A Chance At A Time

Chance VI: Steer Clear of The Trouble Maker

Saturday came faster than Harper anticipated and as she got out of bed, she wondered why she had agreed to go and meet with Evans at the cookout later that evening. She was very social when it came to people she knew but she had a feeling, the outing with Evans was going to be an awkward mess. This was what happened when she made decisions when she was overwhelmed with emotions.

She was overwhelmed with the guilt that she didn't watch her mouth. She never had difficulty expressing exactly what she felt and her brutal honesty got her into trouble more than once. She never felt apologetic about it before because she said it as she saw it. For the woman who stomped on her foot, no one saw Harper in pain and no one asked her if she were okay that day. Instead, they all blamed her for oppressing a physically disabled person. 

Harper didn't know the woman was disabled and she told her father that. In fact, she screamed it to her father because she had an injury to show for it but no one cared. Again, in the face of the world, she looked like the villain. Her truth always made her look bad and it did the same to Kristofer.

Kristofer had been living in the real world from the beginning and he knew the loopholes and the struggles, things that Harper was introduced to several weeks ago. Until recently, Harper didn't know how much time and energy it took to brew one cup of coffee. Until recently, Harper didn't know how much gossip she could get just from riding a bus. 

Kristofer offended her first. He was street-smart and he looked down on her for not knowing about the reality she was now a part of. That irked Harper because she was trying her best every day and there was always someone or something throwing s**t her way. She was barely surviving each day and new challenges popped up from everywhere yet, to Kristofer, it seemed she wasn't doing enough. She was upset because yet again, no one was asking her if she were okay but rather looked at her superficial façade and concluded that she was doing much better than anyone else at that university. 

Harper didn't want Kristofer's help because it was as if he pitied her. It was as if he pitied her situation when he didn't know the full story. No matter what she went through, Harper still kept her cracked glass crown on her head because she was a Blaak and she didn't want to break under any circumstance. However, she didn't mean for Kristofer to misinterpret her perception of him. 

Why did it matter when he was upset with her? Why did she want to explain to him that she didn't need someone street-smart, someone who has already figured out about his future, someone who was easily making money and easily cruising through school to pity her? 

In the past, Harper would have brushed him off then bashed him on social media, making it so that he would want to hide under a rock for the rest of his life. But when he accused her of judging him, something inside Harper shrunk away and a tight ball of tears clogged her throat. She wanted to defend herself but he didn't give her the chance to. 

Then the day she met him parking his bike, he acted as if nothing had happened. It was as if they did not have that little argument and since it happened in the library, she was sure everyone else saw it. He was a very confusing individual, someone with his priorities straight and his mindset on his life goals, unlike her who just wanted to survive long enough to leave that college next year and go back to her old life. 

"Thinking about your boyfriend?" Clair came out from the bathroom and smiled coyly at Harper. 

Harper made a face as she got her bathroom products. "Like I can even date someone like him!"

"Ah, so you were thinking about a guy?" Clair said as she sat on her bed and began drying her locks with her towel. "I have learned something in life; we always date the men we hardly look at."

Harper sank back on her bed and frowned. "Are you trying to say that you and Max didn't like each other in the beginning?"

Clair chuckled lightly then her expression became pensive. "Max is my older brother's best friend. You can imagine the rest."

But Harper couldn't imagine the rest. She was the only child so she didn't know what it meant to have a sibling. "I have never had an older brother so I don't know what you mean."

"Fortunate for you!" Clair chuckled then sighed and said. "Max and Joe knew each other since middle school. They were inseparable; they still are but what Joe didn't anticipate was for Max to fall for me and for us to start dating. In the beginning, Max was as annoying as my brother, constantly picking on me, making scenes in front of my friends. I remember my friends and several girls in my school were head over heels in love with the duo but back then I hated them with a passion because they made my life very hard. 

"But things began to change when I was in high school. When Joe picked on me, Max would defend me. Maxwell became more gentle towards me. He never forgot my birthday and whenever I was having a hard time at school he was always there to listen to my ranting." Clair ran her fingers through her damp locks and turned to Harper. "The one night, after having a nasty day at school during basketball practice, he took me out for a movie. He knew exactly what I liked and I remember the movie that we went to watch was one of my favorites. Afterward, he took me home and that night was when he kissed me. It was my first real kiss and it had me confused for days!" She laughed and Harper couldn't help but smile. "Ever had that kiss that curled your toes and had the hairs at the back of your neck stand?"

