A Little Trip

Prologue

Coney Island. Meg Giry would describe it as cold. Unforgiving. A prison from which she could not escape. A perpetual nightmare. Her days at the Opera Populaire were behind her, nothing but a distant dream and her heart was now as hardened and cold as any other New Yorker's. It had been stolen from her without her even noticing it. A fraction of her heart, a tiny sliver that she could still claim, belonged to a man who did not want it.

Meg Giry was in love with Mister Y but she would never admit it. To acknowledge it would mean also acknowledging that  he did not reciprocate her feelings. Mister Y, or Erik, as she knew him, was still utterly devoted to Christine Daae. No one had seen Christine in years, though it was rumored she and her husband were holed away in France, penniless and ashamed. Meg knew that Erik would never stop loving Christine and she was only setting herself up for pain to fantasize about a life with him. Her mother liked to fill Meg's head with dreams that he would one day notice her and she would bring him out of his misery and despair. But it was always Meg's fault that she had not yet accomplished this. She did not dance well enough or smile big enough. Years of this strain had taken it's toll. Meg no longer vied for his attention. She lived for her work, pitiful as it was. She had taken pride in her art while in France. It was beautiful and delicate. People would pay good money and dress up to see the shows she danced in. Now, she was nothing but a cheap vaudeville act for crude men to hoot and holler at. These were not the gentlemen she'd been accustomed to in France. Those men would gently kiss her hand and offer quiet compliments. These men pawed at her and stared at her as though she were a piece of meat. Her costumes were so skimpy, she felt as though she may as well have been naked, and from the looks they gave her, she knew they were thinking the same thing. She no longer felt safe walking to the tiny flat she shared with her mother, often asking one of her male castmates to escort her. She missed the dorms and the safety of the opera house. She'd been happy with her life in France.

Meg wished they'd never left.