I stare in stunned, confused horror as she flees from the room as fast as the tight fabric of her qipao will allow, her new husband chasing after her. “Xiyue! Xiyue—wait!” Then, as if my words have set off the world’s most chaotic game of tag, my aunt chases after them too, but not before she sends me the most withering glare I’ve ever received in my life. It stings like a slap, and I have no doubt that if I weren’t related to her, she would actually march over here to strike me.

“What … did I do?” I whisper to Cyrus.

“You really don’t know what you just said?” he asks, pulling me back down into the seat.

“No?” Ice fills my blood. My gaze flits from the guests’ appalled expressions to the open door where my cousin fled. It seems impossible that just seconds ago, she’d been happy and head over heels in love, and now, this might go down in our family history as the most disastrous wedding ever. Because of me. “No … What? I was just repeating the phrase—wasn’t I?”

“You were supposed to wish them a happy marriage and healthy children. Instead,” he says, with the air of an executioner right before the ax drops, “you told them you hope they have a depressing marriage, and that they fall ill quickly.”

* * *

The wedding ends early.

Once it becomes apparent that my cousin isn’t coming back anytime soon, the guests scatter, murmuring to themselves and eyeing me on their way out like I’m the car crash that’s been blocking the freeway. Nobody’s even tasted the wedding cake, which is starting to melt, the clay figurines of my cousin and her husband sliding off the top.

If the floor weren’t made of absurdly shiny marble, I’d dig a ditch right this instant and lie in it forever.

My dad excuses himself to go to the bathroom, and my mom heads off in the same direction my aunt and cousin went, her heels echoing down the corridor. Then it’s just me and Cyrus left in the bloody aftermath, the crimson streamers and slowly dying flowers spilling out around us. I have no idea why he’s still here, other than to watch me suffer.

And I’m absolutely suffering. While Cyrus has been standing by the entrance, I’ve circled the entire length of the room about a thousand times like a caged animal. My stomach won’t stop twisting in on itself, tighter and tighter and tighter until it feels like I might vomit. How could I have messed up everything with just a few wrong words? How do I keep messing things up?

“I think they’re talking about you,” Cyrus says quietly when I pass him on my thousand-and-second lap.