Shadows on the Palm

I trace the lifeline on my left palm, studying the deep crease that promised forty more years when the fortune teller read it three decades ago. Now, at forty-seven, I wonder if she misread the map—or if I simply wandered off the path.

The pyramid rises beyond my balcony, its limestone face glowing amber in the Egyptian sunset. I came here to escape, to put distance between myself and the wreckage of a twenty-year friendship that detonated over a venture capital deal. Tom had been the brother I never had, until he wasn't.

"Friendship is just business without contracts," he'd said, smiling across the mahogany table while his lawyers dismantled everything I'd built. The memory surfaces like bloated matter in still water.

I lean against the railing, watching the hotel pool below. Tourists float on inflated flamingos, their laughter carried up on the dry wind. My phone sits silent on the bedside table. No one calls from the States anymore. Not Tom. Not Julie. Not the partners who evaporated when the lawsuit made headlines.

The pyramid casts a long shadow across my room. I've been reading about them—how the workers were not slaves but skilled laborers, how they built their own tombs within the structure they raised. Something about that resonates. I built my own pyramid too, layer by layer, and now I'm buried somewhere inside it.

My palm tingles. I look down at the scar where a shard of glass cut it during the argument—that night in Tom's office when he told me I was being emotional, that this was just business.

The water in the glass beside me ripples. A beetle struggles against the surface, legs thrashing. I watch it for a long moment before extending my hand, letting it crawl onto my finger, then carry it to the railing and release it into the night.

Some things survive. Others don't.

I pick up my phone. There's a message from Julie: "Call me. Please."

I set it down again. The pyramid gleams in the moonlight, ancient and patient. Tomorrow I'll do something. Not tonight. Tonight I'll just watch the shadows lengthen across my palm, and pretend I'm learning to read the map all over again.