Fortune Cookies

"What on earth are you doing?" he asks, as though standing by the train station a rummaging for loose change in my purse necessitates an explanation.
I don't answer until a few wayward coins slip into my palm, grubby with pocket lint and pencil shavings.
When I look up he is a shadow amidst the white landscape of the city, interrupted by too-bright neon signs and the occasional colourful winter coat.
"Is this about that fortune cookie?" he asks.
I cannot look him in the eye. Instead I develop an interest in my boots. The confection in question is in pieces and crumbs in my pocket, the paper crumpled in my fist, blue ink smeared across one side.
He reaches for my hand and retrieves the paper, glancing at it for the second time since that dinner when it was opened.
You will be betrayed, by that who is closest to you. it reads, in sky blue ink on one side, the back scribed with chinese characters.
He looks up through his lashes, now laced with melting snowflakes. "It isn't me, I never would."
I tug the paper from his fingers, trying to control the flush in my cheeks and I turn it over in my palm. Where there had been blue characters, there is now another message. He is lying, he has already betrayed you.
His fingers lace through mine as he smiles and kisses my cheek.
The paper is returned to my pocket, but not forgotten.
The train arrives, he insists he'll take a taxi, rather than making me dig for more change to pay his fare.
The taxi is there as the door closes behind me. The snow covers the license plate before he is gone.
The train battles through the snow, warm and musky, miniature snowstorms appearing where the windows are open.
Clutching the fortune in my pocket, I exit a stop later.
His taxi has gone ahead.

Text by Lucie MacAulay