Page 10 of Love Letters from a Libra (BLP Signs of Love #13)

Notes App - Sometimes the people who listen the best are the ones who never got heard growing up.

I swore the sheets on the right side of my bed held an impression of her body and a lingering scent in the fabric.

Her laughter kept breaking through my concentration this morning.

When we watched that documentary about deep-sea creatures, she compared an ugly-looking anglerfish to her ex and had me cracking up.

After my shower, I pulled on a pair of black sweatpants and a gray T-shirt and moved through my living room, adjusting a throw pillow she had moved and repositioning books she’d looked at on my end table.

My phone vibrated against the countertop, and the screen lit up with her name and a text.

Zanaa:

Still thinking about the documentary. The ocean is just as weird as space, right? Thanks again for letting me crash at your place.

A smile formed before I could stop it. I caught my reflection in the kitchen window; I looked like someone open and accessible. My smile dropped immediately, replaced by a tight and guarded expression.

It was too easy. It felt too easy to fall into her rhythm, to let her questions unravel parts of me. Questions I’d kept wound tight for decades. Vulnerability was just another word for target.

I turned the phone face down on the counter, a physical manifestation of the emotional distance I needed to maintain.

I had planned to call her this morning. I actually rehearsed what I would say in the shower.

Instead, I wiped down the already clean counters, unloaded the dishwasher, and dusted the triple monitors on my desk.

The phone remained face down, her text unanswered. In my head, I knew exactly how many steps it would take to reach the phone. I knew how many seconds it would take to write a response.

Yet, I headed to my computer to log into work.

My dashboard alert pinged three minutes into the video call, a priority breach attempt on the law firm’s eastern server.

On the center monitor, my client, Yelena Mercer, CEO for Brabourne and Associates, one of the East Coast’s most prominent corporate law firms, nodded.

She was one of the good ones. She actually understood the technical details rather than just nodding along until I got to the bottom line.

“Did they target anyone specific?” she asked.

“Three partners in the mergers and acquisitions division. The pattern suggests the same group that hit Preston and Lowe last month. Corporate espionage, not random hackers.” I kept my voice even and professional while I executed a tracer protocol following the attack back to its source.

“The vulnerability wasn’t in your infrastructure.

It was a targeted phishing attempt against your litigation team.

It was sophisticated enough to get past the first layer, but our secondary protocols caught it,” I explained as my eyes scanned the alert details.

I explained the technical details to Yelena, my mouth operating on autopilot while a part of my brain handled the security response.

But there was a third party on my mind now, one that kept slipping in sideways, Zanaa, and how her eyes widened slightly when I explained what I did for a living. She wasn’t impressed exactly, but interested in a way most people weren’t.

“Most people hear cybersecurity and think I just reset passwords all day,” I explained to her.

“I figured it was more like being a digital detective, finding patterns, tracking break rooms, most even the ones people didn’t see,” she had replied.

The accuracy of her assessment caught me off guard. Most people didn’t see the elegance and artistry beneath the technical surface of what I did.

“Jules, your thoughts on implementing this across all of our satellite offices?” Yelena’s voice pulled me back to the present.

“It’s necessary but not sufficient. The technology is solid, but your weakest points will always be human. We should run a simulated attack against all offices simultaneously to see where the knowledge gaps are,” I answered.

Yelena made a note, her expression approving. “That’s why we keep you on retainer; you’re always three steps ahead.”

“Can we discuss the human element? Your last training session with our partners was effective, and even Thompson paid attention. That man doesn’t listen to anyone. You have a gift for making people hear you.” Yelena smiled.

“Clear communication saves time and resources,” I replied. The response was professional and impractical.

“It’s more than that. You listen first, really listen, which is rare. Sometimes, the people who listen the best are the ones who never got heard growing up.” She tilted her head.

My fingers froze mid-stroke. The muscles in my jaw locked tight enough to crack walnuts, and heat ran up my spine.

I was nine years old again for a split second, sitting silently at the kitchen table while my mother argued with her latest boyfriend.

I didn’t have a voice back then, so my observations, questions, and fears were bottled up, because no one had time for a child’s concerns when adult chaos was unfolding.

I learned that being heard was a luxury, not a right for a child.

The memory flooded my system with unwanted adrenaline. I swallowed it down and reset my expression to neutral, forcing my fingers to work. The entire episode took less than two seconds, not long enough for Yelena to notice the fracture in my professional facade.

“Active listening is an underrated tool. People reveal vulnerabilities in how they describe problems,” I said, my voice steady again.

Yelena nodded, apparently satisfied with my redirection. “Whatever the reason, it works. The partners are actually implementing your recommendations, which is more than I can say for the last three consultants.”

However, part of my mind remained stuck on her casual observation, the one that landed with the precision of a targeted missile.

Sometimes, the people who listen the best are the ones who never got heard growing up.

The truth of it settled uncomfortably in my chest, like a foreign object, my body wanting to reject it. I didn’t discuss my childhood. I didn’t examine it. I compartmentalized it the same way I segmented a hard drive, storing necessary files where they couldn’t corrupt the operating system.

Yet here, this woman, this client who knew nothing about my past beyond my professional credentials, accidentally assessed restricted memory sectors with a throwaway comment.

It reminded me too much of Zanaa and how she saw parts of me that I hadn’t revealed, how her questions found the seams in my carefully constructed self.

The similarity triggered another cascade of thoughts I didn’t want during a client meeting. Her text was still unanswered, her presence lingering in my apartment and my head.

“I’ll have the implementation plan to you by the end of the day,” I said as the meeting wrapped up.

“It’s always a pleasure, Jules. We appreciate your thoroughness,” Yelena replied.

I smiled at her before the call ended. I sat motionless for at least thirty seconds, breathing in the welcomed silence on my desk beside the keyboard.

In the kitchen, my personal phone was still face down, and Zanaa’s text was still unanswered.

I returned my attention to the security dashboard. I rolled my shoulders back, noticing the tension before typing the implementation plan. I was building digital walls while trying not to think about the ones that got breached inside of me.

It had been a few weeks since our second date, and another week had passed without any communication.

I guess she got tired of waiting. Three simple words sat on my screen that shouldn’t have complicated my breathing.

Free Friday night? The logical response was: Yeah, what’s on your mind?

It was direct and straightforward, yet I was paralyzed.

The leather couch creaked beneath me as I sat down, and I typed out.

Me:

I’m free. Your place or mine?

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 to absorb 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 offered future 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.