I Love You More Than I'm Afraid (Our Forevers #2)

by Rebel Hart

  I hated that it took my best friend getting hurt for me to see it, but Tristan was right, this unfinished business between Hannah and I was the worst kind of toxic. Overhearing her outburst to Tristan put everything into perspective. She was hurting just as much as I was. Even if I didn’t understand, because it was her who ended things to begin with, it didn’t make it any less of a fact.

  “Hey,” I started quietly. I lifted my hand to touch her, but stopped, dropping my hand back to my lap.

  She sniffled. “Hi.”

  “This is bad,” I said.

  She nodded her head against her lap. “Yeah.” Then she lifted her head and looked up at me. Her eyes were puffy and red, and the edge of her nose was brimming and looked sore from constant wiping. “I’m so sorry.”

  I just shook my head. “You don’t really owe me an apology.”

  “That’s not true,” she said. “I owe you… so many apologies.”

  She slipped forward out of the chair and dropped onto the floor. There wasn’t a lot of space between the chair and where I was sitting, so she had to squeeze in between me and it, but I didn’t really care. She placed her legs on either side of me, and her hands fell against my legs. Immediately, she pulled them back, but I reached forward and took them into my own. It’d been so long since I’d felt her that I found myself just rubbing my thumb over her skin. The knuckles of her right hand were red—proof that the story she’d told me about hitting Ceradi was genuine.

  “How did things get so fucked up between us?” I asked.

  She just twisted her head from side to side. “I don’t know. I know that I made a bunch of really bad decisions all in a row, but I thought you understood. I didn’t think it would make you hate me.”

  “I don’t hate you,” I said, but she looked up at me as if she didn’t believe me. “I don’t. I could never hate you. I was just… so heartbroken. I couldn’t believe you’d do that stuff to me, and it made me angry that I couldn’t be with you when I knew you felt the same way about me. It made me angry that no matter how hard I try, I just can’t get over you.”

  “Yeah, me too.”

  Her eyes locked into mine, and I guess the emotions of the day and sitting so close while holding hands just overcame us. She leaned in to kiss me and I didn’t stop her, letting her set her lips on mine. I had to fight back tears at the feeling of it; it had been so long. I never thought I’d have to stop kissing Hannah, so the last time we kissed before that, I’d treated it just like any other. I wish I’d treated every single kiss like it’d be our last one, just in case.

  I wouldn’t make that mistake with this one.

  She started to pull back, but I fought against it, pushing forward. I lifted my hands to rest on either side of her face and held her against me. Her hands drifted up to my sides and clung to me there, supporting my decision to take a little more. If this was the last time I ever got to kiss her, I wanted to remember everything about it.

  And I wanted her to remember too.

  Eventually I pulled back, noticing the pink blush on Hannah’s face. It brought a smile to mine—I’d forgotten how cute it was. I flicked a finger across her cheek before bringing my hands back down to hers. “Oh man, I’ve wanted to do that for like, so long.”

  Hannah grinned a little. “Yeah. Me too.”

  “We have to figure this out, Marie,” I said. “These unresolved feelings are hurting the people we love. We need to do something about them.”

  “Like what?” she said.

  Wasn’t that the question of the hour. “Maybe we need to try that friendly thing that you talked about. I was being selfish and petty. If we can deal with one another, it’ll be better for Aria and Tristan. You were right.”

  But Hannah shook her head. “No. You were right.” She lifted her hand to my cheek and I leaned into the touch. “I can’t do that. I can’t just be friends with you. I want more than that.”

  It was the first hope I’d had in a really long time. “Me too, but… I don’t want to share you. Even if it’s just for show.”

  Hannah nodded. “I don’t want to share myself, even if it’s just for show.”

  It sounded a little too good to be true. “Are you saying…?” It reminded me of when we first admitted that we loved one another. “Are we going to try again?”

  “Well,” Hannah said and it deflated me a little. “There’s so much going on. A lot of emotions. Maybe we should wait to make a final decision until we’re a little less amped. You know, really think it over. We clearly don’t handle breaking up very well, so we should be really sure.”

  “I mean, I’m willing to wait if you need time to think it over, but you’re the only thing in my life that I’ve ever been really sure about,” I said. “That’s what all this malfunctioning and breaking down has been about, not knowing how to deal with losing you. I don’t need time to decide. All I’ve wanted in my whole life is to be with you.” She opened her mouth to say something, but I stopped her by leaning in and giving her a less passionate but no less meaningful kiss. “Don’t. You said you wanted time because you need it. Take time. I’m here when you decide. But if you decide that you can’t do it, then I think that means we have to totally go our separate ways. We deal with one another when we have to, but other than that, we have to stay away from each other. It’s the only way we’ll get over each other.”

  Hannah nodded, though the notion seemed to bring her discomfort. “Yeah.”

  Though it was hard to walk away from her after finally being able to have a conversation about us that didn’t end in screaming or crying, if I stayed any longer I was going to start trying to convince her to be with me, and that wasn’t the point. Hannah had to think about our relationship seriously and if it was something she could do or not, which meant I had to give her the space to do that.

  I stood up, smiling at the way she held onto my hand all the way until she wasn’t able to anymore, and then our fingertips parted. Though I wanted her to have an unhindered thought process, I still looked down at her and said, “I love you, Hannah. I always will.”

