NERDS DON'T DESERVE THE ABUSE

By B-Man33

The sun is shining, the clouds are only out today in slight formations and the sky is a bright beautiful shade of blue. When you walk outside for the first time on a day like this you would hopefully think that nothing is going to happen. That is going to be a day full of great memories. For most teenagers at Kadic Academy it was going be. For Jeremy the memories would not be as pleasant.

For Jeremy it was just another Tuesday. The sun was shining through his window, glowing light onto his computer, his most prized possession. It was truly his best friend. Growing up like a lot of nerds Jeremy did not have real friends. Social anxiety is a major part of the nerd lifestyle. The only times that he truly felt comfortable was when he was hard at work on the computer. That was what he loved more then anything. The entire universe that opened to us with the invention of the personal computer. Jeremy already knew for several years that he wanted to go to college to build computers and software design.

Life for Jeremy got a little more interesting about three months earlier when on one of his many late night walks through Boulogne Billancourt that he came across a large abandoned factory on an island on the Seine. After a couple of hours of exploring Jeremy had located several hidden chamber far below the factory, accessible by an elevator and a couple hidden passages. It is in these chambers that he found what is possibly the coolest treasure for Jeremy to find. It was a large quantum supercomputer which contained a vitural world called Lyoko. When he first discovered this he immediately wanted to alert the media, but he stopped himself when he realized that by letting the world know what he had found could send parties with no so friendly agendas might want to get their hands on it so he decided that this could not only be his own secret, but also his oasis to escape from the harshness of reality.

There was one part of reality though that truly touched Jeremy. The new girl, Aelita. She started at Kadic at the beginning of the year after transferring from an advanced studies school somewhere in downtown Paris. She was the only person in the whole 9th grade class that could get equal or better grades then Jeremy. He had fallen for her the moment she solved a complicated geometry equation faster then him. Everything that he excelled at, she also excelled at. Well not everything. She was beyond pretty and immediately fell into the popular group when she arrived. She and Jeremy have had many conversations because of their similar interests but they have never really hung out outside of class except for a couple times when they worked on homework. She was probably really embarresed to be seen with him and if she wanted to keep her popular reputation she defiantly did not want to be seen in public with him.

What Jeremy could never understand is how a kind person like her could hang out with people like those asshole popular kids. The group consisted of mainly the top athletes, cheerleaders and super rich kids. They always loved to play mean pranks on Jeremy and several other nerdish kids. Jeremy has taken his good deal of punches over the past couple years at Kadic and he knew that he would take several more before graduation. Jeremy had learned a long time ago that if you give in and lash out at the bullies they just enjoy what they do more so most times when one of time makes fun of him, he would just walk away and laugh.. Sometimes this even pissed them off so it those instanses made Jeremy feel extra happy, but several times when after they would fuck with him Jeremy would retreat to his room or other private sanctuaries and just cry himself out. Fortunatly this kind of thing hadnt happened for a while so this kind of thoughts were pushed far back into his mind. But like always, all good things must come to an end.

"I hope this quiz won't take forever" thought Aelita as she made her way across campus to Earth Science class. She was loving the warm spring weather and was humming melodically as she walked. As she turned a corner someone called out to her.

"Hey Aelita come over here" said a tall muscular kid in a Rugby shirt.

"What's up Colin?" asked Aelita.

"Come check this out. Me and Phil did something" said Colin.

He walked over to the corner of the building. Aelita followed him, she had a bad feeling in her gut. Colin stood at the corner facing a long row of lockers.

"Your gonna laugh your ass off. Oh man here he comes" said Colin in a snide voice. He gave a thumbs up to a tall long haired kid about 50 feet to his east. He was smiling wickedly as well.

Aelita looked at the lockers. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, just a bunch of student's walking, some of them going into their lockers. She noticed Jeremy walking towards his locker. Then she knew.

"Colin what did you do?" said Aelita in a sort of serious tone.

"Shhhh. Just watch the geek" said Colin.

As Aelita looked up again she saw Jeremy walk up to his locker, twist and turn his combination, open the door and suddenly a bucket full of bright red liquid poured out and all over Jeremy, completely soaking him. Everyone around him suddenly turned to look and then there was a roar of laughter. Everyone was starring at him. Colin was rolling on the ground, laughing and Phil was doing the same thing on the other side of the walkway. There was two people though who were not laughing. The first obviously was Jeremy. The second was Aelita. She was not laughing, she was not even smiling. She was stunned. Why had these two kids do this to Jeremy. What did he do to them. Like always he did nothing, he was just another victim of teenage cruelty. She looked over at Jeremy. He just stood there like a statue. His hand was still on the door of his locker. He seemed to just be staring in front of him, almost completely oblivious to what was happening around him. Then he slammed his locker closed, turned and started to walk in Aelita's direction. As he walked past her she tried to say something to him but he just ignored her and continued to walk. He walked to the edge of the forest and disappeared into the tree's.

