Palm Readings at 3 AM

The fluorescent light of the 24-hour diner buzzed like an insect trapped in a jar. Elena sat across from Sarah, the friend who had slipped through her fingers like water five years ago, and now here she was, sitting in this booth at 3 AM on a Tuesday, looking like she hadn't slept in a week.

"I never thought I'd be the kind of person who did this," Sarah said, turning her hand over on the scratched laminate table. Her palm was up, exposed, the lines mapped out like a failed geography. "Read it for me, like you used to."

Elena hesitated. She had stopped reading palms in college, right around the time she stopped believing in futures that could be predicted in fast-food restaurants. But Sarah's eyes were desperate, rimmed with exhaustion, and there was a cat carrier on the booth beside her that Elena had been trying not to stare at.

"Your life line is shorter," Elena said, touching the crease that ran from Sarah's wrist toward her thumb. "But that doesn't mean—"

"The cancer," Sarah cut her off, her voice flat. "I know what it means."

The cat carrier shifted. A black cat pushed its face against the mesh, meowing softly.

"This is Barnaby," Sarah said, her hand moving to the carrier door. "He needs someone. I can't—" She stopped, swallowing hard. "I've asked everyone. Everyone from before, from our group. They all said no. Too busy, too allergic, too whatever the fuck excuse they came up with to avoid being the person who takes the dying woman's cat."

Elena looked at Sarah's palm again, at the love line that branched and forked, at the head line that curved toward her fingers like she was always reaching for something just out of reach. She thought about five years ago, about the betrayal that had shattered their friendship, about the way they had circled each other ever since, like magnets with reversed poles.

"I'll take him," Elena heard herself say.

Sarah's eyes filled with tears. "You hate cats. You're allergic. You said—"

"I know what I said," Elena said. "But Barnaby doesn't need to spend his last years with someone who loves him. He needs someone who'll show up."

Sarah reached across the table and grabbed Elena's hand, her palm warm against Elena's cool skin, and for the first time in five years, Elena didn't pull away.