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For @D_harmmie here's your chapter!

I wear my scars like an armour
So I forget that love isn't war
And I turn my body to a battlefield_Orex

******

People always liked to tell you about how to feel. Especially when they are not walking in your shoes.

Liz racked her brain for the manual now on how to feel but she came up blank. The first thing she felt was disbelief the famous first stage of grief. She sat gingerly on the edge of their white sofa and waited. She waited for him to laugh or chuckle. For his throaty laughter that will make the intensity of the news he just delivered be rendered a joke.

Wasnt it earlier today she likened him to Pamela? And they both loved expensive jokes right?

As she waited, her eyes widened in shock, because she had her answers right in front of her. Jason didn't need words to confirm it. Her answer was there in the frown lines that sat on his face like the WiFi symbol. In the taut way he stood waiting for her reaction and in the open vulnerability in his eyes.

So she said the only thing she could think of, "Tell me from the very beginning." Jason moved to the opposite couch wanting to see her every reaction knowing he deserved it. He sat and began to tell her everything that happened from three weeks ago when he found out. He omitted the part where Tiara kissed him because that was a bullet he wasnt ready to shoot himself with.

Just like that he added that lie of omission to his usual pile.

Liz listened to him explain himself and the show he has been putting on for the last three weeks, the asked; "So, you've been lying to me the last three weeks?" Liz asked arms folded under her bosom making them look fuller than they were.

"I didn't know how to tell you especially after we___" he cut the statement halfway but she knew what he was wanted to say.

She kept quiet as the words hit her alongside the emotions because in that moment all her brain was interpreting was that he couldn't tell her he had a child outside wedlock because she was dealing with her emotional baggage and he wasnt sure she was ready to handle it.

It was the only way she knew how to deal with her issues, her mind will warp it all until she had more pain to deal with so she could tell herself she deserved it that she was addicted to it.

Why couldn't it just be that he was looking out for her and didn't want to burden her especially after seeing how depressed and withdrawn she was?

That stung more, knowing that your partner is incapable to come to you with the truth alongside all the news. In her absentmindedness Liz forgot that she had picked up the glass of wine again. Liz only remembered when the wine glass fell out of her hand sharply on her feet piercing the skin on the left leg.

The content of the glass was spilled over the floor and shards of glass. It was the accurate representation of how their relationship looked to her right now; Messy.

Jason shot up from the chair towards her but she raised a hand to stop him. He stopped halfway not because of the hand action but because of the look in her eyes.

Liz moved towards the guest bedroom and locked the door. She wanted to sleep, she needed to sleep.

Faintly she could hear him call out for her and she heard herself say, "go to bed Jason you've had a long day." She locked the guest bedroom behind her when she entered. She heard him call out for her twice but she didn't respond. Liz just lay on the bed and drew the comforter to her chin.

She heard him leave but she didn't care. Almost as soon as she closed her eyes she fell asleep into a tired, bone weary sleep.

*******

There is an emotional place called _Blank.

You can't describe how you feel. You're not sad or happy. All you have is a bag of emotions hovering over you like a thick blanket.

Liz played with the edge of the cropped, pink Cardigan she had on and waited for Joy to say something. Liz uncovered a memory last night but thinking about it made her head ache even more. Repressed memories are like bad tooth, you can ignore it but its there slowly eating at you and rotting away.

"How does this make you feel?" Joy finally asked when she finished processing all the information. In front of her she had a blender and poured the puree from it into a glass and handed the smoothie blend to Liz.

Liz sipped the smoothie gently. It was a blend of blackberries, chopped peaches, strawberries and plain yoghurt. It had toppings of sliced kiwi fruit and roasted pecan nuts to make it crunchy. The mix which was supposed to taste heavenly tasted bland in her mouth almost like all her sense organs couldn't comprehend anything.

Not the way she was feeling or how something as easy as a smoothie should taste like.

"I dont know." Liz sighed and shrugged. Her eyes had bags under it and she truly looked haunted. How does this make her feel? How could she articulate her confused feelings into words?

Does she deserve to be sad that he has a child, when all he wants is a child and she told him she wasnt sure she'll ever give him one?

Does she deserve to be angry that he has a part of him outside there? Another life, another family that doesn't include her. For three whole weeks, Jason knew about that child and didn't tell her.

"That's okay too love. Its okay to not know how to feel. Its okay to take your time to process this."

Liz sipped more of her smoothie in silence. They both sat in comfortable silence till Joy moved around the table and drew Liz tight into a hug. Liz hugged her tight in return, "You're going to be okay. What's important is that you do not minimise your feelings when you get them and also to deal with them" Joy whispered over Liz.

