I Love You More Than I'm Afraid (Our Forevers #2), Rebel Hart [best adventure books to read .txt] 📗

plastic around one of my blueprints and I could tell she had more to say. “How… um… old is she?”

“Yeah…” I said. “She’s 24.”

Aria’s eyes bugged out briefly. “And when was the first time you guys…”

I waved my hands through the air. “Why don’t I just get it all out so we can make our peace with it and move on?”

Aria nodded. “Yeah. That’d be good.”

“I first met her when I was fifteen. It wasn’t long after our first meeting that shit went sideways with Hannah. I was already feeling alone at home, but then my best friend and first love broke my heart and, well, it made me extra impressionable. She gave me access to booze, and once we got really drunk and I convinced her to take my virginity. I was sick of hanging onto it, thinking Hannah and I would share our first times. She’s not a bad person. She was totally fucked up afterwards and so I was I. I mean consent was messy, age was messy. It’s not anyone’s fairy tale romance, is all I’m saying.”

“No it’s not,” Aria said.

“But she was there for me. She refused to do anything sexual with me until I was legal. We made out from time to time, but that was it. Yeah, she continued to help me drink and eventually introduced me to drugs too, but we never use…” I was preparing to defend my drug and alcohol use, but then I remembered Aria’s relationship to it and stopped short.

“There’s no excuse, it’s a fucked up relationship, I’ll give you that, but when no one else was there for me, Suli was, and that holds a lot of weight with me. Codie eventually beat the truth out of me—he’s a little uptight, so I hadn’t told him about it—but then we all started to hang out. Now I have a little group of friends. They’re older than me, but even you say that you think I’m much more mature than most people our age.”

“I do think that,” Aria said, “but that doesn’t mean—”

“I know,” I cut her off. “I shouldn’t be doing anything that is dangerous or illegal. I’m gonna stop, I swear.”

“What about her?” Aria asked.

“I mean… I’m legal now. There’s nothing illegal about continuing to be friends with benefits.”

“I guess, but she seems to be a bad influence.”

“She’s not,” I said. “If I tell her no, she’ll listen. She’s not a peer pressure type. Trust me.”

Aria gave me a definite nod. “Okay. I do.”

“Good.” I pushed the book. “Now pick a blueprint. I’m ready to get this application started.”

The sooner I could apply, the sooner I could be accepted, and the sooner I could be accepted, the sooner I’d be able to leave. Aria continued to change my life every single day, and with this new program at my doorstep, it could finally be the thing that I needed to get over Hannah for good.

10

Hannah

Even though relatively little happened for the rest of the week, I was still exhausted. All I had to do was get through Friday and then I could sleep away my weekend and hopefully next week would be better. It had been so long since I’d been inundated with Arden and the memories of our relationship. It was probably stupid for me to make any attempt to make nice with her, but I was hopeful. That didn’t make me a terrible person. Having to be around Aria and Arden with how close they were was just flat out difficult for me. Even knowing that they weren’t an actual couple, it didn’t change what I felt when I saw them together.

“Good morning.”

I looked over from my locker and Ceradi was standing there. It actually was a nice departure from constantly being around Aria and her respective relationships with Arden and Tristan making me feel like an actual piece of shit.

“Hey,” I greeted.

Ceradi stuck out her hand and poked the space under my eyes. “You look exhausted, honey. What’s going on?”

I shrugged. “Maybe it’s just because we’re getting closer to graduation. I haven’t been sleeping as well lately.”

She leaned against the locker next to me and crossed her arms. “But you’re so smart, and even if you weren’t, all the teachers love you.” She stabbed a finger at me. “I know what it is.”

My heart clenched up in my chest and I turned to look at her. “You do?”

“Duh, it’s so obvious.” She turned to face me outright, putting her hands on both of my shoulders. “You still have feelings for Tristan, so you’re heartbroken that he’s with that whale now.”

My mouth was slightly agape as I thought over the best way to respond to that assumption. It wasn’t like I could tell her it was that I actually had feelings for someone else, but that Aria was still the issue. It also wasn’t entirely false, because Aria’s relationship with Tristan was a challenge for me too in the way that it interfered with our friendship. Ceradi was a terrible gossip though, and if I told her that I actually did have feelings for Tristan, that news would get around the school quickly.

“Um,” I stammered out. “M-maybe?”

She screeched. “I knew it! I could tell. You never got over him from when you guys broke up before. I don’t know why you didn’t just get back together that whole time.” Then she rolled her eyes. “It’s probably for the best though. He was obviously just a loser in disguise. You’re way too good for him.”

“Ahaha,” I forced out.

She wrapped her arm around my shoulder and leaned in. “You know who’s single now? Shane. He’s moved up recently. He even sits with us now. He always has his eyes on you. I can set you up if you want. He’s super hot now since he lost all that weight.”

I was way too tired for Ceradi’s superficial vitriol, but equally too tired to do anything about it. “Uh, maybe. I’ll let you know.”

“Totally!” She