“What happened?” asked Ms. Opeline, sounding genuinely concerned.
“It was an accident,” answered Caroline. As if Lily and Erica and Whitney hadn’t painted the mess on the tray. As if Lily hadn’t tricked her into stopping. As if Erica hadn’t held the tray up vertically so it would do the most damage.
“Mhmm,” said Ms. Opeline, as she went to a closet in the corner of the room and pulled out a fresh uniform. But when Caroline went to take it, Ms. Opeline didn’t let go.
“Caroline,” she said, “this is the fourth uniform since school started. And it’s only September.”
“I know,” said Caroline slowly. “I’m sorry,” she added.
“Don’t be sorry,” said Ms. Opeline. “Just tell me what’s going on.”
Caroline’s throat tightened. Lily Pierce is ruining my life, she wanted to say. But telling Ms. Opeline wouldn’t fix it. It would only make things worse, because Ms. Opeline would tell Caroline’s parents, and Caroline’s parents would tell Lily’s parents, and that would only make Lily hate her more, and that was the last thing Caroline wanted, so she said, “Nothing. Everything is fine.”
Ms. Opeline sighed. “Okay,” she said, letting go of the uniform. Caroline reached the door before Ms. Opeline added, “But if you change your mind, I’m here.”
In the bathroom across the hall, Caroline put on the clean uniform. She stuffed the stained clothes into a plastic bag and shoved the plastic bag into her backpack.
“Did you hear what happened to Caroline?” said someone in the hall.
Caroline froze, listening.
“Whatever,” said another girl. “She probably deserved it….”
It was like being punched in the stomach. Caroline’s throat tightened. She stood there, listening as their chatter died away. She couldn’t tell who the girls were, but it didn’t matter. Everyone probably felt the way they did. The bell rang, and the thought of going to class, of sitting in a room with those girls — or girls like them — made Caroline wish she were in outer space.
She met her own reflection over the sink. Her blue eyes were red, and her blond hair was flecked with tiny dots of ketchup and mustard. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.
“You look out for me, and I’ll look out for you. And we’ll stick together no matter what.”
A few tears began to stream down her face, but she wiped them away. The second bell rang, and she took several deep breaths, and finished cleaning herself up.
Caroline was only a few minutes late to science.
Science was her favorite subject, or at least it used to be. She didn’t have to deal with Lily or Whitney there, but Erica more than made up for their absence.
Erica scrunched up her nose as Caroline walked past.
“Mr. Pincell,” she said, raising her hand. “Something smells.”
The science teacher sighed. “I don’t smell anything, Miss Kline.”
“I do,” she persisted, looking pointedly at Caroline. “Like someone’s been bathing in kitchen trash.”
A few other girls giggled. Caroline grimaced and took her seat.
“Focus,” said Mr. Pincell. “Today we’re going to work in pairs.”
Caroline groaned inwardly. There were an odd number of girls in the class, which meant she’d get to sit there, watching everyone else find a partner, until she was the only one left, and Mr. Pincell would ask the class which pair wanted to work with Caroline, and nobody would answer, and —
“Can I be your partner?”
Caroline looked up to see a girl standing over her desk. It was the redhead Caroline had crashed into earlier. It took Caroline a second to process the question because it took her a second to realize someone was speaking to her. Her heart fluttered a little. It was amazing how good it felt, being spoken to.
Westgate Prep was a small school. Certainly small enough that Caroline had memorized the sixty-two students in her grade, and this girl wasn’t one of them. She must be new. Which meant the only reason she was talking to Caroline was because no one had told her not to.
Yet.
“I’m Aria,” said the girl. “I just started here.”
“Caroline.”
Aria settled in across the table from her. “So,” she said. “Partners?”
Caroline hesitated, then nodded. “Okay.”
“Uh,” said Aria, scooting her chair closer. “What do partners do?”
“Well, right now we’re studying crystals,” explained Caroline, handing Aria a lump of quartz. “We have to answer the questions on the work sheet.”
