Broken First (Never Again)

Episode Four

The phrase let the game begins the other night didn’t leave Chris mind not for once, because for him going after girls and wooing them was all a game to him so this particular girl will not be different. The next morning Chris came with the kind of quiet confidence only a man with a plan could carry into a new day, the game plan. Chris was up before his alarm, not because anxiety had stolen his sleep although he didn’t really sleep well because he taught about this all throughout the night, but this was not the case. This was like an electric living in his chest now, the kind of current that comes with a hunt well begun. You know that let the game begins kind of mood, as a man who is on a mission moment like this often make you restless but for Chris he was prepared. He had seen Katherine in his mind all night. Not the vague, secondhand version assembled from whispers the girl and the guy describe, but something closer. A shape. An outline. Today, that outline would fill in. a real game plan today.

Chris showered, dressed with more care than usual not overdone, this time around he decided to dress casually he had a white pocket long-sleeved and tie, a black pant and a black shoe. She looks decent for someone who was not going to the office but to woo a girl over a bet. This was one thing about Chris, he knows how to change the game, he know how to win , he wasn’t really sure what Katherine will like but from his experience and little of what he has been brief girls like this your first appearance do matter so he wasn’t going to take any chances by looking like a college bad guy rather he wanted to look decent, maybe when Katherine sees him she will fall for him immediately. This was not his regular dressing but he just needed a strategy to win this bet with his friends. The dressing was. Simple. Confident. Smart. The kind of look that said he wasn't trying, even though he absolutely was. He ate breakfast standing up, scrolled through his phone, and by the time Bradley and Tucker knocked on his door, he was already ready.

"You look like you're going on a date," Bradley said, squinting at him.

"I'm always this clean," Chris replied, sliding his phone into his pocket. But today I just want to be different.

"No, bro. You ironed your shirt." Tucker pointed at the crisp line running down Chris's sleeve. You wore black pant and a black shoe. Bro you never for once dress like this.

You look like someone going for a job interview or something.” Bradley added.

"Let's go," Chris said, stepping past both of them.

Bradley and Tucker followed him, Bradley came with a car, it was a Subaru Impreza Compact hatchback , blue color with white interior still very neat and new, although Chris also has his own car. A luxurious one at that it was a Tesla Model 3 Compact Luxury electric sedan. He just decided to leave that at home while the hopped on Bradley Subaru Impreza School. I know you might be wondering how this boys where able to own this type expensive cars and also able to place a bet of whopping $15,000 for something that is irrelevant you will say but they where all rich kids with wealthy parents. The ones you call Trust Funds kids.

Bradley was the one that drive while Chris sat in the front seat and then Tucker at the back seat. Joe who was always late to class join them next he also came with is own car a BMW 3 Series.

School had resumed its usual rhythm by the time they arrived on campus. The free period that had softened the previous day that loose, lazy stretch of unstructured time was gone. In its place was the full machinery of academic life: lectures flowing from one building to the next, students clutching notebooks, lecturers walking with the unhurried authority of people who held your grades in their hands. The campus was alive in a way that felt both familiar and slightly relentless. This was a normal day in Riverside College so student where all used to it.

Chris who was looking sharp and different moved through it easily. He was the kind of person who never looked like he was in a hurry, even when he was. He navigated the crowds with the casual fluidity of a man who owned whatever room or courtyard, or corridor he happened to be walking through. People nodded at him. Some called out. He acknowledged everyone with the economy of someone who was friendly but not cheap with his attention. He has that aura that leave people focusing on him, he was bold, cute, and unbothered.

His first two lectures passed without incident. He sat, listened enough to stay oriented, jotted a few notes when something useful landed, and spent the remaining margins of his attention thinking about how the day would unfold. He wasn't obsessing. He was simply planning. There was a difference.

The four friends where in different department only Chris and Joe where in the Chemistry department while Tucker was in Biology and Tucker was an engineering student.

After the second lecture wrapped up, the campus shifted into a different gear. It was sports afternoon one of those semi-structured free blocks where the sports complex opened its gates and the energy of the whole university seemed to migrate toward the football pitch. For the guys in Chris's circle, this was religion. Every guy on campus was always a fan of sport from soccer to table tennis to basketball. While the ladies had other activities as well but sometimes they do come to the sport complex with the guys some who had boyfriends as players where always happy to see their men play.

The sports complex sat at the far end of campus, a wide, open structure that held a football field, a running track that had seen better days, and enough stand space for a small crowd. By the time Chris and his crew arrived Joe, Tucker, and Bradley trailing in their usual loose formation the match was already underway. Two sets of students in makeshift jerseys clashed in the middle of the field with the kind of intensity that only comes when bragging rights are the only prize on offer. The match was a tournament organized by one Professor Douglas Gibson. The aim of the tournament was to raise awareness about cancer survivals so during the match, the professor arrived with several patient who survive cancer along with the hospitals and doctors and nurses who help the patients. Among those hospitals was St. Theresa Specialist Teaching Hospital and the doctors who had successfully treated more than 5o patients where; Dr. Richardson Nobert, Dr. Christiana King, Dr. Victor Asana, Dr. Mary Davis and a host of other staffs of the hospital.

During this match it was always a tradition that before the game the commentator announce the professor’s name the purpose of the match and also the hospital and patients who where cured and cancer and also list the names of doctors who performed this exceptional medical breakthrough.

The match continues and they claimed a section of the stands with the ease of regulars. Somebody produced a bag of peanuts. Bradley immediately started arguing with Joe about a tackle that had already happened before they sat down. Tucker was on his phone. Chris was watching the game with the focused, unreadable expression of someone who took campus football far too seriously.

Chris leaned back, elbows on the row behind him, eyes on the pitch but only partly. A fraction of his awareness was always running in the background, cataloguing, waiting.

It didn't take long before the conversation found him.

"So,'" Tucker said, not looking up from his phone, "how's the mission?"

Chris smiled faintly. "Which mission?"

"You know which one." Tucker finally looked up. "The bet. Katherine. Don't act like you forgot."

"I didn't forget."

"So?" Joe turned from the field, suddenly more interested in this than in the match. "What's the update? You see her yet?"

"I'm working it," Chris said simply.

'Working it,'" Bradley repeated, making air quotes. "Bro, that means nothing. Either you've made contact or you haven't."

I've made moves," Chris said. "I know more about her than I did yesterday . I know what she looks like, where she hangs, what she studies, who her people are. That's not nothing."

That's research," Tucker said, eyes still on the field. "Research is not the same as winning a bet."

"Research is how you don't lose a bet," Chris replied.

That landed. The guys exchanged glances. It wasn't that they doubted him Chris had a track record that made doubt feel like a waste of energy. But they'd been excited, and excitement wanted feeding. They wanted progress. Drama. A story.

"You'll have something to tell me by end of week," Tucker said. It wasn't a question.

Before end of week," Chris corrected.

Bradley grinned and went back to his phone. Joe shrugged and returned to the match. The conversation folded itself back into the general noise of the afternoon crowd reaction to a near-goal, Joe resuming his earlier argument, someone three rows down laughing too loudly at something.

Chris leaned forward, rested his arms on his knees, and let himself breathe.

He was on it. He just needed the right moment.

The moment, as it turned out, had been in motion before Chris even knew it.