Page 52 of Our Forever Starts Tonight

I tossed him a glare, but listened, lifting my t-shirt up over my head, and pleased that I was going to do as told, Taylor left the bathroom, shutting the door behind him.

As much as I hated to admit it, but once I was in the shower, I already felt much better. I turned the water as hot as I could stand it and tried to ignore the sludge color the water was turning as it washed off my body. In no time, I was offended by how gross I’d let myself get, and settled into a deep cleanse including washing my hair twice. By the time I’d gotten out, my entire room had been sprayed down with something that smelled nice and fresh, and a candle had even been lit and set on my desk to change the aroma in my room.

I was grateful.

I changed into a pair of jeans and a t-shirt with a sleeveless vest over it, then slipped on one of my favorite pairs of tan boots and walked downstairs. Andrea, Taylor, and my dad were sitting in the living room and all looked as if I’d just walked into the room wearing a ball gown when they laid eyes on me.

“Okay,” I said. “Maybe I let it get a little bad.”

“Your bedroom smelled like it was the cabin of a man who'd been stranded in the jungle for two years,” my dad said. “We don’t pay half a million dollars for this house so you can turn your bedroom into a cesspool.”

Shockingly, Andrea reached over and whacked my dad’s arm. “What are you talking about? That’sexactlywhy we pay that much for it. If he’s going through something, then I’ll just clean his room. It’s fine.”

“Thanks,” I said to Andrea.

She smiled back at me. “Of course.”

“I won’t let it get like that again. I’m sorry.”

She shook her head. “I’m serious. It’s just a bedroom. I was more concerned about you.”

Andrea was Aria 1.0. All she’d been doing ever since she married my dad was try and be the best mom to me that she could be, and I let the asshole tendencies I’d developed under the guise of survival make me unreceptive to it. “I’m okay, mama. I promise.”

Andrea’s eyes widened and then started to blur, and even my dad and Taylor seemed to get a little emotional. Andrea nodded, stood up and gave me a kiss on the cheek, then fluttered away. My dad stood up to go after her, hooking my head over to him for a kiss on top of the head as he passed, then he walked off after her.

Taylor leaned forward, setting his elbows on his knees. “See? That wasn’t so difficult, was it.”

I thought of the big deal I’d made of being popular or fitting in and the fact that it’d officially cost me Aria. “No. It wasn’t.”

Standing up and walking over to me, Taylor slapped the side of my face gently and it felt closer to the friendly relationship we normally had. “Come on. Lunch on me. I gotta hear about what turned you inside out.”

We left and went to one of our favorite restaurants that sat right on the edge of a cliff in the mountains and overlooked the valley below. They served typical American food. We got a table near the windows and placed our order, including an appetizer of a blooming onion, my favorite, then Taylor chucked his straw wrapper at me.

“Alright. Out with it,” he said.

“Well, if you were looking forward to thinking I’m a better person, this conversation is going to let you down,” I said.

Taylor shrugged. “I don’t know. You sure made Andrea’s whole life back there, and you seem pretty aware of it. I think you’re in the self-loathing phase of changing who you are for the better.”

“I apologized to Aria for the things I’d said about her. I even told her that I liked her, though my feelings are much stronger than that honestly,” I explained. “She said she liked me too and we made out.” I chose not to mention the almost-handjob part of the story. “Everything was going so well, but then as soon as I thought someone was about to see us…” I made an explosion sound with my mouth and motion with my hands. “I suck.”

“If you know that, then why do you do it?” Taylor asked.

“I don’t know. It’s an impulse. I don’t want these people to judge me.”

Taylor shook his head. “If you love Aria,” he made the leap fromlikeon his own, “then why does anything else matter?”

“I’m afraid!” I yelped and Taylor recoiled. “These are the only friends I’ve ever had! Are they great people? No, some of them are really fucking shitty, but what the hell am I supposed to do? They’re the only ones I got. I don’t have a supply of friends on standby. Even Hannah tells me not to go for it with Aria because she’s afraid I’ll fall out of our friend group. Doesn’t that mean if that happens, she’ll leave me? She’s my best friend. Though she’s not even talking to me right now, because I keep pushing and pulling with Aria and hurting her instead of just letting it go.” I hadn’t put my straw into my drink yet and I was bending it in my hands, probably breaking it beyond repair. “What if they put shit on social media? What if they get me kicked off the team? They have so much more power than you think. I worked hard getting to this place. It sucks, but it’s safe. What do you want from me?”

Taylor stared back at me in shock for a second, then he softened entirely. “Oh. Tris, I’m so sorry. I get it now.”

I lowered my gaze at him, unsure of if he was being sarcastic or not, but he sounded genuine. “Really?”

“Yeah. You’ve weighed what you have now against what you could have with Aria, and have decided this is more important,” Taylor said. “That’s totally understandable.” I didn’t like the way it sounded even though Taylor did appear to be significantly less frustrated with me. “Hannah’s right, though, you have to just let Aria go then. You can’t just keep her dangling on. If your friends are what are important to you, then you have to let her go. That’s the best option.” He reached across and set a hand on my head. “I’m sorry. I didn’t understand. I shouldn’t have gotten so mad. It’d be scary thinking you’re going to lose all your friends.”

It actually made me a little emotional. Itwasscary. The thought of starting over from scratch kept me up at night. I wanted Aria, I really did, but I simply didn’t think I was strong enough for that. “Yeah.”

“I won’t bring it up again, I promise. You have to let Aria go though. It’ll hurt for a while, maybe a long while, until you leave for college and never see her again. First loves suck, but you’ll move on eventually. Trust me,” Taylor said.

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