She didn’t miss her.
She just wanted another chance to humiliate her.
And Caroline had fallen for it, because she hadn’t wanted to believe it was really over.
It took all of her strength not to start crying right there. She turned and padded back across the lawn toward her house, tears streaming silently down her face. But halfway there, she slowed, and stopped.
She couldn’t go home. Not yet. Her family had just watched her leave, and if she came back now, she’d have to tell them why.
But she couldn’t just stand there either, so she crossed the street to a giant tree in her neighbor’s front yard. And when she was on the far side of the tree, hidden from view, she sank down among the roots and sobbed.
A few moments later, she felt arms fold around her, and with them a strange, familiar comfort.
Aria said nothing, not “I told you so” or “you should have known” or “how could you be so stupid?” Instead she just sat there with her arms wrapped around Caroline’s shoulders, and let her cry.
Aria had seen it all.
She’d had a bad feeling something was going to happen — Caroline had been quiet all afternoon, her smoke thickening around her. So after school, Aria had sat at the windowsill of the tree house, watching, willing Caroline not to do it, and knowing that she couldn’t stop her. That was the problem with being a guardian angel. You were there to help someone, but they had to want that help. They had to be ready for it. And apparently Caroline Mason wasn’t quite ready for it yet.
It was still hard to watch.
Now, Caroline buried her face in Aria’s shoulder. “I’m so stupid,” she whispered. Her voice hitched from crying.
“No, you’re not,” said Aria, hugging her tighter.
“All I wanted was to get my life back.” Hitch. “All I had was that. I don’t know how” — hitch — “to move on.”
“It’s going to be okay,” Aria whispered into Caroline’s hair. Not “it’s okay,” because it wasn’t yet. But it would be.
“How do you know?” asked Caroline, pulling back.
“Because I’m here to make sure of it,” said Aria honestly. “Caroline, I wouldn’t be here if I couldn’t help you. And I’m not going anywhere until I have, okay?”
Caroline pulled the towel around her, and used a corner to wipe her eyes. “Okay,” she said quietly. She leaned back against the tree and sniffled, and the two sat there for a few minutes like that, wrapped in Caroline’s smoke and Aria’s comfort.
“Where did you come from?” asked Caroline, breaking the quiet.
Aria’s brows went up. She wasn’t sure how to answer that. “You mean like, in the beginning?”
Caroline let out a small, tired laugh. “No, I mean, just now.”
“Oh.” Aria looked up. “There.”
“The sky?” asked Caroline.
Aria smiled. “No, silly. The tree house.”
Caroline seemed to notice it for the first time. “Oh.”
“Come on,” said Aria, tugging the girl to her feet. “I’ll show you.”
Aria led Caroline past a small sign that read 23 Tree House Lane — she was quite pleased with that addition — and to the rope ladder. Caroline hesitated, and Aria remembered her fear of heights.
“How can you love the sky and the stars and be afraid of heights?” Aria asked. “Isn’t space the highest thing there is?”
“It’s different,” said Caroline, looking up through the tree limbs. “Space is so high up I don’t really think of it as high. Just far away.” She wrapped her fingers around the rope ladder. “In space, there’s no gravity. That’s what I’m afraid of. Falling.”
“I won’t let you fall,” said Aria.
Caroline looked at her, for the first time without doubt, and said, “I know.”
And then slowly she started to climb. Aria waited until she was at the top, and then followed her up. Inside the tree house, Caroline got to her feet (a little shakily), then broke into a smile.
“You okay?” Aria asked.
“Still in one piece,” Caroline said. And then her eyes widened. “Whoa,” she said, looking around. “This is where you live?”
Aria nodded. “For now.”
“So this guardian angel thing,” said Caroline, “it doesn’t come with a house, or a family, or a fake identity, like if you were a spy?”
“No,” said Aria, picking at the hem of her skirt. “Just me.”
“That’s got to be hard.”
