*****
Clean span of skin covering his skull.
Head gleaming under the hallway light. Skin that would show off her reflection if it was caressed with some scalp oil.
Gwa-ri-mapa. Liz had heard them tease someone with the word back in Abeokkuta, to understand that it meant someone who was bald.
Jason was bald.
Jason was Gwa-ri-mapa.
Jason was ugly.
This wasn't the man she had flown seas and had endured heartache to see.
"Can I come in?" He asked after his previous question was left unanswered. He had vulnerability that felt so foreign, seeing that he had been locked up from her for while.
Liz left the door opened and went in allowing him follow after her.
He felt so big in her space she felt crowded not knowing what to do with her self. She sat on the couch at the end of the bed wringling her hands feeling so overwhelmed but wanting to put up a font.
Jason was putting on grey joggers and black tee shirt and he looked so good her eyes hurt.
He came to sit beside her and she felt like screaming.
What now?
Did he come to personally deliver the divorce letter with his shining bald head like a righteous delivery man?
"You're not Xavier. What are you doing here?"
"Your appointment is by eight, I'm here to take you." He said with a shrug staring at her so intensely.
On the bedside table was a vintage, grandfather bedside clock and Liz turned to check the time and it was just half past six.
Liz hissed loudly bustling with anger.
"Why are you opening the door in short robe or whatnot, what if it was Xav at the door?"
Liz stared at the blue silk robe she had on which was no doubt short and had the top bust of her cleavage showing from underneath and just hissed again her eyes welling with tears this time.
She opened her mouth to answer him and just burst into tears. She wasn't crying because she was so confused with all the feelings and emotions of him being here, but was crying because he cut his hair.
She genuinely felt so hurt that she was a great pile of water works. Crying the whole tears with snort coming out of her nose.
Jason was so concerned he tried to pacify her, his face etched with worry lines.
"I'm so sorry, stop crying." He begged reaching for her and she pushed him away, hitting his outstretched hand angrily and stumbling backward. "Don't touch me," she yelled.
"Stop crying please," he kept begging, supplying her with Kleenex.
"Your appointment is in an hour, all this crying will upset the baby," Jason raked his finger over his bare scalp and suddenly missed the fact that he had no hair to pull.
Ten whole minutes of ugly crying later, Liz started to hiccup and Jason got up to get her water from the water dispenser that sat at the far end of the hotel room.
"I don't want your water," Liz pushed the cup away, "I don't know you, you're a stranger and I don't know why you're here suddenly trying to be kind to me and I need you to go away you stranger."
"I'm just here to take you to your appointment. I'm not asking you, to forgive me or love me, I just want to take you to your appointment. One thing at a time."
"Well, you're not my baby's daddy!" Liz yelled tears screaming down.
"What?" Jason asked in return, feeling his heart still in his chest. "What do you mean?"
"My baby daddy is..." Hiccups. "my baby daddy has," hiccups again.
This time Jason went to get another cup of water and pressed it into her hand.
"Drink," he warned in that no- nonsense voice of his that sent chills and tingles down her spine while staring at her ferociously with his mismatched eyes that Liz pressed the cup to her lips drowning the contents quickly in a loud gulp.
"Sit down, you're already hot and blotchy. Your eyes and nose is red. Wash your face and calmly explain to me, what you mean by, I'm not your baby's daddy."
The order did the opposite of what he intended and Liz flung herself back into bed dragging the covers to her chin. The waterworks wouldn't stop.
Jason was bald. He wasn't her baby daddy. He baby daddy was cute and handsome and he had the softest hair, and he was kind, and whenever he turned his mismatched orbs on her she felt like melting in a puddle of goo.
Jason was perplexed at her emotional outburst and seriously worried, he didn't know where to start, instead he started pacing the room.
"Are you sick?" He asked gently standing over the bed.
A sniff was his answer and Jason just got more and more fustrated.
He had spent the entire night driving, figuring shit out and now that he was finally here, she wouldn't stop crying.
