Lee thinks that he would like to be heartbroken and get to hear Raine tell him she's his sunshine actually. 

"So... sex is a thing like holding hands? Where people do it with people they're just dating and it isn't leading them on?"

.........eh, sure, why not. 

"It can be!" 

"I think," he says sleepily, "you turn things colors you do the best things in the world."

Lee is very cute and very good. 

"I can get behind that," she says, and kisses him. "...do you want to hear more poetry?" 

"Yes."

Oh good.

She knows the version of Hallelujah with seven verses, and strongly prefers the version with "Maybe there's a God above" rather than the version with "I know that there's a God above," and she has a nice enough voice that she can make it pretty as well as meaningful. 

"That's pretty," he says. "I don't know what it's talking about."

"...yeah, not getting that good poetry has multiple layers of meaning would make that one hard, wouldn't it. It's about love and religion and doubt and -- a lot of things that mean a lot to me." 

"...I don't think religion is like that? Religion is about how God made the world and watches over us to make sure everything is good, and you should be fair and nice to other people and live a happy life, and when they die everyone goes to Heaven which is like Pleasantville but much bigger and you can't have kids and you can fly."

".....Pleasantville religion sounds nicer but also I hate it." 

...hug?

"...it... sounds like your world has a lot more beautiful things?"

Hugs are nice. 

"It does. It -- religion here sounds so much less like a weapon you could hurt someone with, and that's important, it really is, but I'm used to religion being about rituals you pass down in secret and questions of faith and doubt and really beautiful spaces and this just feels like -- I don't know, like the difference between real food and Wonderbread. It's very inoffensive and it will never hurt anyone and it will never be a tool of torture but there's no substance." 

"I... think when you say 'faith' and 'doubt' you mean something I don't have any words for at all."

"...plausibly true. Faith is -- believing in something, not like you believe that tables exist but in the way you believe in, fuck, I don't know if you believe in anything the way I believe in stories and beauty and humanity reaching onwards and outwards -- and doubt is grappling with that belief and questioning it and coming to terms with what it means about the world. And in my world religion, or at least the parts of religion I have any interest in preserving, is about that, and not about going to heaven which is like Pleasantville except that you can fly." 

"Yeah, I... don't know what that means really at all."

"...I'm sorry. It's a beautiful thing." 

Oh no, he made Raine sad. 

He is not supposed to do that. He is a TERRIBLE date and she is NEVER going to want to go out with him again. 

Maybe he should just cuddle Raine and stop talking and then it won't make it any worse.

She doesn't particularly seem to mind the making-sad but cuddles are nice. 

Obviously she minds the making-sad. Why would you not mind being made sad? Being sad is bad!

(Except about stories maybe.)

Sometimes people are sad about things. It's the human condition and Raine is glad to be part of it, and not to live a plastic Wonderbread life where she never gets to be achingly sad about the potential for beauty in the universe. 

Instead of saying this to Lee she just cuddles him very much. 

And eventually it is late and Raine has to go back home.

In the morning, Lee wakes up and the thought of wearing a dress or seeing Raine naked or touching those parts is somewhat unappealing, like going a football game. Except a football game where he distinctly remembers that last night they were the most fun thing that had ever happened in his entire life?

Weird. He is going to ask Raine about this. (Raine continues to be the prettiest and smartest and best person in the entire world and he wants to give her lots of hugs and kiss her forehead and listen to her sing.)

His parents ask him if he cut his hair or was wearing different clothes. In church, everyone is staring at him. This would normally be awful, but today he is too happy about reading stories! And listening to Raine sing! And cuddling Raine! And Raine saying nice things about him!

Church continues to have no content whatsoever. She sings along with the very pretty hymns and doesn't speak along with the contentless prayers and runs the to arrive at the vision of gas lamps as angels and there's a blaze of light in every word, it doesn't matter which you heard, the holy or the broken Hallelujah and mine eyes have seen the glory through her head like smooth pebbles and doesn't engage in any kind of way. It's not worse than when they made her choose a higher power that wanted her to be straight at camp. 

One boy — Marlo Lane, plays football, has never spoken to Lee before — is staring at him in a markedly different way than everybody else is. 

Unfortunately, Lee is very socially oblivious even when he isn't exclusively thinking about either Raine or the concept of money exchanges, and completely misses it.

After church there is coffee and cake! Lee sits in a corner and tries not to look too obviously like he's waiting for Raine to talk to him.

Are handstands a thing you do after church? Handstands are a thing you do after church now.