Palm Readings Behind the Gym

The bathroom mirror was practically a **sphinx** with its riddles today — dark circles under my eyes, hair doing whatever it wanted, and the eternal question: Are you really going to survive junior year?

"You coming to Maya's party?" Jordan asked, leaning against the sink next to me like he owned the place.

I checked my phone. Three Instagram stories already posted from the party, and it wasn't even 9 PM. FOMO was **running** through my veins like actual poison. "Probably not. studying for that chem test."

"Lame." Jordan grinned. "Your loss. Sarah's gonna be there."

And there it was. The name that made my stomach do weird things.

I met Sarah behind the gym after school. She was weird in the best way possible — read actual books, drew on her converse, didn't care what anyone thought. Today she was sitting cross-legged in the grass, **palm** up, studying the lines like they held the answers to tomorrow's pop quiz.

"Let me see," I said, dropping my backpack next to hers.

She looked up, sunlight catching in her messy bun. "You believe in this stuff?"

"No. But I believe in wasting time instead of studying chemical equations."

Sarah laughed, and it was this sound that made everything else feel less important. She took my hand, and my brain short-circuited. Her fingers traced my life line, and I stopped breathing.

"You're going to live a long time," she said. "So no dramatic deaths before prom."

"Good to know. What about my love life?"

She looked up, our eyes meeting for three seconds that felt like three years. "That's the part I can't read. Too messy."

The next morning, Jordan found me during lunch. "So? How was the non-party?"

I looked across the cafeteria where Sarah sat alone, reading. "Actually," I said, "it was exactly where I needed to be."

Some riddles don't need answers. Sometimes you just need someone to help you read the lines.