Aria held the crystal up to the light. “It’s beautiful,” she said quietly. She then squeezed one eye shut, held the crystal up to her other eye, and considered the class through it.
Aria stopped when she came to Erica’s desk and simply stared at her through the crystal. Then she lowered it, and turned toward Caroline.
“That girl keeps making a face at me.”
Erica was scowling at Aria so hard it looked like she was trying to burn a hole into her with her eyes. “Erica Kline,” said Caroline. “That’s pretty much the only face she makes. But also …” Caroline looked down at her notebook. “She probably doesn’t want you hanging out with me.”
Aria looked like she was about to ask why, and Caroline really didn’t want to try to explain. Except Aria didn’t ask why. She said, “Oh, I know. She already told me to stay away from you.”
Caroline felt her own face drain of color. “Then why did you ask to be my partner?”
Aria smiled and picked up the crystal, gazing through it at the ceiling light. “Because I wanted to.”
Caroline stared at her, dumbfounded.
“Ladies,” said Mr. Pincell. “Less chat, more work.”
Caroline gave him a dazed nod. She and Aria worked in silence for the rest of the class, but Caroline could feel Aria’s gaze on her the whole time, and when the bell rang, Aria followed her out.
“Look,” said Caroline. “Thanks for being my partner today. But Erica was right. You should probably stay away from me.”
Aria tipped her head. “Why’s that?”
Caroline sighed. “Because Erica is one of Lily Pierce’s minions, and Lily hates me. She told everyone to leave me alone, so if she sees you hanging out with me, it’ll make her mad, and trust me, you don’t want to make her mad.”
“Is that what you did?” asked Aria.
Caroline swallowed hard. “Look, I’m trying to do you a favor,” she said. Aria’s kindness would only make things worse. For both of them. “You just got here. You don’t know how things work.”
“You could tell me.”
“I am. I’m telling you that I’m toxic. So unless you want to be Westgate’s newest outcast, you should steer clear of me.”
“I don’t want to.”
“Well, I want you to,” said Caroline, even though having someone to sit with, to talk to, had made class bearable for the first time in weeks. “So leave me alone.” And before Aria could say anything else, Caroline turned and left.
Aria watched Caroline walk away from her for the second time that day. She didn’t understand what was going on. Who was Lily Pierce? And what had Caroline done to make her mad? Was the whole school really ignoring Caroline just because one girl told them to?
Her thoughts swirled like Caroline’s smoke. She looked down at her black laces. She wished they were still purple. She was sure she’d be able to think better if they were purple.
She tapped her shoe a few times. And then she got an idea.
Aria ducked into the bathroom. When she entered a stall, she saw a message scribbled on the wall:
Caroline Mason is a waste of space.
Something fluttered in Aria’s chest, a sensation she’d never felt before, and it took her a moment to realize what it was: anger. She brought her fingertips to the message, and it erased itself.
And then, Aria erased herself.
Aria didn’t like being invisible. It certainly ca
me in handy, but it always left her feeling … less than real. Still, if she was going to help Caroline, she needed to understand exactly what was going on, and it seemed like the best way to do that was to watch what Caroline’s life was like without Aria in it.
Aria stepped out of the stall, and looked in the mirror, startling a little at the fact that she couldn’t see herself in it. And then she went in search of Caroline.
She caught sight of the blue smoke just as Caroline was reaching her last class, art. Aria slipped through the door behind her.
Caroline took her seat, and Aria stood beside her, hoping that even if she couldn’t see her there, Caroline might feel a little less alone. Erica sat on the other side of the room next to a girl Aria hadn’t seen before. Her backpack said her name was Whitney.
“Good afternoon, class,” said the art teacher. He looked exactly like Aria imagined an art teacher would look — cheerful and paint-speckled. His name, she saw on the board, was Mr. Ferris. “It’s such a lovely day,” he said. “I was thinking …”
“That you’ll cancel class?” offered a girl.