Harper shook her head lightly. She dated a couple of guys and shared a couple of kisses but none of them were that memorable. 

"Anyway, so here I was; a high school girl being kissed by a university boy who had been in my life for such a long time to the point that sometimes I forgot that we were not related and I was enjoying being kissed by him. I remembered the first thing that I said after the kiss was 'Joe mustn't know.' I was terrified of what this meant for my brother and his best friend."

"But your brother found out anyway," Harper said dreadfully. 

Clair cringed when she recalled it. "And it wasn't pretty. The two of them beat each other half to death and my brother severed his friendship with Max. I felt so guilty because I believed that if I had stopped Max from getting deeper in the relationship with me, I would have stopped the fallout but the truth was that I was already very much in love with Max and I wanted to be with him. I was put in a very awkward situation where I had to either choose my brother or choose Maxwell." 

Harper didn't see the difficulty in the choice. Of course, Clair loved Max, she should have chosen him from the beginning, but then again, Harper didn't know just how close Clair was to her brother. "But somehow you were able to stay with Max as well as fix your relationship with your brother, right?"

Clair took a deep breath. "It wasn't easy but once Joe saw how serious Max was with me and how much I loved him, there wasn't much he could do about it. He learned to accept it and though Max and Joe's relationship is not the same as before, I am glad they are not throwing punches at each other when they meet. So, you see, we can't always see what is coming for us. And this guy that you are thinking, he must have done something right to have him on your mind."

"More like he has done everything wrong," Harper muttered as she got up and headed for the bathroom.

Harper and Kristofer started on the wrong foot and it was nothing like the way Clair described her encounters with Max. Kristofer didn't like Harper, that much she knew. He believed that she was a privileged spoiled girl that is proud, entitled, and lazy. With that kind of mindset, there was to space for feelings. 

"He can't be all that bad, Harper," Clair called out and Harper peeped from the bathroom door. 

"On the first day of our meeting, he wanted to run me over with his bike." She commented and smiled grimly when Clair gasped in shock. 

"Surely you are not talking about Kristofer Mason, are you?" Clair asked.

Harper peeped out again. "You know him?"

"Is there anyone in this college that doesn't know Super Brain Kris?" Clair asked in obviousness.

"Super Brain Kris?" Harper repeated like a parrot.

Clair laughed. "Yeah, his IQ is beyond normal. Though he is such a troublemaker, his IQ is keeping him from being penalized. How do you know Kris?" 

"He is taking a course with me," Harper explained shortly then switched on the shower. 

"That is strange giving into account that he is graduating this year--"

"Huh? What did you say?" Harper asked.

"Nothing! All I can say is that steer clear of him. He is bad news." Clair switched on her blow-dryer. 

Harper knew as much. He was famous at the university and not in a good way. If she wanted a comfortable life at that university, she needed to stay away from him. 

                                                                    ***************

"Fuck...." Kristofer cursed out lightly as he looked at the data of his research and discovered that it was inconclusive. This was the third time that he ran the data and it came out inconclusive. He wondered what he was doing wrong or where he needed to tweak it in order to get the right data.

"Still inconclusive?" Malcolm, a fellow research student came in.

Kristofer looked up and nodded then stretched his aching body and closed his laptop. He had been there the whole night, making sure that the simulation went smoothly but to his disappointment, the answers were still coming out wrong. He turned to the whiteboard that he had done the calculations for his research and took the duster before erasing the formulas and starting afresh. 

It was frustrating how he was always quick to find out things yet this one simulation was giving him a headache. The professors were eagerly waiting for his data but every time he thought he got it right, the simulation proved him wrong. 

"By the way, there is a cookout this evening. I heard my roommate bragging about taking a freshman there." Malcolm said as he opened his laptop and started working.

Kristofer was too frustrated to think about welcoming the freshmen to a cookout. "I think I will be spending the night here again. This simulation just needs to work this time. I am running out of patience."

"You still have time, Kris. Don't kill yourself over this." Malcolm assured him.

That was the truth because Kristofer had started the research a few months before anyone else and although he had enough information to hold a conference, the results were still inconclusive and that, in front of researchers, was not viable research. The inconclusive data was going to rob him of his internship. 

"You can ask the professor to look into your data again, see if he can see the error that is making your simulation inconclusive," Malcolm suggested looking up from his laptop. 

