Reunited after years apart · A longtime crush comes true · Career woman · Try before you fall in love · Healing
On the day of my blind date, the man I'd had a crush on for fifteen years sat across from me and smiled. “Hello, I'm Jun Yun.”
He didn't recognize me.
“Hello,” I said. “I'm Yuan Jing.”
At twenty-nine, Yuan Jing is a senior manager at a major internet company. She's lost weight and become a capable professional, confident on the surface. But when she lies awake at night, she's still the chubby girl who was teased for having a big chest and always hunched over to hide it.
She thought she'd never fall for anyone again, until the day of her blind date, when she found herself sitting across from Jun Yun, the boy she'd secretly loved in middle school.
He didn't recognize her.
Fifteen years had passed, but he still had the same heart-stirring face. She, meanwhile, had gone from the chubby girl who secretly watched him from the crowd to the “not bad” woman sitting across from him, pretending to be calm.
“How about we give it a try?” he said.
She said yes.
A relationship that began with “giving it a try” forces her to face a truth: she can handle workplace harassment, deal with difficult clients, and fix a burst pipe on her own, but she has no idea how to tell someone, “I've liked you since fifteen years ago.”
And he, it turns out, has been painting a picture for fifteen years, too.
The figure in the painting, seen from behind, is her.