That started a chorus of “Yeah!” and “Pleeeaasseee,” but Mr. Ferris only laughed and held up his hand, and the room quieted again.
“Alas,” he said, picking up a notepad. “School policy says no. But I did think we could go outside and draw.”
A murmur of approval ran through the room as he began to take roll. “All right,” he said when he was done. “The only one we’re missing is Lily.”
“I’m here, sir.”
Caroline stiffened in her seat, and Aria turned to see Lily Pierce standing in the doorway.
“Sorry I’m late,” she said, waving a note.
Aria’s mouth hung open. Lily had black curls, and pale skin, and a dazzling smile. But it wasn’t any of those things that made Aria gape. No, it was something no one else seemed to notice. Something no one else could see.
Lily Pierce was surrounded by bright blue smoke.
The art class spread out across the lawn, drawing pads propped on their knees as they sketched with colored pencils. Lily and Erica and Whitney sat in a circle in the center of the lawn, but Caroline sat alone under a tree. She had her head bowed over her paper, and was sketching a fallen leaf, detailing every crack and vein with an orange pencil.
Aria, still invisible, sat beside Caroline, but she couldn’t keep her eyes off of Lily. And Lily’s smoke. Smoke the same color as Caroline’s, a sky blue that matched Aria’s bracelet.
It didn’t make sense.
Aria had already found the girl marked for her help.
How could there be two?
As she watched Lily smile and laugh and whisper in Erica’s ear, a knot formed in Aria’s stomach.
The blue smoke marked people who needed her help, but Aria had always assumed that meant people who deserved her help. From what she’d heard, Lily Pierce was not a very nice person.
How was Aria supposed to help a girl who was being bullied and the girl who was bullying her?
There had to be more to it.
Mr. Ferris paused over Caroline to consider her drawing. “You like science, don’t you, Miss Mason?”
Caroline looked up. “Yes, sir. How did you know?”
He gave her a gentle smile, and nodded at her sketch. “You’re trying to replicate the leaf, to re-create it on the page, line for line, shadow for shadow. But art is less science,” he said, “and more, well, art.”
“I’m sorry, sir.”
“Don’t be sorry, Caroline. Just let go. Hold your pencil looser. Don’t be afraid to draw a line in the wrong place. And for goodness’ sake don’t try and erase it if you do. Just make a new line.”
Caroline nodded, and Aria found herself nodding, too. She liked this Mr. Ferris, she thought, as a bright red leaf fell out of the tree and floated into her lap. She smiled and held it up to the sunlight. Fall was so full of color. Aria was beginning to think that it was her favorite season. Or at least, her favorite season right now. She hadn’t experienced winter or spring yet, so she couldn’t be totally sure, but it was definitely her favorite-for-today.
Aria looked up and realized that Caroline was staring at her, eyes wide.
No, not at her. At the bright red leaf in her hand. Aria had forgotten that she was invisible, that the leaf must seem like it was hovering in the air, held aloft by magic. Aria quickly let go of the leaf. Caroline watched it float to the ground, then picked it up, and set it on her notepad.
Laughter burst out across the lawn, and Aria turned to see Lily clasping a hand over Erica’s mouth. Aria got to her feet and crossed the grass toward them.
When she saw what they were laughing at, she frowned. Erica had finished drawing her tree and had added a stick-figure version of Caroline, sitting alone beneath it. Three different sets of handwriting had written the words Loser, Freak, and Weirdo in the space around the sketch. Whitney chewed her pencil. Erica smiled smugly. But Lily didn’t. Her laughter had trailed off.
Aria studied Lily. Something was wrong. It was in her eyes, in the beats of silence between her laughs. Like she wasn’t really happy.
Aria sighed and crouched, inches from Lily’s face. A ribbon of blue smoke curled between them.
What is it made of? Aria wondered, squinting at the fog. She could understand why Caroline’s smoke swirled around her, and could guess the lonely thoughts and feelings it was filled with. But what could Lily need?
