Icon of the Indecisive (4 page)

Chapter 9

I was actually hoping to see Robbie before my first class, but after that thing with Ms. Farrah, I decided to be early for GenPsych. Love could wait.

What couldn't wait apparently was the sudden wave of nausea that hit me while I was right there in the middle of the staircase. It was like I had been punched, except I wasn't in pain.

I was dizzy. So dizzy. I had to push some random stranger to make sure I could hold onto the staircase railing before I just collapsed. I used it to pull myself up, a step at a time, and actually held on to the wall until I made it into the closest girls' bathroom.

And then I threw up. Good thing I found an empty cubicle.

Did that make me feel better? It did, a little bit. I stayed in a squatting position, trying to catch my breath. The vomit was almost clear, because I hadn't eaten anything yet. My mouth kind of tasted like the half a cup of coffee I had before I left the house. I tried to remember the last thing I ate, where I ate it, if it was anything stomach-buggy.

"Are you all right there?" the voice from the next stall said.

"Um, yes," I answered. "Sorry."

"Is that you, Hannah?"

"Kathy?"

So my friend, and former goddess project, Kathy Martin, was in the next stall. She apparently had been hiding there for the better part of an hour. Because she was a good friend (and not just devoted to me for the rest of her life), she helped me up, and handed me some wet wipes, and did her best to get vomit off my hair.

"Why are you hiding in the bathroom?" I asked.

She shrugged and busied herself with dabbing a spot on my uniform. "The reality show premiered last night."

Right. The reality show
College Girl
. A youth-oriented cable network wanted to do a reality series set in a university, and they chose Ford River. They did a search for this show's "cast" a few months ago, and to everyone's surprise, including hers, they selected Kathy as their star.

I knew she was special all along. It was a matter of time when everyone else came around to it.

She
however wasn't used to the attention yet. It looked like she didn't want to get used to it.

"I didn't get to see it," I said, knowing that she'd be reassured by it. "Was it good?"

"Oh it was cool," she said. "It's just weird seeing myself on TV."

"How's Jake?"

"He looked gorgeous on TV," she gushed, which was what a girlfriend should do. I knew that she meant it.

The bell rang, and that meant my class was going to start in ten minutes. At that same moment a girl ran into the bathroom, right into the cubicle I had just used, and slammed the door shut.

And we heard vomiting too.

Kathy knew the girl. "Are you all right, Jessica?" she said, when the hurling sounds stopped.

Jessica Torres stepped out of the cubicle half a minute later and headed straight for the sink beside us.

"Is there bad cafeteria food today or something?" Kathy asked, very concerned. And also relieved that something else might be the Ford River topic of conversation instead of her TV debut.

"I don't think so," Jessica said, rinsing her mouth with water from a bottle she already had in her bag.

"I was just doing the same thing," I said sympathetically. "Throwing up, I mean."

She spit into the sink and looked at me. "Are you pregnant, too?"

"No," I said, automatically.

And then I remembered my dream.

And then Kathy tilted her head and gave me this weird look. "Are you sure?"

Chapter 10

...in the most general sense, risk is the possibility of experiencing an outcome that is different from what is expected. (
Types of Risk,
University of West Florida)

Jessica Torres was having her best friend's boyfriend's baby.

It was awful, and
cliché, but she was hoping not to have to deal with it so soon. There were only a few weeks of school left, and the baby bump was barely there... all she had to do was hang on, shut up, and then take the summer off and never come back. No need to explain anything.

But then she couldn't help it, there in the bathroom. It was the first time she had said it aloud to anyone.

Justin and Marlee were still together. As far as she knew.

Justin didn't know.

She thought the nausea would be over by now, but thinking about Marlee just made her sick. They'd been friends since third grade. They went to piano, ballet, and swimming classes together. They decided to go to Ford River after taking a trip to the campus when they were in high school. Marlee could have gone anywhere, and Jessica always suspected that she had given up a slot in other universities just so they'd stay together.

She's going to hate me.

When she said the word "pregnant," out loud, to Kathy and Hannah, it was like she finally acknowledged that it was real. It was a reality she was waiting for, something that still hadn't come down to crush her yet. But it was going to.

