Page 31 of Love Letters from a Libra
Zanaa nodded, pulling the sheet back onto her as she settled against the pillows. “I’d like that.”
Three simple words, free of demand or manipulation. The simplicity of it made my chest ache with longing.
A few hours later, after I’d gone home and showered, I entered the Fourth Avenue Grill. It hadn’t changed in the decade that I’d been coming here, and it had the same cramped tables and photos of celebrities on the walls. There was history in the air. My sister already had a table in the corner with two mugs in front of her.
She sat scrolling through her phone with the intensity she brought to everything. I could tell Amir was in analysis mode even from across the room.
“Well, well. Someone spent the night elsewhere,” she said without even looking up as I slid into the seat across from her.
I reached for the coffee. She had already ordered black, no sugar for me, and I took a careful sip. “Good morning to you too.”
My sister was younger at twenty-two, but often seemed decades wiser. Her braids were pulled back in a neat ponytail, and her MIT sweatshirt hung loosely on her frame, but there was nothing casual about the way she examined me.
“You look different. Relaxed but trying not to be. You’re doing that thing with your jaw,” she declared.
I resisted the urge to check what “thing” my jaw was apparently doing. “Can we at least order before the interrogation starts?”
“You’re falling for her for real.” Amir grinned, leaning back in her chair.
The statement landed like a missile strike.
“It’s not that simple,” I replied.
“It never is with you, but I know that look. The last time I saw it was when you brought Candace to Aunt Nubi’s birthday.” Amir sipped her coffee, which I knew was probably a complicated concoction of whipped cream and caramel that made my teeth hurt just looking at it.
The mention of my ex tightened something in my chest. “This is different.”
“Different how?”
Before I answered, the server appeared. An older woman who had been working here since before I was born. She remembered my order without needing to write it down. After she left, Amir leaned forward with her elbows on the table, her chin propped up on her hands.
“Different how?” she pressed.
I considered how to explain Zanaa to someone who hadn’t met her and how to capture her essence without revealing too much about her. “She’s not needy; she’s self-contained and has her whole life figured out.”
“Ah, that’s new territory for you. She doesn’t need saving.”
“I don’t have a savior complex,” I protested, though the words sounded hollow, even to me.
“Please. You’ve been rescuing people since you were nine years old and then decided I was your responsibility after Mom died. It was your whole thing.” She scoffed.
I didn’t argue her point. We’d had this conversation before, Amir trying to release me from a burden. I never saw it as a burden, and I insisted that looking out for her was just what brothers were supposed to do. Instead, I watched the condensation form on my water glass, tracing patterns that reminded me of how Zanaa had traced my tattoos last night with her fingers, following the tribal lines with reverent curiosity.
“Tell me about her, the real stuff, not the resume version.” Amir smiled.
I hesitated, remembering the last time I opened up about someone and how I talked about Candace for hours, detailing all the ways she fascinated and challenged me. Amir had listened patiently before warning me about the intensity in my voice and the signs of hyper fixation she had recognized from our childhood. I hadn’t listened. The crash and burn that followed had proven her right.
“The last time I talked too much about someone, she slipped away before I could even show her the real me,” I replied carefully.
Amir’s expression shifted to something gentler, the teasing edge temporarily gone. “Candace didn’t leave because you talked about her. She left because you gave and gave until you had nothing left and then blamed yourself for being empty.”
The truth stung. Our food arrived, giving me a moment to compose myself. Amir dove into her pancakes while I pushed the eggs around on my plate. My appetite suddenly diminished.
“I like her laugh. It’s different when she is being polite versus when something really hits her, and she has a way of seeing things that reminds me of you, actually, but softer, less analytical,” I found myself saying.
Amir grinned around a mouthful of pancake. “High praise, comparing her to me.”
“She runs an astrology blog, Celestial Body. It’s actually really good, not the horoscope nonsense from the magazines, but how she sees people, really sees them.”
