Interim Goddess of Love #1 of 3 (COMPLETE)

Chapter 22

Kathy didn't particularly like Diego Simon, but when he invited her to the Bash, she said yes anyway. She figured, what the hey. It would be her first time there, and she'd be with one of the most popular guys in school.

Maybe she would see Jake there. Probably with his girlfriend, the absolutely last person Kathy would have wanted to compete with, but looking from afar wasn't so bad. She'd been doing it for over a year now.

What some people just couldn't understand, Kathy thought, was that it was better to take it easy. She wasn't even friends with Jake, had barely spoken to the guy. Fine—if she showed up to the Bash expecting to meet her secret admirer, like it was a blind date, what would she even say to him if he really was Jake? Thanks for the mango tarts? How did he even know all of those things about her?

No wait—that would be the first thing she'd say then.

This was the wrong thing to be thinking of on what was turning out to be her first sort-of date. Her parents seemed cool with the idea, when she mentioned it. (They were probably expecting this, the "first date," to happen earlier.) They didn't know though that her date was most popular for being a troublemaker, and she didn't volunteer the information.

Diego said he would pick her up after the basketball game, and right then she worried that something about him would tip off her parents. She suggested that they just meet at Basement, which was close to where she lived anyway. He said that it wasn't safe for her to hang out anywhere near that place by herself, and if she didn't mind waiting he'd just pick her up after the game.

He was assuming that she wasn't going to be watching the game. (Nobody watched the games.) At least he wasn't upset about it.

When he picked her up, at nine o'clock like he said, he surprised her by being... well... clean. His hair was slicked back, and he introduced himself to her parents like a polite economics honors student. (But of course he cleaned up nicely. Was she expecting him to have blood on his shirt?)

So Kathy felt a tad guilty about thinking about Jake, and being more excited to see him than the idea of her date with Diego.

* * *

Jake didn't particularly like Vida Castillo. In fact, he had been making plans to go to the Bash alone. He sent Kathy that invitation and was hoping she would actually come to see who was giving her those gifts. But when Vida showed up at his house to pick him up, he kind of just let it happen. Most of his "relationship" with Vida was made up of these moments he had let happen, many of them he found difficult to explain whenever people asked if he was seeing her.

He was, wasn't he? She even called him her boyfriend that one time. He had all these memories of her, and there were witnesses to prove every single one, but they were like scenes he remembered from a TV show. Vida never stopped him from doing things, but whenever she was around he felt... distracted.

The haze in his head was there again, as he accompanied Vida to the Bash. As soon as he arrived he scanned the crowd, but he forgot who he was looking for. But the feeling was persistent, and it occurred to him again as soon as Vida stepped out to find a clean bathroom.

Jake was looking for someone. Kathy? Right, Kathy. Why again?

He sent her the photo and asked her to come tonight. What photo was it again?

The ancestral home, the one he saw when he took a summer trip down south to Bacolod. He was playing around with a new camera, and took a heritage tour of the area's old houses.

Why did he take a heritage tour again?

Because it was on Kathy's five things. #3—"I collect photos of ancestral houses. One day I'd like to write a book about them." He was particularly proud of one of the photos and sent it to her as a gift, anonymously. With an invitation to be her date to the Bash. Why did he do that again?

Because of #4—"I have never had a boyfriend."

He felt that he should at least try.

The posters said that the Bash would end at nine-thirty but that was obviously untrue, because the basketball players only started arriving at ten. Vida seemed to be taking a while. When he turned in the direction she'd gone, he saw her arguing with Quin Apolinario. Jake never really heard her raise her voice, much less lose it, but Vida looked angry.

"Self-righteous bastard," she told the captain of the basketball varsity. "I can see right through you and I won't let you do this!"

"You think you can do anything about it?" Quin retorted. "It's happening."

Jake wondered briefly if he should come forward and defend his supposed girlfriend, but something else called out to him. Inside the crowded club, rising above the music and the normal noise, some cause for alarm: he heard the sounds of a scuffle, bottles breaking, girls shrieking, fists hitting skulls.

Diego Simon was in the middle of a fight, an actual fight, and panic was rippling through the crowd.

A hundred or so people started rushing for the exit, and suddenly something in Jake snapped. He wasn't part of the fishy-smelling panicky mob. Instead it was like he had awakened with a start, and he made his way against the tide with purpose.

Toward the girl with orange shoes. He just knew where to find her. She was on the wrong side of the room when Diego started his caveman assault, and had managed to climb up onto the makeshift bar instead of join the stampede. It wasn't going to keep her safe for long, though, because the other guy's friends started joining the riot, and no chair or table was safe from being toppled over.

Jake had to piece it together after, because he wasn't sure how it all happened. First was the mystery of how he saw her right away, despite the mob. Then the matter of how he was able to weave through that crowd (the worst of his injuries was a scratch near his elbow) and get to Kathy despite being arm's length from most of the punches being thrown. He was surprised how she didn't hesitate when she saw him, jumping right into his arms, landing with a little bounce with both feet on the floor.

And it was clear to Kathy, right then, that he did indeed care, and Jake realized that he shouldn't have been so afraid of letting her know.

* * *

I heard Diego's voice. He liked to start with some juvenile thing like "What the fuck was that about?" and throw a punch that would take three people down all at once, and when I heard that again, my heart sank. I had put Kathy in his care, damn it! He couldn't have restrained himself for just one night?

I was right in the middle of what passed for the dance floor at Basement right then, halfway to the rest room until I saw that it was out of order. When I heard Diego, I wasn't even scared. I was just annoyed. But then I got elbowed just above my left boob by one of my literature classmates—running right at me—and realized that this was not the time for goddess of love stuff.

It was time for getting the hell out of there.

The jab had me reeling back in pain, and I thought I was going to fall until another running person jolted me back upright. My eyes immediately searched for Quin, and I knew where to look because I just saw him by the door, fighting with Vida. I yelled, lifting an arm to grab his attention, but he was already halfway to the center of the fight. Because he was always babysitting Diego.

I did think about heading for the closest exit but needed to steady my feet before I got hit again. I yelled his name even though he probably couldn't hear me, and then I felt someone lift me by the waist. It was like I was flown out of there.

Saved by Robbie.