Her first mistake was going to a doctor who knew her mother. The ob-gyn might not talk, but she didn't know if anyone else who happened to see her that day at the clinic would be as discreet. Jessica happened to be the daughter of a congressman, granddaughter of a former senator, sister of a vice mayor. People knew who she was, or at least knew her name. This was going to get out soon, and though she was hoping she'd last at least until finals, she couldn't count on everyone else to shut up.

And then Marlee would know, and Marlee would hate her.

"Are you done with the laptop?" My aunt Carmen said this as she peered into my bedroom's doorway.

Right. She had asked earlier at dinner if she could borrow mine. "What? Yes, just a sec."

"I just need it for a few minutes."

"No, no, I'm done."
Right after I clear my search history...

"Is everything okay?"

"Yes, of course." I tried to keep my eyes wide and innocent as I handed her the laptop. "Why?"

"You barely ate."

"I'm not hungry. I think I have a stomach thing."

"Did you come home earlier than usual today?"

I cringed. "Yes," which was true, and I missed three more hours of class when I did it. Ms. Farrah would have words for me. "But I really felt sick earlier. I feel better now though."

Tita Carmen kind of lingered there at my door awkwardly, probably deciding how to show more concern. But then she shrugged and said good night, and left. She was really nice, but I barely knew her. She was the aunt who never really visited, and though I'd been living with her for over a year, we hadn't exactly become besties.

My mom explained it simply as "Carmen's not into kids" which I argued with "But I'm not a kid." It may have had something to do with her traveling a lot, and whatever else. The result was that she was still single and childless, but she seemed okay with it.

Maybe one day I could get her to open up to me about it, but not today.

The nausea stayed with me for hours after, but what freaked me out was what it could mean. Jessica stayed to talk to us in the bathroom long enough for me to pick up on her heartbreak—secret pregnancy, best friend—but I couldn't focus on it as much because I was all
oh crap oh crap am I pregnant with a demigod baby.

So all afternoon my internet searches:

God human pregnancy

Half god baby

Can a girl get pregnant after a dream

How demigods are created

nausea not related to pregnancy

The good/bad news was that I could have anything from a concussion to gastroenteritis, but none of them explained why I was vomiting after
that kind of dream with a god.
And the internet couldn't help me.

I had no choice but to have a really awkward conversation.

Chapter 11

5:56 am.

Tuesday was an early school day this semester. But I set the alarm clock a little earlier still because I wanted to have
the conversation.

As I lay there in bed, waiting the next four minutes out, I checked how I was feeling. Still a little queasy, but at least I felt well enough to go to school.

Robbie was very concerned. At least five messages, two missed calls. As I slept last night I got a glimpse of his mild paranoia—
we kiss and then I don't see her at all in school and then she's sick and doesn't answer my calls
—and I tried to reassure him via goddess telepathy, but maybe I didn't do a good enough job of it. So I sent him a message the old-fashioned way, through the phone:
Am better. Let's have breakfast. I miss you.

The rooftop of the Ford River's North building was a mess.

There were fake trees all over the place. Cardboard cutouts, really, resembling giant broccoli. They must have been part of the set from a recent play, brought up for segregation and recycling.

There was a shadow on the ground. It showed up clearly against the bright green of the cardboard tree. The shadow was shaped like a spiral, and as I watched it, it seemed to move slightly in a counter-clockwise direction.

Quin, the Sun God, wrote on the world using shadows. This was his art, his doodles, his Post-It notes to himself, hidden in plain sight, because people didn't notice. Of course I wished I knew how to read them.

"Are you okay?" Quin asked.

I didn't even bother to act surprised. Whenever I needed him, he would show up. Sometimes I'd call, other times I would just think it.

Maybe I was getting better at this.

He had morning basketball practice on Tuesdays, which was why I wanted to be around earlier than usual. He was dressed for it. Not sure if he had already started though, because he always looked fresh from a shower. Every single time.

Focus, Hannah.

"Yeah, I'm sorry I missed training yesterday, Quin. I needed to rest."

"But you're better?"

"Yes I am."

Deep breath. Just do it.

"Quin, um, how exactly can a god and human have a child together?" The question seemed unexpected, even to me, and
I
said it.

"Excuse me?"

"Human-god babies. I'm supposed to be a descendant of one, right? How does that happen?"

See, the question totally had a precedent. When Quin first approached me about being Interim Goddess, he did say that it was because I had a demigod as an ancestor. Which I didn't really ask him about, because I knew from myths and movies that it was possible.

