Palm Lines and White Lies

Emma arranged the orange bottles in a perfect row on the granite countertop. Vitamin D for bone health, B-complex for energy, biotin for the hair she'd been losing in clumps since the Christmas breakup. Her morning ritual was the only architecture of control she had left.

"You're still taking those?" Daniel asked, not looking up from his phone. The way he slouched at the kitchen island made him seem smaller than she remembered. "The guy at the co-op said that stuff's basically expensive urine."

Emma's fingers trembled as she twisted off the childproof cap. She'd stopped explaining herself months ago, somewhere between his promotion dinner and the night she found the text messages.

The palm reader had set up a card table near the beach access, all wind chimes and crystals. Emma had gone on impulse during her lunch break, desperate for someone to tell her something — anything — about the future. The old woman had traced the lines on Emma's palm with nicotine-stained fingers, shaking her head.

"You're waiting for something that's not coming, hija. See this line?" She pressed into the heart line. "Someone's already made their choice. You're just living in the aftermath."

Now Emma watched Daniel across the kitchen, really looked at him. The way his hair had started thinning at the temples, how he'd stopped using the expensive face moisturizer she'd bought him for his birthday. The signs had been there all along, written in his posture, his silence, the way he pulled away when she tried to hold his hand.

"I booked the palm reader for Saturday," she said suddenly. "For us. Couples session."

Daniel finally looked up, irritation flickering across his face. "Emma, come on. You know I think that stuff is bullshit."

"Humor me."

He wouldn't, of course. He'd cancel, or work late, or make up some excuse. And she'd finally stop pretending she didn't already know.

Emma swallowed her vitamins dry, one by one, while he scrolled through emails. The palm reader had been wrong about one thing: Emma wasn't waiting anymore. She was just deciding how long to let the aftermath last.