Palm Reader at the Pool Party

The chlorine stung my eyes, but I jumped in anyway. Friday night at Tyler's pool party—social suicide to skip it, even if my social battery was already at 1%. The water disrupted everything, turning my carefully curated aesthetic into a raccoon-eyed disaster.

"You look like a zombie that crawled out of a grave," Maya laughed, floating past me on an inflatable flamingo. "Rough week?"

"Finals killed me," I muttered, dunking my head again. "I've been surviving on vitamin C supplements and panic attacks."

Maya—gorgeous, confident, Maya who'd been my lab partner all year but never really my friend—patted the flamingo's head. "Same. I literally failed my chem exam. My mom's gonna freak."

I blinked. Maya? The girl who'd gotten perfect grades since kindergarten?

She swam closer, water cascading like liquid diamonds. "Hey, my cousin taught me to read palms. Want me to do yours?"

"Sure," I said, trying to sound casual while internally screaming. Maya reached out, her hand warm against my cold, prune-y fingers. She traced the lines on my palm.

"Your lifeline's long," she said softly. "But you've got this weird break here—like you're supposed to change direction soon."

The sky burned orange as the sun set behind Tyler's enormous house. Everything felt suddenly intense, electric, like the air before a storm.

"What's that mean?" I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.

Maya looked up, and for the first time all year, she seemed nervous too. "Maybe it means you stop playing it safe. Maybe this summer, you do something that actually matters."

She squeezed my hand. "Like actually becoming friends with your lab partner instead of just sitting next to her in class."

My heart did this embarrassing flutter thing. "Yeah," I said, grinning. "Maybe that's exactly what it means."

Sometimes zombie-mode is just your body waiting for the right moment to wake up.