“So I want to thank my parents,” I finish, my eyes finding their proud faces in the front row. “Thank you for sending me on this trip, for everything you’ve done, for being patient with me when I lost my way and waiting with open arms when I found my way back. And thank you to my family at large for tolerating my terrible blunders and for watching me grow. I’ve learned language, in its purest form, is really about understanding each other, seeing the heart of what the other person is trying to say. I hope there’ll be more chances for you to understand me, and for me to understand you better …”

I brace myself as I glance in my aunt’s direction. It strikes me suddenly how much she resembles my own mother; something about the structure of her jaw, the intelligent arch of her brows. The resemblance is stronger than ever when her severe features finally soften, and she offers me a faint, approving smile.

* * *

Afterward, we stroll through the city together, my hand in his.

At the end of the road, I take out the Polaroid camera we won on the trip with my free hand, and snap a quick photo when he isn’t looking. When the film finishes developing in my hand, half the frame is filled with sunlight. There’s so much sunlight in every photo I take of him. Like the sun is all I can see when he’s with me. It makes his features look softer, burns the strands of his hair gold like alchemy in motion, bathing him in its glow. In this photo, the sun is coming down directly from above him like a halo, the white-purple flare of it flashing just above his head.

“It’s so nice here,” I say, though we’re technically not anywhere in particular. I have no idea what street we’re on, only that it’s beautiful as the sun sinks lower, a soft, dreamy haze washing over the palm trees and high-rise apartments.