Gianna returns home for Thanksgiving break, caught between a love she thought she buried and a new one that feels like fate...until that fate turns deadly.
Series order
I. Confessions of a Material Gurl ・❥・
II. Karma's Revenge ꨄ︎
|The Truth Comes to Light | "Some truths don't come out gently...they get dragged into the light." ——————— 𐦍
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The next day didn't feel any lighter for anyone.
Definitely not for Naaz.
The restaurant that afternoon was quiet... too quiet. Soft music played overhead, forks clinked lightly against plates, and conversations stayed low and polite. Naaz sat across from Jada, barely touching his food. She noticed, of course...she'd been noticing for weeks now. His distance, his absence from the relationship, his mind always somewhere else...or on someone else. Jada wasn't sure. She just knew that even when Naaz was trying to be present, his mind seemed distracted.
"You gon' eat or just keep starin' at it?" She asked, setting her fork down slowly.
"Huh?" Naaz replied, blinking slowly as he'd just come back to the table.
He glanced up and found Jada staring at him intently. Her expression was calm, but Naaz could see the tension in her shoulders, and the way her fingers drummed against the plate told him she had something on her mind.
"I said—" Jada repeated, slower this time, her eyes not leaving his, "you gon' eat... or you just like lookin' at your food?"
Naaz glanced down at his plate like he forgot it was even there. He picked up his fork, pushed the food around once, twice, but didn't take a bite.
"Yeah," He mumbled. "I'm eatin'.".
"You been 'eatin'' for like ten minutes and ain't swallowed nothin'." Jada rebutted with a tilt of her head.
"Ain't really hungry." Naaz admitted, setting the fork back down like he was done pretending.
"Clearly."
Silence stretched between them again, but this one felt different.
More...loaded.
Like everything they weren't saying was sitting right there on the table with them.
"Are we okay? You been off for a minute now." Jada finally asked, the question landing heavily between them.
Naaz exhaled through his nose, rubbing his goatee slightly. Because truthfully, he didn't know anymore. Didn't know if he was holding onto this relationship because he genuinely wanted it or because it was easier than facing the mess he'd created and admitting that his heart was with someone else he couldn't have.
