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“That was my baby too, Ya. Not just yours! I tattooed my little girl on my fuckin back. That was my child too. I was there at the hospital just like you when we heard her heartbeat for the first time. I was there for your ultrasound, seeing her little body on the screen. I couldn’t wait to meet her just like you couldn’t.

I begged you for our daughter because I knew that after the twins, you were set on not having any more children.

Sarai completed me, Boobie. I had the most beautiful wife in the world, the most handsome sons, and after I had my little girl, I was set.

You gotta think about where a nigga coming from with this shit.

I been taking losses since I was a little boy.

They killed my pops on my third birthday.

I was too young to remember him, so the only memories I have are pictures, and stories that people tell me.

They took me away from my mama when I was just six years old because she lost her fuckin mind and tried to kill me.

As if I didn’t already go through enough fucked up shit, then I go to live with my grandma, and she dies when I’m eight.

I lose my fuckin daughter when she was only four months.

I been taking losses since a kid, Ya. If anybody knows that, you do.

I used to pillow talk the fuck outta you.

You knew my hurt. You knew the shit that made me feel vulnerable.

My whole world collapsed when I woke up in the middle of the night to see Sarai in her bassinet and she wasn’t breathing.

As if that shit wasn’t painful enough, I had to wake my wife up, just to tell you that she wasn’t breathing.

I needed some fuckin body to be there for me too, Ya.

That’s why I said your ass is selfish! You left a nigga too.

You was my wife, Soraya. You was supposed to stand in the motha fuckin paint right along with me, as we went through that loss together” his voice was shaking as he was speaking to me, but he didn’t cry.

I cried the whole time that he expressed these things to me because I never knew that he felt this way. By the time he finished, I was a wreck.

I stood up from the chair, and I tried to rush into the bathroom, but he grabbed my arm, not letting me.

“Sevyn, no. Stop,” I couldn’t even look at him because I was crying so bad.

I was having a full breakdown, fighting to get away from him, and he eventually let me go.

I went into the bathroom, keeping the light off, and I found the tub, sitting in front of it, putting my back up against it, where I pulled my knees to my chest, and I broke down.

I never knew Sevyn felt like that, and it hurt me to know that he thought of me like that.

He walked into the bathroom like five minutes later, and I was still screaming, and crying. This shit felt like deja- vu of the breakdowns that I would have after losing Sarai.

Sevyn cut the light on, and he walked over to me.

“Sevyn… I didn’t know how. I didn’t know how…

I blamed myself. I made you put her in the bassinet.

I didn’t know how to be there for you…. I’m sorry.

I just didn’t know how to be,” I was a wreck, as I looked up at him, tears falling from my eyes.

He got down on the floor with me, sitting next to me, and he pulled me, but I pulled away.

“Sevyn, I’m sorry. I didn’t know how to be,” I kept saying it repeatedly.

He ended up picking me up, and he sat me down in his lap, having me sit sideways on him.

My breakdown continued, and he was allowing me to have it, without interrupting me, or telling me to stop.

I was carrying on terribly, pulling up the front of the hoodie that I was wearing, so that I could bury my face inside, and he wouldn’t see me.

He pulled me to him, making my head crash into him, and I bawled my eyes out like never before.

“I never blamed you for her death, Soraya. Never. I told you that not too long ago. I told you that it didn’t matter where we had her sleep that night, that shit was probably still going to happen.

I’m never going to blame you for the way you handled our loss.

You carried her longer than what she was even on this earth for, so I understand how hurt you were about it.

I’ll never tell a mother the way to mourn the death of her child, especially not you because I know how much you love our kids.

I was there for you, Ya. That’s the only point that I’m trying to get you to understand.

If you would have flat out lost your mind like my mama did over the death of my pops, I would have still been there for you.

Back when we were married, there wasn’t shit that you could do to me to ever divorce you.

