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

by Rebel Hart

  “Oh… Arden,” he said letting out a sigh of relief. “What are you doing here?”

  “My friend came to get us out, we gotta go.”

  Codie’s eyes widened. “I’m sorry, what?”

  “My friend, the one I was telling you about, she’s here to save me and I’m taking you with me, but we gotta go right now.”

  “I can’t,” Codie said. “My parents call daily, if I go…”

  I frowned. “You can’t stay here.”

  “I’ll be okay,” Codie said. “I’m in the happy camper part of the program,” he scoffed. “But I want to find you when I’m out. Give me your number.”

  I lifted a pen off of Codie’s side-table and scribbled my number directly onto his hand in lieu of a piece of paper, then I gave him a quick hug and ran off back towards the girls’ room. My faithful watchwoman was still in her spot, and furrowed her brow at me when she saw I was alone.

  “He’s not coming,” I whispered. “Thank you.”

  “Of course.”

  We re-entered the girls’ rooms, and I gave her a hug, and then scanned the room. No one seemed angry or upset, only happy for me, so I whispered a “Thanks,” to them as well, and walked back to the window.

  Someone jumped up and pulled the nightstand away and helped hoist me up into the window. Hannah backed up, but held her arms out as if to catch me. With very little hesitation, I leapt forward, missing Hannah entirely, and landed hard on my ankle. If I wasn’t so weakened, it would have been fine, but in my still exhausted state, I immediately lost my footing and collapsed, falling to the ground.

  “Hey,” one of the other campers called down. “Arden is weaker because of the isolation chamber. Be careful okay?”

  Hannah crouched down next to me, her voice shaking. “What is the isolation chamber?”

  I shook my head. “I’ll tell you later. We gotta go.”

  Hannah looped her arm under me and helped me to my feet, but the second I stood on the ankle I’d landed hard on, it screamed with pain.

  “Ah!” I tripped a little bit, the only reason I didn’t fall was because Hannah was holding me up. “Fuck, that hurts.”

  “You must have twisted it or something,” Hannah said.

  “I’ll be okay.” I fought against the pain to get to my feet. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”

  Holding my weight like her life depended on it, Hannah and I started to limp our way away from the camp. Though Hannah kept pushing me forward, I couldn't help but look back over my shoulder to see if there was any indicator that someone was coming, but the small, dark wood campsite was totally dark apart from a few safety lights outside. There was a warped quality to the night sky behind the cabin, and I knew I still hadn't recovered my mental fortitude either, but I wouldn't tell Hannah that.

  Not until we were much further away from the camp.

  “Did you really hitchhike?” I called out against the pouring rain.

  Hannah nodded, her blond hair glued to her face. “Yep!”

  "How did you know where I was?"

  Hannah's strained expression turned into one of anger. “How else? Your mom told mine. She tried to convince my mom to send me too, but they agreed they'd wait until you weren't here anymore… Just in case.”

  “Did you tell her you’re… Ya know… Not gay?” I asked.

  Hannah looked over at me briefly before turning away. “N-no.”

  I couldn’t help but wear a small smile. “Oh.”

  The conversion camp was nestled pretty far from society, in the heart of a wooded area far north of the city Hannah and I were from. There was a road that led from the front of the cabin, through the woods, and down to the road, but Hannah didn’t take me that way. Instead, she dragged me to the West of the cabin and clear into the woods. It was dark, and getting darker as we walked in, but she moved with more confidence than she had ever done anything in her life.

  “Uh.” I dug my good foot into the mud to stop. “We’ll get lost this way for sure. Or eaten. Or both.”

  “The road has security gates,” Hannah replied. “Just trust me. I marked the path.”

  Even if I didn’t already trust Hannah with my life, it wasn’t like I had much choice. Going back wasn’t just stupid, but it was uphill and totally out of the question physically. I nodded at her, and she repositioned a bit, hoisting me up her side to bear my weight, and we started to limp into the forest.

