Second Chances

by Victoria Schwab

  Caroline shook her head. “I’ve been trying to figure it out.”

  “Figure what out?”

  “You. Why you’re so determined to hang out with me. And I get it now, so just admit it.”

  Aria stared at her, eyes wide. “Admit what?” she asked, tugging on her blue charm bracelet.

  Caroline’s chest tightened. “You don’t even want to be my friend, do you?”

  Aria’s eyebrows went up. “Of course I do! Caroline, why would I hang out with you if I didn’t want to?”

  “Because Lily put you up to this,” said Caroline, backing away. “To trick me. She —”

  “Lily didn’t put me up to anything,” insisted Aria. “I promise. I’m —”

  “I don’t believe you,” said Caroline, taking another step back. “This is what you and Erica were writing notes about in class….”

  “It’s not like that. I’m here to help you.”

  “You probably were even at their pool party last night —”

  “Caroline —”

  “So you could all figure out the best moment when you’d switch from being my friend to my enemy and —”

  “Caroline,” said Aria, exasperated. “You’re wrong. I’m not their friend, and I’m not your enemy. I’m your —”

  Caroline took another step back. Only there wasn’t any more landing, only concrete steps, and Caroline lost her balance, and slipped, and started to fall.

  And then something happened.

  Something impossible.

  Aria, who was all the way at the other side of the landing, too far away to catch her, disappeared. The ground beneath her flashed a brilliant white, and swallowed her up, and an instant later it spit her out. Now she was right next to Caroline, and her hand closed around Caroline’s wrist, catching her before she could fall.

  Caroline’s heart raced as she stared at Aria, wondering if she was going crazy.

  “I’ve been trying to tell you,” said Aria, pulling Caroline safely back onto the landing. “I’m not their friend. And I’m not your enemy. I’m your guardian angel.”

  It wasn’t exactly how Aria had planned on telling Caroline.

  In fact, Aria hadn’t planned on telling her at all. Or at least, she hadn’t thought that far ahead.

  But when Caroline had taken that step back, and Aria had used her shadow to catch her, well —

  It was kind of hard not to tell Caroline after that.

  The words had tumbled out, and now that they were there, Aria couldn’t take them back.

  Caroline’s stare was perfectly blank.

  Disbelief. Aria could handle that. She braced herself for the onslaught of questions, but the first thing Caroline said, very quietly, was, “So Lily didn’t put you up to it?”

  Aria broke into a smile. “No.”

  Caroline’s brow furrowed as the rest of her questions caught up. “How can you be a guardian angel?” she asked.

  “I just am,” said Aria. “It’s all I’ve ever been.”

  “But you don’t look like a guardian angel. And what do you even mean, guardian angel? Like, literal guardian angel? Like wings and miracles and halos guardian angel?”

  Aria scratched her head. “Um, well, I’m still earning my wings, and I can’t really do miracles….”

  “What about the thing you just did with the light?” challenged Caroline. “What was that?”

  Aria looked down at her shadow and shook her head. “I’m not really sure,” she admitted. She’d never moved like that before. She guessed she hadn’t needed to before. The shadow had appeared when she needed to reach Caroline. “I guess that was a kind of miracle! But I don’t have a halo.” She patted on top of her hair to be sure.

  Caroline kept shaking her head. “You can’t expect me to believe this.”

  “You don’t have to,” said Aria. “But it doesn’t change the fact that it’s true. I’m here to —”

  The door at the top of the stairs burst open and a handful of sixth graders stormed past them. Caroline and Lily waited for the girls to disappear. And then Caroline’s eyes grew larger and she let out a surprised sound.

  “Wait. You’re the one who put the ketchup on Jessabel’s gym clothes,” she said.

  “Technically,” said Aria, “Jessabel put the ketchup on your gym clothes. I just put your gym clothes in Jessabel’s locker.”

  Caroline cracked a smile. “Magic,” she whispered, still looking at Aria in wonder. “So have you been, like … watching me my whole life?”

  Aria shook her head. “I only show up when someone needs my help.”

