“Ron, Honey! You have to eat your grapefruit. You haven’t been eating much at all these few months. Are you worried about the baby?” Looking down at Ron with watery eyes, Emma said again without stopping “You know it’s all going to be fine! I know my body well and the baby is doing great! Now eat your grapefruit.” She pushed the black scratched up plate closer to him as she rubbed her bloated belly carrying their baby of seven months, she shifted from one swollen foot to another as she tried to find Ron’s eyes to assure and ease him, but it was impossible because the curtain of shaggy red hair falling down from his head covering his forehead and eyes. Emma knows that he wasn’t worried about her or the baby, but she had to reassure herself. She is 27, the baby and her are healthy as a bull. She really tried everything she could to assure the health of her baby, traveling around New York for the best doctors, eating all the right foods and doing the right exercises. Emma looked at him as he shook his head, waking up from his daze and jerked his head to the side with a flick. His hair followed the motion revealing his green eyes with specks of orange, she often saw these colors on molding patches of grapefruits, her favorite fruit. Even though the similarity was disgusting, his eyes are still one of her favorite parts about him. His once blushing boyish chubby cheeks are now replaced with hallow and jutting cheekbones, and his eyes that had once always looked at her with love and lust, now looked anywhere but her.
Ron looked down at his plate to find again, the grapefruit that he had just refused to eat earlier. The bright orange and red colored fruit contrasted the dark plate that it sat on, he knows better than to eat the grapefruits that Emma gives him. ≤It had been their one-month anniversary when she had invited him to her house. Emma had given him the same horrid fruit on a white plate; it had sat just like how it’s on the black plate in front of him now. She had looked at him with expecting eyes as he stared at the orange ball of sourness on his plate,
Stepping out of the deli that he frequents, Ron’s eyes slide in and out of focus as he clutched on paper bag that contained the 3 grapefruits he bought for Emma. She always insisted on buying enough for the whole family, meaning including the baby that wasn’t even born yet. His body took the lead and walked the same path that he always took, between the high city skyscrapers. Ron’s body automatically starts to swing his arm holding the grapefruits, just like how he had always swung Emma’s hand as they walked together in the city. Ron doesn’t pay attention to anything that as he walks towards his apartment building, all of the sudden the paper bag gave out to the pull of gravity as the three grapefruits rolled all towards different directions.
They were different this time just like what George the cashier said, these were imported from a place in Florida that grow fruits organically, it doesn’t really make much difference in Ron’s taste and interest in this horrible fruit but it does look some what sweeter than
He grabbed the two closest to him and scrambled towards the last grapefruit that stopped at the edge of a crowd. Ron looked up as he picked up the last ripe grapefruit and saw a bunch of people all craning their necks to see what is above them on the roof of Ron's 28th floor apartment buidling. Even though it was a foggy day, the sun still managed to make the skies really bright, Ron squinted his eyes showing all the wrinkles near his eyes and forehead that appeared in the past few years of his marriage. Suddenly the crowd let out a gasp of horror and excitement, he scanned the area where crowd was pointing and staring to find a woman diving headfirst from top of his buidling's roof edge, her long auburn hair fanned out around her creating a halo like shape and her bright white summer dress empasized her similarity to an angel falling from Grace. Ron focused on the woman as she came closer to the ground, to find her summer dress balloned out arond her belly. Why does she look like Emma, they have the same hair color and woman looked pregnant too. Ron's knees gave out below him kneeled down on the floor, why did Emma do this? She protected and nurtured the baby like a god, why would she do that when she is due in just a few weeks? Ron shook his head as he saw the woman seconds away from closing in on the ground that will take the life of her and her baby. He did not want to see it, he wouldn't see it. Ron took the grapefruits that was still clutched in his hands and ran in the apartment building, he climbed upthree flights of stairs to door of the apartment he used to share with Emma. Ron stood in front of the beige painted apartment door with a peek hole and doorbell, his keys dangeled from his finger as he stared at the keyhole. Remembering the smell of citus Emma spray every morning that would welcome him as soon as he opened the door, the door mat where
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