Broken First (Never Again)

Episode Three

This bet made Chris serious about this, although he was not the kind of person who gave up easily. That was something his boys understood about him perhaps the only serious thing about him that nobody ever questioned. When Chris decided he wanted something, the wanting didn't fade. It sharpened.

So, when the free period ended and students began drifting back toward their lecture halls like a slow tide pulling back to shore, Chris was already moving. Not toward class. Toward information. The bet was on, so the master planner and initiator Chris was moving around gathering necessary information about her.

He started with the girl who had been standing near the administrative block when Katherine walked past. Her name was Katherine but her friends do call her Katie. So Chris move to the girl who was still there, scrolling through her phone with the bored expression of someone waiting for something better to happen.

Hey, Chris said, stopping beside her with his most disarming smile. "Quick question."

The girl looked up, and her expression shifted immediately from bored to alert in less than a second. That happened a lot around Chris, and he had learned not to comment on it.

The girl who just walked past here white blouse, carrying a book. Do you know her?"

The girl thought for a moment. Then: "Oh. Katherine?"

Chris kept his face neutral. "Katherine." He repeated the name carefully, like he was testing the weight of it. "Yeah. What do you know about her?

She's in was in my Meteorology class earlier ," the girl said. The conversation was already warming to the conversation in the way people do when they sense gossip is being exchanged. "Quiet. Keeps to herself. She never really talks to anyone."

Meteorology class," Chris said. "So she's doing Aviation?"

I think so. She's serious about it too. Like, that girl actually reads the textbook before class." A pause. "Which is insane, honestly."

Chris thanked her and moved on.

The next person he found was a guy from the engineering corridor someone who recognized the description almost immediately.

Oh, that's Katherine Norris," he said, barely looking up from his notebook. "She doesn't really hang around much. Always with those two friends of hers Emily and Rachel, I think. The three of them are always together." Only the two friends call her Katie.

"Is she a first year?"

"Yes. She keeps a low profile. Why?" The guy finally looked up, squinting. "You're not about to do something stupid, are you?"

Chris laughed easily. "Never. Just asking."

He kept moving.

It was a girl near the library entrance who gave him the most interesting piece of information almost as an afterthought, dropping her voice the way people do when they're sharing something they know they probably shouldn't.

She's cool," the girl said carefully. "But she has a temper. Like zero tolerance for nonsense. She doesn’t hang around guys at all only with two of her friends. She doesn't shout. She just goes completely cold. And then after the cold..." She trailed off with a small, knowing laugh.

After the cold, what?" Chris pressed.

The girl looked at him for a moment. "Let's just say she doesn't bottle things forever. When it comes out, it comes out all at once."

Chris nodded slowly, storing the information somewhere useful.

Katherine Norris. Aviation student. first year. Two close friends, Emily and Rachel. Quiet. Focused. Disciplined. And underneath all of that, a temper she kept carefully contained.

He found himself more interested than he had expected to be.

Most girls he had done this with before were easier to map out. They had patterns he recognized the ones who wanted attention, the ones who wanted validation, the ones who were secretly waiting for someone exactly like him to notice them. He had learned to read those patterns quickly and move accordingly.

But this girl called Katherine didn't fit any of the patterns he knew. So it was just like something new to him.

She hadn't looked at them. Even when she walked past four guys standing directly in her line of sight one of whom was, by any objective measure, the kind of person you looked at she hadn't looked. Not a glance. Not a flicker of curiosity. Nothing.

That kind of indifference was either completely genuine or very carefully practiced. Either way, it told him something important: this was not going to be simple.

He spent the remainder of the afternoon in the east corridor, positioned near the spot where he had first seen her, half-pretending to be on his phone while actually watching the flow of students moving between buildings. Joe had long since gone to meet someone. Tucker and Bradley had wandered off to the sports center. Chris stood alone, patient in a way that most people who knew him would have found surprising. He was on a mission.

But she never came back through that corridor.

By the time the campus security began doing their slow evening rounds and the lights along the main pathway flickered on one by one, Chris accepted that today was over. He pushed off from the wall, tucked his phone into his pocket, and began walking toward the gate. The day was gone nothing he achieve or should I say he achieve a little, I mean the information he gathered more cheat sheets for his mission, so that day wasn’t a waste after.

The sky above Riverside had turned a deep, bruised blue that specific shade that only exists for about twenty minutes between sunset and full dark, when the world feels suspended between two versions of itself.

Chris walked through it with his hands in his pockets and Katherine's name turning quietly in his mind.

Katherine Norris. Aviation. First year. Zero tolerance.

He thought about the way she had walked that unhurried, purposeful stride. The way she had held that book against her chest like it was something worth protecting. The way her eyes had looked sharp even from a distance, even in a single passing glance.

He thought about what the girl near the library had said. When it comes out, it comes out all at once.

Something about that made him more curious, not less.

He stepped through the campus gate into the evening, the sounds of the college fading behind him.

Chris exhaled slowly.

He had gone home empty-handed today, but not that empty. For him he could have gotten her number or had a conversation on the first day with her but all he got was information and not the real mission so for him he went empty-handed No number. No conversation. No contact of any kind. By the standards of his usual game, this was already unusual he was not accustomed to days that ended with nothing to show.

But he wasn't discouraged. Not even close.

Because now he had a name. And a name was the beginning of everything.

Tomorrow," he told himself quietly, stepping onto the road toward home. "Tomorrow, I find her properly.

He didn't know yet that finding her would be the easiest part of what was coming.

He didn't know that the girl he was hunting was not the kind of girl who got caught.

She was the kind of girl who, once she decided to let you in, gave you everything. Her trust. Her time. Her heart.

And he didn't know couldn't know, standing there on that quiet evening road with nothing but a name and a plan that taking those things from her carelessly would cost far more than any bet was worth.

But that was tomorrow's problem.

Tonight, Chris smiled to himself and walked home with the comfortable confidence of someone who had never lost a game he decided to play. Someone who has never lost a battle when it comes to girl. So he simply said. Let the game begins.