  Caroline nodded, her smile fading. “I guess I could use some,” she said quietly. Aria could tell it was a hard thing to admit. “So if Lily really didn’t put you up to this —”

  “She didn’t,” insisted Aria.

  “Then why were you talking to her?”

  Aria sighed, and leaned back against the banister. “She was trying to get me to ditch you. So was Erica. They told me I should sit with them. Hang out with them.” She straightened. “But I stood up to her. I told her no. That I’d rather hang out with you.”

  Caroline sighed. “Thanks, but you shouldn’t have done that. Now Lily is going to make things awful for you.”

  Aria grabbed Caroline’s hand and squeezed. “I’m not too worried.”

  Caroline looked at Aria, dazed. “Hang on. You didn’t tell Lily you were a guardian angel, did you?”

  Aria smiled. “No way. That should be our secret for now.”

  Unfortunately, it turned out that Caroline was right about Lily – she was going to make things awful. For both of them.

  It was gym, and Aria and Caroline were still in the locker room, after everyone else had gone to their next class. They were searching for their uniforms, both of which had mysteriously gone missing from their lockers. There was no doubt it was Lily’s handiwork.

  “We’re going to be late!” cried Caroline.

  “Can’t we just go to class in these?” asked Aria, gesturing down to her gym clothes. “We can explain what happened.”

  “No, we can’t,” said Caroline. “And I can’t go back to Ms. Opeline.” Aria didn’t know who Ms. Opeline was, but Caroline seemed adamant. “Besides, the uniforms have to be here somewhere.”

  Aria had already offered to summon two new uniforms into existence, but Caroline had refused. “I’m sick of losing my own,” she’d said. “I want it back.” Caroline still didn’t seem entirely convinced that Aria was an angel. She kept shooting glances at her as if she was trying to catch sight of Aria’s non-existent halo.

  “How did she even get into our lockers?” wondered Aria aloud as she stood on a bench.

  Caroline sighed and shut the last of the unassigned lockers at the end of the aisle.

  “Duct tape,” she said. “She put duct tape on the inside of the locks so they wouldn’t close all the way.”

  “Huh,” said Aria, hopping down. “That’s kind of clever.”

  “Come on, let’s check outside.” Caroline pushed the doors open. She scanned the field, the flagpole, the track, the pool … and then she looked up.

  “Oh no,” she said.

  “Well at least we found them,” said Aria, following Caroline’s gaze.

  Two plaid skirts rippled in the breeze. Four polo sleeves fluttered. Aria and Caroline’s uniforms were hanging from the tallest diving board.

  Caroline looked like she might cry. “I’m afraid of heights,” she murmured. “Lily knows that. I told her when we first met,” she added. “She tried to make me bounce too high on the trampoline, and I freaked out, and she teased me about it, about having a trampoline and not wanting to use it. And I told her that I liked to lie down on it, and watch the sky, and after that, Lily insisted we rename the trampoline an observatory, and said it couldn’t be used for jumping, only cloud watching and stargazing.” Caroline’s hands curled into fists. “She knows I’m afraid of heights, Aria. She did this on purpose.”

  �
�It’s okay,” said Aria softly. “I’m not scared of heights. I’ll go get them.”

  Caroline looked at her, eyes wide. “Are you sure?”

  “I’m your guardian angel,” said Aria, flashing her a smile. “It’s the least I can do.”

  There was a metal fence around the pool with a gate, but thankfully it wasn’t locked. Aria pushed it open, walked across the concrete rim of the pool to the ladder, and looked up at the uniforms draped across the highest diving board.

  The highest diving board was, as the name suggested, very high off the ground.

  Aria wasn’t afraid of heights, but the thin ladder and the narrow board did make her a little nervous. It didn’t help that the whole structure groaned as she started to climb. Nor did it help that Aria knew she couldn’t fly (she had tried once, and it hadn’t gone very well).

  But Caroline was clearly upset, and Aria could help. And in truth, she kind of wanted to impress Caroline. So up she went.

