Chapter 3

Ned smiled in relief when he saw me nodding at him.

"I knew that you would agree to it. I'm going to prepare a huge confession ceremony for you on the first day of college, and I promise that you'll definitely like it! What do you think? Are you looking forward to it?

"Oh, and by the way, didn't you say that you'd always wanted to go to the beach for a vacation? I heard that the beach next to Jafferton College is really fun! We'll go over a little earlier and play on the beach until it's time for our enrollment!"

Ned continued planning out the rest of our summer vacation with much anticipation, his voice tinged with obvious excitement.

I felt my heart softening a little. Even if we were to go to separate colleges and universities after this, I figured that I could still spend my final summer vacation with him. After all, we'd made that promise to each other quite a long time ago, too.

Although the beach vacation hadn't been part of the original plan, we could still have a lot of fun if we planned meticulously enough.

I was just about to agree to his proposition when Scarlett suddenly appeared behind him and planted her chin on his shoulder.

"Ned, I still haven't bought all the stuff I needed to go hiking. Why don't you come with me? We can go shopping for them now!"

Right after she said that, she suddenly covered her mouth and looked at me guiltily, as if she'd just done something horribly wrong.

"I'm sorry, Mimi, but Ned promised me that he'd go hiking with me. He hasn't told you, has he? Do you want to come along with us?"

My heart squeezed, and I instinctively glanced at Ned for his reaction.

He just smacked himself in the back of his head in frustration and tried explaining himself.

"Oh, by the way, Scarlett also enrolled in Jafferton College, and she's been wanting to go hiking in the woods there. That's why I agreed to go mountain hiking with her.

"Maybe we can go hiking first before we go to the beach when we're there. You're fine with that, right?"

Ned had already planned out everything in his head. It was obvious that he'd already thought it out beforehand. However, this wasn't like him. He used to hate planning out trips in advance, and I would always have to lay it out for him before he would finally agree to go anywhere.

I said nothing and just nodded again in silence.

He could plan everything according to how he envisioned it.

I had fully intended on fulfilling the promise we'd made to each other last time, to go on a vacation with him. But now, it seemed like he had someone else to go with, and he didn't need me anymore.

Ned was happy when he realized that I wasn't opposing him in any way. He then opened up his Notes app on his phone and started jotting down the things he'd need to buy to go hiking.

"Why don't you go home first, Mimi? I'll buy the stuff with Scarlett. We'll just meet at the airport right away tomorrow morning!"

As soon as he was done talking to me, he then immediately set off with Scarlett in tow.

Ned had abandoned me for someone else once more.

He'd promised me that he would be the most loyal knight in shining armor for me. But now, this knight had someone else to protect, and it wasn't me anymore.

…

The next morning, I was rudely awakened with a phone call from Ned.

"Mimi? Are you already at the airport?"

He sounded careful, sheepish almost. I could also hear Scarlett's faint sobbing on the other end of the line.

"I'm sorry, Mimi," she said, "but I wasn't able to buy your plane ticket because I didn't have your full details."

Ned said gently to her, "It's fine. I'll just go and buy the ticket now. If we really can't make this flight, we'll just catch the next one."

"But… But I've already modified the flight details once. We can't postpone it anymore!"

He remained silent. Scarlett then cried a little louder and said, "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. It's all my fault…"

"It's fine," I said in a calm voice, interrupting her. I then flipped over in bed and added, "I fell sick. I won't be joining you guys after all."

Ned heaved a huge sigh of relief. Then, he quickly comforted me. "Oh, don't be sad. We'll still have plenty of chances to go on vacation once we've enrolled here! Take care of yourself these few days. I'll see you at the college admission office in a week!"

"Okay," I answered meekly.

Then, I hung up and immediately booked a flight ticket to Dayward University for the next week.