Broken First (Never Again)

Episode Eight

The game not of chess but a game of heart break, the kind of games young guys in college played when they thing they are still in their prime with girls. This type of game wasn’t something to be proud of, but for Chris and his gang they didn’t care. Chris especially didn’t care if the outcome of his game was going to hurt someone, he just wanted to be untop. He just wanted to make sure no one ever take the leadership of girls’ control; he just wanted to make sure his skills were still intact.

Sometimes there are moments in life that feel rehearsed. Moments you have played out in your head so many times that when they finally arrive in the real world, they land with this strange, familiar weight, like you have been here before, like your body already knows what your mind is still catching up to. That was exactly how it felt when Chris saw her again. He wasn’t shaking, neither did he lost his balance because of her striking beauty which most guys in college does when they see a beautiful young-looking lady they become so cold to even open their mouth to say hi. Riverside college had those type of students, I could remember one whose name was Jeff he was cute looking, light in completion but was very scared of girls even when girls where lining up to be with him he couldn’t ask them out, the girls even started gossiping that he was gay, but the truth is Jeff wasn’t gay he just had that low self-esteem when it comes to talking to ladies. It was even his friends James and Carter that finally link him up with one girl called Jessica and to Jessica surprise Jeff was the sweetest guy he ever met. She told her friends during one of the social nights and that was how those girls stopped calling Jeff gay. But Chris was not Jeff, infact he was the opposite. Chris wasn’t to be push aside when it comes to ladies he owned it, he owned the ladies’ heart and it was all over the campus, the girls couldn’t stop calling him the nicknamed they gave him.

He had been walking along the side corridor near the social sciences building when he saw her, the same Katherine, unhurried, earpods in, moving through the world with that particular kind of self-possession that you cannot teach someone and cannot fake. She was that confident and beautiful and when she walks half of the boys in college stare at her. She wasn’t really sure why they always look at her but she just knew that she was beautiful and if they were to mention 1o most beautiful girls in Riverside College, she will definitely be among that list.

She was with Rachel and Emily again, the three of them moving as a unit the way only people who have been close for a long time move. They were really close because Katherine wasn’t someone who go with the crowd so she just links up with Rachel and Emily. How the three of them became friends wasn’t something unexpected Rachel was her close friend right from and they got to college the same time while Emily was the first girl to show Katherine to her department and since then they became best of friends, you can’t see Katherine without Emily and Rachel and you can’t see Emily and Rachel without Katherine. Their bodies where automatically adjusting to each other's pace, their conversation picking up and dropping off without effort as they walk along the side corridor near the social sciences building.

Chris who had seen them from afar, stopped.

Not because he was nervous. Nerves were not something that entered his vocabulary when it came to girls. He stopped because he needed one second, just one, to shift from the version of himself that was simply walking through campus into the version of himself that was about to walk into something he had been thinking about for days. It was the way a boxer rolls his neck before stepping into the ring. Not fear. Preparation. He was ready at any giving point and he was prepared.

He looked at her from across the corridor and felt that same pull he had been trying to intellectualize since the cafeteria encounter, that particular gravitational drag that certain people exert on certain other people without ever meaning to, without even knowing it was happening. Katherine was not trying to attract anything. That was the thing about her. She was simply existing, and somehow that was the most magnetic thing about her.

Chris breathes out. Then he moved.

He walked toward her with the kind of casualness that takes years to cultivate. Not rushed, not deliberate, just easy. Like this was nothing. Like she hadn't occupied his thoughts at odd hours since the moment this bet had become real, like he hadn't replayed the cafeteria encounter twice before falling asleep, analyzing what he could have done differently, what he could have said that might have landed better. To look at him now, you would not have guessed any of that. He looked like a man who simply found himself in the same place as a girl he didn't mind speaking to. He was that guy. He was not moved by any woman beauty like every other guys in college and this made him the bad guy he was in college and one of the reason his guys decided to place this bet.

Chris had that art of charisma. That was the thing his boys could never quite replicate when they tried to observe and imitate his approach. The art was in making something calculated feel completely natural. The art was in the absence of visible effort.

Hey," Chris said.

