Chapter 36
Sawyer
Focus on Zach. Focus on Zach. Focus on Zach.
I repeat my stubborn mantra in my head the whole way to Santa Monica. Of course, Morgan and I drive separately out to Ariana’s home on the sunset streets of the suburb. With no Morgan—no Zach himself, cheering my progress in my rearview mirror—my car feels painfully quiet.
But reminding myself of my postmortem friend motivates me. If we do finish Zach’s unfinished business, he’ll be leaving, just like Kennedy. So I should enjoy whatever final time we have left, like I couldn’t with Kennedy. Even if it means dealing with Morgan.
I’ve survived worse. I can sort things out with her later. Or not. She isn’t going anywhere.
I park behind Morgan underneath the two towering palm trees on the block.
When I step outside, I’m pleasantly surprised—it’s ten degrees cooler out here than on the Eastside.
Santa Monica faces the ocean, ushering cool wind over the verdant streets.
If nothing else comes of our visit to Zach’s van, I’ll count myself grateful for the reprieve from Silver Lake’s unwelcoming climate.
The van in question waits in the driveway.
I follow Morgan to Zach’s sister’s door.
It really is lovely outside. If Morgan and I weren’t fighting, I would suggest we walk to the pier.
I haven’t been since…I don’t even know when.
We could get ice cream or—anything but return to my sweltering, lonely house.
When Morgan knocks, no one comes to greet us. Not surprising, I guess. It’s Friday night. Ari and her family probably have plans.
The memory of Zach stealing the dragon mug for his nephew leaps into my head. Knowing myself, I wait for it to sadden me. One more reminder of Zach’s generosity of spirit, one more remembrance of what his disappearance will take with it from the world.
It doesn’t. I only remember Henry’s joy. I wonder if when people leave our lives, they eventually become nothing but the gifts they gave us.
Morgan knocks once more, then pulls a note from her purse, evidently prepared for this scenario. She slides the folded paper into Ari’s mail slot.
“Should we come back another time?” I ask, hardly looking at her.
“No way,” Morgan replies shortly. “We’re getting this over with.”
Well, nothing like some romantic scorn to dispel meditations on grief.
“Isn’t it going to look a little odd if we’re going through someone else’s car?” I point out when Morgan, dauntless, walks into the driveway.
Zach glides down the steps, pretending he’s sliding down the railing. I decide I give up on understanding ghost physics. “To be fair, it is my car,” he says in Morgan’s defense.
“You’re dead,” I reply. “I don’t think my friend’s ghost told me to break into someone else’s property is going to hold up in court.”
“Could be cool to try, though,” Zach says without hesitation. “Courtroom drama meets Ghost.”
I smile despite myself. Morgan does not. In fact, she looks like every second in my presence is ruining her day, while I was just welcoming the pleasant sunset. It’s like we’ve switched places or something.
“We’re not breaking into anything,” she says primly. “We have the keys.”
Without waiting for me to object, she unlocks the driver’s side door. Zach shoots me a commiserative shrug.
Despite my misgivings, I find myself coming closer to the car. I’m not going to lie, I’m curious what unfinished business waits inside Zach Harrison’s shiny, scuffed, sky-blue Volkswagen bus. Morgan opens the door—
“Oh,” she says suddenly.
My heart rate speeds. “What?” I peer past her.
“It…still smells like him,” Morgan says, half to herself. She sounds surprised and sad.
No scorn in the world can stop the wave of sympathy I feel for her now. Sense memory is powerful, often making the quotidian parts of loss the most painful. Doing the final load of Kennedy’s laundry, erasing her scent from our home, was one of the worst experiences of my life.
Nevertheless, I stop myself from reaching out to comfort Morgan. It’s not like she would want me to.
“Wish I could smell still. Bet it’s great,” Zach states proudly.
This manages to earn a smile from Morgan. “A mix of cologne and the beach,” she says.
She climbs inside, then unlocks the doors. I pop open the side while Morgan searches the glove compartment.
