Page 68 of Our Forever Starts Tonight

“Why do you still keep up with her location if you aren’t friends anymore?” I asked.

But Hannah ignored me entirely, plugging her phone into my stereo system and starting the navigation to Arden’s location. She clearly didn’t want to talk about it, and in the state I was in, I was in no place to help her. We had to take our problems one step at a time, and the current problem was letting Aria know that her best friend was a total fake before he could hurt her any further.

28

Tristan

When I pulled my car up in front of the house that Hannah’s directions took us to, I recognized Aria’s car in the driveway outside. There was another one parked on the road, but I could tell by the look on Hannah’s face that it was Arden’s.

“When was the last time you talked to her?” I asked. “Like not indirectly.”

Hannah took a deep breath. “Two years ago.”

“Are you sure you can do this? I don’t want to drag you into anything that’s going to hurt you. I’ve done enough hurting the people around me,” I said.

She nodded, though still with her glossy, far-off gaze. “Yeah. I can do it.”

“Okay. Thank you.” I reached over and rubbed the top of her head. “You’re an amazing friend.”

She forced a smile, but it was ingenuine. “We’re about to be face to face with someone who would argue that point to their grave.”

“Maybe we deal with that problem next?” I asked. “It’s probably high time that you guys hashed it out.”

“Believe me when I say this,” she said, taking a deep breath. “It is a much bigger problem than it seems like on the surface.” She shook her head, closing her eyes for a minute, then when she opened them again, she locked them into mine. “Let’s go deal with Aria. Now’s not the time for all of this mess.”

“Okay,” I said. We climbed out of the car and walked up the path, and to my surprise, Hannah rushed a little ahead so that she was leading the way. “Hannah—”

“Trust me. Arden’s opening up this door, and if she sees your face, she’s swinging. You’ve been punched enough for the day.”

“Really dedicated friend, huh?” I said.

She shook her head. “You have no idea.”

Taking her advice, I kept myself back a little as Hannah walked up to the door and knocked. There was silence for a minute and I was beginning to wonder if they’d seen us approaching and were choosing to ignore us, but then the door opened and, as Hannah expected, Arden appeared on the other side.

There was pain and anger in her face as she looked down at Hannah. “What are you doing here?” Then her eyes drifted up to me. She threw out a finger in my direction and her eyes went wild with fury. “No!”

“Arden, listen to me,” Hannah said. “He didn’t do this.”

Arden scoffed. “It has his fucking name on it. I’m not dumb. All his friends have been commenting on the picture congratulating him for the past hour.”

Hannah nodded. “I know. I know how bad it looks, but we have proof.” Arden was still glaring at me, so Hannah reached up, put her hands on either side of Arden’s face and forced her to look at her. I could see in both their reactions as they touched that there was a lot more between them than I knew. “Listen to me. Would I be here if I wasn’t serious? Trust me. We have proof that this wasn’t him, and Aria deserves to know who is really trying to hurt her.”

Arden went quiet, watching Hannah with conflict deeply seeded in her gaze. “If he hurts her—”

“He’s not going to hurt your precious Aria,” Hannah snapped, pulling her hands back. “Please? Can we come in and explain?”

I made a note to myself to unpack things with Hannah a little more thoroughly when all of this was over. Clearly, I’d missed a lot.

Finally, though, Arden stepped aside and let us into the house. It didn’t seem like Aria’s mom was home, which was good. Arden hissed, “Wait here,” and walked up the stairs, leaving Hannah and me standing alone in the front hall.

“Are you okay?” I asked. Hannah shook her head and turned towards me, tears in her eyes. She buried her head into my chest and I wrapped my arms around her. “Hey, it’s okay. I’m sorry for bringing you here. I didn’t know.”

“It’s okay,” she whimpered. “I don’t want you and Aria to end up like us. I’ll be okay.”

“End up like you?” I asked. “Hannah, what haven’t you told me?” She looked up at me, her eyes glistening, and it broke me. I just pulled her head back against me. “Don’t worry. We’ll talk about it later.”

“Thank you,” she said.

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