  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 some
one 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 mouth opened into a wide circle. “Daaaaamn!”

  I chuckled a little bit and it felt like the first time I’d genuinely smiled in forever. “Right? Can you even believe that it’s me?”

  The video ended and he pressed the button to play the video again. “One more time.” He watched with a massive smile on his face and started outright laughing when he got to the punch. “This is incredible.”

  “Isn’t it?” I said, then a thought occurred to me. “Oh! I just realized something.” I dragged the phone out of his hand and quickly forwarded the video to Ceradi. “We’ve both got footage we don’t want people to see. Keep yours off social media and I’ll do the same,” I said out loud as I typed.

  Almost immediately I got a response that said, “Who sent you this?”

  But I just said, “I’ve extended my terms. The rest is up to you. Consider yourself blocked.” Then I blocked her number and deleted her contact from my phone.

  “What was that?” Tristan asked.

  “Ceradi recorded Aria getting hurt,” I replied. “This is me telling her to keep that footage to herself if she doesn’t want me socking her blasted all over the internet.”

  Tristan shook his head. “Honestly, if you tell Aria that, she’s gonna hope that Ceradi shares her footage so you can share yours.”

  I snickered at that. “Well, if she’s fine with it, then we can always jump the gun. I’ll ask her when I show her the video.”

  “She’s gonna love it,” he said.

  “That is, if she ever wants to talk to me again. I wouldn’t blame her if she didn’t.”

  Tristan rested his head in his hands. “She’s not mad at you.” He seemed almost annoyed with the information. “She’s not mad at Arden. She’s not even really mad at Ceradi. She says we don’t need more anger right now.”

  “Tristan,” I said simply. “What is that girl made of?”

  He just rolled his eyes. “I don’t know.”

  “It’s really hard for me,” I admitted.

  He reached a hand out and poked my cheek. “I know. That’s okay.”

  “I still want to talk to her though. Whether or not she’s angry, I still owe her an apology,” I said.

  He nodded in agreement. “Yes, you do.”

  “I’ve been thinking about what you said. That the only reason you can’t love me as much as her is because I won’t let you. Is that true?”

  “Yeah, Hannah,” he replied. “You mean the world to me.”

  “As much as Aria?” I asked.

  He tilted his head, like he was thinking it over, which I didn’t like, but then he said, “You know that toy we used to get when we were babies? With all the different shaped holes and you had to fit the right shape in the right hole but they all dropped into the same bucket?”

  “Yeah?”

  “It’s that. My love for Aria is different from my love for you, but it isn’t more or less. The circle isn’t more important than the square, but the square doesn’t fit in the circle hole. It’s all going to the same bucket, all the love that is important to me and makes me who I am, but the holes are different. You’re the triangle, Aria’s the circle, Taylor’s the square, my dad’s the diamond. Different, but equally important.”

  “That makes sense,” I said.

  “I know that there are all these preconceived notions that boys and girls can’t be friends or have platonic, intimate relationships, but that’s such bullshit. If I wanna snuggle with my best friend and my girlfriend is chill with it, why can’t I? Aria and I are totally secure in our relationship. Even if you weren’t gay or even if Aria also liked women, it wouldn’t make a difference. We know that we love one another and would never cheat on each other, and we know that we have important, intimate relationships with our best friends. There’s no reason to worry, and you don’t have to either.”

  “That is going to take some getting used to, but I promise to try.”

  He smiled at me. “That’s all I can ask.” Then he tapped my hand gently. “I heard your conversation with Arden went pretty well?”

  “She wants to get back together,” I said.

  He raised his eyebrows. “And? What do you want?”

  I could mull over it for 24 hours or 24 years and it wouldn’t make a difference. “I want to get back together with her too.”

  “Then what’s t
he issue?” Tristan asked.

  “Is it enough just because I want it?”

  “It should be.”

  I thought of what happened between us last time and knew I never wanted to put Arden through that pain again. “I need to be sure this time. Confident, you know? I feel like because I can’t just say, ‘Yes. I’m doing it,’ it means that I might not be ready. I should be sure of it.”

  Tristan shrugged. “I don’t know. Sometimes life just isn’t that certain. Sometimes it’s not about being sure, it’s about taking a risk and praying to god that it pays off.”

  “Maybe. I just don’t function that way,” I replied.

  He laughed. “Maybe that’s the problem.” That was worth considering. “Anyway, I’m not here to push you one way or another, I just wanted to check on you.” He stood up off of the ground. “I gotta get back to Aria, but I’ll call you in the morning, okay?”

  “Actually,” I said. “Do you think Aria would be willing to talk to me now?”

  “I’m sure she would,” he said, stretching out a hand. “Come on.”

  Though my heart was already pounding from the idea of it, I took Tristan’s hand and stood to my feet. He didn’t let go right away, but rather pulled me into a hug, which I was happy for. It confirmed that he was definitely my “Triangle.” No matter what happened, I never wanted anything to come between us again.

  When he finally released me, I gave him a warm smile and said, “I love you, Tris.”

  He smiled back. “I love you too.” He wrapped his arm around my back and pulled me towards the door into the trauma unit.

  Inside, Aria’s mom and all of her family members were sitting around, notably less tense. Tristan smiled over at Aria’s mom and she stood up and walked over to us.

  “Serene, this is my best friend Hannah. Hannah, this is Aria’s mom, Serene.”