Electric Palm Lines

Maya's palms were sweating. Which was exactly why she shouldn't have agreed to let Jay read her palm at Chloe's party.

Now she sat cross-legged on the basement floor, surrounded by seventh graders passing around Mountain Dew like it was liquid gold. She'd skipped lunch again—her mom would lecture her about iron deficiency if she knew. Probably force those gross horse-pill **vitamin** supplements on her again.

Jay sat across from her, holding her hand. His fingers were warm, slightly calloused from basketball. Maya tried to focus on anything other than the fact that THE Jay was touching her hand.

"Your life line is super long," he said, squinting at her palm. "But look here—" he traced a line—"all these breaks. You're gonna have to reinvent yourself a bunch of times."

Outside, a summer storm was brewing. The sky had gone that weird purple-green color, and suddenly a crack of **lightning** illuminated the basement windows. Everyone jumped.

"Omen!" someone yelled.

Jay didn't look away from her hand. "Your heart line curves a lot. You fall hard. But you're also practical about it, which is kinda rare."

Maya felt her face heat up. She'd been crushing on Jay since October, when he'd defended her from Tyler in homeroom. But she'd also calculated that he was out of her league by approximately 47 social tiers.

"What about—" Jay's thumb brushed over another line, and Maya's breath hitched—"this one?"

"That's my fate line," she heard herself say, voice barely above a whisper. "I looked it up last year during my mystical phase. Mine looks like a question mark."

Jay laughed, and Maya felt it somewhere behind her ribs. The storm outside was getting closer—flashes of white light followed by thunder that rattled the basement windows.

"You know what I think?" Jay said, finally meeting her eyes. "These lines don't mean anything unless you make them mean something."

"So you're saying palm reading is fake? You've been lying to everyone?"

"I'm saying—" Another lightning flash. The lights flickered. "I'm saying you can write your own story. That's all."

He squeezed her **palm** before letting go. Maya's skin was still tingling when her phone buzzed: PICK YOU UP IN 10.

She gathered her stuff, hyperaware of Jay watching her. At the door, she turned back.

"Hey Jay?" she called over the music. "Your fate line?"

He held up his hand.

"Straight as an arrow," she said. "You know exactly what you're doing."

He grinned. "We'll see."

Maya walked to her mom's car in the warm summer rain, her palm still burning where Jay had traced those imaginary lines into her skin. Maybe she'd start taking those iron supplements. Maybe she'd reinvent herself again tomorrow. But right now, she felt electric.