Katherine blinked, pulling out one earpod with the slightly startled expression of someone being drawn back from a private world into the public one. She looked at him, and for a fraction of a second he could see her processing, placing him, retrieving the file she had stored from their brief exchange three days ago and from that eye-contact moment on the walkway. It took less than a heartbeat. Then something settled in her face and she said:

Hi?" she said.

The tune was not flat. Not cold. But careful. The question mark at the end of the Hi was doing quiet work, not asking who he was, because she clearly remembered, but asking what this was. What he wanted. Where this was going. Chris noticed all of that. He noticed everything.

We met again," Chris said, and smiled.

Katherine held his gaze for a moment before the corner of her mouth curved upward, almost against her will.

We did actually meet again," she said.

There was something in the way she said it, a faint amusement underneath the composure, that told him she had not entirely forgotten him either. That she had perhaps thought about the cafeteria moment at least once in the days since. Not obsessively, not the way he had been thinking about her, but it had passed through her mind. He could feel it.

I saw you again yesterday," Chris continued. "After the first meet at the cafeteria I tried to find you after class, but you disappeared.

She did not laugh. But her expression shifted, something careful and curious crossing her face at the same time.

You were looking for me? Katherine said.

Yes," Chris replied.

And why were you looking for me? she questioned. Not in a harsh manner. It was in a very deserving manner.

Behind her, Rachel and Emily had already gone quiet. Chris had clocked them early, the way they exchanged that look that girls exchange when a guy stops to speak to one of their own. Not jealousy, not really. More like the automatic activation of a protective instinct, that silent language between close friends that asks, in the space of a glance, is this fine, is this okay, do we need to step in, do we need to step back. He had greeted both of them when he walked up, clean and genuine, making sure they felt acknowledged rather than dismissed. That was important. Girls did not give their friends permission to soften if they felt like they were being ignored by the guy in question. Respect the friends first. Always. They were all mature in college and off-course they understand what was going to happen. Chris like Katherine and he was going to ask her out. To them this was a normal guy wooing a lady in college but to Chris this was just a bet. A bet to prove to his guys that he was still the boss in this game.

Chris could see it working, his presence was working. Rachel had relaxed her posture slightly. Emily had let the conversation she was trying to maintain with Rachel dissolve naturally, her attention drifting toward what was happening between Chris and Katherine the way attention drifts toward something more interesting without being able to help itself.

I really meant no harm," Chris said. What happened was that the first day I saw you, I was standing with my friends when you walked past, and I just couldn't help but notice how pretty you were. I tried to run after you then but you were in so much of a hurry, heading somewhere like you were already late. I couldn't catch up." This was a lie he never chased after her. In-fact him and his friends where gazing at her and they were making plans about the bet.

Katherine listened anyway. She did not look away from him while he spoke, which was something he registered carefully. Girls who were not interested looked away. They let their eyes drift over your shoulder or down to their phone or toward their friends. Katherine kept her eyes on him, steady and assessing, with the focus of someone who was trying to determine whether what they were hearing was true.

Rachel and Emily drifted back a few steps, giving them room. Not too far. Close enough to watch, close enough to intervene if something felt wrong. But enough space for a real conversation to happen. Chris recognized the gesture for exactly what it was and felt a quiet satisfaction move through him. That was the first door opening. The friends were the gatekeepers. When the gatekeepers stepped back voluntarily, it meant the process had begun.

I'm Chris, by the way," he said, extending his hand.

She looked at it. Just for a second. Then she shook it.

Katherine.

I know," Chris said. Then he laughed when her eyebrow went up. I asked around.

And why would you do that?" she asked. You stalking me now?"

Not at all," he said, and there was something in his delivery that made the words land soft instead of defensive. "I was just so caught up thinking about you after the first time I saw you that I needed the whole school to help me find you.

She laughed. Not a polite laugh. A real one, short and surprised, the kind that escapes before you can decide whether or not you want to give it. It was the first laugh he had pulled from her and it felt like something loosening, like a jar lid that had been sealed tight finally giving way.

I also wanted to talk to you at the cafeteria," Chris continued. But you were in such a rush. You didn't have time for me.

I explained that," Katherine said, and there was a mock-patience in her voice that made it clear she remembered the exchange. "I was going for class. You know how these lectures are."

I do," Chris said. "And that was exactly why I couldn't stop until I saw you again."

Now that you've seen me," she said, "what next?