"we will struggle
not the way people do
and you will hurt me
but not the way everyone else can
and you will love me
harder than anything I've ever known
and I will need you
it will be strong and terrifying
and I will listen
even if it's the sadde...
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Naomi June 11th, 2009 Tappahannock, Virginia
"We never been this far from the shore We might not ever go back anymore Got you all in your emotions, hit you with the force then Tell me your desires, I won't ever tire You'd rather play the game than to throw the fight Boy you know that ain't right When I'm needing your affection, I need that attention Up and down motion, come swim in my ocean"
"What you doing here, shorty?"
I was greeted by my dad's smiling face when I casually strolled into the garage in the middle of the day. I had to laugh as I walked past the receptionist desk, remembering all the hours I spent there when I worked here. How C would sometimes keep me company when Daddy was preoccupied, and share the desk with me.
Since I've been back home, I've been pretty much bouncing between Chris' place and my dad's, trying to spend as much time as I could with both of them.
The last few months have been...a mess, to say the least.
You can probably guess, the news I woke up to back in February was just the tip of the iceberg in Chris' latest drama. The last thing I expected to hear was that him and his girlfriend had got into a physical altercation, in a moving car at that. I couldn't believe it.
In all my years of knowing Chris, as bad as his temper would get and I would piss him off, he never once raised even half a finger to me. It was never even a thought in my mind that it was something he was capable of. Especially with everything he dealt with in his own house when we were kids, but when I got to LA the next day, he confessed to me. Right on the floor of one of Diddy's mansions he was staying at, he broke down in tears at my feet and confessed.
Shocked isn't even the word to describe how I felt in the moment. I didn't even have time to dwell on that emotion though, because it became clear to me very quickly that he needed me. That he was going to be needing me for a while. He was breaking down right before my eyes and it was killing me inside seeing him like that.
I went back to New York and tried to focus on school, but it was like every time I talked to him, or his mom and dad, or to Mijo, he was doing worse and worse. The media was ruthless and unforgiving, not that I blame them, and overnight he went from America's R&B sweetheart to a demon in their eyes.
Endorsements, friends, resources...all were slowly disappearing and the ground was shrinking underneath his feet.
I went back and forth to LA as much as I could manage, and I actually finished the school year with all passing grades surprisingly. So when he told me his plans to stay at the estate for a while and isolate, it really wasn't a question to me whether I'd be there or not.
