My Clock Hands Are Set to You

[First love, secret crush, devoted affection, and a sweet HE! Childhood friends whose secret crush becomes mutual]

At nine, whenever she was late, he always moved her stool into place ahead of time.

At fourteen. “There’s a girl in our class who likes you.” “Who?” “Me.” “I like Cheng Man.”

At eighteen, she went away to college. He could have applied to a better-ranked university in another province, but instead stayed in their city, where a train ride would let him see her. His reason: “It’s closer.”

At twenty-two, she went away to teach and got flea bites on her leg that became infected. He drove six hundred kilometers through the night, applied some ointment, and left. “I was passing by.”

At twenty-three. “Would you be willing to upgrade me from your best friend to your girlfriend?”

At twenty-four, she cried as she said they should break up. He couldn’t understand why.

He spent five years wondering.

Five years later, she stood before him and finally confessed the secret she’d kept hidden since she was nine.

He was silent for a long time, then pulled her into his arms. “It’s okay. It’s all in the past. I’m here.”

After they married, she found a sketchbook disguised as a math notebook in his study.

Every page was filled with her, drawn from the time she was nine until she was twenty-nine.

That same day, he found a stack of unsent letters at the very back of her drawer.

The earliest was dated autumn when she was fifteen. The latest was written on the 547th day after they lost contact.

One had drawn her for twenty years without ever letting her see. The other had written to him for fifteen years without sending a single letter.

It turned out they were both like the slowest hands on a clock. They seemed never to move, but had spent their entire lives setting their time to each other.

[Both each other’s first and only|Mutual devotion|Sweet, gradual romance|Healing and redemption]