Kristofer gave the other researcher a nod then got a hold of his marker and started calculating the variables of his research all over again. This one little research was not going to get the best of him. 

LATER THAT EVENING...

"Hey, Kris..." Melody was waiting for Kristofer outside his dorm room and all the boys loitering around couldn't help but eye her intently. 

Melody was dressed to impress and Kristofer was sure she was heading to the cookout. 

"Whatever is it you want, Melody, I am not in the mood." Kristofer reached for the door handle and Melody touched his arm. 

"You look like you have had a long day, Kris. Why don't you just unwind a little? Come with me to the cookout." Melody smiled sweetly. "Plus there is someone I want you to meet. I spoke to him about what you are working on and he wanted to meet you."

Kristofer stopped from what he was doing and turned to Melody in confusion. "What I am working on? What do you know about what I am working on?"

Melody shrugged. "I happen to know that you spend absurd amounts of hours in the laboratory with your research and experiments. I have a friend in the ICT sector and he was quite impressed with your results so far. He wanted me to introduce you to him."

The only way that Melody got his data was either from bribing the laboratory technician or she had someone on the inside that was giving her information about him. Either way, Kristofer didn't like the fact that someone thought it was okay to share his work with Melody. 

"How could you do that? How could do you access information that was still not out to the public? That was private information and you needed my consent to release it to the third party, Melody! That is my incomplete research work! How the hell did you even access it?" Kristofer growled at her.

"I did that for you, Kris. I wanted to help you--"

"Well, you did more damage than good and I never asked for your help in the first place." Kristofer snapped at her.

"Kris." Melody started, her smile disappearing from her face. "What do I have to do to make you see that I want to help you because I love you."

"You can stay out of my life because instead of making it easier for me, you are making it harder. You and I aren't going to have a happy ending and what you are doing to me, is causing the crevice between us to widen." Kristofer said then opened his door and added. "Stay the hell away from me, Melody." He walked in and slammed the door on her face, making her jumped in shock. 

"Hey, Kris!" Cash said in alert as Kristofer entered the room looking like he were about to kill someone. "Come on man, let's go."

"Cash, I am not in the mood--"

"Kris, your girl is at the cookout with Evans. Jace just sent me a message and that is why we need to go right now."

"I don't have a girl, Cash and you should stop pushing girls my way. I am exhausted, Melody just managed to f**k the rest of my evening up and you are not helping." Kris dropped on his bed and closed his eyes then took a deep breath to try and relax. 

"So, you wouldn't care what happens between that Harper girl and Evans?" Cash asked him knowingly. 

That caught Kristofer's attention. He sat up abruptly from his bed as Cash held his phone in front of him to show him the photo Jace sent to Cash to prove that indeed Evans was with Harper. "How the f**k did she end up with Evans?"

"You know this sick f**k is repeating several courses. It might be that some of the courses are with Harper. We need to get down there before he does anything to her." Cash said.

Kristofer had never seen Cash looked so worked up before and this had nothing to do with Harper. It had everything to do with Evans. Cash and Evans had a history. One moment they were friends and the next moment they had a nasty fallout. Cash blamed it on Evans and Evans did the same but the truth always remained between the two of them.

What Cash had told Kristofer was that Evans was a sick son of a b***h that couldn't be trusted around women. Cash never gave Kristofer the details but from then Kristofer trusted Cash. 

Seeing Harper on the blurred photo with Evans made Kristofer get his thoughts straight. One thing that he learned about Harper was that though she appeared to know what she was doing, she actually didn't. That might also mean the same when it came to the people she associated with. Without the experience he had throughout his life that helped him judge the characters of people, Harper was vulnerable. She was quite naïve when it came to judging character. 

"Give me ten minutes." Kristofer went to the bathroom and splashed water on his face to chase away the creeping fatigue before he shed the clothes he had been wearing since yesterday and changed into something comfortable for the evening.

Within a short period of time, he and Cash made their way down to the campus grounds where the music was loud, the air was filled with the smell of burning wood and mouthwatering meat. Kristofer hadn't eaten since last night so the smells were tantalizing but he needed to find Harper first. The grounds were filled with Freshmen. These were faces that Kristofer didn't know off but by their looks, he knew they already knew who he was. 

