Page 37 of Our Forever Starts Tonight

Neither Hannah nor I was able to bounce back after the altercation with Aria and Arden. Hannah and Arden had history as well, though she’d told me very little about it, and the combo of them both staring us down with disappointed gazes and telling us that the way we were choosing to live our lives was problematic, broke us both. I’d even found Hannah sitting and crying a little bit outside the lunchroom.

I slid down the wall and sat next to her. “You feeling like shit too?”

“And it wasn’t even Ceradi bullying us,” Hannah whimpered back.

“Let’s ditch,” I said. “I don’t want to be here anymore. I probably wouldn’t make it if I had to look at Aria again, and all of my classes after lunch are with her.”

Hannah looked over at me through red, puffy eyes. “Yeah. I wanna leave.”

I stood up first, grabbing Hannah’s hand to help her stand up, then we made our way out to the parking garage. It wasn’t difficult to leave, given that seniors were technically allowed to leave campus for lunch, but it was an option few students took since any reasonable food place was too far to get back in time. Still, it was the window we needed to escape given that both Hannah and I knew we had no intention of coming back. She climbed into her car and I got in mine, and we drove to a cafe not too far from school that we liked to go to.

A few of the adults inside recognized us right away, figuring we were students on the run. No one said anything though, and after giving us some judgemental glances, they returned to their coffee and laptops and left us to our business. Hannah found a table for us to sit at while I went up to the counter and got us each a cup of coffee and one of their freshly made ham and cheese sandwiches. I knew exactly how to make Hannah’s coffee so that it was to her liking, so I mixed in some cream and sugar into both cups and then carried everything over to the table and sat down.

“I mean, that’s totally unfair, right?” Hannah snapped as I sat down. “Trust me I know,” she said in a mocking tone. “Arden doesn’t know anything. She doesn’t get it.”

“Yeah. Aria’s always been comfortable with herself. She can’t just hold people to that same standard surreptitiously and get angry when people don’t meet her at that level.”

Hannah got quieter then. “Well…”

I furrowed my brow. “What?”

She shrugged as she picked at the edges of her sandwich. “It’s not a horrible thing that she expects people to be their best selves. Some might even consider that a virtue.”

“Are you taking her side all of a sudden?” I asked. It was a far cry from the woman who’d been relentless in keeping me totally unattached to Aria at all costs.

“No, it’s just…” Hannah stared so far down at her sandwich that I could barely see her face. I watched her curiously until all of a sudden I saw tears darken the napkin in front of her. She looked up at me with anguish in her gaze. “Am I a terrible friend?”

“What?” I said. “Of course not.”

“I am.” She sniffled in. “Aria’s right. You’re such a talented artist and you’re so smart. If I was really your friend, why would I let you hide those things about yourself?”

“Hey.” I reached across the table and wiped the tears off of her face. “You’re a wonderful friend. We’ve been through this, we have a certain image to maintain.”

“Yeah, but we weren’t maintaining an image there. I don’t care what those idiots think. I should have stood up for you. Why can some girl just come along and fight for your real self better than me when I’ve been your best friend for years?” She started to sob a bit harder. “It was the same thing that happened with Arden.”

“Arden?” I said.

She nodded. “I didn’t think you guys would accept her.” She used one of her napkins to wipe her eyes. “We used to be best friends. Like way back best friends. Our mothers were best friends too. We’d been inseparable since birth.”

“Wow,” I said. “I knew you guys had history but I didn’t know it was like that.”

“Then I got my braces off and my boobs finally decided to show up and it was like you guys were interested in me all of a sudden. Arden was so unique. Her dyed hair and piercings. I told her that, maybe if she toned all that down, she could come be friends with all of you guys with me, but she said she wasn’t going to sacrifice herself and we started to fight about it a lot. Eventually I just started to distance myself from her. I thought I was doing the right thing. It would only hurt us both for us to drag that cart with only one wheel.”

“That’s why she said Aria’s argument with you was pointless,” I said. “She’d been there before.”

Hannah buried her face in her hands. “Now I’m doing the same thing to you. I think it’s better for you to be some cookie cutter jock than the amazing guy that you are? What’s wrong with me.”

“Hannah.” I set my hands on her shoulders. “At leastyouknow the real me. That’s all I really care about. What do I have to gain from someone like Ceradi or Josh knowing that stuff? I’d rather just toe the line with them. Once school is over, it’s not like I’m going to be dealing with them anymore anyway.” Hannah looked at me and blinked a few times and the same realization that must have hit her struck me at that exact same time. “Oh,” I said. “We’re wrong. We’re just all the way wrong.”

I didn’t give a damn about Ceradi, Milton, Josh—any of them. Hannah was my best friend, and the rest were just friends I kept around for the status. I didn’t really care what they thought about me ultimately, I just didn’t want to cause problems.

Hannah nodded. “Yeah. Any way you look at it, Aria and Arden are right to hate us. We’re shitty.”

I slumped back in my chair, feeling defeated. “What’s that saying? The first step is acknowledging it.”

Hannah took a giant gulp of her coffee. “Yeah, but there’s nothing we can do. Knowing what we know doesn’t make any difference. We’re still in the position we’re in. If we were to try and make some monumental change now, it wouldn’t just affect us, it would affect everyone around us. For better or for worse, we chose to stick with the popular kids, so we have to ride this train out.”

“I get what you mean now. How it’s better for me and Aria if I just leave that distance there,” I said.

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