“We’re going to talk about that. Before we do, what about you Sevyn? Who’s Sevyn Crawford?” she asked, turning her head, so that she could look at me.
“Shit, I’m the man doc,” I only said that to lighten the mood a little bit because Yaya’s answer was heavy.
She’d already started using her tissues that Dr. Shepherd had given to us, and I could see her through my periphial, wiping her eyes. My response caused her to laugh, as she was wiping her eyes, and Dr. Shepherd laughed too.
“In all seriousness, I’m what everybody needs me to be in whatever situation. I know how to adapt in whatever setting that I’m in, and I like to control the narrative. I know how to be for people what they can’t be for themselves at the time. The second you asked Soraya who she was, I knew she was going to start crying. She was going to cry because she couldn’t hide her feelings anymore, and she had to genuinely speak on it. From that, I knew that I had to be something in this situation to make her feel better, which is why I just gave that cocky answer and said that I was the man. I knew it would take her mind off theheavy stuff that she just hit us with, and even if it was just for a second, I knew she would laugh. I do well at that. I know how to pour into people and uplift them. Amid me doing that though, where I pour into people, making sure that their good, I tend to forget about myself along the way. I walk around like I have just about everything in my life figured out, when I know I don’t. The thing is though Doc, I like being needed. That feeling of knowing that someone can’t complete a task, and they gotta hit me up for it, I love it. When my sons need help with homework, or just have a question about life, I love that they can come to me, thinking that I’m their superman, and can solve anything that they need. I love when I’m around Soraya, and she knows that whether we’re on good terms or not, that she’s always going to be in good hands, and well protected with me, “ my answer was heavy too, and it showed how I felt.
“Thank you both for sharing. I love, and respect both answers. I want to pick out something that I heard in both of your answers. Soraya, when you talked about who you were, I heard that you are the one that carries the hurt, trauma, and life’s problems on your back. Whereas, Sevyn, you mentioned that you are the one that everyone needs. One holds. The other provides. It’s balance, but that kind of balance can go left quickly, and cause major issues. Sevyn, during you being needed, who do you turn to when you need someone? When you aren’t the man, who do you lean on?” she asked, and no lie, that question hit me deep. It hit me because I rarely ever got vulnerable with anyone, and I did with Yaya while we were in New York, telling her some shit that I’d never told her before. She chose to divorce me at a time when I needed her most, and that’s why at a time in our lives, I was so angry with her.
I knew that my answer would get a little heavy, so I removed my arm from around Soraya’s shoulder, and I placed both hands in my lap, and released a sigh.
“I was raised by my god father. At the age of eight, I was taught to be a man. My God father’s name is Dutch, and although he instilled in me that it was cool for me to have emotions, and cry if I needed to, he also always told me that life didn’t give a fuck about my problems, so I had to tuck my chin, be a man, and always find a way to figure it out. With that kind of mindset, it’s rare that I’ll ever show signs of weakness, and put myself in a situation where I have to need someone. I’m cool with being the one that everyone can depend on. When me, and Soraya were in the process of divorce, that’s the time in my life where I needed my wife the most. Hit after hit I’ve been taking since I was a kid. I lost my pops. My grandma. My mama lost her mind, and now she’s in a mental institution. I lost my daughter. I could handle a lot of shit, but when I lost my daughter, although I didn’t show it, I swear it felt like I was going to lose my mind. I was everything to Soraya in that situation that she needed me to be with the little that I had left of myself. Till this day, I don’t feel like the feeling of being there for each other was mutual. From that experience, I just don’t expect anybody to carry me. I gotta be the one to carry myself,” I said some heavy shit. Soraya was crying, just like I knew she would, and throughout her tears, she turned her head, so that she could look at me.
“I told you back in New York that I didn’t know how to be there for you, Sevyn. I hate that I even have to say that because it makes me sound selfish, but I didn’t know how. When we got married, I knew that we would have problems. Every marriage has their fair share of ups, and downs. I thought that our problems would be minor though because we’ve been in each other’s lives since we were kids, so whatever problems that we had, I just knew that we would be able to tackle them. Nothing in the world would have ever prepared me for losing our daughter, and finding ways to cope, and move forward with that. Every day after Sarai’s death, it felt like I was literally struggling to breathe.How could I breathe for you too?” she screamed at me, face leaking in tears.
She took a pause, batted her eyes at me, and the way an angry look appeared in her eyes, I knew she was getting ready to go in, so I sat back, and prepared myself for it.
“Sevyn, stop trying to make it seem like you were being this loyal, faithful husband to me while we were going through all of that. Excuse my language Dr. Shepherd, but while I was home, mourning our daughter, you were out fuckin hoes! You would walk in the house, and I would smell that cheap ass perfume on you. You would try and be slick, and toss your shirts in the trash, so that I wouldn’t see the lipstick stains on it. I know your response is going to be that I told you to go out and do it because I wouldn’t have sex with you, but you weren’t supposed to! How could I be there for you, when you were outside, doing that shit behind my back?” she screamed, standing up from the couch, crying. HerChanelpurse that was on the couch, she picked that shit up too, as if she was getting ready to leave.
