THE MONSTER INSIDE (2015)

Chapter 4: Crushed by Love

     It's the year 2010. It's a cold, winter noon at Israel M. Foster Middle School. The twelve year old grader, Eliard, is enjoying his lunch with his table at the cafeteria. The cafeteria is large, with one main entrance at the front, a exit to the outside front of the school at the back just right of the lunch line, and two small exits at the sides. To the immediate left of the main entrance, there is a wooden stage for plays. There was enough room for thirteen rows of five round tables from the left to right sides of the cafeteria. Eliard's table the first table at the right of the entrance, against the wall. He is accompanied by the cool gamer and gangster African-American, Tyrone wearing a black hoodie, tan sagged jeans, and Air Jordans. There's also the tough guy friend, Mardon, sporting his black and white with hints of red sweatshirt, his dark blue jeans, and ordinary sneakers. Finally, there is a Chinese boy, Nicholas, who is average to big in weight, wearing a plain blue shirt, and typical sweatpants. This one eats a lot and is the loudest talker. Eliard notices a pretty girl walk by, and her name is Avalie. Her beauty screams Scarlett Johansson and her smile shines Emma Watson. She's wearing a bright pink dress for her birthday, pulling all of the attention towards her.

"Dude, you should talk to her." Mardon suggests to Eliard.

"I've never talked to girls. I don't know what to say." Eliard nervously responds.

"Hi, would be a start." Tyrone sarcastically responds.

"It has to happen someday, or she will find someone else." Mardon tells Eliard. Eliard just looks at the stunning Avalie from a distance, who's enjoying her surprise cake from her friends. A few weeks have past since that day. It's passing time between sixth period and seventh period class. Eliard is in the middle of a double period English class. Mardon just arrived back from the four minute break between the two periods, looking concerned at Eliard.

"Yo, Eliard, come here, man." Mardon called out. His leg was shaking a bit. Eliard walks over and Mardon takes him to the quiet corner of the classroom, next to the bookshelf, to the left of the entrance.

"What?" Eliard looked bothered but curious. He was in the middle of doing his classwork.

"I saw your crush, Avalie." Mardon, looking tense, says. He looks nervous.

"Okay? Yeah, I know, she's very pretty." He smiles upon saying that.

"Not that. She was talking to one of her friends. She said, 'So, this boy named Eliard Shawn likes me.' Dude, she knows." From the look on his face, you can see that Eliard's world had just changed. From this very moment, nothing will be the same. In fact, it just gets worse. Over the course of the school year, people constantly harass young Eliard Shawn. In history class, a class whom Eliard shares with Avalie, people urge him to ask her out. However, he doesn't want to and the kids acknowledge that, using it as the basis of their running joke against Eliard. Sometimes, he catches Avalie laughing at him, too. To make matters worse, on a spring day, Eliard is heading to his Math class. On his way, he sees Avalie with some of her guy friends, laughing. One of the friends say to him, "Yo, Eliard, ask out Avalie!" They start to laugh at him. But what pushes Eliard further is when Avalie sarcastically says to Eliard, "Yeah, ask me out." She wasn't supporting him or defending him, she was being rude and offensive. Avalie and her friends laughed as Eliard, now embarassed, heads downstairs to class. He stops at the bottom of the steps to cry, silently. It was a short, upsetting cry session. He wiped his tears with his sweatshirt and walked into his class, two classrooms down to the left of the stairs. He walks in, right before the bell rings, and sits at the corner of the class. He ignores the lesson, only barely writing down the notes. He just stares into nothingness, his anger and horror on his face. He doesn't hate Avalie, he only hates what she did to him. One of his male class mates, sitting in front of him, asks him, "Eliard, are you okay?" Eliard doesn't respond, he just stares at him, with terror and rage in his eyes. The kind of face one would be scared of meddling with is seen on Eliard's face.