Palm Reader's Prophecy

Maya's iphone buzzed for the third time in two minutes. Another group chat explosion. Someone was definitely live-tweeting Jake's beach party while she stood awkwardly by the snack table, nursing a lukewarm soda.

"You look like you're mentally calculating your escape route," said a voice behind her. Maya turned to find Chloe—the girl with the half-shaved head and vintage leather jacket—gesturing toward the bonfire. "Wanna come see something actually interesting?"

Intrigued, Maya followed her toward the edge of the party where a small crowd had gathered around an old woman with dreadlocks and hands covered in silver rings.

"Palm reading," Chloe whispered. "My aunt's been doing this since before you were born. She predicted my sister would meet her husband at a 7-Eleven. Literally happened."

The old woman beckoned Maya forward. "Your lifeline is strong," she said, tracing Maya's palm with a weathered finger. "But there's something weighing on you. A secret?"

Maya's heart raced. Was it that obvious? The texts she'd been sending Jake for weeks, the ones he never responded to? The way she practiced conversations in her mirror but froze in real life?

"You're carrying something you need to let go of," the woman continued. "Like a bear hibernating with too much weight. It's keeping you from what you want."

A bear? What kind of metaphor was that? But then Maya thought about how she'd been overthinking everything, holding herself back from actually living.

Her iphone screen lit up again. Jake had finally replied: "hey sorry I've been busy lol wanna hang?"

Maya looked at her phone, then at Chloe, then at the bonfire where people were actually talking and laughing and being real. The anxiety she'd been carrying like a heavy coat suddenly felt lighter.

"You know what?" Maya said, slipping her phone into her pocket without responding. "I think you're right."

She spent the rest of the night actually talking to Jake instead of just texting him, and when Chloe asked for her number, Maya wrote it on her hand instead of in her contacts. Some things were worth remembering the old-fashioned way.