Yeah, shit had got tough in our marriage, and I felt like we didn’t know how to move forward after losing Sarai, but I was willing to do what we needed to do to fix it.

I just hate that you ever had to make divorce an option,” he was talking to me, as my head was still buried in his chest, and I was using my hoodie still to cover my face.

“The marriage was triggering. It was no longer the same. I was no longer the same,” I spoke to him through my tears.

“And I loved you in spite of that,” he said to me. That crushed me for real when he said that.

I stayed in his lap for another ten minutes, just trying to get myself together, and then I stood.

Law eventually left out so that I could have a minute to myself, and when he left, that’s when I got in the shower.

I went through every wave of emotions in the shower, but I eventually calmed down.

Inside, I cleaned my body from head to toe, and I even washed my hair.

Instead of putting a towel on, I just put the robe on that the hotel had here for us.

I had to walk out to the bedroom, so that I could grab my toiletry bag, so I could wash my face, and brush my teeth.

When I did that, Law was sitting at the foot of the bed, and he had the TV on, watching sports.

I made it back to the bathroom, where I handled what I needed to.

Even after the intense nighttime routine that I’d just finished, my eyes were still blood shot red from the tears.

My hair was still wet from me washing it in the shower, but I was going to let it air dry.

I added oil and lotion to my body, and I went back in the room, where I sat down on the bed.

I folded my legs, tucking them behind me. I couldn’t get the words out of my head that Law said to me, so single tears fell again, that I wiped away. My sniffles could be heard because out of the corner of my eyes, I could feel Law looking over at me from his bed.

“You can have my food,” I said to him, my voice cracking. I no longer had an appetite. He laughed at my words and then shook his head.

“Why you still crying?” he asked me. I didn’t answer his question.

“Come here,” he ordered me. Instead of being rebellious like I usually would these days with him, I got my ass up, and I walked over to him.

I sat next to him on the foot of the bed, and it’s like my body needed him right now.

Not in a sexual way, but I needed him to really help me stay calm.

That’s why I leaned my head into his shoulder.

“I ain’t got a hundred instances to give you about being selfish. You was never a selfish wife, or a selfish mother. The example that I gave you, that’s the only example that I got, but that example holds weight,” he said to me, and I nodded.

“I’m sorry, Sevyn. When I was your wife, you know that I would have figured anything out when it came to you.

That was just one thing that I didn’t know how to figure out.

I felt like if we separated, and if I checked out, that it would make it easier.

You probably think that I’m full of shit when I say this, but this past year and change without you has been the hardest year of my life.

So many times, I’ve needed you. So many nights I would be alone in my room, crying, missing our daughter, and I wanted to call you, but I had to accept that I didn’t have that piece of you anymore.

We never divorced because I stopped loving you.

I’ll always love you. We divorced because I didn’t know how to love you through that.

I was drowning, and so were you. I wanted it to work.

I wanted to wake up one day, feel better, and feel like I could be that wife to you that I once was, but it never came.

I thought that if I were to let go, it could save us in a way, but it did more damage than before because this year between us has been the worst year ever,” I spoke to him.

He didn’t say anything. I didn’t expect him to though. This conversation was heavy.

We were bringing up layers from the past, that we tried to bury, and walk away from.

I kept my head on his shoulder for another five minutes, and then I stood up because I knew that I needed to take my ass to sleep. I had to.

Before I walked away from him though, and I went over to my bed, I reached my arms out because I wanted a hug from him.

He stood up, towering over me, reaching his arms out, and he wrapped them around my waist. My arms went around his neck, while his stayed on the small of my back.

My head rested on his chest, and he took one hand off my back, put it in my damp hair, and he massaged my scalp with just his hands.

I melted when he did that. My pussy jumped too.

Having sex was the last thing that the two of us needed to be doing because fuckin like we were still lovers was playing it's part in why we were always beefing. It’s like, I was thinking this, but my body was thinking something else because as I stood here, I could feel my pussy dripping in juices.