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

haze, but then she took me by the arm and led me up stairs. She tucked me into her bed and then climbed into the cozy, reclining armchair where I normally slept when I stayed with her. She started texting on her phone, I imagined with Tristan, who was probably going to tell Hannah. For the fact that I was finally feeling relaxed I was beginning to think that taking up Suli’s offer to go to The Undersound wasn’t such a good idea after all.

I probably wouldn’t have gotten much sleep if the drugs and booze in my system hadn’t knocked me out, but thankfully they did. It was a torrid sleep, filled with Codie, Aria, and Aria’s mom’s judgmental gazes, along with nightmares of Suli getting sick of my inconsistent behavior and cutting me off. On top of all that, night sleeping was something I hated, so every time I woke up in the darkness of the room, even though Aria was there—which helped—I had a temporary heart attack before realizing everything was fine.

Morning was welcome, but only until I drifted downstairs and found Aria and her mom eating breakfast at the dining room table. They were both early risers and were already dressed and ready for their day, and as soon as I walked into the kitchen, Aria’s mom jumped up and scuttled into the kitchen, likely to retrieve me some food of my own. My head was pounding and my stomach was growling because I hadn’t had much to eat since lunch the day before.

“How are you feeling?” Aria grunted.

“Guilty,” I said. “With a killer headache.”

“Is that normal, or should I be concerned?” she asked.

“Pretty normal.” I nodded. “Look, Aria I—”

“My dad died because he got wasted and high and fell asleep in the freezing weather,” she said before I could get too many words out. “I’m not saying that you can’t be into certain things because of how I feel about it. Weed doesn’t bother me at all, and even booze wouldn’t be as much of an issue so long as you were being safe, but at a club, underage? With a woman, what, six years older than you? And hard drugs? I mean, are you trying to kill me? How do you think it felt to get a call from Tristan telling me that my best friend is at some sketchy bar getting high?”

I bowed my head. “You’re totally right. I’m sorry. I just… Hannah and I got into it after school yesterday and I was really stressed out. Suli called at kind of a bad time in terms of me turning her down. It seemed really nice when she said it.”

“Why didn’t you call me? We could have talked about it? We could have gone out to an age-appropriate place where arrest and bodily harm are not risks.”

“You had plans with Tristan, I thought?” I said.

“Even if he didn’t cancel to go be with Hannah because she was feeling upset after your conversation too, it wouldn’t have mattered. When you call me, I’m there for you, that’s the deal,” she said. “I can’t be feeling like I’m gonna get a call and hear that you’re in a jail cell or dead in a ditch. You’re so much smarter than that.”

Part of me wanted to defend myself. In the past or with anyone else I would have, but Aria was such a different kind of person in my life. It felt like defending myself was just making excuses. Aria was totally right, I had a million options before I had that one. I had Aria, I had my other friends on the debate team, hell I could have just gone home. Even if I had called Codie, I could have met him somewhere other than The Undersound.

“All I can say is I’m sorry.”

“I don’t want to hear you’re sorry, I want to hear that you won’t do that again,” she said. “I’m here for you. Whatever you need, I’ll help you through it, but I am not going to just stand by while you hurt yourself.”

“If that’s your Aria way of saying you aren’t going to be friends with me if I go to The Undersound, then it’s not even a question. I won’t go back there again.”

Aria smiled at me for the first time since she stormed up to me the night before. “You promise?”

“I promise,” I said.

She nodded. “Okay. Thank you.” She reached under the table then and pulled her backpack up onto the chair next to her. She unzipped it and pulled out some pop rocks and a bottle of sparkling cider and set them on top of the table. “I got these.”

I looked down at them in confusion. “For a fun, crackling time?”

Aria sniffled and I looked up and she was crying. “I thought we could pretend the pop rocks are drugs and the sparkling cider is booze.”

My heart broke itself and repaired itself a million times in a minute. I leapt out of my seat and wrapped my arms around her. “I love you so much. Please never leave me.”

She wrapped her arms around me and squeezed me back. “As long as you never do, you never have to worry about me.”

If there was anyone worth changing for, it was Aria. I just really and truly hoped I could keep my promise.

8

Hannah

I had absolutely no idea how long I’d been standing in the opening to my locker staring into the void, but thankfully Tristan appeared with my favorite coffee in hand. He pushed it into my field of view snapping me from my trance and when I turned to look at him he gave me a huge smile.

“Good morning,” he said.

I pulled the drink from his hand and looked around to see if there were any additional ones that I didn’t see. “Just one coffee?”

He furrowed his brow. “Yeah. Did you want two?”

“No, no. I just… did you get one for you… or Aria?” I asked.

“I don’t really