Page 40 of Love Letters from a Libra
He isn’t a wish, I thought. Suddenly, he was a man showing up.
“We have about twenty minutes before it’s dark enough. The moon is waning crescent, so visibility should be good once the city lights fade,” Jules clarified, checking his watch.
Before I responded, a couple approached, a woman with silver streak braids, and a taller man carrying what looked like star charts.
“Jules, you made it, and you brought company.” The woman smiled as she took us in.
Jules stood. “Dr. Wallace, Dr. Chin, this is Zanaa. Zanaa, these are the volunteers who run the event, my aunt’s friends.
I stood to accept their handshakes. “Nice to meet you. Jules mentioned this has been a tradition for him.”
Dr. Chen’s eyes crinkled at the corners. “We’ve watched this one grow up through our telescopes, from a teenager to the respectable man before us today.” She winked at me.
“Dr. Chen.” Jules groaned, but he was smiling. This was a comfortable dynamic. I realized the gentle teasing of people who’d known him long enough to remember his awkward phase.
“Well, we will leave you two alone. The kids from the community should be arriving soon, and we need to set up their viewing stations,” Dr. Wallace mentioned, squeezing his wife’s arm.
As they moved away, Jules and I settled back onto the blanket. “Sorry about that. They’ve basically adopted every kid who comes to these events.”
“No worries. They seem great. What about your sister? Is she coming tonight?” I tucked my legs under me, getting comfortable.
“Amir offered to skip this one. Said she’d rather eat glass than be a third wheel to our love connection. Her words, not mine.” Jules’s mouth quirked in one corner.
I laughed. “I like her already.”
“Nah, she mentioned studying for a big test. She’s eager to meet you though. No pressure. She’s curious about who’s been responsible for making me show up somewhere with flowers at midnight,” he added.
The mention of that night—him at my door with the lilies in vulnerability—hung between us for a moment, neither of us ready to revisit that directly.
Instead, I looked up at the darkening sky, where the first few stars were becoming visible. “It’s strange to think that we are seeing light that has traveled for years to reach us. Some of those stars might not even exist anymore.”
Jules followed my gaze upward. “Aunt Nubi used to say that was why trust mattered. You’re believing in something you can’t fully verify.”
The parallel wasn’t lost on me, how we were both here looking up, trying to believe in something neither of us could fully verify. This fragile thing between us was built on attraction and connection but tested by retreat and return.
As darkness fell more completely, the stars multiplied above us. Around us, other stargazers adjusted telescopes and pointed excitedly to the constellations in the sky. Children’s voices carried through the cool air, their wonder unfiltered and contagious.
Jules shifted beside me, his arm lightly bumping mine.
“Would you like to look through the telescope? Jupiter’s visible tonight.”
I nodded, and he adjusted the settings, and I felt something loosen in my chest. A guard I hadn’t realized I still maintained. There was no cosmic certainty here, no fate written in the stars. Just two people on a blanket, making small, deliberate choices to be present with each other. That was more significant than any grand gesture the universe might’ve planned.
We ended up lying back on the blanket, looking upward at the vast expanse above us. The telescope, which had been mostly forgotten after being used to view Jupiter, was then used to point out constellations, which somehow led to this comfortable silence. My hair spread out around me like a dark halo, probably collecting bits of grass and bits of fuzz that I’d complain about later, but now, I didn’t care. The weight of Jules against me felt more significant than this shit like a tether keeping me from floating away into the darkness above us.
“I used to make my own consolation as a kid. The real ones never made sense to me. Like, who looks at all those random stars and sees a hunter or a bear. It was like everyone was on some joke I didn’t get,” I admitted, breaking the silence.
Jules chuckled, turning his head slightly toward me, his profile outlined against the night sky. “What did you see?”
“All kinds of things, kitchen appliances mainly. Mama Tilda thought I was ridiculous, but she played along. I had the whole kitchen mapped out in the stars. The microwave, the coffee pot, the blender.” I laughed.
“Hilarious.” I could hear the amusement in his voice.
“My favorite was the teapot, which had nothing to do with the actual Sagittarius. See all those stars that make up the Archer’s Bow? To me, that was the handle, and those three bright ones over there formed the spout.” I pointed upward, tracing the visual pattern with my finger.
His hand rose next to mine, following my direction.
“I can see it, sort of.”
