Angelaboutme Now

“Technically,” Margo said, picking a fleck of orange dust off her jeans, “I’m a guardian angel. Third class. Very low on the celestial totem pole. But I passed my human-interaction exam on the third try, which is actually pretty good, considering.”

“Why are you telling me this now?” she whispered. angelaboutme

Lena laughed. It didn’t hurt her ribs anymore. Nothing hurt the way it used to. “Technically,” Margo said, picking a fleck of orange

Lena’s eyes burned. She hadn’t cried since she was seven years old, sitting on that hospital floor. She had forgotten what it felt like—the heat behind her eyes, the tightness in her throat, the terrifying vulnerability of letting the world see that she was breakable. But I passed my human-interaction exam on the

Margo still showed up, though not every day. Sometimes she appeared on the fire escape outside Lena’s new apartment, eating cheese puffs and watching the stars. Sometimes she appeared in dreams—quiet dreams, the kind where you sit on a park bench and watch the leaves fall and feel, for once, that everything might be okay.

She didn’t know if Margo was real, not in any way that could be proven. Maybe she was a hallucination born of loneliness and a traumatic brain injury. Maybe she was a coping mechanism, a way for Lena’s psyche to give herself the love she had never received.

She got coffee. It was awkward and painful and wonderful. Her half-sister, Maya, had a daughter now—a six-year-old with Lena’s same wary eyes and wild hair. Lena held the little girl on her lap and felt something bloom in her chest, something green and tender and terrifying.