercepted however by little Christine and a few little friends.
"This is our new seamstress, Nina that I was telling you about!" Christine introduced me to her friends.
"You were right Christine! She is pretty!" One of the girls blurted out which was received by me blushing.
"These are Sorelli, Meg, Jammes, Collette, Bernadette, Therése and Marie." She declared each name while pointing to each girl. All the girls looked the roughly the same age except for Sorelli who seemed a little older the the others.
"Well, it's nice meeting you all, but I better be going now. Feel free to visit me in my workroom, I do get lonely by myself with nobody to model my creations." I offered, which resulted in the young group of girls brightening up straightaway and chattering among themselves. Taking this as my cue to leave I began making my way to the door. I had almost made it out the door when I was intercepted again.
"Miss wait!" A man called as he gently grabbed onto the back of my arm. I turned around and was surprised to see it was the same young man from the night I fainted. Like with Christine, I was able to take in what he looked like this time. He was tall, but not as tall as Erik but then again I have never met anyone as tall as Erik. The man also had dirty blonde hair that was almost brown and brown eyes.
"I'm sorry, but I didn't ask your name last time we met." He said.
"My name is Alina." I replied simply "I didn't ask your name either."
He seemed a bit taken back when I said this but still kept his composure.
"My name is Count Philippe De Changy."