Immediately, I’m hit with the scent Morgan just described. It saddens me for different reasons. I don’t remember the smell. I never got the chance to know Zach when he was alive. While he feels like my friend, he’s not, not exactly. He’s dead, like I just reminded him. He won’t be here much longer.
Determinedly I focus on what we’re doing here. What I learned from losing Kennedy is that there will be plenty of time for grief later. Right now, I need to hold on to what I still have.
Surveying the van, I find Zach’s car is surprisingly…clean, aside from some sand kicked into the carpet. I see no fast-food wrappers, no water bottles. “Nothing up here except a lot of sunscreen and sex wax and a couple receipts,” Morgan reports.
“Sunscreen and sex wax and a couple receipts!” Zach repeats enthusiastically. “Sounds like a day well spent!”
I hide my smile. My pride won’t let me let Morgan think I’m having fun.
She ignores his exuberance. “You really did like spicy food,” she says, examining the receipts.
Zach climbs into the van and sits in the passenger seat. He looks, ironically, a little out of place. Which I guess he is. He’s no longer the man who owned this car. Not really.
I diligently push past the thought, reaching for the blanket-covered shape I remember Zach noticed when he floated through the car on our first visit here.
Underneath the woven cloth, I find a surfboard secured to the wall of the van.
Otherwise, a towel, a small bag with a change of clothes, swim trunks, and a toothbrush sit in the rear of the car.
Pretty standard stuff for the van of a surfer.
The surfboard snags Zach’s interest—I notice him eyeing the fiberglass form wistfully.
“There has to be something here,” Morgan insists, sounding frustrated. She snaps the glove compartment closed. “He wrote A-N-A on the Ouija board. He haunted my closet until I found his keys.”
“Maybe he”—Zach imitates Morgan’s impersonal phrasing—“just wants to go surfing again.”
“How are we going to get a ghost to go surfing?” I wonder out loud. Honestly, it sounds like the sort of movie Hollywood made in the sixties. Surfin’ Ghost Bonanza! Starring Zachary Harrison!
Zach’s forlorn expression compels me to keep this comment to myself. I reach for the surfboard, finding the shiny shape warm to the touch.
It’s a promising, paranormal indication. I unhook the surfboard from the wall. When I lay the board down on its fin to view the top, the car shakes once, suddenly.
I meet Morgan’s eyes. I have her full focus now.
While Zach and Morgan watch closely, I examine the surfboard. It’s worn, covered in wax, but the art is unique. Over the red stripe down the center, dozens of hand-drawn squiggles and doodles cover the surface.
They look like…signatures.
“The Perfect Weekend!” Zach exclaims.
Morgan and I look at him.
“It’s a tradition I used to have with my friends from high school,” he explains eagerly.
“For years, no matter where college and jobs and life took us, we made time to go back to the beach we spent our teen summers surfing at. But as everyone started to have kids or have more demanding jobs, it fell apart. We were bringing it back this year, though. Man, those trips were the best.”
He reaches for the surfboard. Only when his hand nearly brushes the fiberglass does he remember he can’t make contact. Like tradition—like everything—Zach possesses only the illusion of solidity.
“I really wish I could go one last time,” he says.
He withdraws his hand, smiling fondly.
Then his expression transforms. In the same moment, the three of us realize what Zach’s just said.
“Holy shit,” he continues. “I really wish I could go one last time.”
“Your unfinished business,” I say, locking eyes with Morgan. For the first time today, the sun in her gaze has parted the pissed-off clouds.
Of course, I realize, working backward. None of Zach’s family knew of his surfing weekend because it was a lapsed tradition, years forgotten.
Except not by Zach or his oldest friends.
They brought it back to life. It makes perfect sense—and is so perfectly Zach—that returning to his cherished Perfect Weekend with his friends was something he wanted to do before he died.
“When is the trip?” I ask him.
