Chapter 102 - Onward #2
"The numbers justified it?"
"Yes."
"Volume?"
"Yes."
She relaxed.
"Okay."
Amazing.
Apparently she had learned my classification system.
The years moved.
Not fast.
Just steadily.
Ramos Ventures became larger.
But acquisitions slowed.
That was intentional.
I rejected far more companies than I bought.
A regional fulfillment business—
yes.
Healthy enough.
Strong management.
Good strategic fit.
I would want it healthy.
Bought.
A struggling commercial bakery—
no.
Could fix.
Did not want.
A cosmetics contract manufacturer—
interesting.
Would I want it healthy?
Maybe.
Too much regulatory complexity for a maybe.
Pass.
A logistics company—
terrible books.
Good underlying routes.
Would I want it healthy?
Yes.
But management risk too high.
Pass.
Another printing company—
fixable.
Would I want it healthy?
No.
Pass.
That one felt particularly good.
Old me would have bought it in forty-eight hours.
Current me closed the file and went to dinner with Jane and Chloe.
No three-year lesson required.
Excellent ROI.
I started making minority investments too.
That was new.
Apparently I did not need to own everything.
Revolutionary.
Sometimes a competent founder needed capital, not acquisition.
So I invested.
Board seat sometimes.
Information rights.
Clear governance.
Then—
leave them alone.
One young founder asked—
"Aren't you going to tell us what to do?"
"No."
She looked confused.
"You know more."
"About some things."
"But—"
"It's your company."
That sentence felt good.
I had spent enough years buying other people's problems.
Sometimes I could simply support somebody who wanted to keep their own.
Family aged around me.
Quietly.
That was harder than business.
Mama slower.
Papa needing more checkups.
Ate Bianca's children growing.
Kuya Nathan and Ate Vivian changing routines.
Sofia building her own life.
I became more deliberate about dinners.
Birthdays.
Ordinary Sundays.
Not because I feared losing them every second.
I had learned that lesson too.
Care was not preparing for death.
Still—
go home.
So I did.
Jane and Chloe became constants without becoming obligations.
Months sometimes passed with only messages.
Then suddenly three dinners in one week.
Jane would come to the condo and complain about work.
Chloe would disappear into my kitchen like she owned shares.
Nobody tracked closeness through frequency.
That was nice.
Adult friendship.
Durable without daily maintenance.
One night, maybe around forty, the three of us sat on the balcony.
Jane asked—
"Do you think you'll marry someday?"
Still.
Still asking.
I laughed.
"You have asked this for over a decade."
"And your answer keeps changing."
"No, it doesn't."
"It used to be no."
"It still might be no."
"Exactly. Might."
Chloe looked at me.
"Would you marry if you met someone you wanted to marry?"
I stared.
"That is tautological."
Jane laughed.
"Answer."
I thought about it.
Tori.
Audrey.
Jessica.
Mara.
Celeste.
Jane herself in all the forms memory had given her.
Marriage.
No marriage.
Children.
No children.
Loss.
Good years.
Bad endings.
Entire lives.
Then current me.
Current life.
Peaceful.
Single.
Not waiting.
Not hiding.
"If I want to."
There.
Jane smiled.
"That's better."
"What was wrong with no?"
"Nothing."
"Then why better?"
"Because it sounds like you're answering the question instead of defending yourself."
Rude.
I looked at Chloe.
She nodded.
"She's right."
Terrible friends.
I never married in that life.
Not because I had decided against it forever.
It just never became the thing I wanted enough.
There were dates.
Occasional relationships shorter than Jessica.
Nothing that needed its own chapter.
Dinner.
Attraction.
Compatibility.
Sometimes sex.
Sometimes friendship afterward.
Sometimes simply—
take care.
Goodbye.
Life continued.
Romance stopped being the organizing principle of whether a life had worked.
That felt important.
Business became the same.
Not every opportunity needed escalation.
Not every healthy company needed ownership.
Not every dollar needed reinvestment.
Not every year needed a bigger number.
I still grew.
Absolutely.
I liked growth.
I liked acquisitions.
I liked strategy.
I liked walking into a complicated system and understanding it.
But liking something did not require eating all of it.
Another lesson normal people probably learned for free.
My education remained expensive.
By my fifties, Ramos Ventures was large enough that people occasionally described me as an investor before entrepreneur.
Strange.
I still thought of myself as the girl with the printer.
Maybe everyone did that.
Kept some first version of themselves hidden under all the titles.
I owned companies I genuinely liked.
Sold a few when they no longer fit.
Held others for decades.
Declined hundreds.
Sometimes the best investment decision I made all year was—
No.
That never stopped being satisfying.
One afternoon, a banker sent me another teaser.
Manufacturing company.
Ugly margins.
Owner tired.
Good assets.
Fixable.
I skimmed it.
Saw exactly three places I could improve immediately.
Old excitement flickered.
There you are.
Still alive.
Fine.
I asked the question.
Healthy tomorrow.
Would I want it?
No.
Deleted.
Then Jane messaged.
Jane: dinner?
I checked my calendar.
Free.
Lia: yes
Jane: chloe too
Lia: okay
Then—
Jane: buying anything today?
I smiled.
Lia: dinner
Pause.
Jane: character development
Lia: fuck you
I closed the laptop.
Went home.
Onward.
Not toward everything.
Just toward whatever I actually wanted next.