她拿了妈妈的钱，亲手推开了他

Last time: to pay for grandma's treatment, Zhou Wan scraped together every cent she could, and used a round of English tutoring to tie herself to Lu Xixiao — rich, but with no one to look after him.

That summer, the relationship they'd called "just a deal" was slowly turning into something else.

Today, let's keep going.

First, a very warm scene.

The school held a "send your wishes to the sky" event, where everyone wrote down a wish, tied it to a balloon, and let it float up.

Lu Xixiao had zero interest in this kind of thing.

But the moment he heard Zhou Wan would go, he came without a word — carrying a huge armful of colorful balloons.

He didn't write his own wish; instead he stood next to Zhou Wan and said, earnestly: I hope everything you want comes true.

In that moment, seeing him so utterly defenseless, the hardest place in Zhou Wan's heart suddenly went soft.

But that warmth couldn't last long.

Just then, a woman appeared in front of her — her mother.

More than ten years ago, this woman had abandoned her and walked away, without a word since.

Meeting again now, her mother's face held no warmth, and she didn't even ask whether grandma was alive or dead.

It turned out that over the years, she had long since married into the Lu family and become Lu Xixiao's stepmother in name.

In other words, Zhou Wan and Lu Xixiao were now step-siblings in name, just without any blood tie.

What her mother feared most was that this connection would become known.

She handed over a bank card, and the condition was blunt: take this money, and stay away from Lu Xixiao forever.

Zhou Wan thought of grandma's ever-rising medicine bills, and in the end still took the card.

From that day on, she began, bit by bit, to push Lu Xixiao away.

Lu Xixiao couldn't understand it at all — the person who'd been fine days ago had suddenly gone cold.

What he didn't know was that, in those days, he'd been hiding in the repair shop, hammer blow by hammer blow, forging her a necklace shaped like an arrow.

Just as the necklace was nearly finished, he overheard Zhou Wan say, flatly, in front of others: Lu Xixiao and I are not friends, never were, and never will be.

Lu Xixiao stood frozen, said not a word, quietly slipped the necklace into his pocket, and never mentioned it again.

Trouble came one piece after another.

Before long, grandma's heart failed and she was rushed to the hospital; to stay by her side, Zhou Wan even gave up an important exam.

And on Lu Xixiao's side, his home was in chaos too, and the study-abroad plan he'd longed for fell through completely.

The most painful part comes next: one day, Zhou Wan stumbled onto a few thugs beating Lu Xixiao.

Though her mouth said they weren't friends, her feet didn't hesitate for an instant — she rushed in and shielded him with everything she had.

You see, this summer, Zhou Wan took her mother's money with her own hands, and with her own hands pushed away the boy she liked.

Every cruel word she spoke, not one of them was her true feeling.

She pushed the person she most wanted to be near further and further away, only because what she could want, and the life she could live, were never hers to decide.

The summer is still long, and this thread she cut with her own hands is only just beginning to hurt.

If it were you, could you bear to push away the person who's best to you, for the sake of family?