Just As Planned

Anna: Beginning

The undergrad lounge was empty except for Peter and Ken who were playing cards on one of the tables in the far corner of the room.

Anna walked across the lounge to where Peter and Ken were sitting. She threw her knapsack on the floor and threw herself into the chair next to Peter.

"We can't deal you in right now," Peter said. "We're playing Go Fish and Ken has beaten me twice. I need to redeem myself. I have a good feeling about this game."

Anna raised an eyebrow. "Go Fish? Seriously?"

"Well now that you're here we can play Hearts or Crazy Eights," Ken said. "You just need to wait until I beat Peter again."

"You aren't going to beat me this time!" Peter said.

Anna watched Ken and Peter play. She had never seen two people get so excited over a game of Go Fish.

"I can't believe you won again!" Peter exclaimed after Ken put down his last four cards. "How the hell did you do that?"

"Easy: you suck," Ken snarked. "You asked me for a six three times in a row!"

"Your last four cards were sixes!"

"I can see why you failed stats."

"I never took stats."

"And it shows."

Anna didn't know why she had come sit with the guys. She didn't have the energy for them today. "Can we do something else besides argue about why Peter keeps losing at Go Fish?" she said.

"Of course," Ken said. "As long as we all agree that Peter sucks at this game."

"Fuck you," Peter said.

"Seriously guys?" Anna sighed. "Can't you just act like people for once?"

Ken picked up the cards and started shuffling them. "What died in your cereal this morning?" he asked Anna.

Anna sighed. "OK, so remember how I signed up to be a peer tutor to avoid taking that communications class thing?"

"Yeah," Ken said. He looked at Peter. "What are we playing?"

"Hearts," Peter said.

Anna watched Peter cut the deck. "Well, I think I've developed a crush on the person I'm tutoring."

Ken laughed. "No shit! Who are you tutoring?"

"I don't know," Anna said.

"How the fuck can you have a crush on someone you don't know?" Peter asked. "You don't even know what they look like!"

"Wow Peter, I wonder why you're single," Anna deadpanned.

"Peter has a point," Ken said, dealing out the cards. "If you don't know who you're tutoring, it could be anybody. It could be that guy with the Union Jack hoodie. Do you want to have a crush on that guy? No."

"I doubt I'm tutoring that douche," Anna said, even though she herself had wondered about that.

Anna heard a noise and looked up from her cards. It was Adam. He had walked into the room and had bumped into a chair.

"Hey, what's happening?" Adam said, sitting down across from Anna. He looked at Anna. "Is something wrong? Why do you look mad?"

"Nothing's wrong," Anna said. "And I'm not mad. I'm annoyed."

"Why are you annoyed?" Adam looked at the cards on the table. "What are you playing? Can you deal me in?"

"We're about to start playing!" Ken said.