“The last weekend in August,” Zach declares, then looks stunned. Despite the inconsistent grip we’ve learned that ghosts have on memory and the passage of time, he remembered the trip schedule effortlessly.
“This weekend,” Morgan exhales. “This is why your haunting started getting more intense when August began. We were approaching your trip and we didn’t know.”
She’s right. Zach’s erratic episodes, his losses of memory. He wasn’t upset or fading. Something in him or surrounding him—I don’t fucking know—was reaching out in the only way it knew how.
Even more incredibly…it worked. Everything led us here. Like Zach was crying out for help without knowing it, only for fate to deliver him exactly who he needed.
“But,” I say, “we didn’t miss it.”
The relief is bittersweet. We’ve found Zach’s unfinished business. It’s within reach, which means Zach’s departure is, too. I remind myself to stay present—future grief is not the same as grief—but damn it, does it feel that way.
I remember my vow. Focus on Zach. Focus on Zach. “Where is the trip?” I ask him.
“It’s a beach in San Diego called San Onofre,” Zach says quickly. “You can camp right next to the sand.”
“San Diego isn’t a far drive. I’ll drive you out tomorrow,” Morgan says.
Not we. Panic lances into me. I speak without overthinking and without my stupid fucking pride. “I’m coming with.”
I look at Zach, doing what I never got the chance with Kennedy.
Memorizing his friendly features, his sense of humor, the shape of his thumbs—sculpting them into memory with the hard chisel of knowing the last time is near.
I focus on the fun we’ll have on this trip.
The memories I’ll hold on to even when he’s gone.
Zach grins, thrilled by my suggestion.
“That’s not necessary,” Morgan replies. “I’m sure you’re…busy.”
I hear the pointedness in her remark. Busy doing nothing, in your empty house. Busy pointlessly mourning the past.
“With Kennedy, she was gone as soon as her business was complete,” I shoot back, making sure Morgan hears the reference to her own duplicity. “I’m not risking the likely possibility that Zach doesn’t come back from this trip.”
“Aw, man, I love you, too,” the ghost himself interjects. He faces Morgan. “I want Sawyer to come.”
Morgan is unwavering. “You guys can hang out all night tonight,” she says to Zach with firm professionality. “Have a boys’ night. I’ll sleep in the pottery studio one last night. He”—she won’t even say my name—“doesn’t need to come with.”
“Morgan.”
I hear my own voice, stripped raw. I drop my rancor, my sarcasm, my defensiveness, my judgment.
When she reluctantly returns her gaze to me, I let everything I’m feeling onto my face. I show her every shattered piece.
“Please,” I plead. “Don’t. I’ve already had enough goodbyes sprung on me. Please just…let me do this one on my own terms.”
Finally, sympathy flickers in Morgan’s expression. Then regret. Over her shoulder, the Santa Monica sun slips past the horizon. “Fine,” she concedes softly. “You can come.”
My relief leaves me breathless. “Thank you.”
Morgan doesn’t smile, but she doesn’t quite manage to frown, either. I’ll take it.
For his part, Zach claps his semiopaque hands. “Fantastic. Oh, this is going to be the best. You guys are going to love the Perfect Weekend, and I can’t wait for you to meet everyone. And the swells are fantastic. Oh, and the sunsets and the bonfires. Dude,” he concludes. “It’s the best.”
Hearing his excitement, Morgan and I exchange a smile, only to quickly remember we’re not on good terms. I drop my gaze to the van’s carpet. Morgan stares determinedly down the street.
“Plus,” Zach ventures. “You two on a road trip together. Spending the night on the sand—”
“We’ll get a hotel,” Morgan says stiffly.
“Definitely. Two rooms. Far apart,” I corroborate.
Irritatingly, this only makes Zach grin.
“Sure, sure,” he reassures us, sounding like he knows something we don’t.
“I’m just glad I’ll have both my friends with me for the end.
Man, I couldn’t think of a better way to go out,” he says fondly, shaking his head.
“It’s going to be hilarious watching Morgan take a road trip with two of her exes. ”