Page 26 of Love Letters from a Libra
But then I deleted the words and set the phone on the coffee table. The words seemed too eager.
Candace, my last serious relationship from two years ago, entered my mind, uninvited but persistent. She was a brilliant environmental lawyer with quick wit but even quicker mood swings. Candace was passionate, beautiful, and constantly in crisis. The two a.m. calls when her anxiety wouldn’t let her sleep, or how she’d position me between her demanding parents and herself, not to mention the emergencies that always coincided with my rare personal plans.
“You’re the only one who really listens and gets me,” she’d say through tearful eyes.
I did listen. I became her emotional support system, her therapist, and anchor. It was my superpower, the ability toabsorb her chaos without being destabilized by it, a skill I’d mastered long before I met her.
When she left, finding someone more “passionate,” more “spontaneous,” those were her parting words that cut deep.
Hell, she wasn’t the first. There was Dawn, and Imani before her. Different women with the same pattern. They’d arrive with their own unique energy, but gradually transferred their weight onto my shoulders until I was carrying both of us. I let them because it was what I knew how to do, be the one who never faltered or the strong one.
Zanaa stood firmly on her own two feet. When she asked questions, it wasn’t to transfer emotional baggage but to genuinely know. Her thoughts were offering, not a plea for validation.
I picked up my phone and re-read her text.
Zanaa:
Free Friday night?
The realization hit me. She didn’t need me, and that was what scared me. Grounded in her beliefs, she stood complete without me. If she chose me, I wouldn’t be filling a gap in her emotional infrastructure. It would be because she wanted me.
That was terrifying because what did I offer when stability wasn’t needed? Who was I when I wasn’t serving as someone else’s rock? After more thought, I typed:
Me:
Tied up with work, a big deadline for a client. Rain check?
Technically, it was true. I did have work, though it wasn’t anything that couldn’t be rescheduled. The rain check offeredfuture possibilities without specific commitment. I reread it, then hit send.
The message showed as delivered and read almost immediately. The three dots appeared and disappeared.
Zanaa:
No worries. Good luck with your deadline.
Her answer was simple and accepting. I should’ve been relieved, but instead, I was somehow hollow.
I moved to put on my running shoes and grabbed my earbuds. Outside, the cool night air filled my lungs. My feet struck the pavement in measured strokes. Usually, by mile two, my thoughts settled, but tonight, my mind refused the usual discipline. Instead, I got fragments of Zanaa.
I pushed harder, increasing my pace as if I could outrun my thoughts. This was ridiculous, pining over a woman I barely knew, acting like a character in the romance novels my sister pretended not to read.
“Don’t start something you’re too tired to carry,” I whispered, my words forming puffs in the cold air.
I was tired—no, I was exhausted from a lifetime of carrying other people’s needs and expectations, and Zanaa deserved someone who could match her light and intensity.
I was tripping because she hadn’t asked me to carry her. I just hadn’t decided if I would be brave enough to reach for her.
Libra Daily Horoscope– You’re learning balance doesn’t mean silence. Speak gently but truthfully. If they’re real, they’ll stay for the whole conversation.
I hadn’t noticedat first. On the first day, I figured Jules was busy and would text me later. By the second day, I’d opened our thread twice without meaning to, out of muscle memory. Still, no read receipt or anything. I refused to double-text or spiral.
Now, weeks later, I scrolled back through Jules’s texts from the past week. Something was off. The rhythm of his words had changed, the digital equivalent of someone who suddenlystopped making eye contact. His earlier messages spilled across my screen like warm honey, but these recent ones? They weren’t cold exactly, just different, shorter, lacking his usual warmth like someone switched from writing poetry to bullet points without warning me about the genre change.
Jules:
“Tied up with work. Deadline for a big client. Rain check?”
I read it for probably the twentieth time, analyzing each word choice as if it were a coded message from the universe. There was nothing explicitly wrong with it. Nothing I could point to and say, “There, that’s the red flag.” It was logical, perfectly reasonable. Perfectly distant.
