CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: Lila’s POVI’d never once seen Nia go quiet on her own. Not during exams, not at her own mother’s wedding toast, not the time she got food poisoning at my birthday dinner and still found the energy to narrate her own nausea to a waiter who clearly did not need the details. Nia had opinions about silence and the opinion was that she considered it a personal failing in other people.Thirty seconds or maybe a full minute was how long it lasted before she snapped back to life, clearing her throat and diving face-first into her makeup case like the last two minutes hadn’t happened.“He seemed nice and tall,” she announced to absolutely nobody.“Mm.”“Tall.”“You said that already. Also you didn’t speak to him. At all.”“Restraint,” she said, snapping the case shut hard enough to make a stylist flinch. “It’s called restraint, Lila.”“It’s called you forgot every word you know.”She glared at me, cheeks doing something warm and unconvincing, and across the room the man w
Last Updated : 2026-09-17 Read more