  The scent of the earth was exceptionally potent due to the rain and the trees shielded us a bit from the downpour. We didn’t rush, carefully stepping around and over the foliage, outcropping of rocks, and crooked up roots. It almost seemed like Hannah was moving from memory, taking very specific turns based on something I couldn’t see, but then we reached a point and she stopped and looked around. I followed her gaze until it landed on something.

  She leaned me up against a tree and walked around a bit, then brushed some leaves away and let out a satisfied, “Ah.”

  Barely visible through the dark and the rain and the wind was a large stick that had been stuck in the ground and then snapped in the middle, with the broken piece pointing in a specific direction. I glanced backwards and squinted my eyes and could just barely see another broken stick in the distance, pointing in our direction.

  How intelligent.

  “Okay.” Hannah came back to my side and slung her arm behind my back again. “We’re close. Can you make it?”

  “I got no choice,” I huffed.

  She rolled her eyes and scoffed at me. “That’s such a you answer.”

  Though my chest burned as I did it, I laughed. “And it’s so you to be annoyed with it.”

  “If we can just get to the road, the rest is pretty easy,” she said. “Let’s go.”

  Following the direction of the broken branch, Hannah and I continued through the woods, both of us beginning to shiver in the rain, until finally, the darkness was pierced by man-made light. I’d never been so happy to see a street lamp, poking out between the leaves of the trees like a beacon of hope in the distance. Keeping our breathing even to maintain a good pace, we charged through the mud and brush until we were finally able to leave the forest behind and step out onto pavement.

  And the street was totally empty.

  I still had no clue what time it was, because I wasn’t sure when I’d fallen asleep or when I’d woken up. The clouds blocked out the moon’s glow, so I couldn’t get any help that way, but I had to imagine it was after midnight at least.

  “It was like an interstate earlier,” Hannah whimpered. “So much traffic. It was hard enough for the person who brought me up here to drop me off.”

  “Did you get into a car with a stranger?” I asked.

  Hannah shrugged, starting back off towards the forest where we could hide under the trees. “An older couple got me to the city limits, then I hopped in with a trucker to get up north. He had to take I-20 though, and had to let me off, so I did a literal thumbs out, walking backwards up the road hitchhike and a family headed to their cabin brought me this far.”

  “Do you have any idea how dangerous that is?” I asked.

  “I don’t care,” Hannah replied. “Once my mom told me you had gone to a summer camp, I knew something was wrong. I looked the place up and…” Her eyes registered horror. “I guess it’s really as bad as people say.” She looked over at me. “Were you really in an isolation chamber?”

  Hannah was such a sweet and innocent spirit, that I at first planned to not tell her about it, but if she’d read about it on the internet, hearing it directly was probably better. “Yeah.” Bracing me against one of the drier trees, Hannah pulled her arm from around me and then started to undo her jacket. “Whoa. You’ll be cold,” I said.

  “It’s fine,” she said. After she got the jacket off, she laid it on the ground, and then guided me down onto it. I slid over as far as I could so that she could drop down next to me, and though trickles of rain broke through the tree cover, we were mostly protected. “Her
e.”

  She nuzzled closely to me, wrapping an arm around my back, and pulling my injured ankle up into her lap. I dropped my hand against my leg, and Hannah’s other hand came forward to draw circles in my palm. We didn’t look at each other at first, but then she looked up at me. “You’re thin… not in a good way.”

  It felt dumb to be as happy as I was just to be so close to her, given the circumstances we were in. “Yeah. Um. In the… chamber, they don’t really feed you. Bread and water every…” Time was still hazy for me. “Week, maybe? I think I’ve only eaten twice.”

  Her jaw dropped. “They only fed you once a week?!” Her head fell against mine. “How long ago were you in there?”

  “I actually just got out around lunchtime,” I said. “My friend Codie said I was in there for eighteen days. The longest anyone was in there, at least this summer, as far as anyone knows.”

