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

I yanked backwards. She frowned instantly, seeming thrown off by my cold reception. “What’s wrong?”

“What’s wrong is you thinking that it’s okay to determine what I do with my life,” I said.

Aria tilted her head. “Huh? Do you mean because I picked the complicated design?”

“No!” I said. “You called Codie and asked him to get my ID taken away.”

Immediately, Aria frowned at me. “Did you go to The Undersound after you promised me you wouldn’t?”

That accusation annoyed the hell out of me, mostly because of the guilt that I felt. Yes, I had gone to The Undersound after Aria asked me not to, but that wasn’t the point. “Don’t change the subject!”

“That is the subject,” Aria snapped. “Did you go there?”

“Y-yeah! I wasn’t planning on drinking or doing anything bad, I just wanted to relax because I’m stressed out a little bit. Imagine my shock and embarrassment when I get there and have my ID revoked in front of everyone. Codie had to cuddle up to the security guard, then he took my ID and won’t give it back!”

“Not your real ID,” Aria hissed. “Just the fake one that enables you to do illegal shit. Besides, you should be happy it was a controlled setup and not someone just actually figuring out that ID was fake. You could have been arrested for real, or worse. What if you lose your chance at Y.I.I.P. over something like that?”

“I don’t need you to guilt trip me, Aria. Not all of us have all of our shit figured out like you!” I barked.

Aria went quiet for a minute at that and her expression got even more severe. “Don’t make this about me. This isn’t about the fact that I don’t like it there or that you’re underage or stressed or any of that. This is about the fact that you promised me as a friend that you wouldn’t go back there and you didn’t listen!”

I was so infuriated I could have spit fire. How did I show up at Aria’s in order to lecture her and end up getting lectured myself instead? This wasn’t fair. “Everyone has been making decisions for me my entire goddamn life. My parents, the people at church, the kids at school.” Then I stabbed a finger out at her. “You know what this is? You’re just fucking like Hannah. You think that you can act all concerned for me and—” I didn’t get to get the rest of the sentence out.

Aria turned her back to me and started storming off, which only made me angrier. “Hey! I’m in the middle of talking to you!” I rushed off after her, running past her and turning to stand in between her and her car door. When I did so, however, all the rage in me was knocked right out. Aria’s eyes were filled with tears. “Aria…”

“Move,” she ordered through gritted teeth.

“No,” I said. “We need to talk about this.”

“We don’t need to talk about anything anymore. Move out of the way.”

What had made her that angry that quickly? “No, I’m not moving. You felt fine interjecting yourself into my life, so now we’re going to talk about it.”

“I’ll call Codie when I get home and tell him to give you your ID back,” she said. “Now get out of the way.”

That froze me in place. With how Aria felt about The Undersound and me going there even though I was underage, why would she ever agree to just let me have my ID back? “Really?”

“Yep,” she said. “But don’t speak to me again.” With that, she stepped forward and shoved me out of the way. I tripped a little, almost toppling over, but stayed on my feet as Aria opened her car door and climbed in. Enraged all over again, I ran forward and grabbed her car door before she could shut it. “Let go!” she demanded.

“What do you mean don’t speak to you again? Is that how flimsy our friendship is that I can’t even do one thing that you don’t agree with?”

Aria looked up at me like she was ready to slice me open with a chainsaw. In one swift, aggressive motion she climbed back out of the driver’s seat of her car, slammed the car door shut, and stomped me back a few feet. “Don’t talk to me about a flimsy friendship when you just compared me to your shitty ex-girlfriend.” My heart slammed one time in my chest. Reeling backwards to what I’d spewed in anger, I reheard myself telling her she was just like Hannah.

“After everything I’ve done for you and all of this shit we’ve been through, that you would compare me to her is heartbreaking. If that’s honestly what you think about me, then I severely overestimated the strength of this friendship. If I’m just like her, then you must think I’m just gonna up and leave you too, huh? Why waste time? I’ll do it now and save myself the stress of staying up all night wondering if I’m gonna get a call that you’ve died of a drug overdose from your fucking pedo girlfriend!”

Embarrassed, guilty, and stupid weren’t strong enough words to cover how I felt. For the first time in my entire life someone had bent over backwards loving me and I thanked her by bringing her nothing but stress and anguish.

I was a pretty shitty friend.

“Aria—”

“Don’t!” she snapped. “I’m sorry that I brought Hannah back into your life, but I really thought I’d done a better job distinguishing myself from her. Yeah, I asked Codie to step in and take your ID, but that was because I anticipated that you would break your promise to me, and you proved me right. I was hoping I’d be wrong, but I wasn’t. Clearly I’m in the wrong here, so my bad. Get your ID back and do what you want. I’m done.”

She turned around and started storming back towards her car, and I panicked. Aria was the only person who had