Interim Goddess of Love #1 of 3 (COMPLETE)

Chapter 2

When I first met him, I really thought he was a god.

Not literally. More like the way a freshman girl sees a junior guy with chiseled features and perfect skin and assumes he looks like a marble sculpture of a god. I had never been to Italy or Greece, never seen those statues up close, but I was eighteen years old and my limited experience told me that they were probably modeled after guys like Joaquin Apolinario.

Besides, I didn't meet any juniors. Didn't take any classes with them. The ones who happened to speak to me while I served time at the Guidance Office treated me like they would any barely-there admin employee. Sophomores were nicer. Seniors too, maybe because they were almost out of here. Juniors on the other hand were enjoying their first year as upperclassmen all too much.

But he wasn't like that. He wasn't just the only junior who talked to me then. He was also the only junior who lingered at the Guidance Office, introduced himself, made small talk, stayed until five-thirty, helped me lock up, and walked me to the cafeteria because I was hungry.

He introduced himself as Quin, which I thought was an unusual name for these parts. I said my name was Hannah.

"What's your real name?" I asked.

"Joaquin."

"But you say 'Quin' differently in 'Joaquin.'"

"Does it matter?"

"It's not a proper nickname. You might as well call yourself something totally different. Like Bob."

As far as conversations went, my side of that one was icky and foolish and stereotypically freshman, but for some reason Quin was amused. For a second there I thought that this was it, my college romance is about to begin, and with a tall, gorgeous junior at that (my mom always did say I was an overachiever).

Instead, the gorgeous junior just kept wanting to talk. Kept asking me to lunch, walking me to class. He would casually tell me about his basketball games and practice (he was captain of the varsity team already) as if his life was so boring. I would tell him about my daily concerns, like what I ate for breakfast and oversleeping on quiz day, and he acted like he was actually listening.

Ten months later, as the school year ended, he said the thing that explained everything, and nothing, about why he befriended plain old me:

"Hannah, this might seem forward and a bit much for you to grasp, since I never said anything to you before about it, and it's a huge responsibility..."

My thoughts were along the lines of: Will you agree to be the most hated person on campus and be my girlfriend?

But he said: "We need you to be the goddess of love, for now."

I must have had a blank look on my face for a full minute. I kept thinking, is that what people are calling it these days?

And then he explained it.

"Do I have to be trained for this?" I said, taking the news rather well.

* * *

Hearing tales of love and woe wasn't new to me. My earliest one was when I was eleven, when my mother explained to me that my dad wouldn't be living with us anymore. It was quickly followed by the news that he had a new family and had decided to live with them. I hugged her and told her that she was going to be okay, and that she shouldn't wish for him to stay with us if he was happier somewhere else. She said then, not a little irritated, that I shouldn't give up on him so easily. He might still come back. I didn't believe it but told her what she wanted to hear.

Years later, I think I was a high school junior by then, she reached for my hand across the dinner table (set for two, still) and out of the blue thanked me. I just knew what she was referring to; she didn't have to say it.