Aria shrugged.
Caroline noticed the picture of herself and Lily tacked to the wall. She traced her fingers along the blue lines that wrapped around them.
“What’s that?” she asked.
“Smoke,” said Aria. “You look at you and just see you,” she explained. “When I look at you, I see blue smoke around you. It’s how I found you. How I knew you were the one I was supposed to help.”
Caroline’s hand fell away as she turned back to Aria. “So what are we going to do about Lily?”
“Nothing,” said Aria.
Caroline frowned. “What do you mean? There has to be a way to get revenge.”
Aria understood the urge. She’d certainly been tempted to pull a few magical pranks, but bullying bullies didn’t seem like the right answer.
“You told me I needed to stand up for myself,” Caroline pointed out.
“There’s a difference between standing up for yourself and getting even. Besides, this isn’t about fighting back. It’s about moving on. Are you really ready to move on?” pressed Aria. “To make new friends? Because I can help you,” she said. “If you’re willing to let me.”
Caroline swallowed. And then she nodded. “Okay,” she said. “I’m ready.”
And as she said it, Caroline’s smoke finally started to thin.
Aria and Caroline sat in the tree house until dark, stretched out on the floor, watching the sunset through the branches, and talking.
And the longer they talked, the more Aria became convinced that Caroline — not the version of her who had followed Lily’s orders, or the version who’d been lost in space the last few weeks, but Caroline as she was under all of that — was great. She was funny and she was smart, and full of random facts like how far they were from the moon, and why it was so bright, and what the constellations were called. Aria loved learning all this. It made the world seem even more magical.
“Hey, Aria?” said Caroline when it was dark and they could see the stars.
“Yeah, Caroline?”
“I think I know why your shadow took me to the trampoline today.”
“Why’s that?”
“Well, I go out there to look at stars. It’s always been the place I feel most like me,” she said. “Lily and I were on the trampoline when she told me that it was more important to be popular than be myself. And I believed her.”
“And now?” asked Aria in the dark.
“Now I want people to like me for me. Do you think that’s possible?”
Aria smiled. “Absolutely.”
When it was almost 8:00 p.m., Aria walked Caroline home.
“See you in the morning?” asked Aria when they reached her door.
“Yeah,” said Caroline. “It’ll be a fresh start. Caroline 2.0.”
Aria cocked her head. “I don’t know what that means.”
Caroline smiled. “It’s like, when you have a computer, and you update the software. Same person, new version.”
Aria thought about it a long moment. “Yes!” she announced. “Like that.”
She wondered, as she walked away, if she was Aria 2.0, too.
Aria found her feet carrying her across the lawn, and through the white picket fence to the Pierces’s house. She took a deep breath, and made herself invisible before approaching the kitchen window.
Erica and Whitney and Lily were standing around the counter, their hair wet from the pool. But Lily didn’t seem happy. Her hand went to her collar, as if reaching for a nec
klace. Weird. Aria had seen Caroline do the exact same thing.
“Come on,” said Erica, “you have to admit it was funny.”
“That’s not the point,” snapped Lily. “You shouldn’t have used my phone.”
“Well, I couldn’t exactly use my phone. Caroline would never have come. She’s not that stupid.”
“I still can’t believe she fell for it,” chimed in Whitney. There was a new meanness in her voice. As if she was trying to prove that she fit in.
“Yeah, well, she did,” said Lily, sounding put out.
“You’re no fun today,” said Erica, resting her head on Lily’s shoulder. Lily shrugged her off.
“Hey,” said Erica, scrambling. “What are we wearing to the dance next week?”
“I don’t care,” said Lily. “I have a headache. And homework. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
The two girls stared at her, clearly shocked by her cold tone.
“Are you mad?” asked Whitney with a pout.
Lily mustered up a smile that Aria could tell was fake. “No,” she said. “Of course not.”
