Icon of the Indecisive #3 of 3 (COMPLETE)

Chapter 3

"Have lunch with me," Quin said.

That wasn't headline news. Quin and I hung out, he "trained" me to do goddess work nearly every day, and that always included a meal after. Or maybe I was just spooked by what today was, but I was seriously considering which Tagalog mythological figure could shapeshift. Did Quin want to hang out with me this much before? I couldn't remember.

I was going to joke about it, but then bit my tongue and kept it in. Why tempt fate?

"Sure," I said instead, "Let me just leave this in my locker first."

We walked together, all casual, to the same spot we had just come from hours earlier, but this time when I opened it, a red envelope fell into my hands.

Dear Hannah,

I was reading up on risk for my exam this week, realized that I needed to take one myself. It made me think of how afraid I was to call certain things by name because it might expose what I've been thinking.

But screw that. I'll start.

I like it when we hang out, just the two of us. I think our DATES are really fun.

I would like to be your BOYFRIEND.

I hope you would consider agreeing to be called my GIRLFRIEND.

Happy Valentine's Day. I know you have plans tonight with Sol, but how about going out on a DATE with me tomorrow?

Robbie

P.S. This is a LOVE LETTER.

The thing about having the power of the Goddess of Love: I knew things. I knew what people were thinking and feeling, if it was related to love, and if they were open enough to share it. They didn't know they were sharing it with Hannah, sophomore Psych major. They were just beaming those feelings out onto the universe without knowing who was listening.

I was. So I knew this. I knew Robbie Carlos, very cute, very nice, very human, junior Applied Math major, felt this way about me. He might not have felt like he was risking anything before, but every time he went near me it was like he was holding out his heart, even though he had no idea what I'd do with it. I could have torn it up, and some days I knew he did feel that way, but he was still at it. He was still trying.

That was braver than me and I had actual power over things.

I did a normal thing, I guess. I blushed. My face turned really warm, and my stomach fluttered in a happy way, and I coughed and tried to hide it from Quin who was right there watching it happen.

I stuffed the letter in my bag, probably creasing it several times over, and then said I was ready to go.

"So are you going out with him tomorrow?" Quin asked, twenty seconds later.

"Seriously. Did I give up privacy when I agreed to this goddess gig?"

"Huge handwriting," he said. "But yeah, I think you should see him. You really will learn a lot about how people love from experiencing his feelings firsthand."

"Ugh, stop."

"It's true." He wasn't kidding! His face was totally not kidding. Quin didn't kid.

"I know, but stop being icky about this. He's not an experiment."

"Hannah," Quin said, smoothly stepping around a study group sitting in a circle in the middle of the hallway (that was annoying of them, by the way), "you know that this will happen to you. A lot. Something about us attracts people to us, even though they don't need us for anything. You're experiencing this now, and you'll just have to get used to it."

I of course had this all plotted in my mind already. Quin and I both knew for a while now that Robbie liked me, but he hadn't done anything as obvious as this yet.

This sounded horrible, but I was hoping for an obvious moment like this so I could shove in Quin's face just how desirable I was.

And Quin would go, "I'm sorry. Here's a sunbeam. And a diamond ring. It's always been you, Hannah."

Since becoming Interim Goddess, I'd been having dreams with Quin in it. As the Sun God. I mean, he didn't look like this college boy in front of me, but I just knew it was him. Something about the way he spoke, the words he said. It occurred to me that I was seeing him through another goddess' eyes, because this person in the dream didn't feel or look like me, and yet I was experiencing her really intimate moments with him.

My whole "relationship" with Quin, including what might have been my first kiss ever, happened in my dreams. Pathetic.

So of course this actual reaction to Robbie was a letdown.

"Whether I go out with him or not is none of your business," I just said, huffing.

This conversation thread was cut short, thankfully, because during the short walk to the cafeteria we had to respond to three calls to the Goddess. Quin helped transmit my response by nudging my elbow with his, which looked cute in theory but had become a tiny bit annoying because of what he just said.

And then a moment later, his elbow wasn't there, because he had broken into a jog, trying to catch the attention of someone who had just come out of the classroom on our left.

Ms. Cabral.

Denise Cabral, young, pretty, and everyone's most favorite history teacher ever. Someone Quin had apparently been spending a lot of time with, not that he bothered to mention it to me. She was just a handful of years older but I might as well have been a child compared to her, as my achievements paled next to her traveling and studying and philanthropy. She wasn't that much prettier (than me), or taller, or more shapely, but something about the way she walked, that twenty-something walk of hers...

Ugh.

He caught up with her just a few feet away from me, so I could hear everything they said, and I was stuck there not knowing whether to join them or not.

"Are we on for tonight?" Quin asked her.

"I don't think so," Ms. Cabral said. "Traffic's going to be really bad."

"I'm driving, don't worry."

"I'll think about it."

"What time's your last class?"

"You don't think I have other plans?"

"I'll pick you up at five."

"I'm not free at five."

"I'll pick you up at five."

At this point I fixated on a smudge on the tip of my right shoe. I just kept looking it, poking the concrete with it, trying to get the dirt out.

Unbelievable. It was like my dream scenario for February 14 was happening, except I was in another universe and I was seeing it happen to someone else right in front of me. They did that banter thing for a few more minutes, and then it seemed like they were saying goodbye. I couldn't help it; I peeked.

Ms. Cabral was smiling as she walked away. Great.

Quin sort of whirled around, checking for me, and then motioned for me to catch up.

"Did anyone summon for you just now?" he asked.

"Yeah, sort of," I said. Hannah Maquiling. She needed the Goddess of Love just then.