Chapter 11
Lyrix
I was sitting at the vanity in my hotel room, blending concealer under my eyes with the kind of focus only a woman holding back tears could master. My Bluetooth speaker was playing Sade low in the background, and the entire room smelled like roses and strawberries.
Because, of course he made sure I had some delivered.
Four dozen roses.
Four.
A big ass box arrived that morning with my name on it, and when I opened it, it was like a garden bloomed in my hotel room.
They were red, tucked between green stems like love had roots in the vase.
And the edible arrangement was a fruit bouquet.
Pineapples cut into hearts, chocolate-dipped strawberries, and grapes all skewered up fancy.
He was already showing out, and it wasn’t even noon yet.
As I sat there brushing bronzer across my cheeks, my heart started to sink a little because reality was creeping in like a whisper I didn’t want to hear.
I fly back home tomorrow.
And honestly, part of me didn’t want to go. I picked up my phone and FaceTimed my best friend Syn. She answered on the second ring, still laying in bed with her bonnet on her head.
“What’s up, Valentine?” she teased. “You’re glowing, bitch.”
I gave her a weak smile. “Girl…”
She sat up instantly. “What’s up? You okay?”
I nodded. “Yeah. I’m good. I’m just… I don’t know. It’s hitting me that I leave tomorrow.”
Her eyes softened. “Damn. That was fast?”
“It flew by,” I said, setting my makeup brush down. “And I’ve had so much fun. Like… stupid fun. Healing fun. The kind of fun most people only dream about.”
She laughed. “That’s the best kind.”
I smiled. “It’s just… this trip changed me,” I said, finally letting the words settle in my chest. “It really did. I came out here to live out this vision board, to be wild, soft, and sexy again. I told myself I just needed to feel something that wasn’t sadness or routine.”
She nodded. “And you did that.”
“I did. But now that it’s ending, it’s like I’m grieving the version of myself I’m finally meeting. You know?”
She didn’t say anything. She just listened because she knew I needed that.
“My time here reminded me that life isn’t supposed to feel like survival every day. It’s supposed to taste good. It should sound like live jazz through an open window. It should smell like home cooked meals on your fingertips. It should feel like skin-on-skin when nobody’s rushing.”
I took a deep breath and stared at my reflection.
“I didn’t shrink myself to be liked. I didn’t overthink, I didn’t people-please. I just… was. And he saw me. This version of me. This soft, ratchet, fun, unpredictable ass woman. And he liked her. Hell, I loved her.”
She smiled. “She was in there all along. She just needed the right stage.”
I laughed through the ache. “This city? Baby. New Orleans has been the mirror that I needed.
“I came to heal quietly. But I didn’t know that sometimes healing shows up loud, too. Loud like bounce music. Loud like a creole auntie laughing. Loud like your heart when you finally feel seen.”
She nodded. “So what now?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. But I know I’m not flying home the same woman who landed here.”
I stared at my reflection for a long time. My lips were half-done, wig still clipped at the back, and Sade humming in the background like she knew what I was going through. My hotel room looked unapologetically beautiful. Just like I wanted to be.
I didn’t feel lonely. I felt… alive. And that scared the hell out of me.
Syn was still on the phone, quiet but watching me closely, because she could tell something was shifting in me. Something I’d been holding in for too long.
“You know what’s crazy?” I said, finally breaking the silence. “I spent a whole year in my house. Lighting candles. Taking baths with Epsom salt and playlists that made me cry. Writing in my journal like my tears were ink.”
She nodded, listening.
“And I thought that was what healing had to look like. Like if I did enough ‘self work,’ God would finally hand me peace on a silver platter.”
I laughed, shaking my head. “But peace didn’t show up in my journal. It showed up in me—right here, in New Orleans. Covered in glitter, drunk on frozen Hurricanes, shaking my ass on Bourbon Street. It showed me to stop trying to earn joy and just let myself feel it.”
Her smile spread wide. “That’s deep as hell.”
“Girl,” I sighed, “this trip taught me that healing ain’t a straight line. It’s a damn playlist. Some days you cry to Summer Walker, other days you twerk to Big Freedia and don’t give a damn who’s watching.”
