“You know what’s going to happen, don’t you?” I murmured. “I want to go to school and start a career and get established and then have a lavish wedding with a billion of our closest friends. But we’re not going to be able to wait for that. So we’re going to get married the second we turn eighteen, while we’re poor and stupid. I don’t want to get married like that, Dec. All because of God’s rule? It doesn’t make sense.”

His face turned about as sour as it could get, which wasn’t very. “It’s not stupid, Hail. We can still do everything we want to do. We simply get to do them as man and wife.”

Man and wife. I cringed. I was sixteen, and in no way could I imagine myself married in less than two years. Married was, like, true adulthood—like, pay your own taxes and stop raiding your parents’ refrigerator. “But you’re against birth control, right? I don’t want to…”

“I’ve been reading up on it. It’s called the rhythm method, and it seems to work,” he said. Then he kissed my forehead, tucked a strand of hair behind my head. “You’re too good, putting up with me. You could go and find someone else in a second.”

“Stop it. You know I don’t want anyone else.”

He grinned. “But it hardly seems fair. I don’t have to put up with you. You’re perfect. My dream girl.”

I smiled. How could I be angry at him? He always knew the right thing to say.

“You look upset, though. What’s wrong?”

I’d gotten good at opening up to him. Whenever he talked, I took it for granted that he was telling me every last thing on his mind, no secrets. I knew I could never do the same. There were thoughts in my head that would make him hate me, and whenever I looked upset, it was always because of that. I lied and told him my old standby. “My parents have been screaming at each other all day.”

He nodded. It wasn’t the first time I’d told him about my parents’ bickering. Otherwise, he never would have known. They did a good job of keeping up appearances.

“I wish they’d get divorced,” I mumbled.

He didn’t say anything, but he didn’t have to. He never offered judgment, but I swore sometimes I could see it on his face.

“I mean, they’ve tried therapy. They’ve tried everything. They’ve changed. Grown apart. I look at the pictures of them from when I was a baby, and they don’t even look like the same people.”

“Why are you arguing with me? I didn’t say anything.”

“I’m not.” I guess my voice had been steadily rising. “I just… People change.”