MONSTER OF THE UNKNOWN

A DINNER WITH FAMILY

It's been over a week since Aaron and Mathéo's fight and they still aren't on talking terms. The former hasn't even tried to apologize and has pretty much decided to just avoid the latter completely. Aaron has really taken the stalker's advice about Mathéo to heart as he's now convinced that the normal may be secretly in league with UDAP. Sara reaches out to the latino to get him to forgive her boyfriend for what he did to him, but he ignores her totally 'cause he doesn't want anything to do with the girl nor her egotistical lover.

Apart from his ongoing beef with his two classmates, Mathéo still has something else bothering his mind, a dinner to be precise. Every year in the middle of Fall, Aldéric (Mathéo and Lyam's dad) organizes a family dinner at their house where he invites his mother and sister all the way from France to spend an evening with them, but it never ends up being as cozy and welcoming as intended. Don't get me wrong, the people on the nuclear side of the teen's foster family are amazing to him and treat him like one of their own, but the same can't really be said about the extended portion. Normally, Mathéo brings Aaron along as emotional support so he doesn't have to sit alone and take their shit all night, but considering the two's dispute, he's going to have to find someone else to come with him, and he knows just the right person to meet.

"Do you have any plans for tonight by any chance?" Mathéo asks Laura as they study together at the school library.

This massive hall of books has quickly become these two teens' preferred hiding place during their daily school lunch breaks to escape from all the socializing taking place in the cafeteria. They both just rather stay alone in the library where barely anyone in the school goes to and enjoy each other's company, platonically of course. There's just something so calming and peaceful about it.

"No, I don't. Why do you ask?" Laura responds to Mathéo's question a bit confused by his sudden interest with her after school itinerary.

"I just need a plus one to my family's dinner tonight and I was wondering if you would like to go. Aaron normally follows me to these kinds of stuff, but you know why that won't happen," Mathéo explains.

"Is it like a date?" the brunette blurts out the question at the top of her mind. Something like attending family dinners sounds like what a couple would do and the two aren't like that, at least the Latino boy doesn't see her that way. "As friends, I mean."

"If you want to think of it like that, I guess, but I assure you it's not as nice as you think. The Badis are an amazing family to me, but their other relations aren't such great people. They're just always so frustrating and I think I'll feel a bit more comfortable if you were there with me. What do you think? Will you come?"

"Well, if you put it like that, I can't really say no without feeling like a bad person."

"Thanks a lot. I'll send you my address and the time."

* * * *

It's already 9pm and the dinner has long since started, but Laura still hasn't arrived, which causes Mathéo to wonder if she changed her mind without informing him. Sitting around their large round dining room table are Aldéric, Joséphine, Louise (Aldéric's mother), Ambre (Aldéric's sister), Lyam, Kate and Mathéo. Between the Latino and his foster mother is an empty seat for Laura, but it doesn't seem like it's going to be occupied tonight. For some annoying reason, the grandmother and aunt repeatedly use that fact to make passive-aggressive comments about the adopted family member while knowing fully well that he can tell he's being mocked.

A few minutes later, a yellow taxi drives up to the Badi residence and Laura rushes out of the back seat. She nervously rings the door bell, worrying that she may have come too late. She tried to arrive on time, but Nathaniel delayed her with his unending ramblings about not trusting Mathéo enough to let his little sister go to his house on her own in the night. Laura just hopes the dinner is still on and that she didn't just let down her only friend the moment he needed her.