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

was confused and concerned, but I didn’t give her any attention either. I was so close to bursting that if I just didn’t get some things out, I was going to die of an aneurysm. I led the way down the hallway and out of the front door of the school, to where there were study pods outside for small grounds to work while enjoying fresh air.

“Did you hit your head?” Arden asked when we were alone.

I waved my hands through the air. “Don’t worry about if I hit my head or not! You don’t get to worry about if I hit my head!”

“Okay,” Arden said.

She was much less confrontational than she had been during our last fight, but though I didn’t know why, I didn’t care. “You can’t just continue to treat me like I don’t have any feelings!” I snapped. “I don’t like being treated like shit.”

“I don’t want to treat you like shit, but I don’t know what you want from me,” Arden responded. “It’s… hard.”

“What’s hard?” I snapped. “Being around me isn’t awful. I’m not a bad person! I’m sorry that things didn’t work out between us, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t wish every single day that things hadn’t turned out like that. I’m sorry! I can’t undo time!”

Arden sighed. “Hannah, that’s not fair. I’m the one who got my heart broken. I wanted to be with you. I wanted to do anything to be with you. I’m supposed to just swallow the fact that you just shattered me like that?” She didn’t sound angry, but anguished. “I’ve… I’ve never gotten over that. I’m never going to be the same because of that. I’m allowed to be upset about what happened between us. Just because I understand doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt me.”

“I could say the same to you,” I murmured, and it seemed to strike Arden somewhere meaningful. “I get why you’re upset with me, but I was hurt too.”

“So what do you want from me?” Arden asked. “I’m not trying to hurt you, but I don’t want to be hurting anymore either, so what do we do?”

“I tried asking you to make nice,” I said.

“I can’t do that,” Arden said. “I’m sorry, I know that sounds petty and selfish, but I’m just not capable of that. I can’t just talk to you and be around you like we don’t have the history we have. I’m not that strong, quite frankly. The best I can do is promise not to be nasty anymore.”

“Fine, I accept that, but…” I took a deep breath, my heart pounding as I prepared to say what I was about to say. “I need you to be less… obvious about Aria. I know that you care about her more than you’ve ever cared about me, but it hurts to see. Can we just agree not to deal with new romantic interests until after we’ve graduated? It’s only a month and a few days away.”

“Romantic interests?” Arden’s face screwed up in confusion. “I’m not romantically interested in Aria. She’s straight for one, and she’s with Tristan. She’s crazy about him.”

“I’m not stupid,” I said. “I know what you look like when you’re in love and you’re obviously in love with her. You treat her like the world begins and ends at her feet.”

“Honestly, I kind of think it does,” she retorted. “But there’s nothing romantic about it, I just think the world of her. Besides, you have absolutely no right to ask me that, still being best friends with the guy you cheated on me with!”

“I didn’t cheat on you!” I screamed. “Nothing happened between us before we broke up! I agreed to the date and that was it.”

“Whatever. You treat him like a king, why can’t I treat Aria like a queen? I care about her more than you, what about you? You still don’t have an explanation for why, what was so hard to do with me, was so easy to do with him.”

“It’s… it’s just different,” I said.

“You’re being a hypocrite,” Arden snapped. “I’m not changing my relationship with Aria to make you feel better just because you’re too insecure to understand the difference between friendship and something romantic.”

“Insecure?!”

“Yeah!” Arden was back to screaming now. “You’re insecure, Hannah! Why else would you have these fake nails, and wear clothes I know you think are uncomfortable, and your fucking eyes!” She scoffed. “Your brown eyes are so beautiful. Why do you wear contacts? Your friends and parents aren’t okay with you showing the eye color you were born with.”

“You’re getting off topic,” I whimpered.

“No I’m not!” Arden ran her hands through her hair. “I can’t do this. Talking with you is so frustrating to me! You…” She looked at me sadly. “You were so perfect to me the way you were.” Silence fell between us and we both just stood there not knowing what to say or do. “I won’t be mean so long as we don’t talk,” Arden said. “That’s the best I can do.”

“Fine,” I whispered.

“Bye, Hannah.”

Arden walked away, and all I could do was sink down onto the ground and bury my face in my knees to hide my tears. That wasn’t at all how I expected that conversation to go. It felt like every time I tried to make a point, Arden twisted it. At the end of the day I just wanted her to know I was in pain because I still loved her. Why was that so hard for her to see?

“Hannah?” I lifted my head and looked over and Ceradi was walking across the grass to where I was. “Are you okay?”

I wasn’t sure how much Ceradi had heard, but I was praying not much. “Not really.”

“It’s Aria, huh? You’re upset that her and Arden stole Tristan from you?”

I nodded, knowing I couldn’t admit the truth. “Yeah.”

“Aw, boo.” She sank down next to me on the grass and wrapped her arm around me. “Don’t worry, babes. You and me, we’re gonna