What the Water Knows

The old woman's hands were like river stones — smooth, worn, endless. She traced the lines on Elena's **palm**, her touch barely there, like a moth landing.

"You're carrying something," the woman said in Spanish, her voice cracking like dry leaves. "Something that doesn't belong to you."

Elena pulled her hand back, laughing too loudly. Maria had dragged her to this fortune teller at the resort as a joke, something to do after their third margarita. But Maria wasn't laughing. She stood by the doorway, tilting her **hat** — some oversized thing she'd bought in the gift shop — to shadow her eyes.

"It's just fun, Elena," Maria had said earlier that day, floating in the **water** with that effortless grace Elena had always envied. "You're so tense. The merger, the divorce, you need to let go."

Let go. That's what Maria always said. Right before she made her move.

The palm reader's eyes found Elena's again. "Not everyone who calls themselves **friend** comes with good intentions. The water... it knows what's hidden underneath."

Later, back in their suite, Elena found the document Maria had "accidentally" left open on her tablet. The confidential client list. Elena's biggest accounts. The ones Maria had been asking about all week, casually, over drinks, during their "girls' trip" getaway.

The betrayal stung worse than the divorce. Maria had been there through everything — the late nights, the breakdowns, the rebuilding. They'd been friends since college, since before Elena had anything worth stealing.

Now, watching Maria sleep in the next bed, something cracked open inside Elena. Not her heart. Something harder.

She slipped outside to the balcony. The ocean stretched dark and endless below. Elena thought about jumping — not to die, but to feel something real. Instead, she poured Maria's stolen client list into the group chat with her partners, timestamped, with the security footage from the resort's business center.

Then she called the front desk. "Check out for both rooms, please. And cancel my **friend**'s flight home. She's staying a while."

The **water** kept moving, indifferent. Some mornings, you wake up and realize you've been the **palm** someone else reads for profit. And some nights, you learn to close your hand.