Palm Reading at the End of the World

The conference room felt like a sauna, though the AC was blasting. Marco pressed his sweating **palm** against the mahogany table, leaving a moist print that would fade within minutes—much like his career at Sterling & Ross. The merger was dead. The **bull** market had turned, and Marcus Sterling, the man who'd mentored Marco for twelve years, had just thrown him under the bus in front of the board.

"Sometimes you have to know when you're drowning," Sterling had said, not meeting his eyes. "And sometimes you have to stop **swimming** and let the current take you."

Now Marco sat at the tiki bar behind the corporate resort, three mai tais in, watching palm fronds silhouette against a violet sunset. His phone buzzed—his wife, again. They hadn't spoken since he'd told her about the pending severance package. She'd wanted him to take the local teaching job three years ago. He'd called it a step down.

A woman in a linen dress slid onto the stool beside him. "You look like a man who's just realized his life is a house of cards."

Marco laughed, surprised. "Is it that obvious?"

"I read palms," she said, gesturing to his hand still clutching his drink. "Yours says you've been gripping so hard your knuckles have forgotten how to straighten."

He hesitated, then turned his hand over. Her touch was cool against his feverish skin. She traced his lifeline with practiced fingers, then frowned.

"You've been living someone else's future," she said quietly. "The lines keep trying to redirect, but you keep forcing them back."

Something in Marco's chest untwisted. He thought about the teaching position, the one at the public high school thirty minutes from their house. The one that was still open, according to the email he'd archived but not deleted.

"What if it's too late to change the story?" he asked.

She smiled, revealing a gold molar. "The ink isn't dry until you're in the ground."

Marco pulled out his phone and dialed his wife. Behind him, the Pacific stretched toward forever, vast and terrifying and ready for whatever came next.