"What if I'm already loosing him?" Liz asked now with a loud sigh. She didn't want it to be true but she knew there was a possibility of that.

"You guys can make this work Liz. That man is in love with you, I could see it the first day he came into my office. He stares at you so intently it almost like even he doesn't know what to think about you because you're that special to him."

"My therapist says I'm scared to have kids because I have unresolved fears from my childhood. That deep down I feel that I'll turn up just like my mother and bringing up a child I cannot care for." Liz said it so casually but even Joy knew that statement was a big one.

"What do you think?" She asked in return. Liz shrugged her shoulders in response and stared at the brightly painted purple kitchen. Joy knew not to press her more, earlier on in their friendship she learnt that Liz didn't really like to talk much she preferred to listen as was a requirement for their profession.

Joy went back to the other end of the counter and Liz stretched her bandaged foot in front of her. Her phone which was vibrating loudly but one glance a the phone and she silenced it quickly meaning it was her husband.

****

"We need to talk" Jason said sternly. He looked tired too and his shoulders were hunched, his mouth was pulled in a tight grim line as his mismatched eyes took her in.

Without meaning to he could feel arousal sing in his blood. Pooling blood downwards into his groin region as he stared at her. Liz was fresh out of the shower, the only thing she had on being the towel wrapped around her chest.

Jason let out a loud sigh and crossed his legs over the other, to hide the effect of his arousal. Its been so long since they were that intimate with each other and he missed her.

Liz who stopped mid track to stare at Jason slowly felt her emotions beginning to trickle in. It was a mixture of Pain, anger and sadness woven tightly into a ball that sat in her chest region. Seeing him hurt, not seeing him hurt. Acknowledging his child hurt, not acknowledging the child hurt.

"Its convenient that you want talk to me now isn't it. Somehow you tell me stuff when its convenient for you, haven't you noticed that? You let me sit by myself worrying about you for hours then come back to tell me you have a kid. What are you expecting right now?" Liz asked and moved towards the bed where the outfit she got earlier from he room was.

"Are you going to sit there while I dress?" Liz asked now.

"I didn't plan for this to happen babe. I told you the truth about that one night with Tiara and I know this is crazy and confusing so let's talk about it, let's find a way forward you can't just move out of the bedroom." He returned ignoring the previous question. So Liz went about her business applying body lotion and dropped the towel.

She didn't know what to expect but she didn't expect his reaction. Somehow his face gave away nothing of how he was feeling about seeing her in her full birthday suit. This was the man that could barely contain himself even when she was covered from head to toe.

Liz pushed away the hurt like it didn't sting knowing since the sex thing he wasnt sexually attracted to her anymore. She went about her business of putting on a big tee shirt that drowned her frame panties and socks on her feet.

Jason swallowed the big lump of Saliva that stuck in his throat making talking easier then continued; "Are you not going to say something?"

His palm was itchy he wiped it constantly on the material of the joggers he had on. Jason was trying so hard to control himself, having sex in the middle of all this wasnt a good idea.

Listening to him was flipping a switch inside her head. He was talking to her like they could go back to the way things were. The irony of the entire situation should have made her laugh, Liz didn't want a child now her husband is telling her about a five year old kid.

"Do you know the meaning of contraceptives? Or a condom?" She said it so flippantly he was stunned. Jason hung his head low in shame but he wasnt going to regret it now, that mistake brought him Lily.

Somehow whatever blank state she was feeling was coming to an end now, she wanted him to hurt. She needed him to understand how much this hurt.

"Just go Jason I'm not in the mood. Go to your other family the same one you've been hiding from me. Congratulations you wanted a child you have one now." Immediately the words slipped out of her mouth she wanted to take it back but then he raised his head to stare at her. His blue_grey eyes was a piercing stare that made her shiver for the first time since she married him.

Jason got up gently and walked out. He didn't slam the door to explain his frustration or anger, he closed it gently behind him.

******
How are you really? I mean its one of the questions we lie about the most😑

Tell me I'll love to know, what's going on guys?

You're going to be okay though. Its a process and if you dont look like it now, it doesn't mean you won't be.

If you dont know how to feel about a situation that's okay too. Honestly there is no manual on how to feel. Its why I started this chapter with a gradual shift of Liz's emotion.

I'm sorry I've been away. Life's been giving me it fair shares of downs.

Thank you so much, I constantly feel like my work is too raw but you guys love this book so thank you. I'll try hard to update more often now.

Sending you tons of Love and light
Orex💕💕