The shocking thing was that it worked. When I joined my current school mid-semester last year, I had already become the swan. Enough time had passed that the rumors about me no longer traveled faster than the transfer papers did, and being conventionally attractive changed everything. I was still the same person, but only I knew that. Instead of being called cold and unapproachable, I was suddenly cool and unattainable. Instead of quiet, I was mysterious. Instead of weird, I was alluring. When Cate and her pretty, popular friends approached me on the first day of school, Cate’s first words to me were: Oh my god, I love your hair.

And when a model scout gave me her card outside a frozen yogurt shop just a month later, Cate had been even more excited than I was. Modeling, I realized, was the ultimate key to cementing my social status at my new school, the final stage in my transformation. It’s just one of those jobs where there’s something inherently shiny and interesting about the title. Something desirable. That’s why I held on to it for so long, even when it felt like I was holding on to a jagged cliff edge: because I’ve never been shiny or interesting on my own.

Then someone coughs—Cyrus—and I snap back to the present.

The wedding. The blessing.

The words I need to say, but now can’t remember.

“Zhu nimen xinhun …” Panic lodges itself in my throat. What was it? Yu? Yao? Yin? “Yiyu,” I say, which sounds about right. “And, um, zaosheng …” I do a frantic search through my sad vocabulary bank. What’s the word that usually comes after sheng? “Shengbing.”

There’s a pause.

If the ballroom had been quiet before, it’s completely silent now.

Looks of horror travel swiftly from table to table. My aunt is frowning right at me, shaking her head in clear disapproval. Cyrus has a fist pressed to his mouth—either to keep from laughing, or maybe just to keep himself from making some kind of unhelpful remark. From across the room, I can see my parents: My mom is dragging a hand over her eyes, as if to shield herself from the scene, and my dad’s face is twisted into a sympathetic grimace. My cousin and cousin-in-law are frozen to the spot before me. They both appear stricken, their eyes wide.

A sinking feeling rolls over my gut, even though I still have no idea what went wrong. Only that something must have.

Then Xiyue’s face crumples, and the silence cracks as she bursts into tears.