Page 62 of Our Forever Starts Tonight

Ilooked down at Aria, knowing that I shouldn’t say anything. Hannah and Capito were right about the things they said, but they were assuming that all chance of me being with Aria was totally gone. It was clear in the way she looked back at me and the magnetic energy bouncing between us even then that it wasn’t the case. If there was even a small part of Aria that would be willing to take one more risk with me, then there was a world in which I could be with her and just give up the worst of my friends and still be just fine.

Happiness wasn’t totally out of my reach yet.

“I’m in love with you,” I started. It was maybe too heavy of a way to go in, but I had to get the most important words out first. “I know that sounds kind of crazy because we haven’t really dated or anything, but everyday I see you it gets worse. You’re the only person I want. I haven’t been sleeping well. Haven’t been eating well. I just think about you and how much I fucked up. I’m not even going to beg you to forgive me for that stuff, because honestly, I don’t deserve forgiveness for that.”

“Okay…” Aria said.

She looked so beautiful in the glow of the moonlight, and I decided to take a risk and step a little closer to where she was sitting. She didn’t stop me or back away, so I kept going until I was able to sit down next to her on the bench. My whole body throbbed with a desire to reach out and touch her, even just to hold her hand and pray that my feelings would bleed through me to her, but I kept myself at bay. Unless she invited it, I wouldn’t do anything other than sit next to her.

“After my dad took me away from you, I was terrified. It wasn’t just that I couldn’t stand up for myself, even though I couldn’t, it was that a really big piece of me still hung back with you. The part of me that wanted to boldly do the things I loved, the part of me that was willing to stand up in the face of adversity. Aria, youweremy strength, so when we were taken from each other, it was like I didn’t really have any anymore. Yeah, I worked out in the gym until I got physically strong, but that didn’t change the fact that I never knew how to be strong from my core, like you were.”

“That’s obvious,” Aria grumbled and I smiled. “It’s not that hard, you know?”

“You know, if you’d said that a few weeks ago, I might have argued with you about it, but you’re right, it’s not. Not everyone is as strong as you, but it’s easy to stand up for the things you care about. I’d spent so long doing the exact opposite of that, that when you needed me to show up and prove that I could do it for you, I didn’t know how. I didn’t have any of my own strength to use, but I found it. Wanna know how?”

“How?” Aria asked.

I sighed, looking up at the few stars I could see dotting the sky. “I was talking to Taylor at lunch a couple of weeks ago, and he said that I would maybe get over you when we graduated and I never saw you again. And I realized, nothing in my life scared me more than the thought of losing you again.” I looked over at her. “I can’t do it. I won’t survive going back to a life without you in it. I don’t want to do that.”

Aria nodded lightly. “I understand what you mean.”

“Really?” I asked.

She looked at me through an annoyed, although pained, gaze. “Yeah. How do you think I felt? We bumped into each other again and I couldn’t believe it. After being snatched away from you, I thought we were just going to pick up where we left off. I thought we were headed… somewhere, but then you were all ashamed of me and—”

“I’m not ashamed of you, Aria,” I said. “I never was.”

“That’s not true. You trashed me in front of your friends. You ran away from me so that they wouldn’t see us together in public,” she said.

“That wasn’t about you,” I said. “What about you would I be ashamed of? I wasn’t embarrassed of you, I was embarrassed of me.”

Aria sat up a little straighter, furrowing her brow. “What?”

“Those times when I was pulling back from you, it was because I was embarrassed that I was just this joke. I wasn’t the guy that my friends thought I was, I wasn’t the guy that you thought I was. Hell, I wasn’t even the person I thought I was. I was an embarrassment to myself.”

“Well, knowing that now, have you learned anything else about who you are?”

I nodded. “Yeah. I’ve learned I’m a guy with very strong feelings for a pretty astounding woman. She won’t talk to me, but I can’t blame her.” That brought a small smile to Aria’s face. “I’m a guy that actually does have some true friends. People who wouldn’t mock me or leave me just because I want to be in a relationship with that woman. In fact, Hannah even admitted that she thinks she’s beautiful.”

Aria raised her eyebrow. “She didn’t say that.”

I held up my hand. “Hand to god.” I took a deep breath. It felt like it was going well. Just taking the honest road. Not being afraid of the consequences. Being with Aria was worth any cost. “I’m a guy who knows how badly he fucked up and knows that he doesn’t deserve forgiveness, but if you were willing to give it. I promise I won’t let you down this time. We can walk back into that dance right now hand-in-hand, I wouldn’t give a fuck.”

“Really?” Aria said, her smile growing.

“Really.”

She looked at me for a minute and I could see her mind calculating. I waited, not about to pressure her into doing anything, when all of a sudden, she threw herself forward and her lips landed on mine.

And I melted so hard we almost fell off the bench. I threw my arms up and wrapped around her and held her close and her arms encircled my neck and held on just as tight. Like all the other times we’d touched, having our hands on one another didn’t stay kosher for too long. Aria’s fingers caressed the back of my neck, sending chills down my spine, and my hands eventually found their way down to her exposed thighs. I pushed, pressing her to the back of the bench and leaning against her instead, and Aria’s breath quickened, but she didn’t stop me.

“Shit,” I grumbled. “We can’t do this out here.” Aria pulled back and I clenched onto her. “Not because I’m embarrassed, just because the things I want to do would definitely get us arrested if we were caught out here doing them.” I kissed her again and flicked her hair out of her face. “Wanna get out of here?”

She looked conflicted, which didn’t make me happy. We’d been stopped twice before, this time, I wanted things to unfold as we clearly both wanted them to.

“I shouldn’t leave,” she said. “I’m here with Arden and…”

I sighed. “Right. No. You’re right. That’d be a shitty thing to do. I mostly just came out here to make sure you were okay. You looked pretty disturbed.”

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