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And then to follow up:
I LOVE YOU
.

Him:
SAVED HERE. BYE.

“Aura.”

I startled at the voice. Megan sat on a bench near the skywalk to the parking lot, drinking a bottle of iced tea. Her hair was pulled back into a long red braid, and she wore a blue cami with yellow capris.

I strolled over to her. “I didn’t recognize you in color.”

“Ha, ha.” She stood and hugged me. “I figured you’d need a friendly face and a mocha fix right about now.”

“I do. Where do you want to go?”

“Your choice. You’re the one driving. I took the light rail down so we could ride home together. So you wouldn’t be alone in the car missing Zach.”

“Thanks. But what if your train had been late?”

“I would’ve called you and said to wait for me. Would’ve ruined
the surprise, though.” She slipped on her sunglasses as we entered the glass-enclosed skywalk. “Not that you seem surprised.”

“I’m in shock.” I handed her the papers Zachary had given me.

She started reading them. “Whoa.” Her mouth rounded as she scanned his message on the last page. “How could you let that boy get on a plane?”

“It was two against one, and the two were his parents. I was legally doomed.”

She folded the pages and gave them back to me as we entered the parking garage’s stairwell. “Six months. My God, how will you last without your soul twin?”

“My what?”

“‘Soul twin.’ I came up with it a few nights ago.” She shoved her sunglasses atop her head, fanning out her red bangs. “I was thinking about that VIP idea—you know, how you and Zachary got into the world when no one was supposed to?”

“I was thinking about it a few nights ago, too.” I bumped my shoulder against hers. “Maybe you and I are soul twins, too.”

“Nah, just soul sistahs.” She offered me her iced tea. It wasn’t the brand with the symbols under the lid, but I took a sip anyway.

“I thought you were going out with Mickey tonight.”

“He’s not here. Guess where he is?”

“A monastery?”

She laughed, harder than I’d heard in months. “He’s at Shenandoah looking for an apartment.”

I stopped. “He’s going to college this year?”

“Yep. And since it’s too late to get a dorm room, he has to find his own place.” She grinned at me. “But that means when I visit him? No roommates.”

“Sweet.” I wondered if her mom would actually let Megan visit him, or if I would have to cover for her. “What changed Mickey’s mind about school?”

“I think working with Logan the last few weeks, and especially seeing him last night, was really good for him. His parents seem happier, too, now that Logan’s passed on, even though that scene Friday night was insane. Hey, speaking of Keeleys, call Siobhan and see if she wants to meet us for mochas.”

I slowed down to pull out my original phone while Megan went ahead of me into the dark parking garage. Her head turned as she rounded the corner. I followed her, searching for Siobhan’s number.

Megan halted. “Wow, I just saw your redness in action.”

“Huh?”

She pointed to the garage elevator. “A ghost was standing next to that trash can, but she disappeared the second you walked through the door.”

“Cool.” I shrugged. “Won’t last long.”

My red “Zachary phone” buzzed.

I AM LOOKING AT A GHOST. RIGHT NOW. IN THE PUB. AMAZING…

I grinned and replied:
ENJOY IT WHILE IT LASTS
!

As we turned for my car, I looked back at the terminal, laughing at the image of Zachary spending the next hour or two pretending to his mom and dad that he didn’t see ghosts. I’d opened up a whole
new world of experience for him, even as he’d given me a whole new world of peace.

For a short time, we’d become each other, a little. Maybe that’s what people do when they fall in love, mind, body, and soul. Or maybe we were just weird.

In any case, we belonged together, no matter what parents and governments had to say about it.

Soon enough, time and destiny would have their own say.

A
fter the marathon mocha session, which included profoundly delicious sandwiches—after my time in the woods I would never again take food for granted—I let Siobhan drive Megan home so I could make another stop alone. Somewhere I’d been only twice.

“Sorry I haven’t visited much,” I told Logan as I laid a bouquet of white roses on his grave. “It never seemed like you were here.”

I stepped back, reading the scripture cut into the smooth stone:
FOR WHAT IS SEEN IS TEMPORARY, BUT WHAT IS UNSEEN IS ETERNAL
. Logan had told me he would’ve preferred something more contemporary, like,
IT’S BETTER TO BURN OUT THAN TO FADE AWAY
.

But eight months and three days after his death, I was starting to understand the quote his parents had chosen, and found it strangely comforting.

“I still don’t know where you are. It seems like I should know, like there should be an empty space inside me.” I swiped my hand over his full name,
LOGAN PATRICK KEELEY
, coming away with a thin layer of dirt. “But I still feel full. Maybe I always will. Maybe that’s a good thing.”

