Icon of the Indecisive #3 of 3 (COMPLETE)

Chapter 1a - February 14

He has returned! It is unexpected. I am overcome with joy. After everyone telling me that I will not survive the wait, it is over! Take that, everyone.

But now that I am holding him, caressing his shoulder, tasting his tears, I realize that it's not over.

Already he is withering, not the Quin I know him to be. First of all, the tears, which I never thought came so freely to him. And in our embrace, the only place where he allows himself to lower his guard, I sense his defeat. It is all around him, hovering. I hope he recovers.

"Hello," he says, like it's nothing.

"Are you going back out there?" I ask.

"Yes, but there's been an unexpected truce. I came as soon as I could."

"I'm glad," I say, and I kiss him.

* * *

It happened again. Ugh.

For the nth consecutive time, I woke up minutes ahead of my own alarm clock, even though I thought hearing it was what jolted me awake. I used to like it, thinking I was getting a bonus three minutes or so, but I got over it. Now I felt cheated—give me my sleep!

Just like the previous days, I spent my non-bonus minutes looking up at the ceiling of my room at my aunt's house. I took a long and deep breath, wondering what was in store for the Interim Goddess of Love that day.

That was me. While the Original Goddess of Love was hiding under a rock (I didn't know where, only that she was missing), humble college student Hannah Maquiling was in training to solve the love problems of the world. Yeah, the very same girl complaining about waking up a little too early.

Look, I was getting better at this. I had learned to see into someone's memories of love just by touching them. And my advice wasn't just empty words—I could, with a thought, get someone to actually do it. So far, one person at a time, and only those near me, but it was a start. But I had minions. Well, I had people who were devoted to me, meaning they'd actually do something if I asked—because I had once helped them when they asked. Very helpful when I needed rides to places or change for a hundred, but not exactly an army I could command.

Original Goddess had like several thousand years of a head start, so forgive me if I could only do so much in nine months.

I peeked at my round pink alarm clock and saw that I had thirty seconds left. By the third day I looked up if there was some psychological condition covering this too-early-for-the-alarmness, and found an actual study on it. Turned out, the study's subjects that thought they had woken up before their alarm only thought there were awake—but were really in a stage of sleep. The machines hooked up to their brains said so.

Am I even awake right now? I am, I so am.

Awake, and anxious. All this week, this waking up thing had been annoying me. And with each day, some unnamed dread was growing. What was it? Did I have a quiz? Some project I didn't prepare for?

If this is your test, Vida, it's pointless. Annoying and pointless.

The Goddess of the Moon, currently in this world as college senior Vida Castillo, didn't like that I got the Interim Goddess role. She spent most of last year intimidating me, questioning my worth, and finally last week she showed up at my house and said... Something like she was going to test me...

I didn't really remember all of it. But I did remember that she said she was going to test me, but since then there had been no tests. Just spontaneous awakening. Which I could handle, no problem.

Then I started hearing the songs. A thought popped into my head. Not mine, but one of those thoughts of love that other people had, thinking they were sending it to no one in particular. I actually got those, mystically beamed into my head, carried by something that resembled a song.

I started hearing many little songs. More than the usual.

This particular thought said, "He still has time to ask me out. It's Valentine's Day, after all."

Oh for crap's sake.

My alarm clock started ringing but I hid my head under the pillow. On a regular day at school I got "does he like me what if she doesn't like me" over and over, from nearly everyone as it was. What would Valentine's Day be like?