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our…urges. I’ve just always been able to control mine.”
    And Jesus, what a load of horseshit that was. Angela, my sweet untarnished goddess of light, thought about what I’d said for a while.
    “Urges?” she finally said.
    Here we go…
    “Sexual,” I explained. “But emotional, too. Are you having trouble with those?”
    She shut her eyes and let the steam from the tea waft across her face. “I didn’t run away from home, you know.”
    “I didn’t figure you had.”
    “I just had to get out of the house.”
    “Is everything okay there?”
    She shook her head and looked at me. “My father…”
    “Is a good man,” I said.
    She took a sip of tea and said, “I know he is. He loves me and all, but he’s such a …” she tried to think of a word that wasn’t a cuss word and came up with “…pedant. Do you know that word? I looked it up a couple of weeks ago for a paper I was doing in English. It means someone who’s always bringing up little things to make themselves look smart because they don’t know anything big. And that’s what he is. That’s why he’s always quoting the Bible at whatever I say. No matter what point I try to make with him he brings up some scripture that proves I’m wrong.”
    “I thi —”
    “And the thing is,” she said, “I believe the Bible. I know it’s God’s word and whatever it says is right and all that, but everything I say can’t be wrong.”
    “Of course not.”
    “Did he tell you about Oscar?”
    “Oscar…the boy at church tonight?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Is…Oscar the object of your affections?”
    She took a long hard gulp of tea.
    I said, “He seemed like a nice enough boy.”
    “He’s just a boy at school. I think he’s cute or whatever, but my father thinks I’m obsessed with him for some reason. He doesn’t approve of him, so he doesn’t like me having a stupid little crush on him.”
    “And why not?”
    “Well, Dad doesn’t want me to like anyone, but mostly it’s because Oscar’s Catholic.”
    “Surely it’s not just that he’s Catholic.”
    “Oh yeah,” she said moving closer to the edge of the couch, “that’s all it is. That he’s Catholic. Now what kind of sense does that make?”
    “I don’t know,” I said.
    She frowned. It was as if she’d just heard herself talking about the love life of a movie star. “Plus, none of it matters anyway because…Oscar doesn’t even know I’m alive, which, for some weird reason, my father doesn’t believe. I mean, how is it his business who I like anyway?”
    I mumbled out some more your daddy loves you business.
    She shrugged. “I know, but he acts like I’m sinning by liking a guy. Oscar doesn’t even know my name. It’s crazy.”
    If she was uncomfortable sitting in the near dark she made no sign of it. She had warmed up now and even in the dim light I could see more color in her face. Angela. Such an ugly name, I think. Yet even now it sets me on fire. Angela. My angel.
    “So what are you going to do, kid?”
    She shook her head. “Go back home, I guess. My parents would kill me if they knew I was here.”
    “Why?” I laughed.
    She frowned again, this time at my dimness. “At an older guy’s house in the middle of the night? They’d die. My father would drop dead, and Mom would kill me, you, and then herself.”
    She laughed and seemed so much older all of the sudden. Was she used to sneaking out of the house? And she called me an older guy .
    I shrugged it off. No Big Deal. “I don’t think they’d mind but—”
    “You’re wrong,” she said.
    “But,” I laughed, “maybe you shouldn’t tell them you came over. No need worrying them about something that’s not a problem.”
    She said, “I won’t tell if you won’t.”
    “I won’t.”
    “Good. I’m sorry about showing up like this. You live closer than any of my friends, and my father keeps the only phone in the house in his bedroom.”
    “Gee, make me feel special why don’t you?” I