The Palm Reader's Last Party

The pool water shimmered like liquid confetti, distorting the legs of half the sophomore class into weird, wavy noodles. I sat on the edge, shorts soaking, clutching my red Solo cup like it contained the antidote to social extinction. It didn't. It was just lukewarm Sprite.

"You doing that weird palm thing again?" Tyler asked, dropping onto the concrete beside me and splashing water up my arm. He was my oldest friend, which meant he was contractually obligated to roast me but still show up.

"It's not weird," I said, defensive already. "People like it."

"People like getting their fortunes told if it involves them finally kissing Sarah Chen." He gestured toward where she stood near the palm trees, looking ethereal and completely uninterested in either of us. "Which you totally predicted, by the way. Last Tuesday. 'The heart line reveals imminent romance.'"

"I never said Sarah Chen. I said *someone*."

"Yeah, sure." He punched my shoulder, then his face did that thing where he shifted from annoying to actual-friend concerned. "You okay? You've been quiet all night."

I looked at my palm—my actual one, not someone else's. The lines there were just lines, but I'd spent three years pretending they meant something profound. Truth was, I'd made everything up since seventh grade, and somehow that had become my entire personality. The Palm Reader Girl. Mystical Maya. Who was I without it?

"I think I'm done with the palm stuff," I said quietly.

Tyler blinked. "Seriously? But it's your thing. Like, your brand."

"Yeah, but what if my brand is cap? What if I'm just making up random stuff and people believe it because they want to?" I gestured toward the party. "That's Chloe over there thinking she's gonna meet her soulmate at summer camp because I told her so. What if she doesn't? What if it's all just—"

"Just what? Fun? Hope?" Tyler shrugged. "Maya, you think Chloe doesn't know palm reading isn't exactly Harvard Medical School diagnostic science? She does it because it's fun. Because you make people feel seen."

He paused, and a sphinx moth swooped down toward the pool lights, fuzzy and dust-pale.

"Also," he added, "you literally called my breakup with Jenna three weeks before it happened. So maybe you're not entirely fake news."

I laughed, and it felt real. "That wasn't palm reading. That was me watching Jenna literally cheat at.capture the flag."

"Technicalities." He stood up and held out a hand—palm up, lines visible in the poolside glow. "Read mine. For real this time. No made-up soulmate stuff. Just tell me what you actually see."

I took his hand. His palm was warm, callused from basketball. "I see," I said slowly, "someone who's going to stop being a jerk for five seconds and jump in the pool with me."

"Predictable," he said, but he was grinning as we both plunged into the water, destiny and palm lines forgotten for something better: the messy, unknowable, absolutely real thing right in front of us.