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“Don’t start with my mother again.” Ryan groans.

“I’m just shocked. I wish you would have talked to me before you sold it.”

“Hey,” he says, more warmly. “If it’s that important to you to have one last hurrah on a motorcycle before we get married, let’s rent one and do the Appalachians.”

It’s hisI-surrendervoice, the hoisting of the little white flag. And this is when I’m supposed to laugh and saythanks, baby, and then we’d let the conversation drift to something pleasant. We could start talking about the trip, about making it real. About the route we’d want to take and where we’d stop along the way. This is when I’d pretend Ryan didn’t just say some truly alarming things about his expectations of our life.

We’ve become masters at changing the subject, lightening the mood. Pretending certain realities don’t loom in our near future.

But tonight, I don’t do the thing we always do. I don’t lean in for a kiss or shrug it off. I look him in the eye and say:

“I’m tired of this idea that everything has to change—thatwehave to change—after we get married. It’s a wedding, not an apocalypse. Isn’t the point to celebrate what we already have?”

“Okay... how much have you had to drink?” he says, bumping my shoulder with his. I know he means to be playful, but it feels patronizing.

I rise from the barstool, grab my purse. “I need some air,” I say.

Ryan glances around, always aware of appearances. Evenwhen he doesn’t know a single person in this restaurant or this neighborhood. As if everyone is already deciding whether to vote for him. It’s maddening.

“Sure,” he says when he realizes I’m serious. He throws down a credit card and motions the bartender. “Let’s get you some air.”

I march outside alone before the bartender runs his card. I have half a mind to hail a cab and head back to my apartment by myself. The thing that stops me scares me.

If I left now, made Ryan meet me back home, I might cool off a little by the time he caught up with me. And we might make up without having the fight we really need to have.

We’re overdue.

So I wait on the curb, and I think. About why I love him—so many reasons. Ninety-nine of them. But since learning the truth about Noa Callaway, there’s been a voice in my head asking if they’re the right reasons. I think about the life each of us wants—so different from the other.

Before I’ve figured out how to square all this, Ryan comes outside. He’s as handsome as ever in his navy bomber jacket and jeans. His eyes twinkle, as if to say,You’re not still mad, are you?

“Feeling better?” he says, and opens his arms to me.

I step into his embrace, feel his arms close comfortingly around me. For a long time, we say nothing. Tears sting my eyes as I pull back to look at him.

“Why do you love me, Ryan?”

He drops his arms, rubs his face. “Lanie, what are you doing?”

“I’m being honest. It’s an honest question.”

He shakes his head and turns away, facing the street and the traffic, the cabs stopping and spilling out happily chattering young people, looking for the heart of Saturday night.

“I don’t understand what happened to us,” Ryan says, not looking at me. “We used to be so happy. The night we got engaged I was ecstatic. Kissing you on that jumbotron, my ring on your finger, I felt so proud that everyone could see we were the perfect couple. Now... recently, you act like you’re being held at gunpoint just to pick a date for our wedding—”

“I don’t think I want to be a perfect couple,” I say.

He laughs like this is crazy. “What?”

I take his hands. “I just want to be me. I want you to be you. Complete with all our eccentricities. I want us to write poetry to each other, even if it’s bad.”

“I don’t think I follow....”

I close my eyes. “I wasn’t happy that night we got engaged.”

“What?” This is a record-scratch moment. Ryan’s tone draws eyes from strangers on the street.

“I’ve been happy in our relationship. I’ve been mostly very happy. But I wasn’t happy the night you proposed.”