Palm Reader's Prophecy

Maya's palms were sweating — like, actually dripping onto her iPhone screen. She was about to DM Marcus, the cute junior who'd sat behind her in bio since September, and her hands were literally betraying her. The glow from her phone illuminated her face in the dark bedroom, making her feel like some kind of digital zombie, surviving on three hours of sleep and pure anxiety.

"You're overthinking it again," her best friend Chloe had said earlier that day, grabbing Maya's hand and pretending to read her palm like they used to do in middle school. "I see... a boy. And I see you making it weird."

"Thanks, Chloe. Really helpful."

Now it was 2 AM and Maya was still staring at Marcus's profile. The message was typed out: hey, are u going to Jordan's party tomorrow? Simple. Casual. Not desperate. But her thumb wouldn't press send.

Her phone buzzed. Marcus: hey u up?

Maya almost dropped her phone. Then immediately felt pathetic for being excited about a text at 2 AM like some desperate zombie crawling back from the dead. She waited exactly four minutes (Chloe's rule) before replying: yeah what's up

The three bouncing dots appeared. Then disappeared. Then appeared again. What was happening? Was he typing a novel? Deleting it? Retyping it?

party tomorrow. u going?

Maya's heart did something embarrassing. She typed: yeah probably lol u?

Sent. Done. No going back.

At lunch the next day, Maya sat across from Chloe, poking at the cafeteria's attempt at a spinach salad. "I think I just made the worst mistake of my life."

"You accidentally super-liked him on Tinder?"

"No. I agreed to go to Jordan's party. Marcus is going to be there. I don't do parties. I barely do people."

Chloe waved her fork. "So you'll go, you'll stand in a corner for twenty minutes, then we'll leave and get boba. Crisis averted."

But that night, Maya found herself at Jordan's crowded house, red solo cup in hand, feeling like a zombie apocalypse survivor who'd wandered into the wrong dimension. The bass was too loud, too many people were dancing with zero rhythm, and where was Marcus?

"Hey."

Maya turned around and there he was, inches away. Her palms instantly started sweating again. Great.

"Hey," she managed. "Cool party."

"It's loud," he said. "Want to go outside?"

Outside. Outside where they could actually talk. Outside where she might accidentally reveal that she'd been overthinking every interaction they'd had for months.

"Sure," she said, like it was no big deal.

They ended up on the back porch, away from the noise. Marcus leaned against the railing. "I'm glad you came. I was going to text you but I didn't want to be weird about it."

"I texted you first," Maya pointed out before she could stop herself.

Marcus laughed. "Yeah, you did. I was waiting for the right moment to respond. You know, play it cool."

Play it cool. He was nervous too.

"Well," Maya said, her heart finally slowing down, "I think we both failed at that."

"Yeah," Marcus smiled. "But at least we failed together."

Maya's phone buzzed in her pocket. Chloe: ??? well???

She ignored it. Some things were better experienced in real time, no screen required.