  Tears filled her eyes. “They only fed you bread and water twice in the last eighteen days?” She dropped her head. “Shoot. I should have come sooner.”

  “It’s okay, Hannah. You’re here now. It’s okay,” I said. “You did a James Bond breakout. It almost made it worth it to see that determined look on your face.”

  Hannah looked at me sadly. “I’m… so sorry. I can’t believe they would send you to a place like that.”

  “Yeah, well my parents are a unique breed. Although, I’d like to think they didn’t—”

  “I’m sorry,” Hannah said, shaking her head, “but all I had to do was type the name of the place into Google and the first thing that popped up was an article urging parents not to send their children there. Horror stories of stuff exactly like you said. Assuming your parents found this place on the internet…”

  “They knew exactly what it was,” I finished her thought, and it actually broke me more than I was already broken, which was saying something. “Well I suppose that tracks with a long life of holy rolling and homophobia, so I guess I’m not surprised.”

  It was clear Hannah was still terrified by the thought. “It’s horrible. Just because…” She bowed her head. “I don’t think it’s so bad that we…”

  I watched Hannah in surprise. I’d known that I was in love with her since she played mommy and I played daddy when we were little kids, but she’d never mentioned feeling similarly. In fact, after learning that her parents were against homosexuality, she’d gone out of her way to project an air of straightness.

  Now, however, she almost seemed on the verge of admitting the same feelings that I had.

  “I feel like I need to apologize,” I said, bringing Hannah’s gaze back up to me. “When I was down there… they make you say stuff. They want you to deny it and swear—”

  Hannah set her forehead against mine. “Don’t you dare apologize for doing what you had to do to survive that. They only fed you twice. You could have starved to death if you’d stayed longer. I don’t blame you for something like that.”

  “I hate myself for it though,” I said. “I would never deny how I feel about you.”

  “You say it as if I haven’t already done that way too much,” Hannah replied.

  “Maybe I’m just hallucinating because I was locked in a dark, empty closet for many days, but it almost sounds like you’re confessing,” I said.

  Hannah looked into my eyes. “Would that be bad?”

  “N-no,” I said. “I’ve been waiting.”

  She was staring down at my hand, still dragging her fingertips across my palm. “I got so afraid when I started reading those stories, and it just…” She sniffled in and a couple of tears hit my arm. “I was afraid that maybe something would happen to you without you knowing and…” She lifted my hand against her face and kissed it softly. “I’m so happy you’re okay.”

  My heart started beating double time. After everything I’d just gone through, to have it result in Hannah finally admitting to her feelings made me feel like I’d do it again. “I’m so sorry because I just need to make sure I’m not misunderstanding you, but… are you saying you’re… Do you love me too?”

  Hannah’s eyes lifted again, locking back in my own. She seemed conflicted and terrified, and after seeing what I’d gone through at the camp, I couldn’t blame her. The big question was, which fear was smaller: the fear of losing me, or the fear being outed?

  “I do,” she said. “I love you.”

  A smile slowly came to my face. “I love you too.”

  I slid my hand around to Hannah’s cheek and looked into her comforting, brown eyes. I knew I had never kissed anyone before, mainly because for as long as I could remember, the only person I wanted to kiss was Hannah. She, however, had been on a much larger crusade to pretend as if her circumstances weren’t different. With our parents, I couldn’t be mad at her for it, but it did mean that maybe she’d kissed someone before me.

  Suddenly, I didn’t care.

  I leaned in, nervous that Hannah would stop it, but she didn’t. Her eyes drifted closed and she leaned towards me as well. I’d dreamed of the moment tons in my first fourteen years of life, but that second my lips pressed to Hannah’s, I realized my brain could have never prepared me for the feeling. Soft, slightly salty, but all-around incredible. Being connected that way to the girl I’d fallen for was a joy I had begun to convince myself I’d never experience. It was freezing and we were soaking from the rain, but in that moment the warmth of us holding one another was enough to make me feel blazing hot.

