The Palm Reader's Confession

I never meant to become a spy. That's what my ex-husband called me when he found the audio recorder tucked inside our bedside table. But I wasn't spying on him—I was recording his sleep-talking because I needed to know if his dreams mentioned her name.

Now I work at a karaoke bar in West LA, reading palms for drunk twenty-somethings who think their future is written in the creases of their hands. Last Tuesday, a woman sat across from me, her palm outstretched. She had remarkable hands—long fingers, clean nails, the kind that had never touched dishwater or dirty diapers. I traced her life line, feeling the slight tremor beneath my touch.

"Your head line is strong," I told her, though I was really noticing how her eyes kept darting toward the door. "You're intelligent, but you worry too much about the past."

She laughed, brittle as autumn leaves. "You don't know the half of it."

That's when I saw the orange lighter in her purse—the same brand my father used to carry before his accident. Something clicked. The resemblance in her jawline. The way she said my name like she'd been practicing it for years.

"Are you Sarah's friend?" I asked, my voice tight. Sarah had been my only real friend in college before she vanished sophomore year.

She froze. Her palm went limp in mine. "How did you—"

"Because I'm not really a palm reader," I said, suddenly exhausted by the charade. "I'm just someone who's been looking for answers for fifteen years."

The stray cat that lives behind the bar jumped onto our table, interrupting us. She stroked its fur with practiced hands, and I noticed her wrist bore a small, faded scar—the kind made by a safety pin used to etch a childhood promise. Sarah had made one with me the night before she disappeared.

"She's alive," the woman said finally. "But she can never come back."

The orange lighter flared to life between us. In its flame, I saw two truths: that some answers destroy more questions than they solve, and that sometimes the dead don't die—they just become someone else's friend in another life.