Kael’s eyes were on me, and I was aware of how the heat was spreading on my cheeks. The way I was talking . . . well, it was like I was thinking out loud. I barely realized it. I knew that it sounded cheesy. I’d read things like that in books sometimes or had seen it in movies, but it hardly seemed possible, in real life, to instantly connect and feel so comfortable with a stranger. What a cliché. Yet there I was, being opened by someone I hadn’t even known for a week.

“I mean, it was way more complicated than that, obviously. That was the quick version. There were civilizations whose entire religions were based on the galaxy of planets and stars. My mom used to tell me all about them. I mean, it makes sense, doesn’t it? They were here first.”

Kael spoke up. “Were they?”

His words seemed important, there were so few of them. I guess that’s why when he asked me questions, I wanted to really think about my answers.

“I’m not entirely sure,” I finally said. “What do you believe in?”

He shook his head. “I’m still figuring that out.”

“I think that’s okay,” I told him. “There are so many different religions . . . too hard to get people to agree on one thing. I think it’s okay to take a little time, learn a little more. Don’t you?” Such a heavy question, and wrapped in the most casual bow.

He sighed, blowing out a puff of air. I could hear the whisper of his words coming together but couldn’t quite make them out. The longer he sat on his opinion, licking slowly at his lips, chewing on his cheek, the more I anticipated his answer. Time melted as I waited.

“Thinking for yourself is better than being blindly led,” he said at long last. “I just want to be a good person. I know a lot of people inside and outside the church who are both bad and good. There’s so much out there that’s bigger than us . . . I’d rather focus on how to make things better than wonder how we got here in the first place. For now, at least.”

He sounded so sure. These were the deepest thoughts he had shared since we met.

A car door slammed, and my phone buzzed with a text from Elodie. She was going to someone’s house—someone named Julie—where all the wives, except her, would start their evening with a few drinks and catty conversation. I dimmed my screen and put my phone facedown on the concrete porch.