“How long is a while?” he asked, brushing his fingers on my thigh.
“A year,” I said. “I’ve been in the house. Like hermit, but I was trying to be intentional. Let fun, love, happiness… all that… find me. It was just me, therapy, and doordash.”
He chuckled softly. “And how was that?”
“Boring,” I admitted. “Lonely as hell too. I kept thinking being still would give me peace, but sometimes it just gave me silence I didn’t know what to do with.”
He nodded. “Were you… intimate with anybody?”
I shook my head. “Nope. My therapist said it would just be a distraction. She said healing required me to be honest about what I was running from and not just who I was running to.”
“That’s real,” he said, his voice low and thoughtful. “But sometimes… how you gonna know what you want when moving forward unless you explore a little?”
“Exactly,” I said. “Like I didn’t even know I liked that move you do in the bed…”
He smirked. “Which one?”
“The one with the deep stroke, the little ‘whew’ at the end, and that hand on my—”
He cracked up, and I did too.
“That’s a signature move,” he said. “Glad you noticed.”
“Well now it’s a requirement.So I’ll add it to my list of non-negotiables.”
We were still laughing, but then the silence came again.
“You deserve this,” he said suddenly.
I blinked. “What?”
“This peace. This fun. This version of you that don’t gotta perform or shrink or explain. The girl dancing in the middle of the street and moaning over food. That’s her. That’s you.”
I swallowed.
“And just because you were healing,” he continued, “doesn’t mean you gotta put yourself on pause. Growth isn’t punishment. It’s a passport. You get to still go places, still feel things, still touch pleasure without it meaning you’re backtracking.”
“Damn,” I whispered.
“You took time to learn yourself in stillness,” he said. “Now it’s time to learn yourself in chaos, in movement, in messy-ass joy. Let that be okay too.”
I bit my lip, trying not to get emotional. But he kept going.
“Fun can be healing. Pleasure can be sacred. And you don’t owe nobody an apology for enjoying your damn life. The version of you that’s free is not a phase. That’s you in bloom.”
I laid my head on his shoulder, and for a second, I let myself believe I was safe in more ways than one.
He kissed the side of my face.
And right there, on a balcony overlooking a city that refused to dim, I realized that all of that was what the vision board really meant.
Not just the checklist.
But the feeling.
The softness after the storm.
The sweetness in the sweat.