We both laughed, but I felt the lump forming in my throat.
“I think sometimes,” I said softly, “we mistake being still for being stuck. Healing doesn’t always mean isolation. Sometimes it means movement. It means living again. Dancing again. Flirting again. Letting somebody look at you like you’re expensive art.”
I wiped under my eyes before my makeup got messed up.
“I was trying to heal in silence because I thought I had to be serious about my pain,” I whispered. “But this week showed me that joy is serious too. Pleasure is serious. Laughter is serious. I felt like healing was punishment when it’s supposed to be a rebirth.
“I didn’t come out here to find love,” I said. “But I did find something. I found me. The version of me that doesn’t apologize for taking up space. The one that doesn’t dim her light just because she’s scared somebody might not like the glare.”
Syn was quiet and I could tell she was crying.
“Lyrix,” she said finally, “you know how many women need to hear that?”
I nodded, smiling through the tears. “I know. Because I was one of them. I thought being single was punishment. I thought God was making me wait because I wasn’t enough yet. But maybe He was waiting for me to stop waiting and start living.”
I leaned in toward the mirror, finishing my makeup, feeling a different kind of glow.
“I’m not healing to be chosen,” I said softly. “I’m healing so that when I am chosen—by someone or by myself—I’ll be ready to show up fully. Messy, whole, and deserving.”
I took a deep breath and smiled at my reflection.
“I think that’s what the Heaux Phase really is. Not being reckless… but being real. It’s permission to live without shame. To laugh loud. To love hard. To let life touch you again after it broke you. To remember that softness is not weakness, and pleasure isn’t bad.”
Then I looked at the roses again. A reminder that love can show up in a million forms. Sometimes through a man, sometimes through a city, sometimes through your damn self.
I picked one up, held it to my nose, and whispered to my reflection,
“This year… I’m not just healing. I’m living.”
Valentine’s Day hits different when your heart is soft and open.
That New Orleans sun was golden, not too hot, just glowing enough to kiss my skin through my dress. I didn’t know what to expect from Maison after the flowers and edible arrangement, but I should’ve known he’d take it to the next level.
“I’ve never been on no damn gondola,” I laughed, holding his hand as we walked toward the little dock on the Bayou.
“Well, there’s a first time for everything,” he smirked, helping me step in. “And since I’m your Valentine, I figured I’d take you on some peaceful shit before you end up somewhere twerking later.”
The water glistened beneath us, the gondolier guiding us slowly while soft jazz played in the background.
Trees bowed gently in the breeze, like they knew they were witnessing something special.
The whole thing looked like it belonged in a movie.
It was the kind of scene you pause and rewind just to feel it twice.
Maison looked so damn good. Beard groomed. That brown skin soaking up sunlight, and I couldn’t help but stare.
“You good?”
“Yeah…” I smiled, blushing. “Just admiring my Valentine. I ain’t never had one that looked this good.”
He laughed and kissed my hand. “I ain’t never had one that felt this good.”
We floated for a while, laughing and talking. Just enjoying the moment, the view, the breeze. It was the kind of calm you crave when you didn’t know your soul was tired. And then… something in the water caught my eye.
A glass bottle.
“What is that?” I asked, pointing.
The gondolier steered us closer, and I reached out to grab it. Inside was a piece of folded paper tied with a ribbon.
I looked at Maison. He didn’t say a word.
I unrolled it slowly, my heart doing that thing it does when it knows something is coming. The note was handwritten. His handwriting.
It read:
Lyrix,
I know you didn’t come out here looking for love.
But maybe… you were looking for something even better.
Freedom. Peace.
I just want you to know that I see you.
Not the curated version. Not the Instagram-worthy one.
The real you.
You keep saying you’re healing, but what I see is a woman who’s already whole. You’re just learning how to celebrate that.
A woman who turned her pain into power and her silence into strength.
Stop thinking you have to follow somebody else’s rules for your healing or your happiness. Make your own. Break them. Rewrite them.
You don’t have to be anyone’s idea of “ready” to deserve good things.
Any real man who wants and sees you, will meet you right where you are.
Even if you’re still becoming.
And I’m just glad the journey brought you here… to me.
Even if just for a little while.
