SOUL DORM

42

I feel love...

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CHAPTER 42:

LOVE

Love... What exactly was that? When did it arrive? Who did it choose? How could one be sure? How could Ursa be so certain of her feelings, for instance? What was Diego experiencing inside? What did Tarben feel? Was it really love?

I had generated endless versions of these questions and continued to do so. Ursa had left my room, but her words stayed with me. My mind was now a lost city filled with dead ends. I roamed and roamed, and just when I thought I saw the light, I'd hit a new wall.

The thickest of these walls, unfortunately, was Davon. I had never needed to question him, our relationship, or our feelings before. We met when we were seven, grew up in the same swimming club, the same school. Dav was ambitious. So was I. We were hardworking. As we became alienated from others, we drew closer to each other.

On my fifteenth birthday, Dav suggested that it was time to officially define our relationship. He gave me a calculator and declared that I was now his girlfriend. It wasn't perhaps the most romantic gift, but I knew him; he would never spend money on something pretty, yet useless. I didn't mind. My family loved Dav. Our teachers and our coach saw us as a team. Being together felt natural.

But...

The Olive who found all this natural hadn't died yet, hadn't fallen into the Dorm. That Olive had no other friend but Dav. She hadn't seen what love could make Ursa do. She hadn't met Diego, who got clumsy every time he saw Blue. She didn't know, until she met Lark and Helene, that two souls in love could share life and death alike. No one had ever thrown her a surprise party. No one had looked at her the way Ursa described. No one had dived to the bottom of a lake to retrieve pearls for her.

I was no longer that Olive.

I spent the next day alone in the greenhouse, working non-stop, which gave me plenty of time to think—and to distress further. The same questions haunted me. What exactly was love? When did it come? Who did it come to? How could one be sure? Was what I felt for Dav really it? It had to be. I forced it to be. I remembered moments when my heart raced for him. I hadn't cried like Ursa, gotten tongue-tied like Diego, or felt jealous like Helene. Maybe everyone's experience of love was different. Maybe my love was more rational, more stable, more sensible. Or maybe... not every relationship had to involve love.

I didn't like this idea at all. By the end of the day, my mood had soured considerably, and it showed in the flowers I designed. Fortunately, before I could finish the most somber and even frightening bouquets I was preparing for the corridors, angel Ria visited. She brought her light with her. After all, she was an angel. Her compliments on the vases I prepared and her beautiful smile managed to distract my thoughts for a while and made me happy.

"You've done a truly fantastic job, Olive," she said before leaving. "The rest is up to the Dorm! I think tomorrow will be a great day to start."

I didn't know what made tomorrow different from other days, or how the Dorm would handle this, but I wasn't about to argue with a mighty angel. I skipped dinner that night, making do with cookies from a jar in my garden. When I returned to my room, there were two messages in my mailbox. One from Tarben, the other from Mars. The latter was so unexpected that I naturally started with it. It was brief and to the point.

Do you have time today?

He must have sent it after I left in the morning. I frowned, wondering what he could possibly want. Was it related to the previous night? Did he want his pearl back? It wouldn't have surprised me. Or perhaps he was looking to retrieve his jacket. Whatever memories it held... But the Dorm likely had already dealt with that, too. I had placed the jacket with other dirty laundry in the closet before leaving the room. It was probably gone by now.