What the Palm Reader Knows

The coaxial cable hung limp between my fingers like a dead thing. Another apartment, another installation, another disconnected woman staring past me as if I were furniture.

"You have a problem with your throat chakra," she said, not looking at the cable I'd just threaded through her wall. She was studying my palm, which she'd somehow coaxed me into extending.

"My throat is fine," I said, though it felt raw from shouting at Sarah the night before. The fight had been about nothing—a misplaced sweater, a forgotten appointment—but it had ended with everything.

"You're like a fox," she continued, tracing my lifeline. "Clever, adaptable, but always looking for the exit. Always ready to run."

I laughed bitterly. "Running's how I survive."

Outside her window, a dog barked at something in the alley—maybe a cat, maybe a fox, maybe nothing at all. The sound carried through the thin glass, sharp and desperate.

"You bear too much weight," the woman said. Her fingers were warm against my skin. "Everyone expects you to carry it all. You're the reliable one. The one who fixes things."

She touched the center of my palm with her thumb. "But what do you need?"

The question knocked the air from my lungs. What did I need? Sarah had left because I couldn't answer that question. Had never learned to answer it. I gave, fixed, provided, endured. I bore it all, hands open, receiving nothing.

"I don't know," I whispered.

She nodded, as if this were the only honest answer she'd heard all day. "Find out. Before you're just someone threading cable through strangers' walls, waiting for permission to speak."