Riddles in Your Palm

The mini-golf course smelled like chlorine and desperation. Jordan's cousin's birthday party. Jess was there, leaning against the sphinx statue at hole 7, looking like she'd rather be literally anywhere else.

My palms were sweating. I wiped them on my jeans—again—then clutched my iPhone like a security blanket. No new notifications. Not that I expected any. My socials had been dead all summer.

"You gonna play or just stare at the sphinx all day?" Jess called out. She was wearing that vintage band tee she'd thrifted last week, the one I'd complimented in bio and she'd left on read.

"Working on my swing," I lied. My voice cracked. Cringe.

She wandered over, hands in her back pockets. "You know what sphinxes do, right? They ask riddles. If you get it wrong, they eat you."

"Good thing I'm good at riddles then," I said, then immediately wanted to die. Who says that?

Jess laughed though—actually laughed—and it sounded like something genuine. "Yeah? Okay then." She grabbed my hand, turned my palm upward. My heart did something illegal against gravity. "Let me see."

"What are you doing?"

"Reading your palm, genius. I looked it up on TikTok." Her fingers traced the lines on my hand and I forgot how to breathe. "You've got a long life line. But your heart line's all messy."

"What's that mean?"

She looked up, and for once she wasn't looking through me. "Means you're overthinking it. Whatever 'it' is."

My iPhone buzzed in my pocket—a discord notification, probably unimportant. I ignored it.

"So," Jess said, still holding my hand. "Riddle me this: what's the one thing nobody else can give you, but you can throw away?"

"My dignity?" I joked.

She grinned. "Close. It's your shot." She nodded at the golf club leaning against the sphinx. "Hole 7, par 3. You gonna take it?"

I looked at the sphinx's stone face, then at Jess still holding my hand, then at the stupid little windmill between me and the hole.

"Yeah," I said. "Yeah, I think I will."