Apart from the tattoos that were always visible down his arms, Kristofer had piercings on his ears and...other parts of his body. That evening he wore a black pair of worn-out jeans and a black graphic t-shirt and his wet hair came around his face, giving him a very dark look. He didn't mind but he knew he was attracting the wrong kind of attention. 

This was the kind of attention where the girls wanted to tame him or to taste his brutality. He has had girls send photos of their naked bodies on his phone. Sometimes he found thongs between his books and love letters in his locker. When he went for swimming practice, the girls would line up in the bleachers and scream for him, something that the other swimmers found annoying. 

There wasn't much he could do and he thought that if the other girls saw Melody constantly trying to catch his attention and failing would discourage them, he thought wrong because the girls didn't stop harassing him. In fact, it looked like his rejection of Melody gave the others newfound bravado!

"Hey, Kris." Someone greeted him but Kristofer just gave her a nod and continued moving around, looking for Harper and Evans.

Kristofer moved to the edge of the grounds where there were a few sitting benches with people sitting around, chatting, and sharing drinks. It was much quieter there and a little more private. That was when he saw Harper sitting with Evans and some of Evans' boys. She held a glass of wine lightly in her hands, while one leg was crossed over the other in a very delicate, feminine way. She wore a white pair of jeans with a loose long-sleeved black blouse and a pair of black stripped block heels. Her curls were tamed back in a low pony and her face was bright as she listened to what Evans was talking about. 

Relief passed through Kristofer's body when he saw that she was alright. He didn't know why he would go there just to make sure she was fine. She was a full-grown woman who could take care of herself. It was useless to worry about her. It was a waste of time and energy. As Kristofer turned to leave, Evan said something funny and Harper chuckled lightly. He frowned because he could tell that Harper was not enjoying the guy's company. Her chuckle was forced and now that he looked at her properly, he could tell she was having a hard time even listening to him. 

Standing at that counter, smiling and saying 'Welcome to Bean There Coffee shop, how many I help you?' is sheer torture.

He recalled her saying about working at the coffee shop and that assured him that Harper was having a hard time pretending to be interested in what Evans was saying. 

"Harper." Kristofer found himself uttering as he turned back to her and placed his hands in his pockets, a stance he liked to take all the time. 

She turned to him and so did the whole entourage. 

"Kris? What are you doing here?" She asked him in surprise. 

He shrugged. "It's a cookout. That means there are free food and drinks throughout the night. I see you found company." 

Evan suddenly moved a little closer to Harper and said. "Yes, she did and I suggest you find your own company, Mason." 

A tight smile appeared on Kristofer's face as he said. "I need to speak to Harper about something."

"Well, she doesn't want to speak to you, do you, Harper?" Evans turned to Harper.

She hummed lightly and got up. "As a matter of fact, I remember we had a little meeting schedule this evenin--" Suddenly Evan's grabbed Harper's wrist and forcefully pulled her down to sit.

"Sit down!" He commanded harshly.

Kristofer's body stiffened when he saw how Harper reacted and could tell that her wrist was going to have a bruise afterward. Cash suddenly appeared beside Kristofer.

"Evans, let the girl go man. This is not the place for your stupidity." Cash said.

"Oh, so you called your boys on me, Harper?" Evans accused her, a sliver of insanity entering his eyes as he stared at her.

Kristofer expected Harper to cower away, whimper, and even struggle but she sat deathly still and stared down at Evans then when it seemed little she wasn't going to react, she placed her wine glass on the make-shift wooden table and turn back to Evans.

No one was prepared for the loud echo of the slap that she gave Evans across his face, leaving him paralyzed with shock!

"You f*****g asshole, you are hurting my arm." She yanked it away and said. "I wanted to give you a chance but I have never met such an egotistical narcissist in my life. And to think I was sitting here all evening listening to your selfish blathering--" She looked down at her watch and rolled her eyes. "You wasted at least an hour of my life, you prehistoric f**k--how dare you grab me like that? If there is so much as a bruise on my arm tomorrow morning, be prepared to hear from my lawyer because I going to sue your ass for every penny you've got!" She walked to where Kristofer and Cash were standing dumbfounded and smiled sweetly. "I'm hungry."

"Uhm--would a burger do?" Kristofer asked still very stunned by what Harper did.

She nodded. "Sure." 

Kristofer extended his hand to help Harper walk better on the uneven lawn but Harper slipped her hand around his crook instead, then walked away with him and Cash, leaving Evan baffled and his friends muttering in shock to each other.