Angelaboutme

Lena closed her eyes. “I’m hallucinating. Head trauma. Great.”

“Do all guardian angels eat cheese puffs?” Lena asked one night, sitting cross-legged on her living room floor. Leonard the succulent sat on the windowsill, thriving against all odds.

Lena stared at her. Then she laughed, which sent a bolt of pain through her ribs, which made her stop laughing. “You’re not an angel.” angelaboutme

She grew up hard and quiet, like a stone worn smooth by years of bad weather. Foster homes came and went—some indifferent, a few cruel, none permanent. She learned to cook for herself at nine, to forge a signature at eleven, to pack a bag in under two minutes by thirteen. By sixteen, she had aged out of the system with a GED, a part-time job at a diner, and a heart that had been carefully encased in cement.

Margo smiled, and for the first time, Lena noticed that her smile looked like sunrise—warm and slow and full of impossible light. “That’s okay. That’s why I’m here. Not to fix you. Just to sit with you. Just to remind you that you’re not alone.” Lena closed her eyes

“I always knew I had a guardian angel,” Lena said slowly. “I just thought she would look different. More wings. Less orange dust.”

Lena remembered. She remembered the fire escape—the rusted metal, the way the city lights blurred through her tears. She remembered standing at the window at three in the morning, one hand on the lock, thinking about how easy it would be to just disappear. Then she laughed, which sent a bolt of

“You’re not hallucinating,” Margo said cheerfully. “You’re just finally able to see me. I’ve been here the whole time. Twenty-six years, to be precise. And let me tell you, it has been exhausting . Do you know how hard it is to keep someone alive when they have a death wish disguised as ‘healthy risk assessment’?”