All Chapters of The Revenge of One Humiliated: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

ÉlianorThe 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.

ÉlianorThe two weeks that follow are a waking dream, a golden, unreal reverie from which I fear waking at every moment. Raphaël doesn't just keep his promise. He embodies it.He is everywhere.The day after our meeting in the park, I return to school, fear in my belly, expecting fresh torment. But at my locker, a wildflower, a cornflower, is slipped into the vent. No note. Just this bright splash of color against the gray metal. My heart leaps.In the hallway, he walks beside me. He doesn't take my arm, doesn't clasp my hand; his presence alone is a declaration. He speaks, his calm voice covering the whispers."Did you finish the book I told you about, Élianor?"The looks are different. Less contempt, more astonishment. Curiosity. Even jealousy, in the eyes of some girls.The days pass. The cornflower is replaced by a daisy, then by a small sprig of lilac. Every morning, a silent surprise awaits me. He thwarts all my plans to eat alone, sitting across from me in the cafeteria with his

ÉlianorThe night swallowed me. After fleeing the town hall, the laughter stuck to my skin like a burn, I didn't have the strength to go home. Face Liora's gaze, my parents' hushed questions? Impossible. My body was nothing but an empty shell, vibrating with shame.I found myself in front of a seedy bar on the outskirts of town, a place where the light was dim and glances indifferent. I pushed open the door. The smell of stale beer and cold tobacco greeted me. It was perfect.I settled at the counter and ordered a drink. Then another. The alcohol burned my throat, but it was a simple, clean pain, drowning out the other one, the devastating one of Raphaël's betrayal. Each gulp was a poisoned balm that erased a little more of the memory of his smile, his sweet words, his lies.The bar lights became blurry. Voices turned into a distant hum. I no longer thought. I no longer felt. I was a shipwreck letting itself sink, drunk on pain and cheap whiskey. Silhouettes came to talk to me. Coarse

ÉlianorI remain leaning against the door, palms flat on the wood as if to anchor myself to what remains of my world. The whispering voices of my mother and Liora filter through, hissing and venomous. I don't make out the words, I don't need to. The tone is enough. It's a war council, and I am the enemy to be eliminated.The ball of ice in my stomach grows, spreads. It freezes the trembling of my hands, deafens the pounding of my heart. The pain between my thighs is now just a distant memory, a simple physical reminder of a much deeper fracture.I push myself away from the door and walk to the mirror above my sink. The girl looking back at me seems foreign. Her eyes are ringed with a purplish halo, her face is pale, her lips chapped. But in her pupils, there are no more tears. Just an absolute cold. The reflection of the inner ice.I spend the rest of the day cloistered in my room. No one comes to knock. No call for dinner. It's a heavy silence, a punishment before the punishment. They

ÉlianorThe weeks pass, identical and terrible. Each day is a repetition of the previous one: the hostile silence of breakfast, the heavy, meaningful walk to school, the sidelong glances, the murmurs that die out as I pass. I've become a ghost. A transparent person whom everyone carefully avoids, except to attach an insult or a sneer.I've walled myself in a stone silence. The timid girl was sacrificed on the altar of their cruelty. What emerges from her ashes is a creature of cold observation. I note everything. The names of those who snicker the loudest, Liora's fake smiles, Raphaël's cowardly indifference. I collect their misdeeds like others collect stamps. Every detail feeds the blaze of my hatred.But another change, far more insidious, is at work within me. A fatigue that isn't just of the soul. Morning nausea that I attribute to stress. A sensitivity to smells that makes me shudder. And then... the absence. A cyclical, fundamental absence that begins to dig a pit of pure anguis