Sherry Ficklin - Losing Logan

“You alright there Zoe?” Carlos asks.

I cough into my napkin. He stands to pat my back but I wave him off.

“I’m fine. Wrong pipe. Sorry.”

“You sure you’re ok? I could Heimlich you if you want.”

He sits back down, his eyes are glinting mischievously.

“Thanks but I’ll pass.” I nod to the table up front. “Maybe Bloomie Hottie will choke and you can Heimlich him.”

Carlos sighs wistfully. “We can only hope.”

Logan takes a seat in the empty chair beside me, passing through the table to get to it. I try not to look at him.

“Ignoring me now?” he says lightly.

I frown but don’t answer.

“Blink once if you can hear me,” he says with a chuckle.

I scratch the side of my head with my middle finger. He laughs harder.

This is getting old fast.

I nod to the stage, “Alright, enough stalling. Go sing for me.”

With a wide grin Carlos gets up, leaning over the table to press a quick kiss on my forehead before heading for the stage. He sits down and settles himself in. As soon as he plucks the first chord I’m transfixed. The entire room falls into silence, the only sound is the melody he plays. Closing his eyes he sings one of my favorite songs, a cover of All We Are We Are by Matt Nathanson.

I take a deep breath and let the sound of his voice wash over me.

“He’s really good,” Logan says.

I don’t even look at him.

“Ok, you are still pissed. I get it. And…I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said those things. I didn’t mean any of it.”

I take my last sip of tea and slide my cup back.

“Come on, Zoe. Please don’t shut me out. I was upset. I didn’t mean it.”

I shift in my seat, letting my hair fall forward into my face as I whisper.

“Yes, you did.”

“No, I really didn’t. Carlos is a good guy, and he’s lucky to have a friend like you.”

I shake my head slowly, not ready to forgive him just yet.

“Carlos is right, you know. You do have this armor around yourself. You should let people in more.”

I turn and glare at him. “Why? All people ever do is let me down or abandon me. Why should I let anyone in? It’s not worth it.”

“You let Carlos in.”

“I let you in too. Look how well that worked out.”

He frowns and lowers his chin. It looks like he wants to say something, but can’t quite figure out the words.

“Do you really want to live that way?” he asks finally.

I shrug and turn back to Carlos. He finishes the last chords and the room erupts into applause.

He stands up and takes a quick bow. Before he can step off the stage Bloomie Hottie stands and stops him, they chat and Carlos busts out his million dollar smile. That poor cashier is toast.

I sigh. “I’m sorry too, Logan. I’m sure being dead is very stressful. Look, I think I might know why you’re still stuck here. Meet me at my house in an hour and we will talk then.”

“Where should I go in the mean time?” his voice is tight, on the cusp of whiny. “Not that I’m having tons of fun hanging here with you.”

I glare at him for a second.

“I can make a suggestion, but you’ll need a handbasket.”

By the time Carlos drops me off its full dark, not a star in the sky thanks to the still dense clouds. My head is buzzing with his excitement over his upcoming date with Bloomie Hottie—aka Scott. Mom’s car is in the driveway, but the house is dark except for the small light over the kitchen sink. When I get in, there’s a carton of Orange Chicken and rice and a post-it note with, Have a good night scrawled across it. Mom’s idea of an apology since she hates Chinese food. I grab a fork and the food and head for my room. Flicking on the light with my elbow I expect to see Logan sitting there, but he isn’t. I glance at my alarm clock. I’m actually a little late. It’s been almost an hour and a half since I saw him at the tea room.

Maybe he’s finally gone.

I stab at my food as an uncomfortable knot forms in my stomach.

“That smells really good,” his voice says behind me. I spin in my chair and Logan is standing in my doorway, leaning against the wall.

“Nice of you to show up.” I mutter around a bite of chicken. Then I frown, realizing what he said. “Wait, you can still smell things?”

He makes a show of inhaling deeply through his nose. “Orange chicken, right?”

I nod.

“Then, yeah. I guess so.”

I raise one eyebrow. “That’s so weird. I mean, you can hear and see and smell, so why can’t you feel anything, like, touch. All your other senses seem to be functioning.”

He rolls his eyes and steps into the room, “I don’t know. I’m pretty new at this whole being dead thing, remember.”

I point the fork at him. “Right. About that...”

Spinning in my chair as I hit my mouse and my laptop flickers to life. I set the canister of food aside and type. I don’t feel Logan slide up beside me, but he leans over me, propping himself up with one arm on my desk.

“What are you searching?”

“Carlos thinks you might have unfinished business, something keeping you here.”

I don’t look up as the search results roll in. I click on a video link and it’s one of those paranormal investigators from TV doing an interview.

“Most of the spirits we encounter are trapped here in a perpetual loop, searching for some kind of closure that will allow them to move on. Sometimes, we can assist with that search—help them find peace…”

“Hey,” I nudge Logan like an idiot, my shoulder passing right through his. “Maybe you should go haunt this dude. He seems to know what he’s doing.”

Logan shushes me while I make a face at him.

The host continues, “Most of the time, these spirits don’t even know they’re dead. It’s sad really, but it happens, particularly in cases of sudden or violent deaths.”

The video fades out and Logan steps back.

“Zoe, how did I die?”

I spin around to face him, unable to keep the shock out of my voice. “You really don’t remember?”

His face is twisted, like he’s trying to reach something and can’t quite grasp it. Finally, he shakes his head.

