Page 15 of Love Letters from a Libra (BLP Signs of Love #13)

Libra Daily Horoscope – Mercury is in retrograde, and so is your patience. Let people show up the way they know how, and decide from there what you need. You don’t owe anyone your peace.

I stared at my phone screen, scrolling through the history between Jules and me.

Almost another week had gone by. That day when he left, all I got was a ‘got home safe,’ no affection, no follow-up, nothing to suggest that he was thinking about me at all.

The shift wasn’t dramatic enough to call him out without sounding needy, but it was obvious enough that the knot in my stomach had been tightening with each notification that wasn’t him.

“This is stupid,” I muttered to myself. I could text him something casual and ask about his day or share a random thought to keep the connection alive, but pride was a stubborn bitch, and mine was currently standing with her arms crossed, eyebrows raised silently, judging me for even considering being the one to reach out again.

I caught myself biting my thumbnail, a habit I broke years ago and only resurfaced when anxiety took hold.

The realization made me drop my hand into my lap like I’d been burned.

This wasn’t me. I didn’t sit around waiting for men to text or call.

I had a life, a business, a whole damn cosmic perspective that should have put one man’s communication patterns into proper proportion.

Still, this connection with Jules felt different.

I closed my eyes and replayed our night together in vivid detail, his hands mapping my body with the same focus he brought to everything.

I remembered the weight of him above me in the bed when we’d gone in for round two.

He asked if I was okay, even when we were both breathing hard with wanting.

I also remembered how we had tea in the morning, like we were creating our own private language.

And now, silence. Or close enough to it that it felt like silence.

Perhaps he was just busy. People often got busy with work, or life happened. I told myself that. Still, the excuse rang hollow in my ears.

I’d dated enough to recognize the phase when it started. I just didn’t expect it from him, not after the intensity of our connection, not after he finally allowed me to see behind those carefully constructed walls.

I wrote about cosmic timing and patience. I literally made a living telling people to trust the process. When anxiety crept in, I closed my eyes and blew out air, as I had instructed my blog readers to do.

“Fine, I’ll wait. I’ll give him space. I’ll trust that whatever is happening has a purpose that I can’t see yet,” I whispered to myself.

I hated how my emotions went wild, swinging from one extreme to another.

All I wanted was harmony and everything neatly aligned, but sometimes the universe had other plans, and all we could do was sit with the discomfort.

I turned my phone on silent and placed it in a drawer out of sight, not entirely out of mind.

A knock at the door jolted me out of my spiral of overthinking. I glanced at the time, 9:38 p.m., too late for package delivery and too early for the upstairs neighbor’s drunk singing to drive me to complaining. I debated ignoring it, but a familiar voice called through the door.

“I know you’re in there, Zanaa. I can literally see your shadow under the door.” It was Rell’s lying ass because he knew good and well he couldn’t see under my door.

I dragged myself to the door, running a quick hand through my curls before opening it to find him standing with an arm full of jalapeno popcorn and a box of wine tucked under the other. He was wearing an oversized hoodie that read, “Don’t text your EX, breathe instead,” in bold white letters.

“Your Facepage story was giving emotional crisis, so I bought reinforcements. And before you ask, yes, I got the extra spicy kind because I know you think regular jalapeno tastes like air,” Rell announced, pushing past me into my apartment without waiting for an invitation.

I closed the door behind him, something loosening in my chest at the familiar way he moved through my space, dropping the popcorn on the coffee table and setting the wine box on my kitchen counter.

We’d been friends since college, when we were the only two black kids in advanced poetry who rolled our eyes at the same pretentious classmates.

“I didn’t post any story,” I protested, following him into the kitchen where he was already opening my cabinet for wineglasses.

Rell’s eyebrows raised in perfect skepticism.

“Really? When Mercury and Mars square off, communication goes sideways. Check your assumptions, lovelies. The stars are testing your perception, not your worth. With that moody filter in your journal in the corner? That is astrologer for some man is fucking with my head.” He handed me a wineglass.

I blew out air and leaned against the counter. “It was a regular post, not a story.”

“Not the point, Zanaa. Who is he, and what did he do?”

