There was no clash of feminine rage or intense, assessing stares—nothing like the dramatic tension you'd find in a romcom or TV series. No. Nova and Aiyana barely spoke. Silence and strained tension hung thick between them whenever Atia wasn't around, acting like the glue holding together two unstable rocks drifting in a river straight toward a waterfall.
Whenever Nova did try to spark conversation, Aiyana replied, but her responses were blunt and short and killed any chance of continuing the topic. She's really going to make me work for this, Nova thought, watching Aiyana walk off without even acknowledging her latest question as if it had been rhetorical—or not worth her energy to answer.
