Lines in the Palm

Maya's fingers traced the lifeline, worn and calloused beneath her touch. The corporate office on the forty-second floor smelled of money and expensive cologne, but Richard's hands told a different story.

"I'll be honest," Richard said, watching her with hungry eyes. "I don't believe in this shit. But my bear of a father swears by you. Said you predicted his second marriage down to the exact date."

Maya didn't respond. Her attention fixed on the network of scars crisscrossing his palms—old burns, deep cuts, the marks of someone who'd learned to fight dirty and fight early. Palm reading wasn't about destiny. It was about reading the life someone had already survived.

"Your hands," she said quietly. "You bear heavy things."

Richard laughed, but there was no humor in it. "We all bear things, Maya. That's not exactly prophecy."

"Not burdens." She turned his hand over, studying the lightning-fork scar near his thumb. "Evidence. Someone taught you that pain is the only thing that makes you real."

Something shifted in Richard's expression. The corporate veneer cracked, revealing something exhausted and raw beneath.

Outside, summer lightning flickered against the skyline—silent, distance, the kind that announces storms still hours away. Maya had read enough palms to know that everyone carried their own weather systems.

"My wife left me six months ago," Richard said suddenly. "Took the cat, too. I come home to this empty house every night, and I can't figure out why I should care about anything anymore."

Maya released his hand. "The lightning marks on your palm—they're recent. But they're healing."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means you're already building something new. You just can't see it yet."

Richard stared at his own palm as if seeing it for the first time. When he looked up, his eyes were wet. "That's it? That's the fortune?"

"The best kind," Maya said, packing up her things. "The one you get to write yourself."