"Talk to me when he heals a guy with a missing leg. Or with Down's. Or, I dunno, a cleft palate. Chickenpox, if it happens all at once."

Thank God for people who'll fight him.

“Dorothy has pictures of a finger,” he says, in a remarkably accusatory tone.

“They’re not good pictures, and Photoshop is free.”

"Tell your tall friend that we can medicate migraines these days."

This is vaguely directed at Dorothy. Is that racist? He's not sure.

“What migraines,” she says, with an odd combination of weariness and concern.

"Migraine auras. They don't always come with pain. My mom gets them too."

“Migraines don’t do stigmata.”

Dorothy is looking increasingly like there’s something she would rather not talk about.

"Picking at scabs does stigmata."

Even the medievals were wise to that one. Not everyone who wants to be a mystic is one.

“I mean seeing them.”

“You’re not going to change his mind.”

"Whatever. I'm going to class. Good luck with your cult."

He kind of means it, is the thing. He likes this guy.

“Bye. You won’t be missed.”

Well that's just mean. He hates when he makes people mad on purpose and then they're mad.

Camillo retrieves his bike and pedals off huffily.

Two days later, it’s Sunday. Which, under the circumstances, is a mixed bag.

Camillo goes to confession and admits to his usual laundry list: losing his temper with his little brothers, lying to his parents, putting off his homework for Sunday evening, rushing through his prayers, watching a gay porn gif loop a few times before he scrolled past it.

At Mass, he stands and kneels and sits at the appropriate times. Contrition, thanksgiving, petition, adoration. He receives Communion on the tongue, and afterwards, on the kneeler, he tells God what he always tells him.

I feel nice right now. Warm. I think that's the music, and the vaulted ceiling, and the Latin and the incense. I don't think it's the touch of Your hand. Thank You for that. Thank You for trusting me to seek You out through knowledge and wisdom and understanding and the rational soul You gave me. You told Thomas: Blessed are those who have not seen and still believe. Thank You for blessing me with not seeing.

He looks at the veiled tabernacle, and the red flame flickering beside it, and he adds a little postscript.

But seriously, what was up with the halo?

God does not send him another vision. A vision is not, in the end, what he needs.

God doesn’t send him resolve, or hope, or the truth — at least, not directly.

What God sends, as he bikes back home from church, is a Ford F-150 speeding through a stop sign.

Ow.

He's on the ground now.

Nothing hurts, yet. He's pretty sure it's going to hurt in a minute. That's a bad angle for his leg.

“Oh, shit—”

There are boots on the ground, coming from behind him.

“Oh fuck — oh shit—”

He drops to his knees in front of the stopped truck, and throws his arms around Camillo, lifting him up, pressing their bodies together.

He is, suddenly, electrified, as if he’s been stuck in the center of a live wire and his whole body has been reduced to a conductor.

It hurts, when the tear in his liver closes, when his leg twists back into place, when his ribs bend back and the puncture in his lung knits back together, when his vertebrae return to their places. Each of these things hurt individually and distinctly. But they all take a back seat to the overwhelming thing touching him, the finger of blinding energy arcing through his heart and setting it on fire.

He’s struck mute by it, as it happens. He can’t scream, or make a sound — his voice doesn’t do that anymore.

And then it’s over. His body is returned to him, whole.

There's tears on his face and his arms are around Z's neck. The asphalt is hot under him where his jeans are still torn.

The last minutes feel like the black ribbon of a cassette tape, unspooled and tangled in his lap. He's trying to lay them out cleanly in a catalogue before false memories can creep in. It's so important to remember.

"...Z. It's you."

It's shaky, like he's only guessing.

“…yeah. It’s me.”

He gives him a gentle squeeze, then loosens his grip a little, still supporting him with his hands.

“You wanna get out of the road?”