There are times when I agree with my mom that maybe I was cut out to be a model, when I’m convinced that it’s the only thing I can ever be cut out for—standing still and looking pretty— and I’ve wasted that, played my cards wrong. Then there are times when I’m convinced I was never suited for it, that it was ridiculous I ever believed otherwise. That the past two years were the true waste, because how can you be a model if you loathe the feeling of being looked at?

“Leah!”

More eyes flicker up as Xiyue strides over to us. The wedding poster really didn’t do her justice. She’s glowing. Gorgeous in her joy and in her qipao, which seems to have been designed just for her. Each delicate silver thread gleams as she moves, weaving together images of peonies and phoenixes that wrap around her shoulders and waist. She’s everything you’d imagine a happy bride to be, with her red dress and rosy cheeks.

I open my mouth to tell her that I’m sorry for being so late, but the only Mandarin words I manage to recall on the spot are: “I’m sorry.”

This comes out much more ominous than I’d hoped.

“Sorry?” She frowns slightly.

My mom jumps in with what I’m assuming is an explanation, and then she spots Xiyue’s mother behind her. Her face tightens for just a second before her already-wide smile stretches further, into a beam so beatific it can only be fake, her arms stretching out with it.

“Jiejie,” she coos, pulling my aunt into a polite hug, neither of them really touching.

I stay quiet as they exchange loud air kisses and step back to study each other. My aunt hasn’t changed since I last saw her at the Spring Festival dinner a couple years ago. Same expensively coiffed, pitch-black hair, same stern, thin brows, same powdered skin pulled taut over high cheekbones. I actually don’t think she’s changed at all since I first saw her when I was a baby. The woman is walking proof that genes can only get you so far when it comes to anti-aging, because while she looks like she’s been sipping from the Fountain of Youth every morning, I was helping my mom pluck out the white hairs near her temple just the other night.