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

She nodded. “I know. I love you too.”

I turned my back to her then and wandered back into the trauma ward waiting room. To my surprise, Aria’s mom was in there, updating her family members on Aria’s condition. As soon as she saw me, she looked over and raised her eyebrow. “How’s it going?”

I shrugged, nodding my head back towards Hannah. “That, better than I thought. How’s Aria?”

“Looking for you,” she said. “Head on back. She’s in room 108.”

“Thanks.” I walked over to the locked doors and the receptionist overseeing the doors buzzed me back. “Thank you,” I said and wandered through the doors.

I followed the numbers on the wall until I got to room 108 and then peeked in. Tristan was sitting next to a bed and I could see Aria laying in it, her head wrapped up and her eyes held partly open. I knocked on the frame and they both looked over and Aria gave a weak smile.

“Arden,” she said.

“Hey, gorg,” I replied.

“How’d the convo go?” Tristan asked.

I smiled, already missing Hannah’s face. “Unexpectedly well.”

“What convo?” Aria grumbled out.

Tristan stood up from his chair. “I’m gonna go get some coffee. You two chat.” He nodded at me as he passed, and I let him go, knowing he was headed to check on Hannah, which I was sure she needed.

I walked over to the chair he was just in and sat down. On top of the head wrap around her skull, her face was also totally scratched to shit, which hurt me. I reached out and pressed my hand to her forehead. “Aw, Aria, I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”

She fought against her injury to shake her head. “I don’t want anyone to blame themselves. It was a series of unfortunate events that all culminated into a terrible accident. It’s no one’s fault.”

I just scoffed, but with a smile. “You’re too perfect. You’re allowed to blame someone for this.”

“I don’t want to blame anyone. I just want to put it behind us. Things are already so bad, I don’t want them to get worse.”

“You put so much effort into taking care of all of us, yet none of us are putting in that same effort to take care of you. We really don’t deserve you,” I said.

She flicked a hand into the air, snagging her IV a little bit. “Eh, that’s beside the point.” I laughed. “So, what conversation was Tristan talking about?”

“I talked to Hannah,” I said. “We agreed that our unresolved feelings for one another are hurting the people around us, so we have to resolve them. She told me she loved me. Actually, she’s thinking over whether or not we’re going to get back together right now.”

“That’s so great,” Aria said. “I’m so happy for you.”

“Yeah, me too. Conversely, we decided if we can’t get back together, we have to be done with each other altogether. Amicable when we absolutely have to be, but otherwise we have to stay as far away from one another as possible so that we can get over one another.”

Aria frowned. “That’ll kill you.”

“Yeah, but it’ll kill me more to try and just be friends with her knowing how I feel. Unfortunately for Hannah and me, it has to be all or nothing.”

22

Hannah

It was difficult not to beg Arden to stay with me for longer. After everything that we’d been through up to that moment, finally getting to sit with her and touch her and hold her and kiss her felt like a dream within a dream. Even with how awful everything else was at the moment, I still half expected to wake up suddenly and learn that my brain was torturing me yet again.

When she walked away from me, I let her go, choosing to take her declaration of love before she left as a massive victory for the day. We finally managed to sift through all the mud and haze and clearly discuss our feelings. Knowing that the ball was totally in my court was a little intimidating, but I promised myself that I was going to take this as seriously as I needed to. I couldn’t keep doing the push and pull with Arden. I had to make sure being with her was absolutely what I wanted and if it wasn’t, I needed to be honest and make sure I was ready to face the consequences of both decisions.

In my hand, my phone buzzed, temporarily pulling me from my thoughts. It was a single text from one of the lesser-known popular girls that Ceradi kept around mostly to boost her numbers, Nijah. It simply read, “That was awesome,” and had something attached. I clicked to view the attachment and was thrilled to see it was a video of me socking Ceradi in the face. I pressed play and allowed myself the joy of reliving the moment.

“Get up! Right now! Get up off the ground! I’m kicking your ass! I’m so fucking sick of you.” I barely recognized my own voice.

“You need to get off my property right now before I call the police!” With Nijah’s angle, I could see even better how petrified Ceradi looked. Clearly she’d never had someone truly stand up to her before. Although even as I watched it, I knew I was channeling the only person who’d ever made any attempt.

Aria.

“Hannah?” I looked up from the video and Tristan was walking towards me.

“Hi,” I said. “Did you see Aria?”

“I did. She’s awake and doing well considering. Banged up pretty bad, but she’ll live,” he said and it filled me with relief. He sat down across from me on the floor and crossed his legs. “Whatcha watching?” I was filled with pride that I got to share it with him. I didn’t provide any context, just handed the phone over and pressed play. He watched with curiosity, but I knew when he got to the best part because his eyes widened and his