Icon of the Indecisive #3 of 3 (COMPLETE)

Chapter 15

I am standing on something. It's flat, and damp, and crumbly.

I look down. It's dirt.

My feet are bare.

"Don't scream," Quin says, and when I look up he's there. It's really Quin as in Quin Apolinario, senior at Ford River, and his faded red shirt with a collar, and his jeans, exactly the Quin Apolinario who walked me to my classroom just seconds ago. But he's standing on the damp earth with me, and the sun is shining, and the hill some distance behind him is green and lush.

I whipped my head quickly to my left, and I was in my classroom. In my seat on the second row. And my teacher continued to talk in front of me, and my classmates continued to click away at their laptops, tap away on their tablets.

I turn my head to the right, again, and I am with him. Just him. On this field of green and brown.

"Don't scream," he reminds me.

I press a hand to my mouth.

"You can talk," he says. "Relax and try it."

I shake my head and bite my lips. I turn my head to the left.

And I was back in my classroom, biting my lips, shaking my head at nothing. I could hear him though, calling my name gently, but he wasn't physically where my senses were placing him.

This scared me.

"Hannah," Quin says. "Don't freak out. You can do this. Relax and talk to me. You can talk to me without moving, without anyone in that classroom knowing."

I turn toward him again and the sun is in my eyes. I try to relax. My hands slowly come back down to my sides.

"Quin," and that comes out of my mouth—but only here. I am aware of myself also in the classroom, at the same time, staring at the whiteboard without really seeing it.

He is pleased to see me do this. "I knew you could do it."

"W-what...?" I say, not daring to do more.

"You can talk to me like this, Hannah. Any time. It doesn't matter where I am."

This is how they really communicate?

"Where?" I say, and with more confidence.

"Where are we? Exactly the same place."

But it doesn't look like the same place. First of all, no classroom, no students, no Ford River.

Quin asks me to look all around me and I do—and this time I don't flash back into the classroom. I see a three-sixty-degree view of where I am, and it is lush and clean and beautiful nature.

It feels like my goddess dreams.

"Why is it different?" I manage to say.

"Most of what's in the world is temporary. The chair you're on, the classroom, the school, that tree, this shirt, my face. But there are things that are constant, eternal, and that is what we see here. You're only seeing me now as the Quin you've always known, because I think it will be easier for you. It doesn't have to be the case."

In all of my goddess dreams Quin looks different, but I know it's him.

"I understand," I say.

"You know why you have to learn how to do this?"

I once asked him why he chose to spend so much time at a college in the middle of nowhere. Doesn't the Sun God have more important things to do, I said. And he asked me why I thought he was only in one place at a time.

He isn't bound by space. He is in jeans and a red shirt on a hallway in Ford River, and he's here in an eternal space with me. And he's probably somewhere else, doing things, making things happen, who knows how many pieces of him all around.

This is how they get everything done.

This is how they rule their kingdoms.

This is how I'm supposed to rule mine.

I'm aware of my hand lifting—in the classroom—and I'm uncapping a pen, and I'm opening my notebook to a fresh page, and I'm taking notes. Sol, beside me, asks me a question, and I answer with only half a moment's delay.

I am there in that room, but I am also here.

"This is amazing," I say, to Quin.

"You'll get used to it," Quin says. "It's faster when you don't need words anymore."

He looks so proud of me that I can't help but feel happy too. And it's like I'm cutting class but not! This is awesome.

I look down at my feet again and they are indeed my feet. These are my legs. And my hands. And most likely my actual face. I am in this space with Quin and I am me, not someone else.

This is a great experience, and it gives me confidence all of a sudden.

"My new project is really difficult," I tell him. My voice in here sounds normal now, and my classroom self continues to write. "Jessica, the girl who visited me at Guidance. I can't give her what she wants."

Quin isn't concerned. "You'll teach her to long for the truth. That's all."

"I wish it were that simple."

"It's always that simple."

"Thank you for trusting me with this."

"I'm just happy to know I'm right about you."

"So how do we... hang up?"

He smiles. Again. It's a world record. "It's over when you say it is, Hannah."

And I was back in the classroom, my hand still writing, my pen only momentarily stumbling as I returned to full consciousness.