La’Nova
La’Nova
‘Coloring With Nova’
My fingers traced over the cover softly as I eyed it like it wasn’t real.
This was something that came from me, and I never remembered ever feeling this proud of myself.
The matte finish felt soft under my fingertips as I eyed the way my name sat right beneath the title.
It was simple yet still elegant. I opened the first page and automatically felt my emotions rise in my throat before I could stop it.
“You really fuckin’ did it,” I said out loud to myself, proud as hell.
It felt like my soul had recognized something that I wasn’t able to explain. Every page held a piece of silenced trauma that I kept locked in and used to be afraid of letting loose for the world to see.
I was finally in a mental safe space where the silence that used to let my thoughts get too loud finally felt released.
I realized that over the years, my trauma had settled so deep inside of me that I stopped recognizing it.
Now I was able to place it all in one place and feel the type of freedom that money couldn’t buy no matter the price.
Coloring used to be my only escape. I remembered how my mother and father used to be so excited each time I drew or colored something then handed it off to them to see.
The last day I was able to lay eyes on them, I had been up in my room coloring and happy until intruders came in and snatched that happiness and security away from me.
In this moment, I imagined both of their smiles.
I could feel them in spirit. My eyes burned as tears slipped free.
I knew in this moment they were proud of me.
For that reason alone, I didn’t care how childish people thought it was to color as an adult.
There were so many women like me that I watched on social media who colored.
In modern day they called it ASMR. I watched those videos late at night after I got done drawing and coloring a picture of my own.
Although I didn’t see their faces, I watched their hands color, allowing the strokes of their markers, pens, and crayons soothe me.
I had those same videos to thank over and over because they helped me fall asleep faster at night, and it kept my mind off of him…
Coloring, for me, was more than just filling lines neatly and picking pretty colors.
A lot of people didn’t know that most women didn’t color because it was something soft and dainty.
People judged women that colored and said that they were crazy, coloring to stay sane, or because we didn’t want to think.
While working at the House Of Angels, I saw firsthand how many women carry the burden of others no matter how small a situation might appear to be. We carry everything down to what was done to us, what we should have done in return, and what we wish we didn’t feel.
Me, personally… my mind didn’t rest easy, even with my newfound freedom.
I already lived through things that rewired my sense of safety.
Drawing and coloring slowed my breathing.
It forced my hands to move more steadier instead of shaking every couple of seconds when I had nothing else to do with them.
It also taught me how to sit with myself without spiraling.
Every stroke of coloring gave me gentle control.
It was for me to exist without thinking about a way to escape or fix something out of my control.
I remember the first page I ever designed.
It was messy and imperfect. The lines were too thick in some places and too thin in others.
I drew a full-figured woman sitting in stillness, her thick kinky hair flowed into the background like it was becoming a part of the world around her.
By the time I finished drawing and coloring the picture.
I realized that it was how I lived my life for so long.
I was used to dissolving into everything I couldn’t handle then I’d think about my freedom and what all I’d do with it once I obtained it.
Now, looking at the finished version, printed clean and beautiful in front of me, I pressed my hand over my stomach and smiled through my tears.
“I finished this for you,” I said lowly.
My baby girl’s foot kicked in response to my voice.
I couldn’t help but to laugh softly because she was already something else like me.
I shook my head and silently thanked Balani as I flipped a few pages deeper into the book.
If it wasn’t for him, this would still be sitting in one of my notebooks somewhere hidden between doubt and hesitation.
I remember a couple of weeks after I left L.A with no particular destination in mind except getting far away from Luca.
I landed right back in Vegas outside of Lennox’s underground casino.
I didn’t know what landed me back in a place I told myself I would never come back to.
It was something in Balani’s blue eyes that stuck with me.
I felt the same pain that mirrored mine the last time I talked to him.
He welcomed me with opened arms, and although it took a while for me to grow comfortable in trusting him, I realized he had my best interest at heart.
Balani didn’t think twice about offering me the lot in the back of his casino to park my camper at until I figured out what I wanted to do.
Then one night out of our many nights of spending time together and getting to know one another, I showed him my sketches and all the coloring books I had colored.
I talked about the different images I created as if they didn’t matter.
Secretly, I hoped he’d see what I felt when I looked at them, but at the same time, I didn’t expect him to.
That night my mind went back to Luca and how he reacted when he saw all my drawings and the images I colored.
I saw emotion evident on Luca’s handsome face.
Luca proved how much my art affected him by making room on his estate for me to have an endless space of creativity to myself.
No one except my parent’s showed that much care to what a lot of people thought was stupid.
Damn, I miss him… I shook my head at my own thoughts, reeling back to Balani… my new safe space wrapped in one.
When Balani saw my art, he didn’t even blink. He looked me in the eyes and said…
“What you’re doing isn’t just coloring and drawing, Honey Boo.” He batted his natural long curly lashes then snapped his well-manicured fingers. “This is a healing tool, and you’re sitting on it like it’s nothing.”
I remember rolling my eyes, trying to brush his words off by telling him that this was just something I liked to do to calm down. Balani wasn’t having none of what I was saying. He told me that it was something other women needed as well.
Balani had real connects that he didn’t brag about.
He just proved that he had those connects by putting me on with the right people to get my coloring book published.
Within a week, he had me sitting in a meeting with a small but respected traditional publishing company that specialized in wellness materials for women.
I was so nervous, my hands shook the entire time.
I didn’t know what to say to the group of people, but Balani handled it all.
He didn’t oversell me or exaggerate what my coloring book was about.
Instead, he talked about mental health without making it sound clinical.
The way he made trauma a subject without making it heavy was beautiful.
By the time he finished pitching my book, they weren’t just interested, they were invested.
The deal we negotiated had given me ownership rights, creative control.
I got proper compensation and had enough time to create with extra financial backing.
The same day I walked out of the meeting, I threw my breakfast up then ended up fainting.
Balani rushed me to the hospital, and we both found out that I was four months pregnant.
I remember breaking down so hard in front of the doctor and Balani.
I thought about abortion only to have that shut down by being told I was too far along.
Looking back, I hated how ungrateful I was for the precious gift that I had fallen head over hills in love with now.
Because of my baby girl, I made a decision to buy a two-bedroom condo for just her and I when I gave birth.
Although I was hardly there and still content with my camper, I decorated my place and had it ready for my baby girl who would be here within the next two weeks or earlier.
My only regret was not telling Luca. I felt shameful and selfish about it.
I prayed that he didn’t overreact once I found the courage to mail him the five-page letter that I wrote the day I found out about being pregnant.
Each time I thought I gathered up enough courage to mail it off, I chickened out.
The only part of me that felt okay with not telling Luca myself was that I told his mother.
I called House Of Angels from a pay phone and told Lucille about my pregnancy, and after her evil ass threatened me to get rid of my baby, I cursed her ass out and told her how I was now protected by the Reyes Mafia.
I had no clue how I would go about co-parenting with Luca because I hadn’t considered it. I was petrified to even lay eyes on the man after all this time. It seemed like with distance and space, the ache of love I had for him grew even stronger.
In a twisted way, jealousy nearly crippled me when I thought about him with another woman.
I thought about Luca every day, along with how the twins were doing.
I prayed to God and asked him why he allowed me to get pregnant with Luca’s baby after the painful discovery of him and my union. It wasn’t normal.
I couldn’t imagine being with a man whose father I killed, and despite Luca’s feelings for me, he’d never be able to forgive me for hurting him in the way that I did.