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

Then there was Arden.

She’d held up her end of the bargain to not be malicious anymore. In fact, she’d even taken things half a step further and had tried to be at least amicable. We wouldn’t necessarily greet each other, but sometimes when conversations ended up with us both in them, she wouldn’t totally retreat. It was the closest to peace that had existed between us since before we broke up, but I understood what she was saying now when she said she couldn’t be friendly with me.

Being around Arden and not being able to be with her was hard.

For that reason along with the others, I ended up pulling back from involving myself with Aria, Tristan, and Arden and ended up spending the rest of the school year with Ceradi and the popular kids as if I’d never left. There was a near constant conversation about getting revenge on Aria, but I mostly ignored it. Tristan would never forgive me if I hurt her anyway, so there wasn’t much I could do but suck it up.

It just sucked knowing that I’d lost my best friend and the love of my life to her.

“Hannah?” my mom said. “Are you okay?”

I came back from my flurry of thoughts and nodded. “Yeah. Just tired.”

“Sure,” she said, rubbing the back of my head. “It’s been a long day. Dinner’s almost done then we’ll head home so you can get some rest.”

“Actually, I think I’m going to go to my friend’s house after we’re done here. She’s having a little after party thing to celebrate graduation. I won’t be too late,” I said.

“Ceradi?” my mom asked.

I nodded. “Yeah.”

She seemed to like hearing Ceradi’s name again around the house. Ceradi’s parents were both politicians and well known throughout the city. For my parents, knowing that I was associating with someone with Ceradi’s clout mattered more to them than the kind of person that Ceradi actually was. “Okay, well so long as it isn’t too late. You need to get some rest. I think we’ll take a trip out to my alma mater this weekend so that you can see your new digs.”

I forced a grin. “That sounds great, mom.”

The reality was, I didn’t want to go to my mom’s old school. I didn’t really want to go anywhere that kept me in the same state where I was born and raised. My life had been so sheltered and boring that I’d always dreamed of going somewhere exciting and expanding my horizon. When Arden and I were younger we used to dream of moving to California, or Florida, or New York. Some really touristy place where we’d get to see all sorts of different kinds of people and not be so hampered by the close-mindedness of our families.

At least she’d get to do that.

Because it was what was expected of me, I accepted an invitation to my mother’s alma mater and had agreed to live at home rather than live on campus, at least until I pledged at her old sorority. I was walking right in her footsteps. Hell, at this rate, I’d have a boring old frat husband and be a proper stay-at-home wife in no time.

Fantastic.

After the grueling task of entertaining all of my relatives for far too many hours, I was finally able to slip away and make my way to Ceradi’s. She was hosting a graduation after-party for all of the popular kids, and her parents had left her in total control of her family’s seven-figure estate. There was certain to be all manner of drugs, alcohol, sex, and of course, Ceradi was already trying to foist me off on Shane as soon as I got through the door.

“Come on, just take him up to my room,” Ceradi said. “From what I hear, he’s blessed.”

“Maybe,” I said. “I’m really exhausted from dealing with my family for the last several hours. I just wanna relax with some water or something.”

“By water, do you mean vodka?” she looped her arm through mine and started to drag me towards the kitchen.

“No,” I said. “I mean water.”

“Don’t be so lame, Hannah. We graduated! Let loose a little.”

I was just about to open up to argue when my phone dinging, and the familiar notification made my blood boil. I pulled it out of my pocket, hoping I was wrong, but unfortunately it was exactly what I thought it was.

Adren had just arrived at The Undersound.

“Aria,” I growled out loud. At least if she was going to be so much better at controlling Arden than I was, she could actually make sure that she was where she was supposed to be. Every time Tristan told me that Aria had convinced Arden not to go back, I looked up and within no time at all that proved not to be true. Aria should have anticipated, with Arden not having her family at graduation or having any celebrations of her own that she would run to The Undersound to drown her sorrows in booze. “You know what?” I said to Ceradi. “A drink sounds great actually.”

“There we go!” Ceradi and I made it to the kitchen and she just started pouring liquor and a very small amount of juice into a cup until it was full almost to the top and then she handed it to me. “Drink up, girl! We’re partying!”

Knocking the cup back and trying not to gag on the taste, I tried to force Arden from my mind. Let her ruin her life if she wanted to.

See if I care.

Due to the fact that I wasn’t much of a drinker at all, it didn’t take much time for the liquor to seep into my system and have me fluttering slightly off kilter. I ended up dancing with Shane, and not entirely stopping him when he started to kiss my neck, but when he tried to get me upstairs, I refused. He got