I rubbed my hands together, as if I could make the soil of his gravestone part of my skin. I hoped never to lose the part of Logan that dwelled within me. It would keep me from growing old, at least on the inside.

“You know what would be cool, next time?” said a voice behind me. “Black roses.”

I lowered my hands slowly, then turned to face Logan. Standing beside his grandmother’s grave two rows over, he shone violet in the fading evening light.

He tilted his head. “But my mom might think it’s morbid.”

I ran to him on shaky legs. “What are you doing here? I thought you passed on at the end of the show.”

His face lit up. “Did you? Was it convincing?”

I could barely speak through my bewilderment. “It looked different from the other ghost I saw, but I thought maybe that was because you were going straight from human to gone.”

“Turns out some things actually
are
impossible. You know, it hurt like hell falling through that trapdoor. They need a thicker cushion underneath.” He beamed at me, literally. “Besides, I changed my mind.”

My heart jumped and sank at the same time. “You’re staying?”

“No, no. I’m definitely ready to pass on. But I decided I didn’t want to do it in front of a crowd. I wanted it to just be us.”

I gestured to the empty cemetery. “Here? Now?” My voice trembled with hope and fear.

“It’s quiet. No music, no one screaming my name. Just you and me.” He looked at the grave. “And Nana. Maybe I’ll see her where I’m going.”

I remembered Logan’s grandmother weeping outside the funeral home during his viewing. “If she’s still a ghost, maybe she’ll follow you.”

“That’d be cool. Can you help her pass on?”

“I’ll try.” When he frowned, I said, “All right, I’ll make it my mission in life.”

“Awesome. Oh, and there was a third reason why I wanted to do this here and now. I wanted you to know for sure that I was gone, that your secret was safe. No one’ll ever know about your dad, not from me.”

I knew then that he would have no trouble passing on, because he wasn’t leaving only for himself. He was leaving to protect me. “Thank you.”

“It’s safe with Zachary, too,” Logan said.

“How do you know he knows? I didn’t tell you that.”

Logan’s eyes went round and innocent as he looked away. “I sort of talked to him. In the airport.”

My jaw dropped. “You were the ghost he saw. When he was—when he had—”

“You, all over him? Yeah, I didn’t see a bit of red on that dude. Must have been one hell of a good-bye kiss.”

My cheeks heated. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be. I’m glad you have him.” He touched his throat. “Wow, those words came out in one piece. They must be true.”

I laughed, even as I wanted to cry. “Logan, why did you have to die to grow up?”

“Ha.” He shoved his hands in the pockets of his baggy shorts. “You wouldn’t have liked me as a grown-up. Just remember me like this. Or better yet, like I was when I was alive.”

“Some of my favorite memories will be of you as a ghost. You had a good life, and a pretty good afterlife, too.”

“One was too short and the other one, maybe too long.”

We fell silent, staring at his headstone. The years on it were way too close together. Even the month and days gave me a pain under my ribs to see: October 18 and October 19—he’d died a few minutes after his birthday.

“So what happened with that kidnapping?” Logan said finally. “Did the dumpers hurt you?”

“Not directly. I almost fell off a cliff running away from them, though. I am so not the outdoorsy type.” I looked up at the hazy orange-yellow sky. “But there were a lot of stars, more than I ever knew it was possible to see.”

Logan followed my gaze. “I wonder if there’ll be stars where I’m going.”

“If there aren’t now, there will be once you show up.”

His eyes softened, and he lowered his chin to look at me. “I don’t want to leave you.”

“Don’t worry.” I stepped close enough to mingle with his violet glow. “You won’t.”

Logan wrapped his arms around me in an embrace as real as any that flesh could offer. “No good-byes this time. Been there, done that, right?”

I forced out the word, “Yes.”

“Don’t cry,” he whispered. “I can’t go if you cry.”

It was too late, so I kept my face against his ethereal chest, my tears drenching the place where my name was forever inked.

But my next breath came slow and even, and the one after that was smooth as steam. The tears stopped flowing. Soon the last one dripped off my chin and fell at our feet.

“Ah, there,” Logan said as a golden glow began to pulse at his core.

Part of me wanted to pull away, for fear of being engulfed in the light, maybe even dragged with him into that other realm.

But I was alive. No matter what forces had brought me into this world, I was here to stay for a long time. I could stand next to Logan, stand within him, while he walked that path without me.

Logan took his own deep, sweet breath, ready to sing a brand-new song.

“Close your eyes,” he said. “It’s gonna be bright.”