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

Inside, Aria’s mom and all of her family members were sitting around, notably less tense. Tristan smiled over at Aria’s mom and she stood up and walked over to us.

“Serene, this is my best friend Hannah. Hannah, this is Aria’s mom, Serene.”

She gave me a kind smile that led me to believe no one had told her my involvement in what happened to her daughter. “Nice to meet you, Hannah.”

“Nice to meet you as well.” I was perfectly fine with her never learning that. “I don’t want to take up any time if Aria’s family members want to see her, but I was hoping to go and talk with her before I left.”

“Go right ahead,” she responded. “She’s actually pretty tired so I’m sending most of our family members off and telling them to come back in the morning anyway. Aria loves seeing her friends, so I’m sure she’d be happy to see you before I shut off visitors for the night.”

“Thank you,” I replied.

“Thanks, Serene,” Tristan said, then he walked me over to the locked door that led back to the rooms.

Tristan looked over at the receptionist there and said, “108.”

She nodded. “Only two visitors at a time.”

He lifted a hand. “I’m not staying, just walking her back.”

The receptionist accepted this and pressed a button which buzzed the doors and allowed us to pass through. We walked down to room 108 where I could hear Arden prattling on about something while Aria just nodded and listened. She really did stare at Arden like she was an angel from heaven, but I understood.

Tristan walked in first, drawing attention to himself, and eventually me. “Hey,” he said. “Uh, Hannah was hoping you might be up for one more chat before getting some rest.”

“Of course,” Aria said sweetly, although weakly. “Hi Hannah.”

“Hi,” I said, already overcome with guilt.

“Hannah has the best video to show you,” Tristan said. “Arden, do you mind giving these two a few minutes?”

“Not at all, actually I’ll probably go. I know you and Serene are likely gonna spend the night, so…” She stood up from the chair and bent down to kiss Aria on the forehead. “I’ll be back first thing in the morning, okay?”

Aria nodded. “Okay. I love you.”

“Aw, I love you too, gorg. Get some rest okay?” Arden gave her a final, loving pet and then walked over to where Tristan and I were. She tapped Tristan’s shoulder and then looked at me and gave me a smile that actually made me blush. “Talk to you soon?”

“Very,” I responded and it made her smile get bigger.

“I’ll walk you out,” Tristan said, and with that, he and Arden left the room.

I looked over at Aria and took a deep breath and just watched her for a second. It wasn’t until she said, “Oh god, please don’t just stand there and stare,” that I finally shuffled over and sat down where Arden had been moments before.

“Hey…” I said again. “Aria. First of all, I owe you an apology. Not just for what happened at The Undersound tonight, but in general. I have not been nice to you, and it’s not fair, because you didn’t earn my malice.”

“Apology accepted, though can I ask… why don’t you like me?”

I blew air out of my mouth, making a raspberry sound with my lips as I did. “It’s complicated. Mostly rooted in my own insecurities I think? You are just so damn… Perfect. I really have a hard time with it.”

Aria’s face twisted up into the most awkward, hysterical looking expression I’d ever seen. “Perfect? Me?” She laughed a little until it turned into a cough then she stopped. “I tripped on perfectly flat ground and fell straight down to my face, but okay.”

“What?” I said.

She folded her lips in and raised her eyebrows and then sighed. “Okay, so maybe I tried to run when the fight broke out and fell.”

“You cracked your own skull open?” I yelped and then fell out laughing. “Oh my god. Did you tell Tristan or Arden?”

“No, and we’re not going to tell them,” Aria replied.

“Oh god, does it make me selfish that it actually makes me feel better?” I held up my hands immediately. “Don’t get me wrong, I know that it was still mostly my fault, but I needed that little bit of imperfection.”

“I’m so far from perfect, you wouldn’t believe it. I often feel too boring for Arden, and I’m not athletic enough for Tristan. He’s so into sports and nature and stuff. He took me hiking for a date, and I was so out of breath like a quarter of the way up that we had to stop and turn around. You’re so much cooler and have all this stamina. I feel like I’m constantly trying to catch up to you.”

I stared at Aria with a dropped jaw. Stupid didn’t describe how I felt. Aria was trying to catch up to me? “It’s going to take all night to process what you just said.”

She chuckled. “Sorry?”

“No, don’t be, just… yeah. I’m broken right now,” I said.

“Tristan said you had something to show me?”

“Oh! So… I don’t know if either of them told you, but Ceradi was… involved today.”

“They may have mentioned it, along with many swear words, yes.”

“Well…” I pulled out my phone and queued up the video. “I’m not sure if this helps, but…” I pressed play on the video and let Aria watch it.

“What’s going on here? Is that you and Cera—OH! JESUS!” She winced in pain from the face she’d made. “You hit her!”

“I did,” I said. “Now, I can’t pretend I was defending your honor. It was more because she kept using this really nasty, homophobic slur when talking about Arden, then she called her a freak and I snapped. She has a video of you getting hurt at The Undersound, but I sent this to her and told her if she doesn’t want this released, she shouldn’t release your video. I imagine she will listen.”

Aria groaned. “I almost