A Goddess Wears Orange

What Happened After That...

Being inside the school that night was like being inside a Christmas tree. Lights sparkled from gold and silver stars and streamers. Rice-lights twinkled from the trees, their reflections glinting softly upon a myriad white and gold balloons. At one end of the quadrangle, which had been cleared of its booths earlier, multicolored stage lights set the stage ablaze. And across the backdrop of crimson velvet and gold tulle, scrawled in fancy, gold script were the words: “An Af-FAIR to Remember: South Crescent High School Foundation Week Closing Ceremony.” 

On the rooftop, a place they managed to gain access to only because Ren was friends with the janitors, Yumi leaned over the concrete wall and gazed down at the scene below. The school looked as if it had sprouted an animated, oversized flower garden. Students dressed up in pretty dresses and button-down shirts drifted through hallways and filled up the chairs in front of the stage, talking, laughing and dancing to the beat of the pop music playing over the PA system. They wore an air of euphoria like an ermine coat; even the seniors, who technically still had to see Students’ Night through to the end, had finally stopped looking as if they’d love to dig their fingers into one another’s ulcers. 

Electronic noises exploded from the quadrangle as members of the winning band tested the sound system and the amps onstage. Once, a scream rose up from the crowd as a lean figure in black took up a guitar and shredded it like a crazed angel of rock, tossing his hair over his shoulder and grinning sleepily at his bandmates. When he started playing the guitar riff from Metallica’s “Enter Sandman,” vocal cords spontaneously blistered from the shrieking, and from the howls of disappointment when an irate teacher told him to stop as it wasn’t their time yet to perform. 

Yumi smiled. Linc. She wondered if that girl Hallia was somewhere down there, watching him. She wondered how many couples were down there right now, coming together and falling in love. She thought of all the threads she’d read as the Goddess of Love. All those feelings of attraction, of affection, of longing, jealousy, tenderness, anxiety and pure, unselfish love… She could almost see the brilliant lacework of energy that connected every single person present tonight to everyone else. Even the ones who were deep in loneliness and despair. She’d held the truth in her hands, and she knew no one could ever be separated from the tapestry. No one was ever truly alone. 

It was a perfect gem of a night, awash with a sweet sense of unreality, as if a dream had stolen into their ordinary, waking world. She’d thought at first that it was just her own happiness coloring her perception, until she realized what was going on. Her emotions were reaching out to everyone, her own threads of excitement, anticipation and the sheer joy she felt at simply being with the person she loved—all of her threads crisscrossing with those of others like her. Fran and Angelo. Lisette and Erik. Ate Tala and Ate Audrey, whom she’d seen earlier standing at a balcony with their arms around each other. Maybe even Natalie and the Marketing Committee head, whom Yumi had glimpsed talking together in a semi-secluded corner. For a moment, she wished her power would switch itself on so she could see the mesh of energy they all formed together. It must be breathtaking. 

Not everyone was getting a happy ending tonight, though. She hadn’t seen Laurence anywhere, and she wondered if he’d decided to skip out on Students’ Night altogether. Maybe he was at home alone right now, or maybe he was at the mercy of his predatory landlady again. Goddess, please watch over him, she prayed. He’s weird, but he’s a good guy. And please, let him find someone who can love all of him, and whom he can love in return. 

“What’re you thinking of, Curly-Top?” 

Ren came and stood beside her, his arm drawing her close. Smiling up at him, she told him about the tapestry of energy and her wish that she could see what it all looked like tonight. In reply, he quirked an eyebrow upward. “And that’s what’s making you sigh like that?”