Interim Goddess of Love #1 of 3 (COMPLETE)

Chapter 3

You called the goddess of love with a song. Quin actually hummed it for me.

"It sounds like a lullaby," I said. I must have heard it from my grandmother.

It's the sound that the heart makes. It calls you to hear it, and when you do, you will be able to see, and feel, and remember, someone's pain or joy with such clarity.

Over the next few weeks, Quin and I met at the roof of the North building and he explained how things worked. The goddess of love listened to people. She received requests, pleadings, demands, and her job was to decide what happened next.

"How exactly do I do that?" I couldn't comprehend it. So maybe I selfishly agreed to do this because I wanted to be closer to Quin, but this was serious business. Maybe a little too serious. More than once, I started to panic.

And every time, Quin would find a reason to brush a hand, a fingertip, an arm, against my skin, and I felt instantly reassured. Even if I didn't understand it all just yet.

"Don't worry about it. It'll start with words, conversations. Those are simple, easy to handle. The rest will come when you're ready, I'm sure you won't even notice that you're different."

"Different how?"

"You'll be able to do more than listen. It's like... enhanced empathy."

"Will I have powers?"

"Let's see how you do with listening first."

"Okay." I was hoping there would be powers. "Is it because of those people who keep telling me their love stories? Is that why I'm qualified to fill in as goddess of love?" I asked him.

"You're qualified because I chose you."

I wanted to ask, you mean you chose me because I'm qualified, right? But it wasn't the time for nitpicking, or for second-guessing Quin, the sun god of the Tagalogs. (Technically my people, based on ancestry.)

Instead, I asked, "When will it start?"

"One of these days. You'll be summoned, but don't feel like you have to help everyone who does. Take it one person at a time."

"Like a project."

"Yeah, something like that."

So I wasn't going to be expected to solve the love problems of the billions of people in the world. (Good to know.) I guess I was on a Goddess Probation Period.

* * *

Kathy Martin claimed to have a special power too.

"I'm invisible, I swear," she moaned.

I didn't react immediately.

"I'm kidding," she added.

"Of course, I knew that," I said. I hoped that becoming goddess didn't mean having to lose my sense of humor. Then again, Quin never laughed at anything. In my defense, I got thrown off by "invisible." I mean if the Sun God was walking around on campus, anything else was possible, right?

"I mean, I might as well be. I don't really get noticed."

On a bench in front of the cafeteria, Kathy told me about herself while I chewed on the turon—the kind with langka—that she bought for me.

I totally got what she was all about, within seconds. She, too, was a sophomore. She, too, was okay-looking but was a makeover away from being really attractive. She, too, wore her nice-enough outfits with about as much flair as a clothes hanger.