“Oh, maybe you should sit down.” I say, a mixture of guilt and sympathy coiling inside me.

He cocks his head at me in an oh please gesture.

I hold up my hands. “Fine.”

I sit back and stretch out my legs, kicking off my ballet flats.

“The word around town is that it was an accident. You were over on the Tower Bridge and fell into the river and drowned.”

“I fell off the bridge?”

I nod.

He shakes his head and turns his back to me.

“That doesn’t make any sense. I never go on that bridge.”

I shrug. “Well, you did.”

“No, you don’t understand. I’m afraid of heights. Remember the year your dad put in that tree house?”

I jerk, suprised by the memory. We were seven and my dad spent all summer building me a tree house in the back yard. No matter how I begged, Logan would never go inside. Taking a deep breath I push the swelling tide of emotions away. It’s a trick I’ve gotten very good at over the years. If you can bury the sadness deep enough, and pile enough distraction on top of it, you don’t have to feel it—don’t have to deal with it.

My mouth twitches. “Then what happened?”

He blows out a frustrated breath. “I don’t remember.”

“Ok, what is the last thing you do remember?”

He sits on the edge of my bed, “I remember…going to the pool party at Bruno’s house.”

Kyle Bruno is one of Logan’s friends, one of the Lacrosse jocks. I heard about the party, even got an invite online-probably a mistake-but I didn’t go. Parade around in a swim suit for the meat heads to ogle? No thank you.

“That was almost a month ago.” I point out grimly. “Are you sure you wouldn’t have gone out on that bridge for any reason?”

He levels a serious look at me, lowering his chin, “Nothing short of being shot at would have gotten me onto that bridge. And maybe not even that.”

“So, do you think maybe this is your unfinished business? Finding out what happened to you?”

He rubs his hand down his face. “Yeah. Maybe. I don’t know. It’s as good a theory as any.”

I spin back around to the computer and pull up his iFriend page. “What’s your password?”

He pauses, making me glare at him over my shoulder.

“Do you want my help or not? If we are going to figure out what happened to you, we should start by looking at your posts and messages from around that time.”

He sighs. “It’s r o x s t a r r # 1.”

I roll my eyes. “Of course it is.”

“You know, you’re pretty judgmental for a chick with a stuffed unicorn on her bed.”

“Bite me, ghost boy.”

“If I could, I just might.”

“Problem. Your account has been deleted,” I say, exiting and trying to log in again, just to be sure. “I pulled up an archived page, but it’s just the wall. Aww, look. People wrote such nice things about you. They must not have known you very well.”

He shrugs, “It’s martyr syndrome. Like when someone dies, all you can remember about them is the good stuff. So in death, you get to be perfect.”

“Is that a real thing?” I ask lightly, keeping a tight lid on those pesky inner emotions trying to crawl their way out.

“Yeah. Like I had this uncle who died. He was an a-class asshole while he was alive. Everyone hated him. I think they felt so guilty when he died, they all said nice things about him at his funeral to make themselves feel better.”

I turn back to Logan who is poking at my unicorn experimentally, his hand moving right through it each time.

“Going through your account is out. Do you think you have any emails or texts we can go through?”

“I never used my email. And I have no idea what happened to my phone. They only found my wallet.”

I frown, wondering how he knows that. Seeing the question written all over my face he elaborates.

“I remember seeing them—when they pulled my body out of the water—they took it out of my pocket and put it in one of those evidence bags. But there was no phone.”

My mouth forms a silent O.

“So if we can’t access your texts or messages, how are we supposed to reconstruct your last few weeks, much less your…”

“You can say it. Death.”

“I was actually going to say murder.”

Now it’s his turn to wear the confused face. I shrug.

“Look, if you didn’t go into that water of your own volition, and if you didn’t accidentally fall in—“

I don’t say anything else. His skin has paled—though I’m not sure how that’s possible—and he looks visibly shaken. Leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, he stares at my beige carpet. He’s shaking his head softly.

“Who would want me dead?” he whispers.

I raise my hand.

He glances up and laughs.

“Why am I not surprised by that?”

Lowering my arm I pick at my fingernails.

“Well, you do irritate me.”

“Yeah, but did I annoy you when I was alive?”

I think about that for a second. “No, I suppose not. It’s hard to annoy someone who doesn’t even orbit the same planet as you. Or maybe you’re just annoying dead?”

He smirks, “Well I never had any complaints while I was alive so, maybe. Then again, maybe you just bring out the best in me.”

I pucker. That’s entirely possible. Lord knows Carlos has called me abrasive more than once.

Changing the subject I stab a piece of chicken and hold it out to Logan.

“Ok, experiment time.”

He looks around the fork at me like I’ve lost my mind.

“Lick it.” I say.

“You lick it.”

I sigh, “Seriously. If we are going to work with the whole ghost thing, I’d like to know the rules. I want to see if you can taste it.”

“Why? Are you planning on having me lick things often?”

I thrust the fork forward, “Just do it.”

Reluctantly he leans forward and sticks out his tongue, making a licking sound like a dog.

“Anything?” I ask hopefully.

“Maybe just a little? But I might just be smelling it through my mouth.”

“Huh.”

I stare at the fork for a second, debating whether to eat it or put it back in the box. I mean, he didn’t get his germs on it or anything, did he? Do ghosts even have germs? Ghost cooties?

He’s watching me with an amused expression. I shrug and take the bite, stuffing the empty fork back in the carton. He grins, obviously pleased.