The wine box made a sad squeaking sound when he squeezed it to fill his glass. I took a long sip, the warmth spreading through me, before following him back to the living room. He settled onto the couch, immediately grabbing the popcorn and tearing it open.

“It’s not a crisis. It’s just a situation, and you know who he is.” I tucked my legs under me as I sat beside him.

“Mm-hmm. A situation with the hot meditation guy with the locs?” Rell’s voice was muffled by popcorn.

I took another sip of wine instead of answering, which was enough for Rell to nod, while reaching for more popcorn. “What happened? Last I heard, you two were all aligned with the heart chakras or whatever.”

“That is not what I said, and nothing happened exactly. That’s the problem.” I couldn’t help smiling, despite myself.

“Define nothing.”

I blew out air, the wine already loosening my grip on my composure. “We slept together.”

Rell’s eyes widened. “That’s definitely not nothing.”

“And it was good, really good. Not just physically though . . . That was . . . yeah, but the connection felt real. We talked for hours, but he keeps doing this vanishing thing.”

Rell stood up, grabbed the wine box from the kitchen counter, and topped off our glasses. “Define vanishing.”

“I don’t know. He seems attentive at times, and other times, very vague, no calls, no plans to meet up again, just distance.”

“And you haven’t texted him because . . .?”

I shot him a look. “I’m not chasing a man who doesn’t wanna be caught. I do have some dignity.”

“Debatable. Seriously, though, how long has it been since you heard from him? Like actual radio silence?”

“Almost a week.”

“A week? I know you’re fucking lying. You haven’t given the man time to miss you yet.”

“It’s not just the amount of time, it’s the change. We went from having fun conversations to one or two-word texts to nothing at all. It’s like talking to a completely different person at times.”

“Maybe he’s busy, broke his phone, or sick,” Rell offered, crunching on popcorn.

“Or maybe he’s doing exactly what guys always do: getting close enough to get what they want and then backing away once they’ve gotten it. I’m so stupid. I actually thought this was different.” I ran my hand through my hair again, tugging at the roots in frustration.

“You’re not stupid. You’re just a romantic in a world full of commitment phobes,” Rell clarified.

“Same difference. Like, you know, when you hear something click into place? It was like that, but with a person. Being with Jules felt like finding a missing piece I didn’t know I was missing.” I pressed my palm to my chest, trying to articulate the feeling.

“That’s either beautiful or terrifying,” Rell said.

“Apparently terrifying to him. I didn’t ask for anything serious, just basic communication.”

“You sure about that? You always fall for the potential. You read the connection before it finishes the sentence. And I’m sure the meditation instructor with the sexy man bun and those I-see-your-soul-eyes has never made another woman feel the same exact way.”

“That’s not fair. His locs are shoulder length, not a man bun,” I corrected. I knew I was focusing on the wrong part of his statement.

Rell nudged me with his elbow. “Listen to yourself. You’re defending a man who went from writing you poetry to sending you three words in the span of a week.”

“He never wrote me poetry,” I muttered.

“Not the point. Look, what I’m saying is you have a pattern. You dive in headfirst, giving these men the benefit of every doubt, reading cosmic significance into basic compatibility.” Rell set his glass down to give me his full attention.

I opened my mouth to argue, but he held up a hand. “This isn’t about astrology, Z. It’s about emotional patterning. You can read the stars, predict Mercury retrograde down to the minute, but you still get blindsided by the same relationship dynamics over and over.”

The truth in his words stung enough that I drained my glass instead of responding immediately.

“So what am I supposed to do? Just assume every connection is meaningless and never get excited about anyone?” I asked finally, my voice smaller than I intended.

Rell shook his head. “Nah, you’re supposed to set your own damn boundary. Decide what you need communicated clearly, and then let him respond. Tell you everything you need to know. If he can’t meet basic expectations after you voice them, that’s your answer. No star charts required.”

“I hate when you’re right,” I admitted.

Rell bumped my shoulder affectionately. “I know.”

“This is different,” I insisted, though the comparison stung with its accuracy.

“Different how?”

“Because Jules is different. He’s not playing games or feeding me lines. He’s just real. He’s got his shit together. He listens, really listens when I talk, and he sees the parts of me that most people miss,” I gestured, making my wine slosh around in my glass.

