Chapter 5

Mid-August, the acceptance letters finally arrived.

Xander looked at the MIT acceptance letter in his hand, unable to suppress the smile spreading across his face.

He pulled out his phone, took a close-up shot of the acceptance letter, and prepared to send it to Mia.

He clicked send.

A red exclamation mark popped up on the screen.

Below it, a line of small text: "The other party has enabled friend verification. You are not yet their friend."

Xander froze for two seconds, then let out a scoffing laugh.

He opened Ins. The message wouldn't send.

He called. It went straight to voicemail.

But he didn't panic. He even found it a bit amusing.

This was the first time Mia had escalated the cold war to blocking him across all platforms. She must be really angry this time.

But it didn't matter. No matter how much of a fuss she made, wouldn't she come back in the end?

Xander switched back to the group chat and typed: "Mia blocked me, hahaha, she's really going all out this time."

The group chat instantly exploded.

"Xander, you're so bold. You ignored her for a whole month and you're not even worried?"

"Mia's such a good girl. If you just stand at her door with that MIT acceptance letter, won't she just cry and throw herself into your arms?"

He looked at these messages, in high spirits.

He admitted that these past few months he'd gotten too close to Summer, and he felt a bit guilty.

But that was different. Summer was just novelty.

Mia was the one who truly understood him, who'd endured three years with him.

He thought to himself that once school started, he'd definitely make it up to her properly.

Xander rode his bike to the mall and walked into a flower shop.

"Give me a bouquet of your most expensive red roses." He tapped the counter.

Payment: $399, more than double the $188 bouquet he'd bought for Summer.

Next, he went to the jewelry counter and picked out a silver necklace with small diamonds.

When he was paying, the clerk smiled and asked: "Sir, this necklace comes with free engraving. Would you like anything engraved?"

Xander thought for a moment, his mind flashing to the words he'd written on the corner of their desk freshman year.

"Engrave 'Meet at the Summit.'"

He thought this arrangement was absolutely perfect.

He went home and changed into a dress shirt, checked his hair in the mirror, then pulled out his phone.

He sent Summer a message: "Got something to do today. I'll contact you tonight."

Summer instantly replied with a cute emoji.

"Okay. Contact me when you're done, Xander!"

Xander smiled slightly and casually cleared his entire chat history with Summer.

Just in case Mia wanted to check his phone when they met later.

He rode his bicycle, holding that bouquet of gorgeous red roses with one hand.

In the rear storage basket sat the cake box and the necklace box.

He rode across the entire city toward Mia's house.

In his mind, he was already imagining Mia's expression when she opened the door and saw all this.

She'd probably keep a stern face at first, pretending to be unhappy.

Then when she saw "Meet at the Summit" engraved on the necklace, her eyes would slowly redden.

Finally, she'd reach out to take the flowers and quietly complain, "It's good you know you were wrong."

She was always like this.

For three years, he'd understood her too well. She couldn't escape from the palm of his hand.

Two blocks from Mia's house, his phone started vibrating violently in his pocket.

He stopped his bicycle, pulled out his phone and saw it was his high school teacher Mr. Johnson calling.

Xander answered the phone, his tone relaxed and cheerful: "Mr. Johnson, I received the acceptance letter. MIT Computer Science. Thank you for three years of guidance..."

Mr. Johnson cut him off directly.

"Xander, I'm not calling about you. I'm asking you---what's going on with Mia?"

He frowned. "Mia? She should have received her MIT acceptance letter too, right?"

A heavy sigh came from the other end of the phone: "With her scores, getting into MIT would have been more than enough. I even told other teachers you two would definitely go together."

"But when I got the final admissions list today..."

Mr. Johnson's voice suddenly rose.

"Her application---she ended up choosing Harvard University Law School. That's over two thousand miles from you."