Page 22 of Love Letters from a Libra
“Is that how you see it, as a job?”
His question caught me off guard, not because it was deep, but because people rarely asked me about the why behind what I did. They either dismissed astrology altogether or treated me like I was some kind of mystic guide with all the answers. Rarely did they ask about the person behind the post.
At a loss for words, I looked around. His furniture was comfortable, in shades of gray and black. There was warmth in how a hand-woven blanket was folded over an armchair, and there was a set of unusual stones arranged on the coffee table.
“Have you ever felt like a fraud?” My question surprised me. I hadn’t meant to be so direct.
“In what way?”
“The whole spiritual guide thing, the blog. My supporters get the aligned me, the girl who has it all together. Who can interpret the stars and know what Mercury retrograde means for their love life. Yet, I’m still figuring out what that even means.”
Jules was quiet for a moment. There was no judgment in his face, just an attentive presence. “You sound like a woman in transition.”
His words hit me with an unexpected force because they were precisely what I needed to hear. He didn’t give the typical you’re not a fraud or everyone feels that way. Instead, he acknowledged the in-between of where I was.
“Yeah, I guess I am,” I admitted. It was crazy how sometimes I felt trapped by the persona I had created.
I realized I had been talking about myself for too long. “What about you, the cybersecurity stuff that you do. Are you aligned with that, or is that just something you’re good at?”
He gave my question some thought. “Both. I’ve learned that I’m drawn to patterns and into places where systems connect and disconnect. Finding vulnerabilities and protecting boundaries, you know, understanding how things work beneath the surface.” Jules’s eyes met mine.
I remembered last night at the meditation studio, the way he held my eyes as a tear fell down my cheek, how I felt seen in that moment—more naked than if we’d actually slept together.
“You’re good at that beneath-the-surface stuff,” I said quietly.
“So are you. Isn’t that what your work is really about, looking past the obvious patterns underneath?” he countered.
I blinked and was surprised again by how he understood aspects of my struggle. “I guess it is.”
From any other man’s mouth, it would’ve sounded like a line, but from him, it felt like the truth offered freely without expectation, and that was when I realized what felt different about him. He wasn’t trying to get something from me; there was no emotional labor, no validation, and no performance of who he thought I should be. He was witnessing who I was right now in all my contradictions, and somehow, in his witnessing, I felt more alive than I had in a long time. We sat quietly for a moment, the jazz still playing softly in the background. There was something about being here, like his roots somehow extended to me when I was in his space.
“Thank you.”
“For what?” he asked.
“For letting me be me, unfinished.”
After Jules dropped me off, I dropped my keys in the clay dish by the door. A lopsided thing I made at a pottery class during my try new things phase. I kicked off my shoes and entered my bedroom. I grabbed clean clothes and immediately took a hot shower and performed my daily hygiene. In my bedroom, the prayer plant Jules gave me sat in the windowsill, and its leaves were tilted upward to the light like hands raised in supplication. It was the only thing in my apartment that seemed perfectly placed. I grabbed my spray bottle and misted the leaves. I walked around and checked the soil on my other plants and sprayed the ones that liked the humidity. My phone buzzed from where I tossed it on the bed. It was probably Toni or Rell wondering where I disappeared to last night. I was right. Toni’s name appeared on the screen, and my cousin’s photo with her toddler son smiling at me. I swiped to answer.
“Please tell me you’re not dead in a ditch,” Toni fussed.
I laughed, tucking the phone between my ear and shoulder as I continued watering my plants. “Good morning, sunshine.”
“Don’t sunshine me. I texted you at least three times last night. Where were you?”
“Out,” I said, deliberately being vague.
“Mm-hmm. Out where? With who? And what? And don’t try that I’m grown shit with me. I changed your diapers.” Toni’s rapid-fire questions were accusatory, but I could tell that she was smiling.
“Yeah, when you were twelve, and I’m pretty sure you propped me up on some pillows and went back to watching your music videos.” I laughed.
“Details,” she dismissed.
I sighed, knowing she wouldn’t let up. “I was with the café guy, and we’ve been kind of seeing each other.”
“Kind of seeing? What exactly does that mean? Either his eyes work or they don’t.”
I couldn’t help laughing at her corny joke. “We’ve hung out a few times and last night. I ended up staying over.”
