That night, I couldn’t stop licking my lips, touching them with my fingertips. Drew was still there in the heightened sensitivity. In the tingle that seemed to travel through my entire body.

I wanted to tiptoe downstairs and slip beneath his covers, but the threat of my father walking in on us kept me firmly in my own bed. Who could’ve guessed the no hanky-panky rule would ever be an issue for me?

Chloe CHAPTER 38 NONWHITE CHRISTMAS

December 25

Christmas in the Wang household was never a white Christmas—and when I say “white,” I don’t mean snow—but this year was especially cold (again, nothing to do with the weather).

It was early afternoon, but my father was still asleep—was he okay?—so my mother, my not-real-but-not-completely-fake boyfriend, and I were sitting in front of the luminous tree on throw pillows scattered across the floor. I wasn’t sure I’d ever get over those little sheep ornaments, my favorite of which was the antigravity-boots one, which I’d named Cháng’é. Even though I was pretty sure Drew would approve—his text from a couple of weeks ago had inspired the name—I was too embarrassed to tell him. Maybe because the Chinese still felt weird to me? Or maybe because it was just so dorky.

The three of us—quite the odd trio—were exchanging gifts, the stress of which was making my mother’s leg jiggle uncharacteristically. Ladies sit still, Jing-Jing, she always liked to say.

“Sorry this is it,” she apologized to Drew. “We don’t do much for Christmas. In fact, I never celebrated it growing up, and we started doing the tree just for Jing-Jing, when she was a child. But come back at Chinese New Year and we’ll show you how we party.”

“Mǎmá,” I warned.

“Or… I guess if you celebrate with your family, that makes sense, since you joined us now and Thanksgiving. Though if I’d known we’d have to choose, I’d of course have picked Chinese New Year.”

“I have exams then, anyway,” I told her, which was true, though I usually still found a weekend to come home so we could eat Chinese food until we burst.

My mother huffed. “It’s so ridiculous—in Taiwan, we get weeks off for Chinese New Year.”

She handed Drew a soft gift wrapped in old Chinese newspapers. He was so cute, his eyes lighting up in spite of the sloppy wrapping.

He tore through the paper, leaving strips of half-destroyed Mandarin characters strewn on the floor, to reveal a Stanford Medical School sweatshirt. “It’s lovely—thank you so much!” he said with sincere enthusiasm just as I burst out laughing.

“Not a very subtle hint,” I said to my mother.