Chapter 41 #2
“You were right when you said I wouldn’t have anyone to haunt.
I’m like a living ghost,” I say, the words suddenly pressing, demanding me to speak them aloud.
I let everything flow out of me, dredging up every fear I’ve fought to ignore on this perfect day.
“I don’t want to leave,” I say, “but I don’t know how to stay.
If I were to die today, the only person I could even think to haunt is you. And we only met because of a fluke.”
“I wouldn’t want you to haunt me,” Sawyer says quietly.
I step back, stung like I’ve been slapped. Or like I’ve fallen off my surfboard to be swept endlessly out to sea.
“Okay,” I say. “Fine. Whatever. I guess I could haunt the gas station clerk I bought jerky from today. She seemed nice.”
So everything Sawyer said was just for Zach. Fuck, I mean, of course it is. We have too much unfinished business between us. None of it is the kind you can exorcise, and none of it is good. I pull myself straight, hugging my arms defensively.
Sawyer, infuriatingly, laughs. Like this is a joke. Like it’s funny. Hurt and indignant, I glare.
When Sawyer meets my eyes, he’s undaunted. “No, Morgan,” he says evenly. “I wouldn’t want you to haunt me because I wouldn’t be content holding on to just your ghost. Not when I…I haven’t—” He steadies himself. “Not when I want you now.”
The wind whips harshly over the sand.
“The real you,” he says. “And I know I can’t really have you, not for long. You’re leaving. I…don’t want to waste any time. I’d be happy with as long as you want to give me, but if—if you’re going, then I want to go with you.”
His silhouette looks sharp in the distant firelight. My heart feels like it’s stopped and like it’s pounding double time at once. The life-in-death of my most fragile hope. Not optimism. Just hope. It flutters terrifyingly in my chest.
Stunned, I feel genuine weakness in my knees. “You—what?” I stammer. “But your house.”
Pain rips through Sawyer’s expression with my reminder.
Instantly, I’m ready to give up my fragile, fluttering hope.
While Sawyer’s gesture is romantic, it’s obviously impermanent, too.
When it comes down to it, he’s not going to leave his home, his dream home, for me, the girl who flits in and out of lives and cities.
Like kiln fire, new determination solidifies Sawyer’s features.
“The house…It won’t be easy to say goodbye to it.
But I built that house on old dreams,” he says, looking me right in the eye.
“My new ones are with you. I’ve fallen in love with you, Morgan,” he admits.
“We both know that. We’ve known it for a while now, and I’m sorry I let my grief get the better of me.
I’m sorry I made you think loving you hurt me. It didn’t hurt me. It healed me.”
He steps forward. My back is nearly to the surfboard when Sawyer, with sureness and impossible tenderness, takes my hands.
“You brought me back to life,” he says. “It’s a gift I don’t even know how to be grateful for.”
New tears blur my vision now. Happy tears.
Tears that feel like kissing under peppermint trees or riding waves for the first time.
I’ve spent years running—running from myself, from the damage I was convinced my own wants or whims or careless, chaotic half commitments would cause.
I expected I would never stop. I thought I was fine with that.
Instead, with a little supernatural intervention, I’ve found myself refusing to give up on Sawyer.
I didn’t run. I didn’t panic. I found the strength to stay, and in Sawyer’s own words, it didn’t just hurt—it healed.
Finally, in the form of someone I understand in every way, and who understands me, I have human proof that I’m not just the mess I considered myself. I’m so much more.
It’s harder even than believing in ghosts. But I do. I finally do.
So I’m ready to stop running.
I dare to hold on tight to Sawyer’s hands. He feels so warm, fresh from the fire.
“You were wrong,” he whispers, and I hear emotion haunting every word. Years of loneliness, fear, and yearning finding release. “If we had died today,” he says, “I would have had unfinished business. I needed to tell you how I feel. I needed to try.”
Wiping my tears, I finally look at him—really look. Letting myself accept the embrace, in every way, of the man in front of me. Once broken, now whole. What I see is love, happiness, and peace in his expression.
“I needed to do this, too,” he continues. “Just once more.”
He leans forward, and I meet his lips, and gently he cups my head in his free hand and kisses me deeply. I taste the salt on my lips, the bonfire soot, the flavor of the perfect night, and it’s like Sawyer said. Everything.
I sink into the warm rush of him, putting everything I feel into my touch. We caress with our mouths and confess with our tongues, everything we want, hope, even fear—everything, everything, everything—echoed in passion and compassion, until the wind gusts coolly over the sand, distracting us.
When we part, Zach is leaning against his memorial surfboard, ghostly and smug.
“This,” he declares, “is the best Perfect Weekend ever.”