Interim Goddess of Love #1 of 3 (COMPLETE)

Chapter 15

...Jake Lalisan always chose the front row of the classroom now. In the past some teachers had mistaken that for a show of interest, and maybe he even got good grades he didn't deserve just because of that impression. Truth was? He had trouble focusing. His mind was always wandering off, and when he used to sit in the back row he could spend the whole period just looking at the backs of his classmates' heads, mind pretty much empty.

The front row trick he had come upon by accident, when he was late for one class in freshman year in college and wound up on the row that no one ever really went for first. Suddenly he was right in front of the teacher, and he couldn't really hide behind people when he zoned out. So he stopped zoning out. Why had he never tried it until that day?

That class was World History, a core curriculum subject that every student at Ford River took, regardless of major. On the first day, the teacher asked them to write, on a sheet of paper, "Five Things We Don't Know About You."

At first, Jake rolled his eyes. At his first Math 11 class, just the period before, the teacher asked them to identify their "favorite number and why." He didn't realize that the teachers at this school were taking this "getting to know you" seriously. He felt like he was in a beauty pageant Q&A every damn time.

Jake's five things:

1. My dad and my three brothers are in the military.

2. I used to want to be a spy when I grew up.

3. I like lions. They're nasty and cool.

4. I broke my left ring finger last year. Guitar accident.

5. When I was a kid I was told I would never be a good spy because I had trouble concentrating and often missed details. I wish I could just look at something and see just the important stuff.

He answered this without thinking about it, just so he could have something to hand to the teacher.

Then, once she took all the slips of paper with each student's "five things," she shuffled them around and redistributed them to the class. "You're all freshmen and new to this school. Now you've got at least one new friend," she said.

He wound up with the list of a girl named Kathy Martin.

She had him at #5—"Sometimes I think I'm invisible. I wish I weren't."

There were fifty people in the class, but Jake found out who she was by checking their teacher's seat plan. Back row. Not the best move for someone who didn't want to blend into the wall, but college was new and intimidating, and he understood why it was just easier that way.

He thought she was really pretty.

...Kathy Martin was good at history.

The teacher was always calling on her during class, and she wasn't like the others who looked away and tried to hide under their chairs during recitation. She always had an answer, and even if she wasn't completely right she didn't mind sharing the little she knew anyway. One time she said something about the aqueducts of the Roman Empire, which actually got him to Google it, but she downplayed any implied geekiness by saying she just happened to see it on the History Channel that weekend. He looked forward to these moments because it gave him an excuse to turn around and look at her.

Based on the first, second, and third glances he took, it didn't seem like she was the kind of girl who'd have Slumdog Millionaire (her #1 thing) as her favorite movie. So he watched it, and was impersonating Anil Kapoor's smarmy game show host for days afterward.

Whenever he saw mango-flavored anything (her #2), he thought of her. He started imagining what it would be like to hang out with her, ask her out, give her gifts. Any other guy might get her strawberry-flavored things, because that was safe and typical, but because Jake had her list, he would know better.

Time flew really quickly when you were a freshman, just because everything was so new. In any case he let the first few weeks of school go by without introducing himself, and even though they saw each other every Monday and Thursday at nine-thirty, it felt wrong to suddenly just walk up to her and do it.

Come second semester he scanned all his classes, hoping she would be there, but she wasn't.

When he got back from a trip last summer, he decided to go for it.

* * *

Eighteen minutes was how long I needed, to get all of that. Oh he was totally Kathy's secret admirer. He planned the gifts, and how she would get them, in the weeks before school started, and put the plan into action through his friend Johnny.

I wanted more time to see how exactly Vida had come into the picture, but his memories of her weren't flowing as freely. In fact I barely saw Vida in anything I picked up from him, barely got a sense of how he really felt about her.

But then I saw Diego appear by the open window of the Student Council Room, knocking his fist once against its wooden frame.

I told Jake that I had to go.

I was not as fast with my getaway as Diego would have liked. When we got to the hallway he took my hand and we flew (not literally) past the student org rooms, down one flight of stairs on the other end, and into the sunny but breezy outdoors. Even though this was my second year at Ford River I still wasn't used to how windy it was, even on a sunny day, totally not how I experienced afternoons in Manila.

We slowed to a brisk walk and retreated into the North building, and that was where Diego paused to catch his breath. So did I, and noticed just then that we were both laughing. I may have been squealing like a kid as we sprinted, not sure, but likely.

"Was she right behind me?" I asked.

"No but she just spoke to the last of your minions and had just left the Guidance Office."

That was probably Ms. Farrah, the guidance counselor. "What happened there?"

"I left Vida at the cafeteria. On her way back she inexplicably became part of four conversations, one after another."

"She knows it's me," I moaned. "She's going to just, I don't know, murder me, isn't she?"

"I doubt it. Joaquin won't let her do anything to you."

"I'm sorry to keep asking about this," I said. "You probably think you're explaining the same thing to me over and over again. I just can't grasp yet the concept of you all being powerful but so limited."

"There's a book in the library that explains it all very well."

"It's missing," I said.

"Think of it as territory," Diego said. "Every single thing about life has been divided among us, and we're all most powerful in our own turf. Yours, for now, is love."

"What's yours?"

"The sea. Work. And journeys."

Something came over me as my heart rate slowed, going back to normal after that sudden run across campus.

Diego just helped me with my work. If my work was, now, being the goddess of love.

So despite the sweat and arrogance, stuff I normally avoided in a guy, I could see why Sol preferred him. He just had a different way about him—more upfront about things, more transparent somehow.

I mean, I trusted Quin and all, but I didn't mind learning my new "work" this way.

Oh, is that guilt?

It wasn't cheating. It wasn't like Quin and I were in an actual relationship, right.

"What happens when territories overlap?" I asked.

"Then it gets interesting," he said. "Everyone wants more than what Bathala has given. We fight, someone wins, the loser plots revenge. It's more common than you think, New Girl."