Reading Between the Lines

The hotel pool was empty at 3 AM, which was exactly why Elena had chosen it. She wasn't technically swimming — more like drifting, suspended in the turquoise water, letting the silence wrap around her like the expensive silk robe her husband had given her for their twentieth anniversary. Two weeks later, he'd moved into his own apartment.

"You know," a voice came from the deck, "your palm says you're at a crossroads."

Elena treaded water, squinting through the artificial light. A woman in her sixths sat in a lounge chair, silver hair loose, a glass of something amber on the table beside her. The stranger extended her hand, palm up, as if reading from invisible lines.

"I'm sorry, were you—" Elena began, treading water harder now.

"Reading yours? No. But I've been doing this professionally for forty years, and people at resorts are always swimming in something they can't quite name. Grief. Indecision. Relief. Sometimes all three."

Elena swam to the edge and pulled herself up, water streaming from her hair. She sat on the cool tile, feet dangling in the pool. "What do you see, then?"

"You're not running toward anything. You're running from having to choose. But water finds its own level eventually. So will you."

The woman stood up, leaving her unfinished drink. "For what it's worth, your life line isn't ending. It's just changing direction."

Elena looked at her own palm in the harsh light. She hadn't noticed the new creases there. She thought of the cardboard boxes in her garage, the half-packed kitchen, the way she'd been moving through rooms like she was underwater these past weeks.

She stood and tested the temperature of the pool with her toes. Then, instead of going back to her room to finish packing what remained of her marriage, she dove in, headfirst, into the deep end.