The Palm Reader Prophecy

Maya's iphone buzzed on her nightstand, screen lighting up with another text from the group chat. pool party at Jay's, his parents are gone the whole weekend. u coming?

She stared at the message, thumbs hovering. Jay's parties were legendary—the kind everyone talked about on Monday, but also the kind where someone always ended up crying in the bathroom or throwing up in the bushes. Last time, Tyler jumped off the roof into the pool fully clothed because someone said they wouldn't. Spoiler: they still didn't.

Her phone buzzed again. everyone's gonna be there don't be lame lol

Maya groaned and buried her face in her pillow. Being lame was apparently her brand now. She used to be fun, back in seventh grade before everything got weird. Before her friends started caring about who liked who and who was hooking up with who and suddenly every weekend was a social minefield.

Her phone buzzed again. there's gonna be alcohol

That's it. The real reason. The unspoken expectation that if you wanted to be someone, you had to be there for the moments that defined you. The stories. The memories. The Instagram stories.

She grabbed her phone and typed: fine whatever I'm coming

By Friday night, Maya was standing in Jay's backyard, red cup in hand, surrounded by people she'd known since elementary school but suddenly felt like she'd never met. Someone had brought a bluetooth speaker and was playing something with too much bass. Someone else—maybe it was Tyler again—was already shirtless.

"Truth or dare!" someone yelled, because of course they were playing truth or dare, because apparently they were still in seventh grade except with alcohol now.

Maya ended up in the circle, knees pulled to her chest, watching as her former best friend Sam leaned in to kiss her former crush Chris. Everyone cheered. Maya felt like she was watching from underwater.

"Maya! Truth or dare?" It was Jay, grinning like he knew exactly what he was doing.

"Dare," she said, because truth was worse.

Jay's eyes lit up. "I dare you to let Madam Cleo over there read your palm."

Madam Cleo turned out to be Lisa, who'd apparently gone down a YouTube rabbit hole about palmistry over the summer and was now charging in party favors for readings. Maya extended her hand, trying not to think about how stupid this was.

Lisa traced the lines on Maya's palm with exaggerated seriousness. "Hmm, interesting. Very interesting."

"What?" Maya asked, despite herself.

"You're going to have a great love life," Lisa announced, "but first you have to stop lying to yourself about what you actually want."

The circle went quiet. Someone whistled.

Maya pulled her hand back, face hot. "Okay, that's enough fortune telling for tonight."

But later, sitting alone on the patio while everyone else was inside playing beer pong, she looked at her own palm in the moonlight. The lines crossing and recrossing, forming stories she hadn't written yet.

Maybe Lisa was full of it. Or maybe she wasn't.

Maya pulled out her phone and typed: hey can you read my palm again? for real this time?

Lisa's response came five minutes later: only if you admit the truth first

Maya stared at her screen. The truth was, she didn't want to be at this party. She didn't want to drink red cups of cheap beer or kiss boys she didn't actually like or pretend to be someone she wasn't. The truth was, she missed reading comics in her room and making weird art projects and having sleepovers where they stayed up until 3am talking about everything and nothing.

The truth was, she was tired of playing this game.

She texted back: can we just get boba instead?

Lisa's response: absolutely

And just like that, Maya slipped out the back gate while Tyler was busy attempting to do a keg stand and everyone was cheering and the music was thumping and for the first time in months, she felt like she could actually breathe.