CHAPTER FIVE:A TRUTH TOO HEAVY TO HIDE
1241 Words
A week had passed since Damien and Aria became a couple — seven days that felt like the softest stretch of Aria's life. So when Damien showed up at the village that afternoon with a small bouquet of white lilies tucked under his arm, she thought it was just another one of his quiet gestures. They sat under the mango tree near her house, fingers laced together, trading the kind of laughter that made the world outside disappear.
Then Damien went still. His thumb traced circles on her hand, but his eyes wouldn't meet hers.
"There's someone I'd like you to meet," he said finally.
"Who?" Aria tilted her head, curious.
He smiled — but it didn't quite reach his eyes. "My mother."
Aria's stomach dropped, though she covered it with a laugh. Meeting a mother was supposed to be a milestone, not a moment that made her chest tighten like that. Still, she nodded.
"Okay," she said. "I'd like that."
She ran home the moment he left, flinging open her small wardrobe like it might suddenly reveal an outfit worthy of a mansion. Nothing felt right. The blue dress was too plain. The yellow one, too childish. She stood in front of the cracked mirror, smoothing down fabric that suddenly felt cheap in her hands.
What if I embarrass him?
Old Mama Efe, her neighbor, leaned against the door frame, watching her fuss. "Child, you're wearing your worry louder than any dress."
"I just... I don't want to look like I don't belong there."
The old woman shuffled closer and cupped Aria's face with a warm, weathered hand. "Kindness is more beautiful than expensive clothes. Any woman who cannot see that isn't worth your fear."
Aria held onto those words the entire ride to the Blackwood estate, repeating them like a quiet prayer. Damien noticed her fingers twisting in her lap and reached over, steadying her hand against his.
"Just be yourself," he said, eyes flicking briefly from the road to her face. "That's the person I love."
She wanted to believe it was that simple.
Nothing prepared her for the house.
The gates alone looked like they belonged to a kingdom — tall, wrought iron, flanked by stone lions that seemed to watch her arrive. Beyond them, the driveway curved past gardens so precise they looked painted, hedges trimmed into perfect geometry, fountains catching the afternoon light. Three cars gleamed under a canopy, none of them a model Aria could name. A pool shimmered turquoise near the back of the house, and the floors — when they finally stepped inside the foyer — were marble so polished she could see the ghost of her own reflection.
"People actually live in places like this?" she whispered.
Damien laughed, low and easy. "I do."
He felt her hand tremble in his and gave it a gentle squeeze. "Hey. You'll be fine."
He truly believed it. His mother had told him that morning she'd be at a board meeting until evening — plenty of time to ease Aria into the house, to let her breath before the real introduction. So he led her out to the poolside couches instead, where the water threw soft light across the cushions, and for a while, the mansion's grandeur faded into the background. They talked about nothing important — her sister's laugh, his terrible aim at basketball, the food stall she wanted to open one day. Aria's shoulders loosened. She even laughed, the sound bouncing off the water.
For a moment, it felt like just the two of them again.
Then gravel crunched under the tires.
Damien's head turned sharply toward the driveway, where a black car was gliding to a stop. "Mom?" he murmured, more to himself than to Aria, confusion flickering across his face.
The car door opened, and a woman stepped out — tall, composed, dressed in a cream suit that looked tailored to intimidate. Every step she took toward them was measured, unhurried, the kind of walk that belonged to someone who had never once needed to rush for anyone.
Aria rose immediately, smoothing her dress with damp palms.
"Good afternoon, ma'am," she said, extending her hand with as much steadiness as she could gather.
Mrs. Blackwood's eyes dropped to the offered hand and stayed there a beat too long. She did not take it.
Instead, she studied Aria — slowly, thoroughly, the way one might examine an item before deciding whether it was worth purchasing at all. Aria felt her face grow warm under the scrutiny but kept her hand out until, finally, she let it fall back to her side.
Damien stepped closer, an uneasy pride in his voice. "Mom... this is Aria."
Silence stretched long enough to feel like its own presence at the table.
"Can I speak with you, Damien?" Mrs. Blackwood said at last, her gaze never leaving Aria.
"Anything you want to say, you can say here," Damien answered, his jaw tightening.
His mother exhaled — not a sigh of surrender, but of someone steadying herself before delivering a blow.
"You're introducing a girlfriend," she said slowly, each word deliberate, "when you have only a few months left to live?"
The pool's gentle ripple was suddenly the loudest sound in the world.
Aria felt the air leave her lungs.
She turned to Damien slowly, as though moving too fast might make the words more real. "What... did she just say?"
Damien's mouth opened. Nothing came out.
"Damien." Her voice cracked down the middle. "Tell me she's lying."
His silence answered louder than any confession could have.
"You knew." The realization landed like a stone in her chest. "You knew all this time?"
"I wanted you to know me first," he whispered, reaching for her. "Before... before that. I didn't want you to look at me and only see—"
"How could you hide something like this from me?" Tears blurred her vision, hot and sudden. She wasn't angry at the dying — she was angry at the lying, at the weeks of laughter built on a secret he'd let her fall blind.
She snatched her bag from the couch. Damien caught her wrist.
"Aria, please—"
She pulled free, and this time, she didn't stop moving. She ran — past the marble floors, past the gardens sculpted into perfection, past the gates that had looked so much like a fairy tale gate just an hour before. Now they just looked like the edge of a world she never should have entered.
Damien stood frozen by the pool long after she disappeared through the gates, the echo of her footsteps still ringing in his ears. When he finally turned, it wasn't grief on his face.
It was fury.
"You had no right," he said, his voice shaking in a way his mother had never heard before.
Mrs. Blackwood didn't flinch. "She deserved to know."
"I was going to tell her." His hands curled into fists at his sides. "When I was ready. When she was ready.
"And let her fall deeper in love," his mother said quietly, "before you destroyed her future along with your own?"
Damien had no answer for that — not one that wouldn't taste like a lie.
So he said nothing at all.
He turned and walked back into the house, leaving his mother standing alone beside the pool, the water still rippling faintly from a conversation that had shattered everything.
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