The jeweler set two boxes on the velvet tray. In the first lay a pink diamond necklace that Xie Xun had chased across three cities and paid a fortune for. In the second lay a cheap black brooch, a free gift with the necklace, utterly wrong for a wedding dress. For the first time in my life I pointed at the necklace. "May I choose first this time?" Xie Xun ruffled my hair. "Yu'an has always been proud. If she is not first, she would rather have nothing. You are easygoing, and the rest is not bad." I said nothing. I had known him for twenty years, and I was always the one picking up what my sister left. Every summer he handed her the heart of the watermelon, cool and seedless and red, then pushed the pale slice near the rind to me. "This part is ripe too. Just not as sweet. Make do." When he bought a new car, he let her choose the passenger seat because she got carsick, then told me any seat in the back would do. Even love worked that way. He loved her, but she chose her research and her ambitions. Half-broken, he turned around and confessed to me. I looked at the black brooch and pushed both boxes toward my sister. "You take them. I am not choosing anymore." Xie Xun sighed. "Yuwan, how could a free trinket suit your sister?" I looked straight at him. "Then why does it suit me?" He froze, then smiled. "When you were children, everyone said you looked like her thin little maid." I was her twin, and I was never once her equal. I had told him a hundred times that I hated that nickname. He always promised to stop, and always said it again the moment she was in the room. "Xie Xun," I said quietly, "let us break up."0

My mother did not slap me. She did something worse. She looked at me with tired disappointment and said that if I broke up with Xie Xun, I should stop calling myself her daughter. He was a good man, she said. He defended me when they called me stupid. He was willing to marry me, and I should be grateful. Everyone in the room exhaled when I lowered my head and said, "Fine." They thought the disobedient child had finally grown up. I went to my room and called Azhi. She ran a pottery studio in a small town by the river. "Can you still take me in?" I asked. She hesitated. "You are getting married. Did your family agree?" I looked at the black window and smiled. "Azhi, what if I run away on the wedding day?" She thought I had lost my mind. To her I was the obedient one, the girl with no temper and no rebellion in her. But being good had never earned me love. My sister shone, and I learned to be quiet and useful so that someone might keep me. Xie Xun once gave me a strawberry candy when my parents were shouting that I was nothing like their child. "Being a little slow is cute too," he said. I hid that candy, and my heart, for years. When he confessed to my sister, she told him she only cared about her career. He came to me in ruins, and I knew it was spite, and I still said yes. I gave up art to become his assistant, studying data and materials I hated, trying to become the woman he actually wanted. The phone buzzed. "The studio is ready. When are you coming?" I typed back: "On the wedding day. I told you I would run."0

At dinner my mother remembered that it was our birthday. Xie Xun had chosen the cake, of course, and it was my sister's favorite flavor. He placed the first slice in front of Yu'an, then handed me a smaller piece with a candle already sinking into the frosting. I blew it out before anyone could sing. Then Yu'an mentioned her award ceremony. It fell on the same afternoon as my wedding. Xie Xun knocked on my door later that night, his voice gentle and reasonable. "Xiaowan, Yu'an only gets this award once in her life. It really matters. What if we move our wedding to the evening?" I almost laughed. How many times did a person get married? A servant muttered that only second weddings were held at night. My mother snapped at her to stop talking nonsense. Xie Xun looked at me with soft, certain eyes. "Yu'an, is that all right? You are the sensible one." I remembered being eight years old and winning a painting prize. My parents said my sister's speech contest was more important, and they left. Xie Xun promised he would come and watch me receive the award. In the end he went to her contest too. I stood alone on the stage, listening to other people's parents clap for other people's children. "Of course," I told him now. "The evening is fine." A wedding without its bride did not need daylight anyway.0