“Chad stared at his publicist/babysitter/daughter of Satan. “Jesus, woman, I do not envy the man you end up with.”Miss Gore’s smile was pure evil. “Neither do I.”

“Man provides his own goods and his own evils, neither God nor the Devil has anything to do with it.”

“The woman raised her voice. "I said, what are you doing?"Tommy kept typing and looked up. "Pardon me, I was ignoring you. What did you say?""What are you doing?" She repeated."It's a note. Let me read it for you. 'Couldn't anyone else see that they were all slaves of Satan? I had to cleanse the world of their evil. I am the hand of God. Why else would security have let me into the building with an assault rifle in my suitcase? I am a divine instrument.' " Tommy paused and looked up. "That's all I have so far, but I'll guess I end it with an apology to my mom. What do you think?"She smiled as if hiding gas pains and handed him an envelope.”

“I missed Chad in the same way that I missed my mom now: always.”

“Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”

“Apron,” Chad said, sounding a little nervous. “I’ve been wondering. Do you think you and me would have been friends, if, you know, we were in seventh grade together?” I thought about it for a second. I thought about Rennie and Jenny Pratt making fun of Chad, his swishy way of walking down the halls, and Johnny Berman and Sherman Howl writing faggot on the top of his desk and picking him last for dodge ball. And I thought about how, if I ignored them all and decided to be friends with Chad anyway, he would have been my only one. “Yes,” I nodded. “We’d be friends.” “Yup,” Chad said smiling as far as his cracked lips would let him. “That’s what I think, too.”