— Your Valentine,
Maison
By the time I finished reading, I had tears in my eyes. The kind that only show up when your heart feels safe. When it feels… held.
I looked at him, blinking, trying to smile through it. “You put a whole message in a bottle?”
He grinned, a little shy for once. “Yeah. You said you didn’t want to spend another holiday alone, so I figured… I’d be the man who showed up.”
And damn if he hadn’t. And maybe it was temporary. Maybe it was a moment in time. But it was a moment that was changing me piece by piece, kiss by kiss, laugh by laugh.
I leaned in, kissed him slow, and whispered, “Thank you for this. All of this.”
He kissed my forehead and said, “You deserve to feel this good because you are this good.”
We left the gondola ride since Maison said he wanted to take me to an early dinner.
I had to sit still for a second because damn. The rooftop was beautiful as hell. Black string lights draped like stars across the open sky, flickering above the tables dressed in white linens and candles.
Maison reached for my hand as we were escorted to a table at the edge of the rooftop, overlooking New Orleans. It felt like time slowed down just for us.
“You good?” he asked as we sat.
“Yeah,” I smiled, looking around. “This some grown-ass romance right here.”
He laughed. “Only the best for my Valentine.”
A waiter came with menus and wine. I didn’t even bother looking at the drink list. “I’ll have whatever you’re having,” I told him.
He leaned closer. “You trust me that much?”
I raised an eyebrow. “I mean… you already fed me naked while telling me your grandma’s gumbo recipe. At this point, I trust you too much.”
He burst out laughing and ordered us two glasses of red, then turned back to the menu. “You ever had BBQ shrimp?”
I squinted. “You mean like shrimp with barbecue sauce?”
He chuckled. “Nah, baby. It’s a New Orleans thing. Head-on shrimp in this buttery, peppery, spicy sauce. You sop it up with bread. It’s messy but worth it.”
“Messy but worth it. Story of my damn life,” I said, then grinned. “Order it. Let me live.”
And live, I did.
When that plate hit the table, the aroma alone made me close my eyes. One bite in, and I had to grab the edge of the table. “Oh my God. This ain’t even food, this a religious experience.”
He grinned like he’d been waiting on that moment. “I knew you’d like it.”
I didn’t just like it. I was ready to fight him over the last shrimp.
We laughed and flirted between bites. The wine made everything warmer. Slower. Sweeter. At one point, the music switched to a soulful saxophone version of “Adore” by Prince and I felt myself melt into the night like it was my own skin.
Somewhere between me licking sauce off my fingers and licking something else with my eyes, he asked me a question.
“What kind of love do you want?”
I looked at him. Not the way I looked when I was undressing him with my eyes or playing with my food to be cute. This time… I looked like a woman who’d been waiting for someone to ask her that. And mean it.
“I want a love that doesn’t need a GPS to find me where I already am,” I said softly. “I want a love that feels like breath. Like ease. Like coming home.”
He just listened. I sipped my wine and kept going.
“I want a love that lets me be loud when I’m loud and soft when I’m soft. I want to be understood when I make sense and still held even when I don’t.”
He blinked slowly.
“I want to be chosen without convincing. Needed without begging. Missed in a way that doesn’t just say I miss you but moves like it. I want forehead kisses and hands on the small of my back. Random texts. Shared playlists. The kind of stuff people forget to ask for when they’re in love.
“And more than anything,” I whispered, “I want to be safe. Not just protected… but safe. Safe to cry. To be messy. To dream out loud without being told it’s too much. To say, I’ve been through hell but I still believe in heaven.”
My voice cracked on that last word. He reached across the table and gently wiped under my eye with his thumb.
“You deserve that,” he said quietly. “You deserve all of that.”
I nodded, holding back tears. “I know. And I didn’t always. I used to think I was too complicated to find love. But now, I know I just need someone with the right map.”
His hand slid into mine.
“Now I’m letting life surprise me. Because if I would’ve stayed in my little box of what I thought I needed… I’d have never been on this rooftop. I’d have never tasted this shrimp. And I’d have never met you.”
He brought my hand to his lips and kissed it.
“You’re not too much,” he said. “You’re just not for everybody.”