Palm Reader's Dog

The cafeteria noise hit me like a physical wave. I clutched my tray so hard my knuckles turned white. This was it—the moment I'd been dreading all week. My first time sitting at the senior table.

"Yo, Marcus!" Brandon called out, sliding onto the bench across from me. "Heard you read palms now? That's kinda sick, honestly."

I felt my face heat up. "It's not—I mean, I'm just learning. My aunt showed me some stuff."

The truth was, I'd been practicing on my pet goldfish, Bubbles, for weeks. (RIP, Bubbles—may your three weeks of life be remembered.) But telling these varsity jacket-wearing gods that I basically did fortune-telling for dead fish wasn't exactly vibe-worthy.

"Do me!" Brandon's girlfriend, Chloe, practically shoved her hand in my face. "Am I gonna get into UCLA?"

Her palm was soft, manicured, everything mine wasn't. I stared at the lines, suddenly hyper-aware of everyone watching. This was it. My social life hung by a thread.

"Uh, your life line is... pretty solid," I managed, my voice cracking slightly. "And this heart line here? That's deep. You care a lot."

Chloe's eyes widened. "That's actually creepy accurate."

Before I could breathe, suddenly I was the cafeteria psychic. The line formed down the table. Football players. Cheerleaders. That quiet kid from AP Chem who I'd never even spoken to before.

And then came Tyler.

Tyler, who I'd been lowkey crushing on since freshman year. Tyler, with his perpetually messy hair and that hoodie that had seen better decades.

"You don't believe in this stuff, do you?" he asked, sitting beside me. His knee brushed mine—accidentally? On purpose? My heart was doing gymnastics.

"No," I said honestly. "But apparently everyone else does."

Tyler laughed, and it was this warm, genuine sound that made something in my chest loosen. "My bear of a dog ran away last week," he said quietly. "Been looking for him everywhere. Think you can find him in my palm?"

I looked at his hand—calloused from guitar strings, with a small scar across one knuckle. I traced the lines without really thinking about what I was seeing.

"He didn't run away," I said, the words just coming. "He's at that old barn behind the school. The one nobody uses anymore. There's a family of raccoons there—he probably smelled food."

Tyler stared at me. "How did you—"

"I don't know," I said, just as confused as he was. "Maybe I saw something when I walked past there?"

We found Bear (yes, that was the dog's name) curled up in a pile of hay with three baby raccoons. Tyler cried. I pretended not to cry. We walked back to his house together, and he held my hand the whole way—not because I was reading his palm, but because he wanted to.

"You're not really psychic, are you?" he asked later, sitting on his front porch steps.

"No," I said. "But I'm really good at noticing things."

"Yeah," Tyler said, smiling. "I noticed that too."

Sometimes the universe doesn't give you signs. Sometimes you just have to trust yourself—and maybe, just maybe, trust that something can be real even when you can't explain it. My goldfish would be proud.