"How's your complex analysis? I need to go over my quiz from last week."

"...I don't know anything about that."

"I guess you've got plenty of time to get around to it."

"What's so important about it?"

"...it's math. It's, you know -- uh, I'd say the language of the divine, but..."

"Math is the language of the divine?"

"God's native language," she says, firmly.

"...I guess," he says, dubiously.

"It's -- the fundamental truths. The warp and weft -- no, the loom. The least veiled face of God."

“If you say so,” he says, not sounding quite convinced.

She makes a face, but can't be bothered to press it further.

"What're you reading?"

He holds the book up to show her. It's The Fellowship of the Ring.

"Good choice. ...weird choice. But good choice."

"I'm working with what I've got," he protests.

"...and it is good."

"You're a weird demon."

Dinner. What is dinner. She could not eat dinner. She probably should not eat dinner, she got powdery doughnuts from a vending machine at school and she still hasn't lost the weight from the antipsychotics and she hates-hates-hates the ways her thighs squish together.

"How many demons have you met?"

"Two. Both weird. You're weirder."

He seems unsure whether to be offended by that.

"How?"

"You're, like -- I dunno. Chill. Relatively speaking."

She abandons staring into the fridge and fishes her assignment materials out of her backpack instead.

"That's not hard," he says, resigned.

"Polite demon, I kinda get. Laid-back demon is just weird. If you're stuck with me, do you have to do my bidding?"

"No," he says, and then immediately — "what's your bidding?"

"What kind of makeup do boys who wear makeup ... wear?"

"...depends on the kind of boy. But eyeliner's a pretty safe bet."