The Best Kind of Forever (Riverside Reapers #1)

by Celeste Briars

Emotion garbles my words. “I forgive you.” And just like that, the war is over. Hayes stands up, staring at me with a fraction of shock wedged in his eyes. “You do?” “I do.” I sniffle, the love inside of me amping up to a threshold I didn’t even know was possible. Then sobs ensue, and some timely wailing, and I’m immediately met by Hayes’ arms, which wrap so tightly around me that I think he’s never planning on letting go. The rubbing on my back intensifies, and I can hear his heart bash as quickly and profusely as mine. “Shh, Aeris. You’re okay.” By the time I look up at him, I’ve left a sizable puddle on his shirt. He wipes his thumb over the small smattering of tears on my cheek. “I should’ve never kept this ‘fake relationship’ bullshit from you. You deserved to know. It wasn’t fair to you, and I hate that I hurt you. I’m so, so sorry. I hope you know there’ll never be a part of me that forgives myself for what I put you through.” I can see in his eyes that he means every word of it. Hell, he’s squeezing my hand so hard that my bones feel like they’re made of glass. “If I can forgive you, I hope you forgive yourself one day too.”

“I’ve never done anything in my twenty-four years of life that made me deserving of a blessing. But you, Aeris Relera, were a blessing in disguise. You make me a better person. You make my days worth living again. Living, okay? Before you, I was merely surviving. You saved me.” “No, Hayes. You’re the one who saved me. You took that broken girl from the bar and slowly put her back together. You taught me what it feels like to be loved—and that’s a lesson I’ll carry with me for the rest of my life.”

“Loving you was the easiest thing I’ve ever done,” he says. The easiest thing. I’ve always seen myself as impossible to love. I always believed no one would want to be with a girl who’s too loud or too emotional or too damaged. But Hayes didn’t care about any of my flaws—he didn’t even see them.