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Packing for the trip had been an exercise in spatial awareness.

Every dress was carefully folded and tucked into laundry bags, every pair of socks squeezed strategically into the remaining gaps, every compartment utilized to its full potential. Packing for the plane ride home, on the other hand, is more a challenge to see how much I can stuff into a single suitcase without it exploding.

“Um, I admire your ambition, Leah, but I feel like this isn’t going to work,” Daisy tells me, cross-legged on the hotel bed. When Cyrus walked me back to my room half an hour ago, she was already wide awake and dressed, her bags prepared by the doorstep. I’m physically incapable of packing at the very last minute , she had explained as she triple-checked the bathroom for any forgotten items. Like, the stress would render me immobile. “That zipper looks like it’s about to go on strike.”

“It’s fine. I’ll just give it a motivational speech and promise it a raise that’ll never materialize.” I wipe the sweat from my brow, sit down on the bulging suitcase with all my weight, and yank at the zipper again. It doesn’t budge.

“How did you even bring so many outfits with you?” Daisy asks with what sounds like genuine amazement. She points at one of the jackets threatening to escape from the suitcase. “I barely remember seeing you wear that.”

“I—definitely—did,” I say, panting, as I shove the jacket back in with the monstrous mass of dirty laundry and boots and eye shadow palettes. “I wore it one morning—for breakfast.”

She hops off the bed and crouches down next to me to inspect my luggage, the way a doctor might examine a dying patient. “Maybe … we can both try standing on it,” she says skeptically.

“You think that would do the trick?”

“I think it would be better if a hippo stood on it, but we don’t exactly have the resources—or the time.”

From outside, I can hear the rumbling of other suitcases being pushed down the corridor, the thud of doors slamming shut. Wang Laoshi had commanded us to meet in the lobby at nine thirty—exactly three minutes from now.

“Oh my god. Wait. I just remembered I have a boyfriend,” I say, a ridiculous smile leaping to my face as I whip my phone out. “I’ll ask him to help. ”

“Good thinking,” Daisy says, nodding sagely. “This is, like, one of the only times a boyfriend comes in handy.”

A knock comes mere moments later, and there Cyrus is, entering the room with his sleeves rolled up like someone conjured from my sweetest fantasies.

“This suitcase over here?” he asks as I stand up to make room for him. Daisy excuses herself, sliding out the door with a wink over her shoulder and a motion to meet downstairs later.

“Yeah.” I lean back against the wall, watching him with the simple, exquisite pleasure of knowing I don’t have to pretend I’m looking somewhere else. “If you can get it to close, I will be eternally grateful.”

He glances over at me, the corner of his mouth lifting. “Eternally grateful how?”

“I’ll …” I consider it for a beat. “I’ll buy you a sticker.”

“That’s your definition of eternal gratitude?”

“A really cute sticker, with little stars on it,” I specify. “I mean, you can’t expect me to offer you my life’s savings in exchange for zipping up a suitcase. Unless you have something else in mind.”

“I do,” he says immediately. “I want another one of your cloud doodles.”

I burst out laughing, but he doesn’t seem to be joking.

“Okay, fine, then,” I say, still laughing. “I promise you one wonky cloud doodle.”

Satisfied, he turns his attention back to the suitcase and pushes down from above with one hand while pulling the zipper with another. Miraculously, the zipper cooperates, and nothing explodes. Within seconds, he has the suitcase propped upright, and wheels it toward me.

And as I take it, I feel that shift deep inside my chest, like my heart has moved just to make more room for him. Xindong. Gazing up at him, his dark eyes and quiet smile, I’m not sure my heart will ever be still again.

Once all the suitcases have been wheeled out and our key cards deposited at the front desk, Wang Laoshi claps his hands to get our attention.

“I’ve spent most of last night reading your essays and tallying up the scores,” Wang Laoshi begins. “There were a few essays that were … surprisingly moving.” His eyes land on me, and I blink, hardly daring to believe that he’s talking about my essay. I can barely even remember what I wrote—something about a girl getting lost in a bamboo forest, a metaphor and memory combined. I worked on it after the fireworks show, my head light and my chest full, trying not to be distracted by Cyrus playing with my hair, and submitted it just two minutes before the deadline.

“I’m happy to say that we have a winner …” Wang Laoshi continues. “It was very close. Whether you’re first place or not, I’ve witnessed firsthand the progress you’ve made in your Chinese, and while there’s always room for improvement, you should all be rather proud of yourselves.” He pauses, blinks, his usually stern expression softening for just a moment. “Now, on to the results—drumroll, please.”

We all oblige, drumming our fingers on our suitcases, and then Oliver really gets into it and starts mimicking an entire orchestra all by himself, complete with trumpet and bass and what might be a teeny triangle, and Wang Laoshi hurries ahead to announce the results before the hotel staff can kick us out of the lobby.

“The winners are …”

I exchange a look with Cyrus, try to lock my nerves up in a steel trap inside my stomach. I know for a fact that we can’t be last , but that’s all I really know. After everything I’ve already collected from this trip, every new memory and shot of joy I’ve downed, it feels almost greedy to want more. But my hopes of getting into a decent college are riding on this.

“Leah and Cyrus,” Wang Laoshi says, smiling over at us.

My heart soars. The rest of the group bursts into applause that’s definitely too loud for an indoor setting, and I throw my arms around Cyrus’s neck without thinking.

“We won,” I squeal. “We won .”

“We did,” he says, laughing, his hand coming up to rest over the small of my back like there’s nobody else around. “I told you we would, didn’t I?”

“You know what we should do to celebrate?” I ask him.

He pulls back just slightly to tilt his head, his eyes gleaming. “Are you asking me out?”

“Maybe,” I tease. “There is a nice restaurant I’ve always wanted to try down the street from my house …”

“Let’s go there,” he says instantly.

“Cyrus, you don’t even know what restaurant it is—”

“Doesn’t matter,” he tells me, “as long as I’m going with you.”

It strikes me then it’s all coming to an end—the competition is over, and in only a matter of hours, we’ll be leaving. There’s an ache in my chest, but it’s a happy ache, like the car ride home after a party, when your feet are sore from dancing and your cheeks are stiff from laughing the whole night.

***

The first thing Cyrus does when we settle into our seats on the plane is start wiping everything. The folding tray. The screen. Every inch of the seat belt. It just goes to show how quickly one’s brain can be rewired, because more than anything else, I’m impressed by how thorough he is. If we were to ever move in together, our house would be so neat , the delusional voice in my head sings.

“Can you please wipe down my seat too?” I ask him.

He raises his brows but immediately tears open another pack of alcohol wipes and cleans the armrest between us. “I see you’ve been influenced.”

“I have,” I say shamelessly. “Full credit to you. Maybe you should be an influencer.”

“For sanitizers?”

“See, you’ve already found your niche,” I tell him. “And with that pretty face”—I reach out and tip his chin up on one hand—“you could sell anything.”

His complexion turns a lovely, irresistible shade of pink, his smile shy, and I decide that I’ll never stop thinking of ways to make him blush.

“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.