He wanders up one side of a bookcase with Joan on the other, as she asks, "So, when did it all start for you?" He says he was fourteen, describes himself as a "lonely, emotional kid" and when his parents got divorced, he needed someone to talk to: "So I made him up. And suddenly, he was real." Joan: "[Do] you know why you were chosen, and all that?" Ryan: "I don't really care." Joan: "Where do you think it's leading? I mean, there must be some kind of big plan, right? That's why we're meeting. It's all...coming together." She seems a little excited about the prospect of making more sense of this whole thing. One of the books on the top of the shelf in front of Ryan is Judaism for Dummies. Ryan: "Like I said, Joan: I just don't care." Joan: "What do you mean?" Ryan: "Well, he's master of the universe, he created everything…I'm supposed to be impressed? With this universe? You do watch the news occasionally?" Joan does. Ryan: "If he were really that divine, not to mention smart and merciful, he would have scrapped the free will idea. We would have been like computers: intelligent, capable, infallible even. But not free." Joan shakes her head, perplexed: "I don't get it." Ryan: "We don't have to be bossed around by some love-starved, egocentric deity. I didn't ask to be born. Now that I'm here, it's all up to me. I like it that way. My life is a gift? Okay, thanks. He can't ask for it back." Yeah, but if God is God, it can be taken away from you anyway, even if you choose not devote yourself to God. Ryan walks around Joan, and she turns around very slowly to face him again: "Does he know you feel this way?" Ryan: "We've talked about it. He enjoys the debate. He's a great conversationalist. Very well-informed." Well, I'd imagine. Joan wonders how Ryan can just say no, if he knows it's God? She says, "He's in charge." Ryan: "But he's not." Joan thinks about that for two seconds and comes back with, "But he will be." Ryan: "When it's over, it's over." He walks closely past her, adding, "That's a little something he left out of the story." Joan: "That's not true." He asks her how she knows. Joan says quietly, "I just know." Ryan humours her: "Hm." He pulls a book from the shelf: "Hegel. Haven't read him in a while. Do you know what his philosophy was? 'Life must be some kind of terrible mistake.' But the beautiful thing, Joan? It's not my mistake." Noticing Joan's troubled expression, he says, "Don't look at me like that. I'm a good guy. I saved Adam's life." He walks out the front door, whereupon the wind machine people down the street crank it up again and a small windstorm begins. Watching him go, Amber Tamblyn makes this great gesture that's exactly halfway between a shrug and a shudder.