The Palm Reader's Warning

The papaya sat on the white porcelain plate, its orange flesh glistening with lime juice. Elena had ordered it because it was the kind of thing she never ate at home—the kind of thing David would have called 'exotic nonsense' and pushed away with that subtle tightening of his jaw that she'd learned to fear. Here, in this overpriced resort restaurant where she'd fled after canceling the wedding, she could order whatever she wanted.

A cat wound through the empty chairs beneath the terrace—mangy, orange-striped, missing half an ear. It regarded her with yellow eyes that seemed to know everything: that she was thirty-five and alone, that her mother had stopped taking her calls, that the wedding invitations had already been mailed. The cat jumped onto the empty chair across from her, tail curled around its paws.

'You're welcome to it,' Elena said.

She thought about the palm reader in Tulum, twelve years ago. The woman had traced the lines on Elena's hand and said, 'You will love someone who cannot love you back. You will stay for seven years.' Elena had laughed, bought a coconut from a child on the beach, forgotten the prediction within a week. Until she met David three months later. Until she realized, somewhere around year five, that the woman's voice had been a warning, not a prophecy.

The papaya was impossibly sweet. She took another bite, juice running down her chin, and didn't wipe it away. Somewhere beyond the palm trees, the ocean roared. The cat watched her with what looked like pity. Elena realized she was crying, not because she'd lost David, but because she was finally, terrifyingly, free.