He swallowed a large lump of saliva and felt something akin to physical pain when he brought himself to ask the next question, "are you loosing the baby?"
Liz whipped off the blanket and shot up angrily, "No. Hell no. My baby is safe is safe in Jesus name, why will you even say stuff like that," she splayed her hand over her belly, hugging her tommy to herself.
"Then what the hell is it? I need you to stop crying and talk to me please," he yelled flinging off the entire blanket to the ground in anger.
Liz got up and went toward the bathroom turning on the tap and splashing cold water on her face, then taking her time to brush her teeth.
She dried off with a white towel hanging off, and took her time studying herself in the mirror. Her heart was pounding in her chest and she had no words.
Jason stood at the entrance of the bathroom resting against the powder room's handle feeling so overwhelmed and drained at the same time, it was a miracle he was still standing on his feet.
He stared at Liz gently, taking time to take her in as much as he could and note the changes pregnancy had done to her body.
She was thicker. Way thicker than he remembered. Her hip was thicker and bump visible through the robe.
Every time she leaned over the sink, the necklace that composed of their rings dangled down and his hand suddenly felt so bare without it.
Her hair was in a ponytail and the pregnancy must be doing something to it because it looked so black curly with a glossy sheen to it.
For a split second he wanted to know how it would feel to run his hands through her tresses. Did it still smell of peaches and coconut oil? Was it as soft and pliant as he remembered?
Everything was making him so emotional and so scared. Now that he was here,he didn't know how to make her not hurt.
How to not make himself hurt.
He wasn't sure, he knew how to bare himself to her.
Liz walked towards him and pushed him out shutting the door.
The next sounds that came was of running water, letting him know she was taking a shower.
Jason was just going to lie down a little to wait for her, but her smell on the sheets was so comforting. It felt like peace and home and before he knew what was going on he was falling asleep.
*****
"Pour water on him," Liz murmured.
"No strangle him in his sleep," she muttered again.
"Stab his mismatched eyes," she continued and just when she leaned down to wrap her hands around his throat, Jason opened his eyes to see huge breast over his head and somehow it made him smile.
Waking up to free cleavage over his head and within his eye range was a great way to wake up for someone who has been alone for months after being married.
His smile widened into a full blown grin and he looked so beautiful Liz's eyes hurt.
His eyes were sparkling with mischief and even though he was the ugly version of her beautiful husband he looked so carefree in a way that made her want to hug the life out of him.
All of a sudden her eyes was welling up with tears again because there was this huge gulf that hindered her from hugging him to her hearts content and it hurt.
Boy did it hurt.
One second Jason was smiling so bright, the next he was frowning so bad.
She was crying again. And now it made sense that he was the one making her cry.
Liz stood straight and went to sit to strap on her boots.
She had on black shiny boots that four buckles and a little heel.
Jason came to sit beside her and let out a heavy sigh.
"I'm sorry." His voice came out in a still tiny whisper.
"You're sorry for what?" Liz asked struggling with her boots in anger.
Jason knelt to help her with her Chelsea leather boots and the emotions in her chest was at all a time .
"Just stop with all the confusing shit. You want me gone, then you show up in my hotel room buckling my shoes with your hair shaved looking like a baboon."
Jason rubbed his bald head and smiled, "I don't look like a baboon."
"Yes you do. You shaved your head, and you didn't even ask or consider how that will make me feel. Well, who am I that you have to consider my feelings. I'm your about to be ex wife. So let's just go to this doctors appointment and make all the necessary preparations for the divorce, I have a flight at seven."
*****
This chapter had an alternative ending
But I cut it off to be petty😂😂
Someone annoyed me and I cut it off let everybody be dissatisfied.
I guess I'm just power drunk or really hurt🌚
Is it weird that I talk to you guys more than people in my life. I can pretend you're all strangers and we will never meet.
With so much humility and joy, thank you for the wishes and prayers.
God bless you all,
Orex.