“You know, it’s really lucky that we got seated next to each other twice,” I remark as smiling attendants hurry up and down the aisles, double-checking the overhead bins to make sure that no suitcases are going to tumble out halfway, calling politely for a man to straighten his seat before takeoff. “Like, what are the chances?”

Cyrus hesitates. “I … have a confession to make,” he says.

“Oh?”

“Two confessions, actually,” he amends. Clears his throat. “Though I suppose you could consider them to be connected.”

“All right, I have no idea where this is going, but I’m listening.”

“I wasn’t actually meant to sit next to you on the plane ride to Shanghai,” he says. “My original seat was four rows away, and I had to bribe this extremely disgruntled college student into swapping with me. Also … I was hoping you would be at your cousin’s wedding. I did plan to find Dr. Linda Shen, of course—that letter of recommendation is really important to me. But when I said there was someone I needed to see, I was talking about you.”

I blink, very nearly certain that he’s kidding.

“I’m not kidding,” Cyrus says, and his eyes are serious, tentative even, searching mine for some kind of reaction. “None of it was an accident.”

“You did all that … for me?” I whisper. My heart leans all the way forward, close to toppling right out my chest.

“Of course,” he says.

Maybe, another day, I’ll find the right words in either English or Chinese to tell him everything I’m feeling, how grateful I am that we came here together, how happy I am whenever I’m with him, how close I’d been to losing hope before he found his way to me. But a lump fills my throat, and for now I can only lean against him, squeeze his hand tight as the plane begins slowly backing away from the gate.

I must nod off at some point, because when I open my eyes again, we’re already above the clouds and Cyrus’s fingers are laced firmly through mine. I’m still not sure where I’ll end up a month from now, or a year, or half a life, whether I’ll find something I love as much as I love this moment, and whether it’ll last. But all I have to do is look out at the sky, that deep, lovely, endless blue, and remember that no matter where I end up, joy will never be too far out of reach.

EPILOGUE

We’re the first family to pull up outside the Jiu Yin He front gates.