Finding Us

Chapter Eighteen

"Yes, that sounds wonderful. I can be at your office first thing Monday morning.", Christopher hung up and ran to the living room, "Guess who that was!"

"Who?" His dad looked up from his paper

"It was the recruiter from my games. He's seen me swim a few times and says I have a future in the Olympics!"

"What!"

"Yes! He's saying I might be able to start training next year. I'm going to go meet with him Monday and we'll discuss everything. If this goes through, I'm going to have to stop going to Northwestern and start training just about every day at their athletic facility."

"Well, don't get ahead of yourself, son. Just take things one minute at a time."

"Isn't this great, though?!"

"I'm very proud of you." Brae smiled at his son

"That's amazing!" Demetrius stood up and side hugged his friend

His mom was in the middle of kissing him on the forehead when they heard Chris's TV blaring from his room. They paused for a moment before Gabby ran down the stairs.

"Ooops."

Chris and Demetrius ran up the stairs to turn the TV off when he saw Lacey's face. He stopped dead in his tracks as his friend turned down the TV. What was this? He looked at his camera that was hooked up to his TV. He had been working on his final for film class when he'd gotten a call. Inserted into his camera was the memory card his mom had given him. Gabby must have stuck it in his camera without thinking. Chris paused the video as Demetrius picked his sister up.

"I'm sowwy, Chris." Gabby looked like she was almost in tears

"Yeah, I'm sorry man. She knows better than to touch things that aren't hers."

Chris had to force his eyes from the TV, "No, no. She's fine. I'm the one who left my camera out."

Demetrius left the room with his sister and Christopher grabbed his camera. There was only one video on this memory card. As if the rest of them had been wiped out or this was a new card. He closed his door and rewound the video. What was Lacey doing on this card? He sat on his bed and hit the play button.

"Hello, my name is Lacey Huffaker and I am a sorority girl.", Her laugh rang out over the video, "Wow, that still sounds weird to say, but anyways, Christopher has been making this whole video about us so we thought we'd make a little section for him." Lacey stood up and panned the camera out to show the whole sorority.

"This is for you, Chris!"

The video, which Lacey was clearly tapping, was a few of the girls telling the camera what Chris and the work he was doing for the sorority meant to them. He laughed at a few of the girl's answers and cringed a little bit when Gretchen came on. But, soon, Lacey was alone back in her room.

"Christopher had no choice when he was given the assignment of getting to know Deca Chi inside and out. We know it's hasn't been the easiest thing in the world. However, we can only hope we have made half the impact on him for the assignment that he has made on all of us. That he's made on me. Chris, know that you are appreciated for reaching deeper than you ever needed to for this project. In a quest to get to know the real Deca Chi girls, you touched all of our hearts in one way or another. So, we thought it would be best to end his video with a shout out the man behind the scenes." With that, Lacey waved the screen went black.

Chris felt the familiar sting of tears on his face. She must have put this together and meant to put it in the video and it missed the cut. She had gone through all of that for him. This was the Lacey he knew. This was the girl he loved ever so deeply. This was also the girl that had broken his heart. He took the card out of his camera and saw something he'd missed before. On it was written "For my Love" in her handwriting. He gripped the card, anger filling him all over again. He wiped away his tears. There was nothing he could do now. He just kept telling himself that.