We rode to our destination in silence. He’d occasionally glance at me, and I would look back at him, but we both said nothing.

I knew what he was thinking: “Why does she feel she has to do this? Is it to impress me? She more than impresses me already… Could it possibly be to impress someone else?”

Then he would shake his head, remembering that she said she would have God strike her down before she even thought about another man.

Then his thinking would continue: “If it’s not for me, and it’s not for another man, why is she doing this?”

What I wouldn’t tell him was that it was for myself. He could never understand why I felt I had to do this, even if I told him. He wouldn’t understand why his girl felt she had to be better than all the guys, when she didn’t feel she could ever be better than him.