“You see that shit, doc? That’s what she does. That’s her pattern. When she gets mad, she runs away from shit. She likes to take the easy way out of tough situations. She don’t want to stay, and fight through our issues. Every time shit don’t go her way, she going to get up and leave,” I said, snitching like a motha fucka.
“Soraya, wait. Sit back down. Running from it isn’t going to solve the issues that you have. You gotta run to it. I know it’s hard. Trust me, I know. It’s heavy, and it’s triggering something in you, but what you’re doing right now is easy. It’s easy to run. Do something hard, and sit back down, and stay,” Dr. Shepherd said to her.
Soraya paused, and she was still crying, and she looked at me with eyes like she wanted to slap the shit out of me. I knew she wanted to run her ass out of the room, but she did somethinghard, and she sat on the couch with me. Her petty ass scooted all the way over, not sitting close to me like she had been doing before.
“See the petty shit she do? Look where she sitting at now,” I said to Dr. Shepherd, acting like a kid in class that was trying to get brownie points from the teacher.
Dr. Shepherd smiled, and she shook her head at me.
“Sevyn, it’s called boundaries. She’s setting them in place right now. Things just got heated, you both deserve a second to calm down, and during that, Soraya decided to put some distance in between you two. I was actually getting ready to suggest that you two sit in separate spaces and just take a breath. Take a second to cool off,” she offered. During the break, you could still hear Soraya’s cries. She didn’t calm down until about five minutes later.
We jumped right back in, but Dr. Shepherd took a different approach with us. She had us talk about something lighter, so that the tension was no longer so thick. The rest of the session flew by. It ended with Soraya no longer being in tears, and she was back to sitting closer to me on the couch. I really did enjoy this session with Dr. Shepherd. I felt like she was going to get us right, and back on track.
She left us with an assignment for this week. We would come back to her next Friday, and by then, she wanted the assignment to be completed. It was a listening exercise that she’d given us. One of us had to talk, while the other listened. She was giving us a chance to still talk our shit out, find out other problems that we had with each other, and try to fix them. I fucked with the assignment, and I knew Yaya did too. I already knew she would probably use her ten minutes to speak on the hoes I fucked, so I was already prepared for it.
Now, we were out in the parking lot, and she was walking ahead of me. I pulled her into me by the loop on the slacks thatshe was wearing, wrapping her up in a bear hug, and kissing her on her neck.
“I’m proud of you, baby. I know that shit wasn’t easy for you, but you got through it. You only cursed me out one time and tried to storm off once. Daddy proud of you,” I voiced, and even though I was standing behind her, I could see her cheekbones rise, so I knew that she was smiling at my words.
“Thank you, papi. I’m doing this for us. I want you home,” she responded, turning around in my arms, so that she could look at me. I put my hands on her ass, looking down at her.
“I’m coming. We taking the right steps right now to ensure that when I come, I’m coming into a healthy environment. Come on. Let’s go feed the twins,” I shot, speaking it into existence, hoping that she was carrying twin girls for me.
She just laughed, kissed me on the lips, and then pulled away from me. I was just glad that therapy went smooth, and we didn’t walk out of this bitch beefing, like we used to do in our sessions in the past.
Chapter Fourteen
AUTUMN GREENE
“Autumn, we gotta get into those comments that you made on Instagram live about the LGBTQ community. I know we were getting ready to wrap up, but I wanted to open the floor for you to speak on that. Only if you were willing to do it,” the radio host, Big Mount spoke into the mic saying, catching me off guard with his question.
This interview was being held live. I was in downtown Miami, recording with99.2 the Vibe. It was one of the biggest radio shows in the world. I was getting ready to go on tour soon, so I was on a press run, still promoting my album, and yesterday, my team and I released my tour dates. The social media response that I got towards my tour dates was amazing. I was a little nervous about the engagement that the post would get, thinking that people really wouldn’t come out, and spend their hard earned money on me at a tour, especially since some of the comments that I made about the LGBTQ community, but engagement on social media was crazy to the point that I was in tears, seeing all of the people liking, commenting, sharing, and tagging others, saying how they couldn’t wait to see me on tour.
I fucked up with the comments that I made on social media, gave the world a heartfelt apology, and I was just glad thatthy weren’t crucifying me over it, and hanging it over my head. Granted, there was still a shit load of people that hated me because of my comments, but that didn’t outweigh the love that I was receiving. People really weren’t talking about the Instagram live anymore. That was months ago, and the noise from that had kind of quieted down, and that’s why I was pissed that Big Mount had just brought that shit up, especially when him, and his crew, were told not to bring it up when I got here. It could harm my ticket sales for my tour.
Yaya was in the room with me, sitting right behind me. I begged her to come with me this morning, just for added support. The radio station that I was at was big and being as though I looked up to Yaya as a big sister, there were certain milestones in my life, where I just needed her, and here she was showing up, just like I wanted her to, making me love her even more.
When Big Mount asked me that question, I turned my head to look at Yaya. She had a pissed off look on her face because she was the one to tell him, and his team before the interview the things that she didn’t want them asking me. I had proper PR training, but I didn’t train for the way that I should answer this question because I just knew that it wasn’t going to be something that was asked of me this afternoon.
