Perfectly Imperfect

79

Her stance fell immediately at my question and she leaned away from me so she was leaning fully against my desk again. For a while, she said nothing, she just kept staring at the wall behind me with her arms crossed over her chest.

And that was why I allowed myself to notice her... To notice what she was wearing.

She was wearing a long flowing gown, an armless and almost backless one and I could see her hand, the whole of it with the bruises. She was always covering up, always wearing the clothes that covered the whole of her body even when it was horribly hot. I knew it was because she didn't want me to see her scars and bruises.

But now, she was wearing something that was showing all of that, just like she had been doing every other day since she announced the divorce. I could see all the scars, the bruises, the fading ones, the ones that'd probably never fade, the ones that were permanently etched on her mind and I suddenly did not care how she was able to get dad to agree to the divorce.

What mattered was the fact that she was finally getting out of this marriage, out of this nightmare.

I couldn't even be more happy.

"I had to... I had to do something a little bit terrible to get him to agree but you don't mind, right? You won't hate me, right?" She asked solemnly, her tone masking something I couldn't decipher and her eyes still fixed on the wall behind me.

I did not know what to make of that.

Why she wouldn't look at me and what's the terrible thing she did to get dad to agree to the divorce?

Everything in me was dying to know what she did but I still didn't want to. The only important thing here was the fact that she was finally getting out of the divorce. That she was finally going to be happy.

"Mom, I'm happy as long as you're happy and divorcing dad is... You getting out of this marriage is the important thing."

"Right?" She asked eagerly, turning towards me in the process and for the briefest moment, I saw how clouded her eyes were with so many sad things before it cleared up again.

I wanted to hug her.

I started to get up to hug her and she spoke again.

"So I've been thinking that we should permanently move out of the country when you're done with all your exams. The divorce should be finalised by then."

I sat down back with a loud thud.

Ehn?

My eyes must have mirrored disbelief because she was quick to continue.

"I just don't want us to continue staying in this same city with your dad, not even country. For our, for your mental health. I know you have friends and probably you already have plans..."

I've had plans and moving out of the country wasn't just part of it at all. There was Kunle and Sophia and there was... There was Kunmi... How could mom just dump this on me that we're supposed to move out of the country in what... Less than five months?

Oh God.

Kunmi...

Of course not...

"I've been looking into Art schools for you in Canada..." She continued but I wasn't really paying attention to her. We were really moving out... Mom wasn't pasking me, she was telling me.

The prospect... The fact that I'd have to leave everything behind, Kunmi, Sophia, Kunle and every other thing was enough to fill me with so much dread that I couldn't process it.