The bell rang, and Aria straightened.
“What a loser,” said Erica, packing up her supplies. Aria knew she meant Caroline.
“Yeah,” echoed Whitney, a bit halfheartedly.
And then Erica added, “I can’t believe you two used to be best friends.”
Aria froze. Best friends? She looked to Lily — and her swirling smoke — as the girl rolled her eyes and said, “I know.”
But how? How could someone go from being a best friend to being a bully?
Lily and her friends brushed the grass from their skirts and strolled away. Aria turned back in search of Caroline, but she was already gone.
“Just you today?” asked Caroline’s mom after school.
“Just me,” mumbled Caroline, climbing into the car.
They went through this every day. At first, Caroline made a dozen different excuses for why there was no more carpool — well, there was, it just didn’t involve her — but she’d run out of good lies and the energy to tell them convincingly.
“How was school?” asked her mom.
Caroline looked out the window, the lunchroom incident burned into her mind. “It was fine,” she lied.
Her mom squinted at her. “Are you wearing a different uniform?”
She looked down at the borrowed clothes. “I spilled food on mine.”
“Goodness, Caroline, you’ve gotten so clumsy. That’s the third one this month.”
Fourth, thought Caroline. The first time, Lily and Erica had stuffed her clothes in the trash can during gym. The second time, they’d put them in the toilet (Caroline had stood, in the flooded stall, watching the blue-and-green plaid swirl in the toilet water). After that, Caroline made sure to put a lock on her gym locker. For a little while it worked, but that just made them more creative. The third uniform had ended up splattered with mud. And now this.
At least she’d survived art. The last class of the day. And the worst. That’s where everything had started.
When they got home, Caroline’s mom called upstairs to Megan, Caroline’s sister. When there was no answer, she asked Caroline to go check on her.
Megan was stretched across her bed, and she was on the phone. She was always on the phone.
“Mom’s looking for you,” said Caroline.
Megan waved a hand. “I’ll be down soon.”
Caroline hesitated. Megan was sixteen and gorgeous and without a doubt the most popular girl at her high school. Caroline couldn’t imagine Megan ever being bullied.
When Megan saw that she was
n’t leaving, she lowered the phone and said, “What do you want?” With her tone, she might as well have said go away.
Caroline hesitated. “I …”
I need your advice, she wanted to say. School is a nightmare and I don’t know what to do and I’m afraid that if I tell someone like Mom or the counselor or the headmistress it will just make everything worse and I —
“Well?” pressed Megan, impatiently.
Caroline swallowed. “I wanted to borrow your hairbrush,” she said, chickening out.
Megan rolled her eyes, tossed the brush to her, and kicked the door shut with her foot.
Caroline trudged down the hall into the bathroom. She dropped the brush on the counter and dug her ruined uniform out of her backpack, dumping it in the bathroom sink. There was a jewelry box on the counter, and somewhere in the bottom drawer was the half-circle necklace.
We’ll stick together no matter what.
She couldn’t bring herself to throw the necklace away, but she forced herself to not open the box and take it out.
Instead, she tried to scrub away the stains on her uniform, but they didn’t come out, only spread, turning the polo and skirt a sickly orange brown.
Caroline heard a car door slam, and a familiar voice, and her chest tightened. It wasn’t bad enough that she had to see Lily every day at school. She was also her next-door neighbor.
Through the bathroom window she could see Lily’s black hair as she got out of her mom’s car. Lily’s smile faltered, and then faded altogether — Caroline knew that Lily hated her strict after-school routine, because that was the kind of thing best friends were supposed to know about each other. She watched Lily hesitate on the porch, as though she didn’t want to go inside.
For a second, Caroline didn’t hate her. She just felt sorry for her. And then she remembered the ruined clothes sitting in the sink, and she snapped the water off. She left the uniform soaking while she went to her room, and lay down on her bed.
Maybe it was just a bad dream. She wished she could wake up.
Or run away. Some days she thought about running away. Starting a new life.