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

“Ceradi!” Ceradi and I looked over and her on-again-off-again flame, Milton, was waving her down. “Get that ass over here!”

“I’m being summoned by my man,” Ceradi sang, then she wrapped her arms around me for a hug before leaning back and pinching my cheek. “Cheer up, okay? You’re, like, way too stunning to be so sad.” She twirled away from me, stopping only to turn back around and call back, “Hey! Sit with us at lunch today, okay? I’ll introduce you to Shaaaane.”

I waved after her. “I’ll think about it.”

She seemed to accept that as an answer, floating the rest of the way over to Milton and walking out of sight. I forgot how much easier it was to deal with Ceradi. She may not be the greatest person in the world, but at least I knew what to expect. When I was around her, I never had to face my own shortcomings or feel like I was constantly running just to try and keep pace.

Maybe I actually would sit with her at lunch today.

Not long after Ceradi walked away, Tristan walked up. It was timed in a way that made me think he was probably waiting for her to walk away, which was understandable given the circumstances.

“Hey,” he said, leading in with a hug. “Ceradi, huh?”

After taking the few things I needed for my first few classes from my locker, I shut it and started off with Tristan at my side. “Yeah. We were just chatting.” I looked sideways at him. “That’s not a problem is it?”

He furrowed his brow, taken aback by the question. “Uh… no. It’s just… You know, it’s Ceradi, so…”

I shrugged. “Yeah, so? She’s still my friend, just because she’s not your friend anymore.” There was an unintended bite to my voice, and I could see in the way Tristan recoiled that he heard it. “You know, there are parts of her that aren’t awful.”

“Okay,” Tristan said. “Sure.”

An awkward silence settled between us that I didn’t like. Not since we first met, had Tristan and I had awkward tension between us. We’d always had a good rapport, and our personalities were so complimentary that it never felt like a struggle to connect. Lately though, it felt more difficult than usual. Aria was such a large part of his life now, and I was trying to make her as small a part of mine as possible. It just felt like things were getting weirder and weirder between us.

We didn’t say much else to one another during our shared classes in the morning. We hung out near each other, both just sort of running on auto-pilot, but all of our conversations were short and strange. I was actually relieved when Tristan split off to go and meet up with Aria to walk with her to lunch. It felt like I was using the last bit of my energy just to keep things from getting too bad.

God, I was so tired.

I trudged into the lunchroom, seeing that Arden and some of the other debate students were already sitting at one of the tables talking and laughing. There was nothing I would rather do less than sit at that table before Tristan was there to at least work as a buffer, and with as strange as things had been between us today, even him being there wouldn’t do me a whole lot of good.

After going through the lunch line and getting my food, I started out for the table. I only got about halfway before I just stopped. Looking over at Arden made my stomach clench up, as I stood there, Aria walked over and sat down, having gotten by me somehow as I was just standing frozen, and when she sat down, Arden got the biggest smile on her face. It hurt, to say the least.

Me going over there was only going to cause problems.

That was when an arm looped through mine. “Hey babes. We’re sitting over here,” Ceradi said with a big, cheeky grin.

I started to give to her pull when all of a sudden I heard, “Hannah?” I looked back and Tristan was standing there with his and Aria’s trays and a look of confusion on his face. “You coming?”

Ceradi leaned around me with a scowl on her face. “She’s sitting with us. You know, for old time’s sake. She can’t be expected to sit with losers every day of the year.”

Tristan totally ignored Ceradi and just looked at me. “Are… you sitting over here today?”

The feeling of being pulled in two directions was somehow physically painful, even though we were all standing still. My heart was pounding, my head was thundering against my skull.

And my god, was I so goddamn tired.

I glanced past Tristan to the table where Aria and Arden were looking at something and chattering about it excitedly, and my stomach twisted again. If I was being totally honest with myself, I really wanted just one day where I didn’t have to sit in Aria’s glow and Arden’s contempt.

“Yeah, I’m gonna sit with Ceradi today,” I said. “I’ll catch up with you after school.”

“Oh.” The frown on Tristan’s face was heartbreaking and I almost caved and backtracked, but Ceradi was already pulling me away. “See ya,” he grumbled as I left his side.

“Don’t worry,” Ceradi said. “That was totally the right choice. You belong over here with us anyway.”

“Hey!” Nijah, one of the popular girls, greeted when Ceradi pulled me to the table. “Are you sitting with us again?”

I opened my mouth to respond, but Ceradi cut in before I could. “Isn’t it great? I told her she belongs over here and not with those losers.”

“Totally,” Milton said. “Welcome home, Hannah.”

It took all of the energy I had left to force a grin. “Thanks.”

Ceradi shooed the person who was in the seat next to her away so that I could sit there, and I lowered myself down. I looked over just in time