"Oh man that great. Dude why aren't you laughing?" said Colin to Aelita as he continued to lay on the ground.

She did not give him a verbal response. Instead she gave him a disgusted look and then took off towards the woods. This left Colin looking confused.

"Oh where did he go" Aelita thought to herself as she franticly looked around the woods for Jeremy. She felt awful for him. How could people be so cruel to others like that. Jeremy looked so miserable when he walked past her she knew that he needed someone to talk to. As she was serching she heard something heavy and metal hit the ground somewhere in the distance. She ran in the direction of the sound and found an open manhole cover, with the metal cover laying partially over it.

"Did he really go down there?" she thought?

Only one way to find out. She lowered herself into the hole and slowly desended down the ladder. At the bottom she noticed that for a sewer it was cleaner then she thought. She noticed that the tunnel only went one way so she pulled out her phone, turned on the flashlight and walked cautiously down the tunnel. Soon she reached another ladder. She quickly made her way up and was shocked to discover she was in front of a large factory. She walked down the bridge to the edge and looked inside the building. She looked down to see Jeremy inside an elevator as it closed. She was pretty sure he did not notice her. She descended down a rope at the edge of the broken bridge and made her way over to the elevator. She pressed the button, but nothing happened. She tried again, still nothing. She then noticed an old keypad above the button. She realized it must be activated by a password that Jeremy somehow knew so she was sure she was not using the elevator, but she knew he went down so she knew she had to make her way to the lower levels.

After spending almost an hour searching Aelita finally found some hidden passages leading down. She came across a large room with a ladder on the far end. She ran across and quickly made her way up the ladder. She moved towards a light that was coming from an open passage way. As she made her way closer she heared something that made her stop in her tracks. It sounded like someone crying. She inched her way slowly towards the opening in the wall. The sight shocked her. The next roomed looked like it was straight out of The Matrix. There was an enormous what looked to be virtual display hooked up to some huge machine attached to the ceiling. She could see several computer monitors and a raggy old chair on the other side of the room near an elevator door. What the hell was this place? Was this an old military base? To her to seemed way to advanced to be an old military base but who built it. Her head was swimming with so many questions that she almost forgot why she was there in the first place. She turned to her right and saw Jeremy sitting in the corner, his head buried in his knee's, heavy sobs can be heard coming from him. She noticed that his shirt and part of his pants were stained red.

"Jeremy?" said Aelita. Her voice seemed to echo inside the chamber.

Jeremy immediately shot his head up. It was completely red and tear stained. He stared at Aelita with a great mix of shock and surprise on his face.

"Aelita. What.." stuttered Jeremy.

"What is this place?" she asked as she slowly walked towards him.

Jeremy had stood himself up and tried to wipe all the tears off his face. This proved to be a little difficult with his whole face covered with them.

"Uhh. This is…uhh" he stuttered once again. He did not want Aelita to see him like this and he was trying his best to regain his composure but it was proving to be difficult. He then walked his way over to the computer interface. He sat down in the chair and it slid it's way over to the four monitors. Aelita walked her way over to the monitors as well. Jeremy began typing like crazy on the keyboard, than suddenly the virtual display lit up to display the four sectors of Lyoko. Aelita's jaw dropped in shock.

"The computer tells me this is a place called Lyoko. It is a virtual world that exists only here in this factor. It is run by a supercomputer that is two floors below us" said Jeremy. The sadness seemed to be draining from his voice.

"Did you build all this?" asked Aelita.

"I wish. I found this place three months ago. I have been spending a lot of my free time here trying to figure out this whole computer" responded Jeremy.

"Woah" said Aelita.

There was a brief moment of silence.

"Aelita why are you here?" asked Jeremy.

"I saw what Colin and Phil did to you. I wanted to make sure you were ok" said Aelita.

"Eh figures it was them" said Jeremy.

"Are you ok Jeremy?" asked Aelita.

He looked up at her from his chair.