But how exactly?

"It's complicated," Quin said.

"You don't have to draw diagrams of
god sperm
," I joked, all casual. "Is there a simple way to explain it?"

"No," he said, then he cocked his head, motioning me to come closer. "There's no easy way."

I opened my mouth, ready to complain, ready with that standard whine I had about being kept in the dark all the freaking time, but then Quin took my hand. He raised it up, our fingers interlaced, and then gently touched the middle of my forehead.

And then I saw it, heard it, felt it.

It's about power,

And love.

You have to ask.

Decide to give up something.

Plead your case to the father.

And then you dance for her,

The woman who is always old,

Father will answer you through her,

And then you are divided,

But whole. And more.

My head started to hurt. Too much information. I saw dancing, and tears, and longing, and great joy, what looked like generations of it. Throughout time. The connection broke, and my mind became mine again, but he held on to my hand, kept me steady.

"Let me see if I got that right. You have to ask Bathala for a child?"

"He has to allow it, yes."

"And you have this, like, fertility dance?"

He shook his head. "Yes, it's a dance, but it's not about fertility. If one of us wants a child with a human, we have to ask. The dance is... Father gives his answer through someone."

"The old woman." She looked old, in that vision he gave me, but she seemed to have looked old as far back as Quin could remember. It gave me the smallest of creeps.

"Yes. It's a request done in the language she prefers. The dance is Kata's language. "

Yeah, that sounded complicated. "So... is there sex involved in any part of this process?"

I could have sworn that one of his fingers gently caressed my hand. I could have sworn it.

"Not really. That," Quin said, "we choose to do for fun."

And maybe a sly smile.

But that, I couldn't swear to.

"Would you do it? Would you dance for the woman and ask for a child?"

"I can't imagine why."

"So you've never...?"

"No. I'm not your ancestor, if that's what you were thinking."

Oh no. I wasn't thinking that at all.

"You're handling that well, by the way," Quin said, "Just now, the vision I shared with you. I was hoping you were ready, but I wasn't sure."

My heart, it was seriously going to burst. What was it with Quin lately? So full of affirmation. It made me want to brag. "For what, complicated thoughts? I'm so ready. I can handle the thoughts, the telepathy, the dreams, you name it."

"Dreams?" he said. "Are you still having those?"

"Um, sometimes." And then I mentally kicked myself, because I wasn't entirely honest about the content of those dreams. Especially now that they had progressed to an 18-and-above rating.

Just when I thought I was happy and calm, my heart started to race, and fill with anxiety. It was confusing, and then I realized that it wasn't my own heart.

Robbie is coming.

No, Robbie is here.

I pulled my hand away and leaped into just-friends distance, just as Robbie,
possibly my boyfriend Robbie
, joined us on the roof.

Also in practice gear. Because he was also a basketball player. "What's going on?" he said.

As he stood there, as the third point in what was now a literal triangle, I could sense what he was thinking.

He wanted to kiss me in front of Quin.

But he wanted to know if I would allow it.

Quin "heard" this too, loud and clear.

"Thanks for tutoring me, Hannah," he said, bowing slightly, and backing away. "You can skip practice today, Robbie. You two spend time together. I'll tell Coach you're sick or something."

I forced a smile as we both watched Quin jog to the stairwell. Robbie's heart was still thump thump thumping his distrust.

That didn't look like tutoring was he holding her hand that doesn't make sense

Quin could have told him not to worry. He could have made the jealousy go away, with a simple nudge of his finger.
Don't worry, Robbie. I'm not going after your girl.

But he didn't. Arg. He left it to me to do it.

So I extended a hand, and pulled Robbie closer to me. "Good morning," I said, and smiled as I kissed him. He responded with more passion than I expected on a Tuesday morning, before breakfast.

It was like he felt he had to fight for me, or something. This was how people kissed when they weren't sure if the other person liked them as much. It was the kiss of someone who had something to prove.

When he let go and I was left breathless and reeling, I said something stupid like "Cafeteria?"

I could have tried to wipe his jealousy away too. All I needed to do was tell him
don't worry, Robbie, I'm your girl
and because he was devoted to the Interim Goddess he would accept it without question, but I didn't. I forgot to.

That was my official story.