Eli is an introverted person who has gone through most of his life not knowing what it was like to have an enemy or to be disliked or hated. He was either well-liked by the people around him or not paid much attention to. 1998-Junior High, 8th grade is when everything changed. In essence, this will be the year that will lay the foundation of the development of Eli Taggart.
    8th grade is kind of like the highlight of your schooling career so far. You have one foot out the door to the hell of high school and one foot deeper into developing who you are. Almost everyone is starting to hit puberty, and the only problems that are deem important are the ones you are having. But Eli is still in this comfort zone: he belongs to a core group of three other friends, he was never picked on, nobody actually hated him from when he started at his school.

Conflict

•     Eli's life becomes complicated when a new student arrives, Emerson. Right away, Eli tries to welcome him into the group, be nice, and accepting. Because that's who he is, but Eli is a taken a back when Emerson shows signs that he's trying to compete with him. Emerson kind of goes out of his way to set himself higher than Eli and let him know about it. In a sense, Emerson is not trying to join Eli's core group, but actually replace him. And that concept doesn't make sense to Eli because he's never dealt with anything like that before.
•     Not only is Emerson his problem, but he starts to have problems internally within the core group of his friends. More specifically, Jordan. Jordan had started dating Lem a bit prior to the start of their 8th grade year. The relationship begins to tear Jordan and Eli in different directions which takes a toll on the group with Sal and Jarrel in the middle. Eli feels betrayed. He considers Jordan a best friend and now Jordan comes off as being pompous and condescending. We all tend to sacrifice our time with our friends for our significant others. Some people are good at dealing with it better than others. Jordan was kind of this guy that was never really in the limelight until he starts dating Lem. And she kind of brings him into "the in crowd" of their class.
•     On top of all this, a third conflict arises infront of Eli's life. Both his class and the 7th graders begin to not only know who the hell Eli is, but pick on him as well when a girl calls him gay and the entire class starts to follow suit. Eli's world begins to spiral downward. He feels not only ostracized from his class, but also his friends now. Eli was kind of just this punching bag and he couldn't understand why it was happening and why it had to be him.