But as soon as Erica and Whitney were gone, Lily slumped down at the kitchen table, her smoke swirling darkly around her shoulders. She looked miserable. And lonely.
Aria didn’t get it.
Why was Lily tormenting Caroline? And if she didn’t want to do it anymore, why didn’t she simply tell the other girls to stop? What was she afraid of?
Aria remembered Caroline’s words.
I’d rather be a bully than a nobody.
Was Lily scared of losing her place at the top?
Aria was about to leave when Lily dug her hand in her pocket and pulled out a necklace. She held it up to the light, and Aria saw a silver pendant on the end of a chain. It looked like half of a circle. Lily stared at it for several long moments, then put it back in her pocket.
Caroline was halfway to her bedroom when she heard her sister’s voice.
“Hey, Car, get in here.”
Considering Megan spent most of her life keeping Caroline out of her room, the order made her nervous. She hovered on the threshold, racking her brain. Had she borrowed anything? Broken anything?
“Sit,” said Megan, pointing to her bed. “I’ll braid your hair.”
Growing up, Megan played with Caroline’s hair all the time. But it had been years since she’d offered to do it. Still, as Caroline climbed onto her sister’s bed and Megan drew the brush through her hair, Caroline began to feel sleepy and safe.
“Talk to me,” said Megan.
“Why?” asked Caroline.
“Because I’m your big sister. Because you used to ramble in my ear about every little thing in your life. Because I know something’s up with you and Lily, and I can tell you didn’t go swimming.” Caroline looked down at her lap. “What’s going on with you?” asked Megan. There was no accusation, no jab in her tone. It was the closest thing she had come to sounding concerned.
“We’re not friends anymore,” said Caroline. It hurt her throat to say it. “We haven’t been for a while.”
Megan set aside the brush, and moved to face her sister. “I know it hurts. I know it feels awful and huge and like it will never really get better. But it will.”
“How do you know?” asked Caroline quietly.
“Because it’s the way life works. I wish I could tell you that every friendship lasts forever, but it doesn’t. People change. Sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse.” Megan brought her hand to rest on Caroline’s head. “The trick is remembering who you are. But I’m sorry things have been hard, Car.”
Caroline nodded, and wrapped her arms around her sister. “Thanks, Megan.”
“No problem,” she said. “Now get out of my room.”
“I’m not ready,” said Caroline the next morning.
She’d gone to bed feeling ready and woken up feeling sick. It was one thing to say you were ready in the safety of a tree house at night, and another to be ready surrounded by girls you were pretty sure wanted nothing to do with you.
“You are,” insisted Aria. They were in gym class, passing a soccer ball back and forth on the field.
“I can’t do this.”
“Yes,” said Aria. “You can. It’s easy. We’re passing a soccer ball, they’re passing a soccer ball, everyone’s passing soccer balls. You have something in common already! Let’s go see if we can join another group.”
Caroline groaned. Aria made it sound so easy. Like it was the first day of school. Like the whole grade didn’t hate her, or at least fear Lily’s wrath enough to pretend they did. Caroline never used to be shy, but now her nerves rattled in her chest.
“When people think about you,” said Aria, “they think about you and Lily. You have to get them to see who you are outside of her.”
“But how? No one will even talk to me.”
“Have you talked to them?” asked Aria.
Caroline opened and closed her mouth, but said nothing.
Aria sighed and kicked the ball back to her. “What are you afraid of, Caroline? That they’ll say no?”
“That’s exactly what I’m afraid of.” Caroline kicked the ball back hard. “And then I’ll look even more pathetic.”
“Did it ever occur to you,” said Aria, stopping the ball, “that not everyone here cares about your fight with Lily? That even though it feels really big to you, maybe it’s not the center of their universe?” Aria picked the ball up. “Maybe they’re not all talking about you behind your back. Maybe some of them are even waiting for you to make an effort.”
