Odd Thomas

guns?"
        "They go bang."
        "And why is that a question you always avoid answering?"
        "I don't always avoid answering it."
        "Why're you afraid of guns?" she persisted.
        "I was probably shot to death in a past life."
        "You don't believe in reincarnation."
        "I don't believe in taxes, either, but I pay them."
        "Why are you afraid of guns?"
        "Maybe because I've had a prophetic dream in which I was shot."
        "Have you had a prophetic dream in which you were shot?"
        "No."
        She can be relentless. "Why're you afraid of guns?"
        I can be stupid. As soon as I spoke, I regretted my words: "Why're you afraid of sex?"
        From the suddenly icy and distant perch of the passenger's seat, she gave me a long, hard, marrow-freezing look.
        For a moment I tried to pretend that I didn't realize the impact that my words had on her. I tried to focus on the street ahead as if I were nothing if not always a responsible driver.
        I have no talent for pretense. Sooner than later, I looked at her, felt terrible, and said, "I'm so sorry."
        "I'm not afraid of sex," she said.
        "I know. I'm sorry. I'm an idiot."
        "I just want to be sure-"
        I tried to hush her.
        She persisted: "I just want to be sure the reason why you're in love with me has less to do with that than with other things."
        "It does," I assured her, feeling small and mean. "A thousand other things. You know that."
        "When we're together, I want it to be right and clean and beautiful."
        "So do I. And it will be, Stormy. When the time is right. We have plenty of time."
        Stopping for a red traffic light, I held out my right hand to her. I was relieved when she took it, touched when she held it so tightly.
        The light changed to green. I drove with only one hand on the wheel.
        After a while, in a voice soft with emotion, she said, "I'm sorry, Oddie. That was my fault."
        "It wasn't your fault. I'm an idiot."
        "I pushed you into a corner about why you're afraid of guns, and when I kept pushing, you pushed back."
        That was the truth, but the truth didn't make me feel any better about what I'd done.
        Six months after the deaths of her mother and father, when Stormy was seven and a half years old and still Bronwen, she was adopted by a childless, well-to-do couple in Beverly Hills. They lived on a fine estate. The future looked bright.
        One night during her second week with her new family, her adoptive father came to her room and woke her. He exposed himself to her and touched her in ways that frightened and humiliated her.
        Still grieving her birth parents, afraid, desperately lonely, confused, ashamed, she endured this man's sick advances for three months. Finally, she reported him to a social worker who was making a follow-up house call for the adoption agency.
        Thereafter, she lived in St. Bart's Orphanage, untouched, until her high-school graduation.
        She and I became an item when we were juniors. We have been together - and each other's best friend - for more than four years.
        In spite of all that we had been to each other and all that we hoped to achieve together in the years to come, I had been able to hurt her - Why're you afraid of sex? - when she pushed me too hard about my fear of guns.
        A cynic once said that the most identifying trait of humanity is our ability to be inhumane to one another.
        I am an optimist about our species. I assume God is, too, for otherwise He would have scrubbed us off the planet a long time ago and would have started over.
        Yet I can't entirely dismiss that cynic's sour assessment. I harbor a capacity for inhumanity, glimpsed in my cruel retort to the person I love most in all the world.
        We sailed the blacktop rivers for a while, not finding Fungus Man, but slowly finding our way back to each other.
        In time she said, "I love you, Oddie."
        My voice was thick when I replied. "I love you more than life."
        "We'll be okay," she said.
        "We are okay."
        "We're weird and screwed-up, but we're okay," she agreed.
        "If someone invented a thermometer that measured weirdness, it would melt under my tongue. But you - you're cool."
        "So you deny me weirdness but agree that I'm screwed-up."
        "I see your