"Oh I'm fine. I've been dealing with stuff all my life. Just sometimes it does still get to me when they all pick on me. Sometimes I just need to cry myself out" said Jeremy. He felt embarrassed to admit this to the girl he loved.

Aelita put a hand on Jeremy's shoulder. This surprised Jeremy. She had never touched him before.

"Oh Jeremy I'm so sorry. If I knew what they were going to do I would have stopped them" said Aelita in a sort of motherly voice.

This made Jeremy feel slightly better.

"I know how you feel. I used to get picked so bad at my old school" said Aelita.

Jeremy looked up at her again.

"Really? You?" he said.

"Oh ya. The kids at my old school were the worst. Just because we were all super smart does not mean they were all nice. I would get bugs planted in my backpack, beaten up in the bathroom countless times, they even once poured gold paint all over me" said Aelita. The recalling of memories seemed to bring sadness to her voice and Jeremy could see water in her eyes.

"Oh my god. That's horrible. Someone as beautiful as you should not have to go through that" said Jeremy. His eyes then went wide when he realized what he just said.

"What?" said Aelita.

Jeremy fell silent.

"You said I was beautiful" said Aelita softly. Her cheeks went red.

Again Jeremy was silent.

"Ah shit" he thought to himself.

Aelita moved the hand she placed on his shoulder and moved it around his other shoulder.

"Jeremy do you like me?" she asked.

"Of course I like you. You're an awesome and nice person" he said nervously.

"That's not what I meant smarts. You know what I mean" said Aeltia, she slightly tightend her hand on his shoulder.

"Well….I mean…yeah I do" stuttered Jeremy.

Aelita's eyes widened. Her cheeks went even more red.

"Yes. I have had an enormous crush on you since the day you walked into Mrs. Hertz's class in September. I mean look at you. Your so pretty" said Jeremy. Yet as he spoke he could not make eye contact with Aelita.

"And why did you never tell me this?" she asked.

"Because I know there is no way you could ever like me the way I like you. I mean your pretty and popular. How could you ever possibly want to be with a geek like me?" said Jeremy in a defeated tone.

What happened next took Jeremy by complete surprise. Aelita spun the chair around and sat on Jeremy's lap. She wrapped her arms around his neck and cracked his head so that he was looking at her. There was a look of complete shock on his face.

"What the fuck" he said softly.

"It's funny that you being as smart as you are that you can be so dumb in other ways" said Aelita in a sort of giggly tone.

"Wait so.." started Jeremy before Aelita placed a finger on his lips.

"Shhh. Being pretty and popular has nothing to do with how a person can be attracted to another. Jeremy we have everything in common. We both excel at the same subjects and have the best grades in the class. You may not know this but I love comic books and videogames just like you do" said Aelita.

"Really?" said Jeremy.

"Of course. I'm a nerd just like you" said Aelita.

"Then why do you always hang out with the popular crowd?" asked Jeremy.

"Because they just seemed to accept me as one of their own when I started here. You understand wanting to fit in. I never fit in at my old school and suddenly I fit in here and just part of me has always wanted that. But they are all just a bunch of snobs and jerks. After seeing what Colin and Phil did to you I knew I wanted nothing to do with them anymore" said Aelita with a small part of shame in her voice.

The two of them then just stared at eachother. It was like they were looking into eachothers eyes for the first time. After about a minute Jeremy leaned up and planted his lips onto her's. He wrapped his arm's around her waist and pulled her in close and she responded by wrapping her arms tighter around his neck. The two of them had never know this kind of passion before and they were both overwhelmed by it. They stayed in the embrace for what seemed like an eternity. When they finally broke apart and they again just stared at eachother, their foreheads and noses pressed together, enormous smiles seemingly cemented on their faces.

"I love you Aelita" said Jeremy in a more confident tone then he has ever had before.

Her eyes went wide. "Really?" she responded softly.

He nodded in response.

Tear's filled her eyes as she leaned in and kissed him hard again. The two of them sat there in each other's arms for long time. Both of them had never felt this amazing before and they did not want the feeling to go away. Eventually they fell asleep, still holding eachother tight. This was the start of something beautiful for both of them. The start of something wonderful. The start of their new lives. Both in the real world…..and Lyoko.

AUTHORS NOTE

This will mark my 20th fanfiction that I have posted on this site. All of my stories reflect my true inner feeling and desires to find that beautiful girl who will make my life complete. I know that one day it will happen. Hopefully she will love all the same things that I do. One day.

HOLLA