Palm Readings and Papaya Dreams

Maya's palms were sweating—like, actually dripping—while clutching the papaya smoothie she'd spent twenty minutes hyping herself up to buy. This was it. The moment she'd been overthinking in her bedroom for three weeks.

"You want your palm read?" The girl behind the crystal ball didn't look like a fortune teller. She looked like she'd rather be literally anywhere else, scrolling through her phone with chipped black nail polish. Riley. The Riley who sat behind Maya in AP Bio and always smelled like vanilla and trouble.

"Uh, yeah," Maya managed, her voice doing that embarrassing crackly thing. "If you're not... busy?"

Riley dropped her phone. Their eyes met, and Maya felt that papaya smoothie becoming a legitimate hazard to her social survival.

"I charge five bucks," Riley said, "but for you..." She smirked, and Maya's brain short-circuited. "I'll take a sip of whatever that is."

Maya's life had become a zombie apocalypse movie lately—school, extracurriculars, her mom's relentless "have you thought about your future" speeches that left her feeling undead by 7PM every night. But here? The carnival air smelled like funnel cake and possibility.

Riley's fingers traced Maya's hand, sending electricity up her arm that had nothing to do with mystical forces and everything to do with how Riley's lashes were impossibly long.

"You're going to do something brave soon," Riley murmured, "Something that scares the crap out of you. But it'll be worth it."

Maya looked at their hands, then at Riley's unreadable expression, then back at her papaya smoothie like it held the answers to the universe.

"Like what?"

Riley leaned in. "Like maybe giving me your number?"

The papaya smoothie almost became a crime scene. Instead, Maya grinned, feeling alive for the first time in months.

"Only if you tell me your actual fortune-telling rates."