Palm Reading at the Pool Party

My palms were sweating so bad I could practically water the plants with them. Which was ridiculous, because I was literally standing next to an actual pool.

"You okay, Maya?" Jordan asked. Jordan. The Jordan. The one who'd sat behind me in bio sophomore year and somehow made photosynthesis look interesting.

"Totally," I lied. "Just working on my hydration game." I gestured vaguely at my water bottle like it was some kind of elite sports accessory instead of the free one from the dentist.

The truth was, I'd been up until 3 AM finishing my college essays, and I was operating on zero sleep and questionable life choices. My mom had shoved a handful of gummy vitamins at me at breakfast like they'd magically fix my entire existence.Spoiler: they hadn't.

I felt like such a zombie. Not even the cool Walking Dead kind. The kind that shuffles through school, partially alive, sustained entirely on caffeine and dread.

"Cool party," Jordan said, leaning against the pool fence. Their skateboard was tucked under one arm. Of course they skated. Of course.

"Yeah," I said. "Chloe really went all out." Understatement of the century. There was a DJ. At a pool party. The plastic palm tree lamps around the deck flickered ominously like they were judging my entire existence.

Jordan looked at me, really looked at me, and my stomach did this embarrassing little flip thing.

"Hey, can I tell you something?" they asked.

My palms started sweating again. This was it. They were going to confess they'd been secretly in love with Chloe this whole time. Or tell me I had something in my teeth. Or-

"I've been meaning to ask you," Jordan said, "are you still doing that palm reading thing for the carnival next week?"

I blinked. "Wait, what?"

"The fortune telling booth," Jordan said, like this was normal conversation we were having. "I saw you practicing last year. You were actually kinda good at it."

My face was probably doing something terrible. "You... noticed?"

"Dude," Jordan said, "you read my palm at lunch one day and told me I'd have 'a transformative summer.' I've been waiting all year for whatever that's supposed to mean."

The memory hit me like a wave. Last year. Before I'd even really known Jordan existed. Back when I was just the weird girl who read tarot cards and carried crystals in her backpack.

"Well," I said, my voice barely above a whisper, "I'm pretty sure that's supposed to mean you should probably let me read your palm again. For accuracy."

Jordan grinned. It was, objectively, devastatingly cute.

"I'm holding you to that," they said, and already I was calculating how many vitamins I'd need to survive the excitement, how much water I'd need to drink to calm down, and whether I'd ever be able to feel normal again.

Probably not. But maybe, just maybe, normal was overrated anyway.