Broken First (Never Again)

Chris, like every other college student traversing the chaos of youth and freedom, was a tall, dark, strikingly handsome, young man who had always known he could get whatever or whoever he wanted. That kind of cuteness that make you feel like a celebrity even when you are not one. He had that effortless charisma, the kind that drew people to him without him even trying. His smile was dangerous not in a deadly way but like that of a playboy. His voice was so smooth. His history with girls in the school for those who knew him was really untidy. But somehow, that only made him more intriguing despite all this he was still focus in college and could be counted among the best students in his class or the college at large. Sometimes they call him playmaker, not because he played football or basketball, but because of the emotional games he learnt with alarming care, should I say how to serve girls breakfast, lol yeah. That’s what I meant. Chris didn’t chase after girl, although he didn’t have to considering the number of girls that were dying to be with him. That afternoon was just one of those days in Riverside College the sun hung low and lazy over every corner of the large school. Why was it called Riverside, history has it that the 4 professors who discovered the school went to a large riverside for some experiment while they were there, they discovered the massive land just by the riverside, the river flows straight down just like a narrow road with trees on the side then, they began site experimentation. from what was an adventure to a discovery of one of the greatest high schools in the history of west-wood, this college has graduated professors, engineers, Bankers, Astronauts, ministers, even a president has graduated from this college. I could remember when Frank and Johnson and I were having a discussion one of days he told us that this was the school that the late President Jonathan Hias went and we confirmed this and it was true. We saw his statue alongside those 4 professors; it was a tradition in Riverside College that when outstanding individuals like this graduate from here they get their status erected at the hallway just to show the students that you too can be great like this if you take your studies very serious. I couldn’t believe it that Riverside College has actually produce a preside until I saw the monument although the president is late now but it a motivation and a bragging right for them. I even heard when Riverside went to competition with Westwood Science College, they defeated them and some students where bragging that ‘do you know that my school has produce a president before?’ can your school ever. This was a normal banter for students so I wasn’t surprise myself, I did same too. So that afternoon the sun could be seeing casting a long golden shadows across the stone pathways that connected the lecture halls to the student playgrounds. It was the kind of afternoon that made you forget you had assignments due the kind that softened the edges of everything: the noise, the rush, the pressure of being young and expected to have it all figured out. Students were seeing moving in clusters across the campus hallway. Some were buried in their phones, tweeting, snapchatting, the i********: baddies where not left behind you could hear them going live on i********:, others could be seeing laughing too loudly about things that wouldn't matter by morning. This was a normal behavior of college students even their dressing also you could see some girls wearing short miniskirts, some with short gowns while some boys could be seeing dressed with timberland, others with Hoddys, from their dressings and behaviors you could tell that this were the bad eggs in the school. There were also decent dressings from every angle as well, this is a college off course everyone has the right to dress the way they like unless it is prohibited by the school which was not. Riverside college use to be have those strong rules and regulations that place the school at high-pedestaled, but ever since the last chancellor came somethings have not been active. But this was not something that remove the school history as the best college it was just an in-school morals that can be corrected at any time. While all this were going students moving in different direction a group of girls near the water fountain were seen taking photos, angling their phones toward the sky for better lighting. Two guys by the notice board were arguing about a football match from the weekend. One was a Chelsea fan and the other was a Manchester United fan it was like a football rival war in school the argument was intense. Somewhere in the distance, music leaked from a half-open window an Afrobeats track that had been everywhere for the past three weeks. All this were happening because It was a free period. No lectures. No pressure. Just the beautiful, chaotic freedom of college life on a warm Thursday afternoon. And right in the middle of it all, tilting against the stone benches near the east corridor like they owned every inch of the space, were Chris and his boys. Joe. Tucker. Bradley. Four of them together were a spectacle in their own right. The kind of guys that made freshers nervous and made girls fix their hair without thinking about it. This was a college it is normal to expect this set of cliques; they weren't doing anything particularly impressive just standing there, half-listening to each other, throwing casual commentary back and forth the way boys do when they have nothing better to do but everything to prove. Most of their conversation where basically about girls, whose is more pretty, who has the biggest ass, who has the cutest smile, who is freer to have a one-night stand with all this discussion was a random discussion and it was always expected from a clique of seducing looking guys on college campus. Chris stood slightly apart from the rest; one hand tucked into the pocket of his joggers. He was wearing a complete louis Vuitton track-suit, the other of his hand was holding his phone loosely at his side. He wasn't looking at the screen. He was watching. Observing. That was something people rarely noticed about Chris, even his friend didn’t know this that beneath the easy smile and the effortless charm, he was always watching. He was tall. Dark-skinned with sharp cheekbones and a jaw that looked like it had been carved deliberately. The kind of handsome that didn't announce itself loudly but settled into a room quietly and refused to leave. His eyes were calm, unhurried. His presence had a gravitational pull he had long stopped being surprised by. The type that you say he enters the room and light up everywhere with his looks. Girls noticed him at once. Then they kept noticing him. He had grown used to it. For him it was not a fleet it was something natural, it was something he was used to or born with. You remember the cuteness of Miles Morales in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse; yeah, that type of cuteness. His smile was not only captivating it was seducing for girls. Bro, I'm telling you," Joe was saying, signaling with both hands the way he always did when he was making a point he felt strongly about, "that girl from the Chemistry department has been looking at you since Monday. Since Monday, Chris. That's commitment. Tucker laughed. "She sent him a friend request and everything. With a selfie as her profile picture. A selfie specifically taken that day." How do you even know it was taken that day?" Bradley asked, squinting. The timestamp was still on it," Tucker said, barely containing his laughter. "She forgot to crop it out." Joe shook his head, smiling. "These girls will not let our guy rest." The girlies daddy he said as they all laugh.