Caroline looked over at the other groups of girls laughing and chatting and passing the ball. She wanted to believe Aria, but …
“You don’t believe me, do you?” asked Aria. She crinkled her brow, thinking. And then she broke into a smile, and looked around. “Come on,” she said, dropping the ball back to the grass. “I have an idea.”
Caroline followed Aria off the field, and over the track, and around the corner of the building. “I don’t know if this will work,” Aria said.
“If what will work?”
“Give me your hand.”
“Why?” asked Caroline, suspicious.
“Trust me,” said Aria, and Caroline did. She took Aria’s hand. “Now, don’t freak out.”
“What would I freak out abou —” But the words fell away as Caroline saw their hands, followed by the rest of them, disappear.
“Hey, it worked,” came Aria’s voice, even though Caroline couldn’t see Aria. Or herself.
“What did you do?” whispered Caroline, her pulse racing. Were they invisible?
“Come on,” said Aria, and Caroline could feel herself being pulled back toward the soccer field. “I want you to hear what people are saying.”
It was kind of cool to be invisible — to be actually, magically invisible, and not just feel invisible and ignored. But Caroline also had a bad feeling about this. As they wove through the groups of girls, she braced herself for gossip, expecting to hear her name on everyone’s tongues.
But to Caroline’s surprise, no one was talking about her. Most of the girls were talking about their weekend plans, or the upcoming dance with Eastgate, or how eager they were for gym to be over.
And then, finally, she heard her name mentioned. Not by Lily or her group (Lily seemed off today, quieter than usual) but by a girl named Ginny. She had sun-streaked hair and a band of freckles across her nose, and Caroline didn’t know much about her except that she was on a local swim team.
“I’m just saying,” Ginny was rambling to her friend, a dark-haired girl named Elle, “that I think Caroline Mason seems pretty cool.”
“Drama,” said Elle. Caroline cringed. “Way too much drama. And it’s not worth wading into it, not with Lily Pierce in the mix.”
Ginny scoffed. “Like I care what Lily thinks.”
“Don’t let her hear you say that….”
Caroline was so shocked — by the fact that someone thou
ght she was cool, and the fact that they weren’t afraid of Lily — that she didn’t even notice that the bell had rung until Aria was dragging her toward the lockers.
Caroline asked Aria if they could stay invisible for the rest of the day, but Aria said no. Aria also said Caroline had to try sitting at a new table at lunch. No more Table 12.
Now Caroline stood in the cafeteria, her heart hammering in her chest. “Couldn’t you just summon up some friends for me?” she asked Aria, only half joking.
“No,” said Aria, handing her a tray.
Some guardian angel, thought Caroline, staring out at the sea of tables that waited past the checkout. “This isn’t going to work,” she said again.
“Of course it is,” said Aria, setting a vanilla pudding cup on her tray. “Eleven tables. Infinite opportunities for friendship.”
“Infinite opportunities for embarrassment,” mumbled Caroline. “You act like I can just magically make new friends.”
“It’s not magic,” insisted Aria. “The problem is you’ve never looked beyond your group. Lucky for you, there are tons of girls at this school worth being friends with.” Aria looked around the lunchroom. “You see the two girls at Table Eight?” she said. “Jasmine and Nora? They run a music blog. Renée and Amanda at Table Two want to be in the World Cup someday, whatever that is. The girls at Table Six are all in drama or dance, and half the girls at Table Four are in the science club, and the girls at Table Ten want to start a band, but they can never seem to settle on a name.”
Caroline looked at her, wide-eyed. “How do you know all of that?”
“Because I listened,” said Aria. “I paid attention.”
“You were also probably invisible.”
“The point is,” said Aria, “maybe it’s time for you to start listening. Get to know them,” she pressed. “Let them get to know you.”
Caroline took a deep breath and stepped forward without looking, accidentally bumping into a girl in front of her. “Sorry,” she said quickly.
The girl glanced back. “No worries,” she said. It wasn’t just any girl. It was Ginny, from the soccer field.