  When Aria finally reached the top and stepped out onto the board, she looked down. She could see the crisp blue water glittering in the sunlight, and Caroline standing there, looking much smaller than Aria expected. Caroline shielded her eyes against the sun and Aria waved. The board wobbled faintly under her feet.

  “Be careful!” Caroline called up.

  And Aria was. But as she started to gather up the uniforms, one of the sleeves got caught on the corner of the diving board. She tugged it free, and it came loose faster than she thought it would.

  “Uh-oh,” said Aria as she stumbled back …

  And over the side of the board …

  And down toward the pool.

  She’d fallen once before, from a much higher place (the top of a seven-story apartment building), and her shadow had caught her. But this wasn’t that high and the world beneath was water instead of sidewalk, so Aria wasn’t terribly surprised when she just kept falling toward the water, and hit it with a giant splash that stung her skin and knocked the air out of her lungs.

  Aria had never been underwater before.

  Overhead, she could see the uniforms floating.

  There was only one problem. A problem Aria hadn’t thought of until she was there in the cool blue pool, looking up.

  She didn’t know how to swim.

  Caroline had been standing at the edge of the pool, looking up at Aria, trying to decide if she believed the girl was actually a guardian angel.

  She had never really believed in things like magic or angels. She believed in science, in the stars in the sky, and the world she could see with her own eyes. But she could see Aria, too, so she knew she was real, and she’d seen her disappear and reappear with her own eyes, even if she didn’t understand how.

  And really, when she thought about it, the universe was so big that even scientists didn’t understand everything about it. In fact, one of her favorite things about outer space was that, no matter how much they found, no matter how much they thought they knew, there were more still things to be discovered. More mysteries to be solved.

  Maybe Aria was one of those mysteries.

  Maybe …

  Caroline’s thoughts were interrupted by a sound — a voice saying “uh-oh” — and she looked up just in time to see a small redheaded shape plummeting down toward the pool.

  Aria landed with a splash, followed a second later by the uniforms, which floated down and settled on top of the water. Caroline groaned and waited for Aria to bob back to the surface.

  But Aria didn’t come up.

  Caroline could see her there, under the water, and it didn’t occur to her at first that Aria might need help, because if she really was a guardian angel, surely she didn’t need saving.

  And then Caroline realized she didn’t know anything about guardian angels, because she’d never met one before, let alone had her own, and it appeared that this guardian angel or girl or whatever she was couldn’t swim.

  And Caroline could.

  She pulled off her shoes and socks, took a deep breath, and dove into the water, the way she had a hundred times at Lily’s pool. She swam out to the deep end, and then down until she reached Aria.

  Aria didn’t seem very concerned — she was just kind of hovering there, dragging her arms and legs back and forth — and when she saw Caroline, she actually smiled. And then she tried to say something, and a stream of bubbles came spilling out, followed by a lot of gasping and coughing. Caroline hooked her hands under Aria’s arms and dragged her toward the surface, and a couple seconds later they both broke through the water.

  Caroline hauled a spluttering Aria up beside her. She grabbed the uniforms floating on the surface and dragged two sets of clothes and one maybe-guardian-angel to the edge of the pool.

  “Why didn’t you come up for air?” Caroline snapped as they clung to the concrete rim. “You weren’t even trying to swim.”

  “I don’t know how,” said Aria simply.

  “Why would you offer to go up on the diving board if you don’t know how to swim?”

  “I didn’t know I didn’t know how to swim. I’ve never tried before. And I didn’t expect to fall in.”

  “You could have drowned!”

  “Oh,” said Aria, thinking. “No, I don’t think so.”

  Caroline let out an exasperated sound, and splashed water at her. And then despite herself, she laughed. Aria started laughing, too.

  They were cut off sharply by a stern voice.

  “What on earth are you girls doing?”

  The laugh died in Caroline’s throat as she looked up to see Mr. Cahill looming over them. She opened her mouth to explain, and so did Aria, but Mr. Cahill didn’t give them a chance.

  “Get out of the water,” he snapped. “Now.”

