Reading Palms, Keeping Secrets

The palm reader's booth smelled like patchouli and desperation, exactly like my social life. Maya dragged me toward it, her fake turquoise rings catching the fluorescent lights of the back-to-school fair.

"Trust me, this woman's legit," she said, flipping her hair. "My cousin got her palm read last year and she literally knew everything."

Everything turned out to be basic info anyone could've guessed from someone's Instagram. But Maya was my best friend since sixth grade, and she'd been ghosting me all summer. This was her olive branch.

The woman inside the booth looked like she'd rather be literally anywhere else. She grabbed my hand, studied my palm like it was a biology specimen, and nodded solemnly.

"I see... friendship betrayal," she intoned. "And something about a cat."

I nearly laughed out loud. I was allergic to cats. Also, Maya was standing right there.

"Dude," I whispered to Maya later, pretending to check nonexistent notifications. "That was so random with the cat thing."

She wouldn't meet my eyes. "Yeah. Random."

The following week, I found out why. Maya had been hanging out with Kayla—the girl who'd spread rumors about me in seventh grade—ALL summer. They'd even adopted a kitten together. The palm reader hadn't been random at all. She'd described exactly what Maya had confessed in that booth while I was at the bathroom.

Some friendships are like fake plants: they look real from a distance, but there's no life underneath. Others hit different—until they don't.

I spent the rest of September learning that sometimes the universe gives you exactly what you need, even when it arrives in the form of a sketchy palm reader at a school fair. And that moving on starts when you stop waiting for people who've already left.