The Fortune Teller's Promise

Maya's palms were sweating. Literally sweating. Which was exactly why she kept them shoved deep in the pockets of her vintage denim jacket, even though it was like eighty degrees inside Jordan's house.

"You're doing it again," whispered Chloe, nudging her with an elbow. "The wallflower thing. We talked about this."

"I'm not wallflowering," Maya protested, though they both knew she was absolutely wallflowering. "I'm... observing. Taking in the social dynamics. Like an anthropologist."

"You're hiding behind a potted plant, Maya."

Fair point.

The party was in full swing—some sophomore she barely knew was celebrating getting his license, apparently—and everyone seemed to know exactly what to do with their bodies. How to lean. How to laugh. How to exist without feeling like they were constantly being watched.

Then she saw him.

Elias, from her AP Bio class, standing by the snack table with that orange solo cup in his hand, looking as out of place as she felt. He was staring at a goldfish bowl on the counter—why was there even a goldfish bowl at a high school party?—and something about his posture made her step away from her plant.

"Hey," she said, before she could talk herself out of it.

He jumped, almost spilling his drink. "Oh. Hey. You're Maya, right? From bio?"

She nodded. "That's me. The one who messed up the DNA helix model last week."

Elias actually smiled. "Dude, that was a work of art. I called it abstract expressionism."

They talked for twenty minutes. About bio, about how weird parties were, about how neither of them understood why everyone was pretending to have fun. And when his phone buzzed and he had to leave, he held out his hand.

"I'll see you Monday," he said.

Maya hesitated, then pulled her hand from her pocket. Her palm was still kinda sweaty, and she almost pulled back, but Elias just—shook it. Like it was normal. Like she was normal.

"Yeah," she said, watching him walk away. "Monday."

Chloe appeared beside her, grinning. "Okay. I see what happened there."

"Shut up."

"No, for real. That was actually smooth." Chloe bumped her shoulder. "Maybe there's hope for us yet."

Maya looked at her hand, still tingling where Elias had touched it, and allowed herself to smile. Maybe she wasn't an anthropologist after all. Maybe she was just a girl who was finally learning how to be in the room.