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

Aria popped the top of the salad. “So I’ll have this, because I wanted a salad anyway, and you have that, and you owe me a burger.”

I smiled brightly at her. “You just name the time and the place, darlin’.”

Hannah looked away from the interaction, but I just disregarded her. I wasn’t going to let her stop me from enjoying my best friend. A couple of times, Tristan tried to show her funny things on his phone and be buddy-buddy with her like Aria and I were, but Hannah was very closed off. I actually felt bad for him. After everything she’d done just to stay by his side, she couldn’t handle being friendly with him when I or Aria was around.

It was beginning to look like their friendship was just a farce to her too.

When lunch was over and we were off to the rest of our day, I started to feel better again. I didn’t have many classes with Hannah in general, and the ones I did have, I also shared with Aria and in some cases Tristan, so it was easy enough to distract myself. Mondays were always the worst for Hannah and me because it was the first time seeing each other again after not seeing one another all weekend, but hopefully the rest of the week would be better.

At least, that was what I was hoping, but when I got to my car after school to leave, not walking with Aria who was walking Tristan to practice, Hannah was standing there waiting for me. I hesitated, even considered just high-tailing it and running home on foot, but I worked my ass off for my car, earning every penny myself because my homophobic, six-figure-earning parents certainly weren’t going to throw me any bones. It gave me anxiety, because god only knew what she wanted to say, but I pressed on, actually hoping I could just walk around her.

She was standing near my trunk, so I pulled out my phone and kept my head down as I forged ahead. I saw her shift out of the corner of my eyes when I passed her, but I didn’t stop. My keys were in my hand, and never before had I been so frustrated I had an old car without a clicker. I jabbed my key into the lock, hearing Hannah walk around the car, and I was almost convinced she was going to just let me go, but as soon as I opened the door to climb in, she slipped between me and the car and plopped herself down in the driver’s seat.

“Fuck it, I’ll buy a new car,” I hissed, turning around, but I could hear her heels scuffle behind me.

“Please,” Hannah begged. “Just wait. I don’t have a lot to say, just hear me out.”

I stopped on the way away from her and sighed. She was clearly not going to let me just go, so I turned around. “What?”

She tilted her head slightly downwards, batting her stunning eyes at me. It’d be worse if they were their natural color, but she’d taken to wearing blue contacts for god knows what reason. “Look, I know that our history is a little… sordid. But Aria and Tristan clearly aren’t breaking up anytime soon. Probably not ever. Wouldn’t it be okay if you and I just… tried being friends? I’m not asking you to hang out with me outside of school or anything, but at least if we could be friendly to each other, it’d be better. For them?” She stuck her hand out as if she’d made some great case, but I just looked back at her with a scowl on my face.

“I don’t need to be friends with you for them. Aria’s fine, our friendship is fine, Tristan’s fine, his relationship with Aria is fine. I don’t have to involve myself with you at all.” I never thought I’d say such awful things to Hannah in my life, but four years had changed things. “I tolerate you because I have to. That’s it.”

“I don’t get it. I’m not an awful person. Why are you like this to me?” she whimpered. “I’m trying to extend an olive branch.”

“And you have,” I said. “I’m not taking it. Get over it.”

She crossed her arms. “Since when are you this immature? Are you going to hold a grudge against me forever?”

“Holding a grudge would suggest there’s something on the other side. I don’t have to hold a grudge, you simply don’t matter that much to me.”

That seemed to cut her. “I don’t matter to you? At all? If I dropped dead right now, you just wouldn’t care?”

She and I both knew the answer to that question. “I don’t even know why you’re asking questions like that. You act as if I’m the problem here.”

“You are the problem!” she shouted.

“You’re the problem!” I snapped back. “You were always the problem! You were the one that up and left and broke my heart, Hannah, that wasn’t me! You wanted to go off and be some popular kid. Why do you even care anymore? You got what you wanted!”

“That wasn’t what I wanted!” Her eyes were starting to water and I bit the inside of my cheek. Hannah crying was something of a weakness for me, and that wasn’t including my own emotions forming a knot in my throat. “I was just doing what I thought was best! It doesn’t mean my heart wasn’t broken too. We’re in the same boat!”

“We are not in the same boat,” I hissed. “I loved you enough that I would have never done that to you.”

“I loved you too!” she whined, though quietly. “I still—”

“I don’t want to hear it,” I barked before she could say anything that would shatter my resolve. “You don’t care about me.”

“How can you say that?”

“I can say it because when you had to stick around and be brave and give everything up for me, you couldn’t do it, but