Chapter 2: The Fall

Élianor

The doors of Saint-Exupère High School open like a mouth swallowing its share of prey. The noise is deafening, a din of laughter, shouts, slamming lockers. I plunge into it, making myself as small as possible, my bag clutched against my chest like a shield. It's an illusion. Here, I am naked.

The hallway is a tunnel of ordeals. Eyes land on me, heavy and insistent. Smirks, whispers that stop dead as I pass. I stare at the line of floor tiles, an imaginary escape route that leads nowhere.

"Hey, watch it! You're taking up all the space!"

A shoulder slams into me, deliberately. It's Matthias, the soccer team captain, surrounded by his henchmen. They snicker.

"Sorry, didn't see the wall," he adds, falsely contrite.

My face burns. I murmur an almost inaudible "sorry" and hurry on. My refuge is the back of the French classroom, the last table, by the radiator. A place where I can blend in, become furniture.

But today, something is off. The whispers are more numerous, more insistent. Stifled laughs erupt as soon as I enter a room. Glances shine with an unhealthy excitement. Liora, encountered near the restrooms, has a cat-that-ate-the-canary smile. A smile that chills the blood.

"Have a good day, sister," she says in a sugary, too-sweet voice.

The trap closes at lunchtime. The cafeteria is the beating heart of the school hierarchy, and I have no place there. I take my tray, hands clammy, and head for an isolated corner, as usual. Suddenly, a commotion rises near the doors.

It's Liora's group. They've set up a projector and a folding screen. A crowd starts to gather, excited.

"What's going on?" someone asks.

"It's the high school beast contest!" Liora announces, smiling. "We made a montage to elect the most... memorable specimen."

A general laugh rises. My stomach clenches, a knot of ice. I want to flee, but my feet are glued to the floor. The screen lights up.

And it's me.

A close-up photo of me, stolen while I was eating alone, face bloated, cheeks full. The crowd roars with laughter. Another photo appears: me from behind, my too-tight jeans molding disproportionate hips. The laughter redoubles.

"And the grand winner is... Élianor the Whale!" shouts a boy I've never spoken to.

Tears sting my eyes, burning, humiliating. I want to scream, but no sound comes out. I want to disappear. That's when the video starts.

It's a video filmed with a phone, shaky. You see me, last weekend, at the town's annual ball. An evening I forced myself to attend, hoping for a miracle that would never come. I'd stayed in my corner, drinking a soda, invisible. Until Théo, a senior, popular and handsome as a god, approached me.

I remember that moment. My heart had leaped. He'd smiled at me.

"Want to dance?" he'd said.

I'd believed in the miracle.

The video shows the scene. You see me, flushed, hesitant, accept. Then, on the dance floor, as a slow song begins, he leans toward my ear. The phone's microphone must have picked up his voice. His real voice.

"You know, Élianor, no one will ever want you. You're fat, you're ugly, and you stink of loneliness. Dancing with you is the price I paid for a bet. You're just a joke."

Silence falls in the cafeteria. A deathly silence. Then, laughter explodes. Unrestrained, hysterical laughter that seems to shake the walls. Hundreds of pairs of eyes are fixed on me. I see them, those eyes, shining with malice, with glee. I see my sister's face, radiant, in the front row.

I am the joke. The punchline. The beast.

My whole body trembles. Tears flow now, warm and salty on my lips. I drop my tray. It crashes to the floor with a sound of breaking dishes lost in the laughter. I turn on my heel and run. I run like a madwoman, shoving people, blinded by tears.

The laughter chases me, echoes in the hallway, clings to my skin like pitch.

"Bravo, whale!"

"She's crying! Look, she's crying!"

"Run, fatso, run!"

I push through the heavy school doors and bolt down the steps. Shame is no longer a feeling. It's a substance, thick, black, filling my lungs, clogging my throat. It flows through my veins instead of blood. The whole town saw. The whole town laughed. My family, my classmates, my neighbors.

I run without knowing where I'm going, cheeks streaming, heart in shreds. Each laugh is a stab wound. Each glance is poison. I am naked. I am defiled. I am nothing anymore.

The fall is complete. And at the bottom of this abyss, something is born. A spark. Tiny, drowned in the ocean of shame. A cold anger, waiting only for its hour.