Icon of the Indecisive #3 of 3 (COMPLETE)

Chapter 27

It wasn't as easy to find Denise. She didn't have a crowd around her, so I had to wade through every group just to check. She wasn't with the car fanatics in the parking lot, or with the self-appointed bartenders in the garden, or with the smokers in the garage, or with the worker bees making sandwiches in the kitchen, not among Vida's entourage in the living room, not in any of the unlocked first floor rooms.

I found her on the second floor balcony, accessed from a TV room that had windows for walls. There was probably a fantastic view of the cove just outside but I wasn't in any mood to enjoy it.

Denise was happily chugging beer from a plastic cup. I pushed myself between two juniors just to get within speaking distance of her.

"Tell me something," I said. "What is worth all this trouble? Why disturb everything by giving people powers and making them criminal hypnotists and lightbulb smashers?"

She laughed triumphantly, tossed the cup into the air, and threw her arms around me. "Love, Hannah! I'm doing it for love."

"Do you know the kind of trouble your stunt caused, what kids like Neil end up doing if you give them that kind of...? He stole from people. He took advantage of me. My friend is torn up over him."

"She'll live. He'll learn. Nothing about the order of things will change once I distribute my gifts and pass on."

"But aren't they gods now because of you?"

Someone handed her another cup and she gulped it down. Ugh, I don't think she even knows where that had been.

"Oh no they're not," Denise said. "They just got my minor gifts. Every god has them. They'll have it all their lives and when they die maybe their grandchildren will inherit them. What you have now, that's different. Because you're different."

A couple dancing behind me got a little too physical, and I was reminded rudely of where I was.

"We're kids. Silly, lost college kids," I said, loudly, and no one even cared. "You can't choose to give us this much power over anything. We'll screw it up. I can screw up at your job worse than you."

Denise grabbed onto the smooth cylinder that was the railing behind me. Just below us I could see another guy leap into the water. The people on the balcony erupted in cheers, and Denise accepted yet another random drink. This could not be sanitary.

She downed it like it was a tequila shot and blinked at me. "Do you think any of us are worth the power that we were given? I know I'm not. I never was. But I think I know what will make it better this time around, Hannah."

And it was like all the gods were at my ear right then, feeding me the answer, but only because they'd said it before in those words and others.

"We have to want it," I said.

"Right you are. Because I didn't ask for this, and I'm lousy at it. I will do all of creation a favor by bowing out now and leaving my gifts behind to those who want them."

"Vida wants them."

"Except Vida," Denise said. "You just saw my entire life, Hannah. You know what it could be like, how empty it has made me. I know what it has been. I know you can be better. You know how I know?"

The same way Quin knew.

"Faith," I said.

She planted a beer-scented kiss on my forehead. "Are you ready to choose?"

* * *

The house with the many windows is gone. So are the people.

Diya has taken my hand and we are running, together, on sand. Our bare feet are light upon the grains, our movement disturbs nothing.

Sand becomes stone.

And then we reach the edge. Beyond stone there is only air, and a long drop, and water underneath that I can barely even see.

Diya is a goddess. She is taller here, and her hair is the color of dry leaves, and her voice is like a song.

She is not the goddess whose memories I've been seeing, that much I know.

I also know that we aren't here for the view.

"You're going to jump, aren't you?" I say.

"No," she says, still smiling. "We are."

"You're kidding me."

"This is it, Hannah. This is when you choose."

"I've already chosen."

"You've told yourself that you'll choose it. Now do it already."

"What about you? What happens to you?"

Diya looks up, instead of down, and lets her face bathe in soft sunshine. "I think I will wake up from this finally free to be with the one I choose, and not watch him slip away."

"Or you could die from the fall."

"Do you fear the jump, Hannah?"

"We seem to be really high."

"You think we are. Or you're just trying not to choose again."

I look over the edge and something sparkles up at me from the darkness below.

"I'm here," I say, tentatively, to the abyss.

I think of not jumping, knowing that it will free me from Vida and the burden of everyone's problems. That would be the easy way out.

I think of jumping, knowing that I have so much more work ahead of me, how difficult it could be, and the threats that await.

I try to recall what brought me here.

And yes, it's Quin, because he asked me to do this. But it's also Kathy and Jake and Ian and Carson and Mara and Johnny and Farrah and the now countless others whose hearts I was asked to care for.

Who am I without this?

I start to remember.

Inevitably, I am that eleven-year-old girl on the day that her mother's heart broke.

I accepted the gift then, I just didn't know it.

That is who I am, and when there is no fear or doubt, who I will remain to be.

I am the Goddess of Love.

I will work to be better at this, to deserve the devotion, and no one will be able to take this from me. Vida Castillo can go suck it.

Diya reaches for my hand and I take it. My feet leave the stone first. We jump. And we fall.