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

want that to happen again. This,” I held up my phone, “is how I always know where you are, so that if anyone ever tries to take you from me again, I can come find you.”

She curled her hand into my hair along the side of my head. “You found me fine without a location before, my little hero.”

“Yeah, well let’s let technology keep me from guessing next time,” I said. “I can get to you sooner. Before it’s too late.”

“You don’t have to worry, beautiful. I’m not going anywhere. You’ll always be able to look over and see me sitting right next to you.” She kissed me then. “I love you too much for anything else.”

“I love you too,” I said. “Thanks for this. It makes me feel better.”

“Then it was worth it.”

“When we stopped being friends, I assume she took my location off, but I could never remove hers. I know that she can be self-destructive, and this place that she goes, there’s this woman there, Suli. She’s like six years older than Arden, and I know they’ve…” I swallowed hard.

“Yikes,” Tristan said.

“She gives Arden drugs, and booze, and…” My hands balled into fists. “Yeah. She’s a shitty person. I don’t like her very much, but she’s my only connection to Arden right now. Arden has my number blocked on everything, but I was calling to try and appeal to Suli. It wasn’t going well though. It—”

Almost on cue, my phone buzzed and I flipped over to see that I got a text message from Suli. I opened it and scoffed. It was a picture of her with her arms wrapped around Arden. They both had their tongues sticking out, and there were tiny whtie pills sitting on the tips of both of their tongues. I shoved my phone away from me and Tristan picked it up.

His eyes widened. “Is that ecstasy?!”

“I don’t know, I think so,” I huffed. “She’s gonna do something dumb. I’m so afraid she’s going to get herself killed. She doesn’t have value for her own life. It’s terrifying.”

“I have an idea. You’re probably not going to like it,” Tristan said.

I twisted my head to the side. “Okay?”

“You have the actual location, right?” he asked. “We can send it to Aria. She can get through to her, I’m sure.”

The thought that Aria could succeed where I’d failed made me feel like shit. If I woke up in the morning to find that Aria had actually gotten Arden out of The Undersound, it was going to mean that Arden was officially deferring to her judgement more than she ever had to mine. Aria was already such a barrier in my life—so much more in so many areas than I could ever hope to be—I didn’t really want to give her this one thing. It felt like it was the last piece of Arden that I had, and if I gave it to her, I’d lose Arden forever.

“Hey,” Tristan said, bringing me back to attention. “We don’t have to share her actual location so that Aria can always see her, we’ll just tell her where she is. We don’t even have to tell her how you know that. Just that you got a tip or something.”

Tristan immediately identifying my hesitation and understanding it made me emotional. With tears rising to my eyes, I nodded. It wasn’t the time to be selfish. Suli didn’t have Arden’s best interest at heart, but whether or not I liked to admit it, Aria did. Tristan was right.

Aria could get through.

I navigated in my phone to the locations screen and got the exact address of where Arden was, double checking that she hadn’t left the club yet, but she still appeared to be there. I slid it over to Tristan who picked up his phone and started dialing.

“Hey baby,” he said, pausing briefly where I was sure Aria was responding. “Uh, I mean we’re fine, but there’s definitely a problem.” He paused again. “No, no. We’re okay, it’s actually Arden. Hannah got a tip from an old friend of hers and Arden’s,” he winked at me, “that she’s at some shifty place called The Undersound, hanging out with a much older woman giving her liquor and drugs and stuff. Hannah can’t communicate with her, but we’re hoping if we send you the address you can—okay. Love you, bye.” He hung up his phone and looked across at me. “Yeah, she’s going. I was barely able to get the full sentence out.” He typed the address to Aria and then set his phone down. “She’s already on the way.”

“Thanks,” I murmured.

“You okay?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I haven’t for a really long time.”

“Well, you know, I am always here for you if you need anything,” he said. “Anything at all.”

“This is good for now,” I said. “I just really hope Aria can get to her in time.”

7

Arden

As soon as Codie had sufficiently calmed down, it was much easier to enjoy my friends and the atmosphere of The Undersound. The closer it got to midnight, the more electric and exciting things got, and I fully enjoyed being sandwiched between Suli and Codie on the dance floor while a hip-hop and metal fusion band ripped up the shadowbox. I was riding the high of the drugs and the liquor made me feel like I was floating. I’d nearly forgotten how nice it was to come and be among people who were at least three years removed from bullshit high school politics and first loves.

Hannah who?

Suli was sexy as hell, and with the way she was grinding on me, I knew getting to her bedroom was going to be a walk in the park. Maybe I’d even pull a back-in-the-day move and just skip school tomorrow. I’d already presented the only final I had due that week. Any studying that I missed I could just catch up on with Aria over the weekend. Taking a little break from school to