  Caroline and Aria sat in the headmistress’s office, their hair still damp from the pool. Ms. Opeline had found them some dry clothes but the girls both looked pretty ragged. Hardly the image of excellence and grace on the cover of the Westgate pamphlets, thought Caroline.

  Caroline sat perfectly still and stared straight ahead at the nametag on the headmistress’s desk. When Aria noticed the sign, her eyes widened.

  “Ms. Pierce?” she said aloud. “As in Lily Pierce?”

  Caroline nodded. “The headmistress is her mom.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” asked Aria.

  “I didn’t think it mattered.”

  Aria opened her mouth to say something more, but then the door opened, and Mr. Cahill walked in, followed by the headmistress.

  Caroline had always been terrified of Ms. Pierce. She was dressed in a white blouse and black pants, and like Lily, she had perfect black hair and perfect teeth. But unlike Lily, Ms. Pierce never smiled. She took a seat, and rapped her manicured nails on the table as she considered them.

  “I found the girls in the pool,” said Mr. Cahill. “I don’t know what possessed them to go in, but it wasn’t even gym period, which means they were breaking half a dozen school rules, from swimming without supervision to skipping class to —”

  “All right, Mr. Cahill,” cut in Ms. Pierce. “I’ll handle it from here. You can go back to the office.”

  The bespectacled man nodded and ducked out, mumbling “… kids these days …” as he went.

  “So,” said Ms. Pierce, “you two decided to go for a swim? During class?”

  “I fell in,” explained Aria. “Caroline dove in to save me.”

  “Is that true?” asked Ms. Pierce with a raised black brow. Caroline nodded. “But what were you doing out by the pool in the first place?” she pressed.

  “Trying to get our uniforms back,” said Aria. “Someone hung them from the diving board.”

  Ms. Pierce frowned and sat forward. “Do you know who?”

  Aria started to speak, but Caroline cut her off. “No,” she said. “It was just a stupid prank.”

  “Caroline Mason,” said Ms. Pierce sternly. “If you know who did this, you need to tell me. Lying is a serious offense at Westgate.” Wh
en Caroline said nothing, Ms. Pierce looked back at Aria. “Do you know who did it?”

  Aria squirmed in her seat. She looked to Caroline, clearly confused, but finally shook her head.

  “I can’t hear you,” pressed Ms. Pierce.

  “No,” said Aria, still looking at Caroline. “I don’t know for sure who did it.”

  Someone knocked on the door, and a teacher stuck her head in. Ms. Pierce got up. “I’ll be right back. Stay here.”

  The moment she was gone, Aria spun on Caroline.

  “Why are you covering for her?” she hissed. “You know who put the clothes up there, Caroline.”

  “So?”

  “So why won’t you tell Ms. Pierce?” pressed Aria. “Lily’s her daughter, so tell her. Tell her Lily is tormenting you. Tell her about the uniforms, and the locker, and …” Aria waved her hands emphatically. “Everything else,” she said. “This is your chance.”

  Caroline looked down at her lap. It wasn’t like she hadn’t thought about it. It wasn’t like she didn’t want to. But she couldn’t. If she did, it would all be over. There would be no going back. “No.”

  Aria looked at her, wide-eyed. “Why not?”

  “If I tell on Lily, she’ll never forgive me. She’ll never …”

  “Never what?”

  Take me back, Caroline wanted to say.

  “Caroline,” said Aria. “Talk to me. I’m here to help, remember?”

  Caroline looked up as it dawned on her. If Aria really was a guardian angel, then she was there to help. Aria could make things right. She straightened in her chair, and swallowed. “If you really are my guardian angel —”

  “I am.”

  “— and you really do want to help me —”

  “I do.”

  “Then help me get my old friends back.”

  Aria stared at Caroline, dumbfounded.

  After everything Lily had put her through, Caroline still wanted to be her friend?

  Aria was at a loss. She was there to help, and Caroline had told her how she wanted her to help, but if this was how she was supposed to help, why did it feel so wrong?

  “Well?” pressed Caroline.

  Aria started to speak, but was saved by Ms. Pierce striding back in.