I lounged on the black leather couch, legs lazily reclined before me and fingers busy with a ball of yellow string and a silver crochet hook. There was a confession going on on the TV in front of me, and Mom was watching it intently. I bit back the urge to laugh when I saw the sappy smile on her lips as she watched the guy tentatively reach for the hand of the girl. 

The girl let him hold her hand. He smiled, and said some stuff to her in Chinese. Yadda yadda yadda. I found the whole thing melodramatic. I only caught the very end of his drippy speech to her: 

“你身上有光。” 

Mom reached for the remote and paused the show. “Do you know what that means?” she asked, the smile still poking at the corners of her mouth. 

“What what means?” I asked drily. 

“The sentence he just said to her. 你身上有光。” 

I blinked, concentrating hard. My Chinese wasn’t very good. 

“Your body…has light on it?” I mechanically translated. I kept my eyes on my crochet project. 

Mom laughed a little. “It never comes out right in English,” she sighed, “but it’s such a beautiful phrase. I think you would like it if I explained it to you.” 

I slumped down even more on the couch. Here she went again, always frantically pausing these Chinese shows that she forced me to watch whenever they got to some beautiful Chinese phrase even though I’ve told her again and again and again that I a) don’t want to go to Chinese school anymore and b) have a mountain of way more important things to do than watch some stupid melodramatic shows with my mother. 

“It’s not actual, physical light on someone’s body. It’s just the way that…” 

…the way that he never judges. The way that he’ll shoulder the burden of all your overthinking, all your deepest doubts and fears, listening to all your irrational problems like they were his own. The way that he bravely convinced you that you could when it seemed like the whole word was hell-bent on proving you couldn’t. The way that he always looked for the best in you, always tried to make you laugh, always looked for the stars when the world seemed like a tunnel, trying to trap you in midnight black. The way that he shines like the morning sky on a clear, blue day: one look at its warmth, and you knew that today would be okay. 他身上有光。 

…the way that she still smiles at you brightly when you pass in the hallway, despite all the arguments that you instigated and all the angry text messages that you sent during your friendship. The way that she still remembers your birthday–and your kid sister’s, whom you once watched grow up together–and how that means you’re still guaranteed two text messages from her every year. The way that she dashed over to hug you when she heard that you had won that big Carnegie Hall piano competition, despite you thinking that you weren’t even worthy to be in her line of sight anymore. 她身上有光。 

…the way that he always waits an extra minute for you because he knows that you have trouble waking up on time every morning. The way that he smiles with compassion even as you 

bound up the stairs with your hair a mess, your phone and Airpods and water bottle tangled between your fingers, and your backpack hastily slung off a singular shoulder. The way that he nods with understanding even if you came to the stop with a half-eaten breakfast cookie in your hand. 他身上有光。 

…the way that she follows you wherever you go. The way that she takes extra time to text you where she is if she has to miss a bit of lunch with you; the way that she waits by the doors every day where the bus drops you off so you can start each day with a friend. The way that she somehow understands how much you fear being alone without you ever having to admit it out loud. 她身上有光。 

…and the way that he always pushes you for more. The way that he whittles every lesson and every concept, no matter how complicated, into a web of bite-sized ideas. The way that you feel like someone believes in you when you are in his class, that someone believes that you are capable of shining a new light onto the world. 他身上有光。 

She set me free. I sulked up the stairs and back to my room and threw my half-done crochet sun behind me and onto my bed. It was supposed to be a birthday gift for my kid sister, who really liked to play in the sun. 

I opened up my computer and commenced my daily war with Chemistry, Precalculus, English, and History. I forced moles into grams, attacked “x” to figure out “y,” trudged through 

the dull paragraphs of Ethan Frome, and fought hard with my drooping eyelids as I read pages after pages about the long and arduous Cold War. 

All the while, Mom popped in, that sweet smile still plastered on her face. She came in between a battle with Chemistry to drop off a batch of freshly washed sheets. She came in while I was in the trenches with “x” to set my laundry, clean and folded, into my dresser. She came in during the cold blizzards of Ethan Frome to place a bowl of honeydew on my table. And she came in during the Vietnam War simply to wrap her arm around me and give me a squeeze, and for the first time in my life, I felt disgusted at the way I instinctively threw her hand off and scowled in her face. 

I finished homework pretty late that day. I went to go to bed, but the half-finished cartoon smile of the yellow sun, the ends of its black strings haphazardly poking out of its yellow body, caught my eye. 

I’m not really sure why I did what I did next. I took my empty honeydew bowl and walked down the stairs, half-done sun tucked into my elbow. When I reached the kitchen, I simply watched Mom for a few moments. There were thick purple gloves on her hands, a green sponge and a spray bottle of Lysol in them as she wiped down the countertops for the night. 

When she turned to wipe the next countertop, which was facing my direction, she nearly jumped at the sight of me. I never brought down the daily honeydew bowl. She’d always wait for the next day after I had gone to school and I’d come back home and find it magically gone and washed and back in the cupboard. 

Maybe it was the way the dim kitchen lights were glinting off the sweat on her forehead and the gray metal of her glasses. Or maybe it was the sun tucked into my elbow. But I suddenly found myself saying to her, in a heavy American accent: 

“你身上…也有光。” 

Your body… has light too.