I Love You More Than I'm Afraid (Our Forevers #2) by Rebel Hart (the first e reader .txt) 📕

She gave me a half-nod. “Hi.” Then she tapped Aria on the shoulder. “Come on, let’s get this stuff put away so we can go set up for our presentation.”

“Okay!” Aria gave Tristan another kiss before fluttering off with Arden and I sighed when they were gone.

“You ready to talk about it yet?” Tristan asked.

I shook my head. “No.” He’d been trying to get me to open up about Arden ever since her friendship and his relationship with Aria brought her back into my life, but I didn’t like discussing the topic.

If I had anything to say about it, I never would.

3

Arden

I watched with a smile on my face as everyone clapped at Aria’s and my senior presentation. The school year was winding down, only about twelve weeks to go, and all of the seniors were presenting their final projects in a lot of their classes. Teachers were smart enough to know that once prom was over and we were all graduation-bound, hanging onto our attention was a crapshoot, so they did a lot of their individual class finals a few months before the end, and spent the remaining time preparing students for the school-mandated final exams and college entrance stuff. One class that Aria and I had allowed us to work on a final project together, and unlike most students who chose papers or boring powerpoint presentations, both Aria and I decided that we would go for something a little more…

…Fantastical.

“Can you show us again?” one student asked.

“Sure!” I said.

One of the optional science electives for the second half of the year was astronomy, in which we’d both always had a high interest. After studying a variety of sub-categories throughout the year, we were tasked with doing a final project that would display what we’d learned about the solar system and how the planets rotated around the sun. Anyone could throw sun-cycles onto a slide, but I was an inventor. While Aria did the calculations, I created something from the ground up that would rotate actual, to-scale planets around a glowing sun that Aria created with glow-in-the-dark paint. We placed boards in specific places with regard to the planets so that, as they rotated in real time around the sun, the board would show the sun cycle. At a glance, someone could see what kind of day the sun was casting over each individual planet.

I tinkered with the mechanics to reset the cycle which I’d timed to move based on an electronic repeater that told the planets when to spin, and what speed to rotate at so that the rotation was true to life, but sped up so that we weren’t sitting there for the time it would take all the planets to go around. For some added flair, Aria used different colored paints on all of the planets so that they cast different colors across the ceiling like a disco as they rotated around. My invention mixed with her creativity? Even I had to admit we couldn’t be topped.

“I must say,” our teacher, Mr. Aberston, said. “This is one of the most creative and imaginative projects I think I’ve ever seen. Well done, you two.” The bell signifying the end of class rang and our fellow students gave us another round of applause before starting to pack up. “That just leaves Kacey and Mara as well as Martin and Pascal tomorrow. We'll get started right away, so make sure you come prepared. Have a good rest of your day. Enjoy your lunch!”

Aria and I carefully started picking up the pieces of our project as everyone else loaded out of the classroom. A few students stopped by on their way out to get an extra close look at our model of the planets and give us congrats, but given it was time for lunch, everyone was quick to leave.

"We can leave the big stuff here and come grab it after school, right, Mr. Aberston?"

“Of course,” Mr. Aberston said. “In fact, just pack it up the way you need and you can leave it there. I’ll move it somewhere safe. Don’t waste too much of your lunch time.”

“Actually,” Aria said. “I have to go back to my locker anyway. Tristan wanted to meet me there and walk to lunch together.”

I fake gagged. “You two are so gross.”

“You know you love it,” Aria snapped back quickly, and I shrugged, but she was right. Seeing her so happy made me happy. “I’ll finish up here and then bring it back. You go on ahead. Get a good table so we don’t end up sitting by the dumpsters again.”

“But Aria, how will the school ever know that we’re losers if we aren’t sitting by the trash cans?” I asked. She just shook her head and giggled at me.

I finished packing up the couple of things I was working on, then I walked back to my desk and grabbed my bag, then left. I made sure to cast a look back over my shoulder to make sure it wasn’t taking Aria too long to finish up, but she was already gliding out with all of the stuff in her hands, assuring Mr. Aberston that she didn’t need help carrying it, so I left her to her devices and sifted my way into the crowd of seniors headed for the lunch room.

Aria and I usually sat with all of the debate kids during lunch, at least the senior ones. Before I met Aria, I actually used to just skip out on lunch altogether—that was what I did most of my sophomore and junior years—but I’d found new joy in sitting with people that didn’t hate who I was at my core for at least one meal out of the day. In general, I was much happier at school than I was at home, but something happened last October that brought a little dissonance in my brief respite.

Aria started dating Tristan.

I really was so happy for