“I HAVEN’T SAT ON MY porch in so long. This is nice.”

It was just me and Kael, with the occasional passing car for company.

“I’d sit out here almost every day when I first moved in. I couldn’t believe it. My porch. My place.” I paused for a moment. “It feels good, you know? The street in front of you, the house behind you.”

Talking to Kael was like writing in a diary, sort of.

“I’ve always loved sitting out front. Not just here. Did you notice that swing on my dad’s porch? I’m not sure if you even saw it, but we moved that swing with us when we were growing up. It came from base to base, from house to house—just like my dad’s recliner.”

I could feel Kael listening, encouraging me to go on.

“When we first moved to Texas, we didn’t have a big enough porch, so we kept it in the shed. It’s heavy wood … you can see where it’s splintered in a few places and where it’s worn down on the arms a little. It’s not like that plastic outdoor furniture you get now. What’s it called—rosin?”

“Resin,” he said, helping me out.

“That’s it—resin.” I was thinking about my mom now, how she would sit out front in the dark and stare up at the sky. “My mom practically lived on our porch, all year round. She told me once that she believed God was made up of all of the stars and that when one burned out, a little bit of the good in the world died with it.”

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, and it just didn’t seem possible. What a cliché. Yet there I was, being opened by a stranger.

“I mean it was way more complicated than that, obviously. That was the quick version. There were actually civilizations whose entire religions were based on the whole 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 about you?”

He shook his head.

“I think that’s okay,” I told him. “There are so many different religions … too many people to get 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.

“I think so,” 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.

He kept talking. This was the most he had shared since we met. Usually I was the one going on and on. “I don’t know what I believe yet,” he said.

There was a long pause before he continued. A car door slammed and my phone buzzed with a text from Elodie. She was going to someone’s house—someone named Julie—so everyone except her could have a few drinks. I dimmed my screen and put my phone facedown on the concrete porch.

“I don’t know,” he repeated. “But I do know that I have a lot of shit to make up for.”

His voice slipped a little at the end and my brain took a bite of his words. The gravity of what he was saying ate at me. My throat burned and I swallowed, trying to dilute it, but it didn’t work. It was physically painful to think about the kinds of things Kael had seen at his age—at our age. It was easier not to feel anything at all, but I couldn’t do that.

I’d always felt so much, ever since I was a child. I was always either burning or floating, moving from one extreme to another. “Karina feels things deeply,” my mother said of me. “She takes things to heart.”

Kael cleared his throat. I wanted so badly to ask him what he had to make up for, but I knew he wouldn’t want that. I could feel him next to me, brewing, but I kept my eyes on the sky. I blinked, watching as blue swirled into orange. I pictured him with a gun strapped to his chest, a boyish smile. I didn’t know what he’d experienced over there, but that blank stare on his face … I had to say something.

“I don’t think it works like that. I think you’re safe.”

My words were weak when said, but if he could feel what I felt for him in that moment, he would know it couldn’t be further from the truth.

“Safe?” he asked, as the clouds drifted over us. “From who?”