  As I pulled away, I let out a little chuckle and said, “Yep.”

  She tilted her head, an adorable blush staining her entire face. “Yep, what?”

  “Yep, I’m definitely gay,” I replied.

  Hannah just shook her head and laughed. “Dork.” The hiss of a car coming up the road pierced the silence of the night and Hannah started to jump up. “A car!” She was careful as she untangled herself from me, but when she was on her feet, she broke out into a full sprint. Waving her arms above her head back and forth, she started to scream, “Hey! Help!” The car pulled over to the side of the road, and when the window rolled down, Hannah smiled. “Hi, Marnie!”

  “Hannah,” the driver from the inside said. “Are you headed back now?”

  Hannah nodded. “Yeah. Can you bring us back down? My…” She looked back at me and frowned. “My friend is hurt.”

  Hearing ‘friend’ in that moment stung a bit, but Marnie was just some stranger. It didn’t make a difference if Hannah couldn’t admit it to her, right?

  “Tell you what, I’m done with my delivery, are you headed back to the city?” Marnie asked.

  “Yeah.”

  Marnie undid her seatbelt and climbed out. “I’ll bring you home.”

  Hannah ran over to me, bending over to help me up. “This is the same woman who brought me the last leg of the journey,” she explained. “She said she’ll bring us home.”

  “Okay,” I said, leaning against Hannah so she could get me to my feet. Marnie had opened the back door of her car and was sliding things aside, so thankfully not paying attention as I said, “Hey, um…”

  Hannah looked over at me. “Yeah?”

  “Am I just a friend?” I asked. It probably wasn’t the best time to ask, but I couldn’t help it. After everything that had happened at the camp, I just wanted to know—needed to know—that it wasn’t all for nothing.

  We stopped where we were as Hannah considered the question without looking at me. “D-does it have to have a label?” A question offered in lieu of an answer.

  My heart sank. “No,” I replied.

  Little did she know, it was all the answer I needed.

  1

  Arden

  Morning light was finally shining through my window, so I closed my blueprint book and leaned back in my desk chair. It creaked as I stressed it far past its suspension abilities. It was the exact same desk chair I’d had since I was about nine, and given that my age had doubled since then, it was understandable that it was screaming for me to stop begging it to h
old up my weight.

  “Just a few more months,” I huffed at it as I stood up. “Soon, I’ll be off and paying some post secondary institution a mortgage for only slightly better a chair, and you’ll be free.”

  Still, I smiled at the faded blue fabric only barely covering the foam that was spilling out in several places. Even more than my bed, that chair had been my favorite piece of furniture. As a chronic shitty sleeper, I was more often than not in my chair, working on new inventions, trying to design the next thing that was going to change the world. Maybe I’d smuggle the small chair out when I moved. I could put it on display in my eventual mansion and tell reporters that was where ‘it all started.’

  With the morning arriving, I could also hear my family starting to move around outside my door. The music that frequently came from my younger twin sisters’ bedroom as they got ready broke through the calming silence, and given that they were into that preteens-singing-about-hardships-they-couldn’t-have possibly-experienced genre, I quickly snagged my new wireless earbuds—a birthday present from my best friend Aria—and grabbed my phone to play some significantly more chill music to get me through my school prep routine.

  My dad’s booming voice passed by my door, interrupted only by the sound of two sharp pounds of his hand against my door, “Hope you’re awake in there!”

  “I always am,” I called back.

  I was an early riser because I hated sleeping in the dark, so I typically slept right after school and stayed awake at night. He knew that as well as I did, but my dad was a control freak in every sense of the word, and if he wasn't doing his fatherly thing, then he felt he was losing ground for some reason.

  I'd already picked out what I was going to wear for the day—a simple zip-up hoodie decorated with doves, ripped jeans, and my favorite pair of black rain boots. Was it raining outside? No.