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

how she acted when Tristan and Aria started dating and without me even having to say anything about it, they immediately made the same connection I did. How funny that she could stand by his side when she couldn’t stand by mine.

I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t helpful that they also didn't like her.

“Ignore it,” I growled. “Can you dance right now?”

Suli squeezed my leg. “I can do whatever you want.”

“Drug-free, please?” Codie said.

Suli rolled her eyes. “Fine.” She stood up off the couch, grabbing my hand and pulling me up. “Come on. Let me get my hands on those hips.”

Codie tensed up as I passed him, but as I was leaving I heard him make a joke with Polly and Darton and started laughing. That was what I needed, for him to relax as well. Codie and I had been close ever since the conversion camp, but where I learned to appreciate life’s entertainment more to avoid future pain, Codie doubled in how carefully he lived. He said he realized just how close we had both come to dying, and he didn’t ever want to get that close again.

If that’s your thing I guess.

In order to be safe, Suli dragged me to a spot very near our VIP booth to dance. It was later in the night, so though it was a Monday, the dance floor was pretty packed, and it was easy for Suli and I to find a spot to blend in. She wrapped her arms around me, but we weren’t able to get too close before her phone started ringing again. She pulled it out of her pocket, but when she rolled her eyes, I knew exactly who it was. I snatched the phone from her hand and answered it, but rather than saying anything, I just hung up.

Suli raised an eyebrow at me before wrapping her arm around me and pulled me closer to her. She successfully pulled off what she’d been trying all night and set her lips on mine. She pushed her tongue between my lips and I felt the unmistakable feeling of a pill slipping forward off of her tongue and onto mine.

“Not following Codie’s request then, I see?” I said.

“Is that a problem?” she asked, pulling her phone back from me just as it buzzed in my hand, ringing again.

I relinquished the phone as Hannah’s number skated across the screen, and swallowed the pill with a smile. “Nope. That is not a problem.”

6

Hannah

I slammed my phone down on the table so hard that I was actually a little surprised it didn’t break. The fork on my plate rattled and some of the water in my recently filled glass sloshed over the top.

Tristan jutted his hand forward as if he could do something to stop the rage from cracking the screen. “Jeez! What’s wrong?”

We were at dinner at my favorite bistro after Tristan canceled with Aria exactly like he said he would. But though the circumstances should have made me very happy, I was so frustrated I felt like my blood was going to boil. Tears actually rose to my eyes as I imagined that seedy place that Arden liked to go to, and thinking of her all curled up with that stupid ass woman that had poisoned her brain.

I wanted to scream.

“Nothing,” I said to Tristan. “I’m fine.”

“Hannah!” he barked.

There were people at the next table over and they jumped and turned to look at us. I threw on a fake smile and waved them down, trying to get them to quit looking at us, but though they did so more overtly, they kept their eyes shifted in our direction.

“Shh,” I said. “You’re causing a scene.”

“I don’t care,” he snapped. “You’re honestly going to tell me that nothing is wrong when you nearly broke your phone in half just now? There are tears in your eyes. Do you think I’m blind or stupid or both.”

My throat clenched up. After how terribly the day had already gone, the last thing I wanted was to be yelled at by my only real friend. “I’m sorry, I just don’t want to talk about it.”

“Why?” Tristan whimpered. “Whatever it is, it’s obviously bothering you. I’m your best friend, aren’t I? It’s not good to keep all this shit in. You should talk about it, and I’m not saying it has to be with me, but I feel like shit. Like you don’t feel like you can trust me.”

I looked across at him, his hazel eyes were wide and filled with concern, and I felt bad. I knew that he cared about me and just wanted to help me through what I was going through right now, but he simply didn’t understand how difficult it was for me to talk about all of this stuff. I spent literal years working to push all of the Arden stuff down so far that even I couldn’t access it. I couldn’t risk my parents or my friends seeing even a hint of something like homosexuality. Talking to him about it… it would mean admitting to it.

And I just couldn’t do that.

“I do trust you,” I whispered back.

He shook his head. “That’s obviously not true. You’ve been weird ever since that shit went down around Sadie Hawkins. For like six months you’ve been pulling away from me. You barely talked to me over Spring Break. I…” There was a strained desperation in his voice. “Please. I just want to help.”

It was heartbreaking to see how defeated he looked. It wasn’t as if I didn’t appreciate what Tristan was trying to do, or understand the concept of having one confidant. I could tell Tristan. It wasn’t that I thought he would judge me or hurt me, it was just a blanket fear. It sucked that I couldn’t even tell him that.

It was so much better for me to pretend as if this wasn’t as big a deal as it seemed.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’ve been a shitty