“Or he’s really good at making you feel seen. Some guys have that down to an art form,” Rell pointed out.

I shook my head, my curls bouncing with the motion. “You haven’t met him. You don’t understand.”

“Oh, I understand perfectly. I understand that you’re falling for someone who might not be falling at the same speed,” Rell said.

The simple truth hit me harder than I expected, stealing my prepared arguments. I stared at the wineglass, watching the liquid catch the light as it swirled slowly. Silence stretched between us, only with Rell crunching on popcorn and the distant bass from someone’s music in another apartment.

“I hate dating. Can I just adopt a cat and call it a life?” I questioned, finally looking up at him with a half-smile.

“You’d be sneezing. Besides, you like dick too much,” he reminded me by reaching over to squeeze my hand.

I laughed. “You’re terrible.”

“I’m honest and I’m here, which is more than what Mr. Meditation can say right now,” Rell corrected.

I clinked my glass against his, grateful for his presence, even when his words were filled with the truth. As much as I wanted to believe Jules was different, as much as I felt something real with him, the evidence suggested that I might be heading for another disappointment.

While that realization settled heavily in my chest, there was comfort in knowing I wasn’t facing it alone and had someone who showed up with wine and popcorn and brutal honesty when I needed it the most.

“Fine. Tell me about your disaster dates this week. I need the distraction,” I conceded, reaching for more popcorn.

Rell grinned, laughing. “Girl, tell me why this man had ‘sapiosexual’ in his bio but spelled it ‘sappy-sexual.’ I should’ve known he wasn’t deep, just emotional and unemployed.

Bitch, I’ll give it to him though. He showed up smelling like goals.

His cologne was top tier. Conversation? Strictly bottom shelf!

” Rell threw his head back and laughed, loud and full-bodied. It came up deep from his chest.

I joined in, cackling, my rings clinking against my glass as I set it down and tapped the table for emphasis as Rell wiped the corners of his eyes with the back of his hand.

“I swear, I attract the weirdest men. The algorithm hates me.” Rell laughed.

“Stop, stop. The neighbors are gonna call the police,” I begged, gasping for air.

“Chile, if they did, it would be to get my autograph. See, life goes on, even when the meditation man doesn’t text back,” he insisted.

The reminder of Jules briefly dimmed my smile, but I refused to let it pull me back into the spiral of checking my phone and overthinking. Instead, I raised my glass to a toast. “To good friends who show up with wine when needed.”

“To setting boundaries,” Rell confirmed, clinking his glass against mine.

After Rell left, I moved through the apartment, collected the wineglasses and the empty popcorn bag and took them to the kitchen. Then I straightened the cushions on the couch, and everything was back in place.

I grabbed my phone out of the drawer and put it on the charger on my nightstand. I climbed into bed, logged into my blog on my laptop, and typed: Sometimes silence doesn’t mean they don’t care, sometimes it’s your cue to stay soft anyway, but for you, not for them.

I took a moment to consider my words. Then I continued: We live in an age of constant connection where absence feels like rejection and silence feels like abandonment.

Yet, what if the spaces between the words are as meaningful as the words themselves?

What if the silences are where we learn to love who we truly are when we’re not performing connection for someone else?

Just as I finished typing that sentence, my screen lit up on my cell, causing my heart to leap before my brain could catch up. Jules’s name appeared on the screen, and for a moment, I stared at it, almost too afraid to check what he had written after days of silence.

Instead of responding, I set the phone down. My action was deliberate, almost ceremonial. I wasn’t ignoring him but chose not to jump at the first contact after waiting.

I turned back to my blog. The hardest lesson wasn’t learning to interpret silence, but learning to sit with it and allowing it to exist without rushing to fill it with my fears or fantasies.

To recognize that sometimes the most powerful response to absence was your presence, rooted firmly in self-respect and clarity.

I submitted the blog and put my phone on my nightstand. I fluffed my pillows. I wouldn’t respond to Jules, not tonight, not when the wine might make me more vulnerable than I wanted to be.

Tonight was for me to reclaim my narrative, remember that my worth wasn’t determined by someone else’s communication patterns, and find balance in my soul, which was always present but rarely achieved. I turned out the light on the nightstand and made myself comfortable before going to sleep.