Page 93 of Unalive On Air

“Wait, for real? You actually spoke to him?” Trystan asks, his hand closing on my bicep.

Okay, he’s touching me. “He said that Gabriel misses you.”

I feel it again. The mercury in my emometer shooting right to the top.

“Gabe?”

I nod. Swallow the lump. “He lives in California now with his wife, Caitlyn. He has three grown-up kids. Kelsey, Mitchell, and Trystan.”

Trystan’s expression crumples. Eyebrows drawing in, lip wobbling.

“Fuck,” he says, wiping away tears that have instantly formed, and turning his head, obscuring his face. “I’m sorry. I just didn’t . . . expect that.”

This time, I don’t hesitate, don’t second-guess myself. I wrap my arms around him and hold him as tightly as my ghost strength will allow while he sobs.

Eventually he pulls apart and wipes his eyes again. “Sorry. I’m not sure what came over me.”

“I am. And I get it.”

Because I finally understand it all.

He’ll never grow old. Never get married. Never have kids. Never see his friends again, his childhood home, his family. Every day is Groundhog Day. The same people, in the same place, whilst he deals with the knowledge that everyone he’s ever known and loved is living their lives without him. He wants to move on, and I should just deal with it, but . . . I’m gonna fucking miss him.

“If you need to cry some more, I’m always here,” I say.

He half laughs, half sobs. His fingers reach up, and as gentle as a breeze, he cups my cheek. It all happens in slow motion. I suck in a breath.

“Thank you,” he says, and I think for one heart-stopping beat he’s about to kiss me.

But he doesn’t. He takes his hand away, and I’ve never known grief like it. It aches from the inside out. I want to cry with him. Lie in a ball on the floor while he holds me.

“Wanna surf with me?” he says.

My brain short‑circuits for a moment. “Uh . . . I don’t have a board.”

Not I don’t know how to surf. Not I’m wearing a boiler suit for fuck’s sake. Not I can’t even swim. But I don’t have a surfboard.

“We can share.”

Oh, god.

“Have you ever surfed before?” he asks. I shake my head. “Okay, well, let me teach you the basics.”

For a decent hour my new surf instructor has me lie on his board on the sand, and then when he tells me to, I have to jump from lying to standing in less than a second. Living Gary would have a tremendous problem with this, but living Gary doesn’t exist any longer, and the prospect of sharing an eight foot by two foot space with Trystan keeps me pushing forward.

“How does the board stay on the waves? How does it not just drift through everything like we do?” I ask. “Since it’s also a ghost.”

“I dunno,” Trystan says. “But it’s weird. Objects behave more like they did when they were real, but obviously they don’t exist, so how does gravity pull them down? It’s very strange. Okay, pop up,” he commands, and I jump inelegantly to my feet. “Did you know you can possess objects too?”

“You can possess objects?” I’m aware that I’m just repeating what he’s said to me, but I can’t quite wrap my brain around it.

“Lie down again,” he says, and I don’t think I’ll ever tire of Trystan Retallack ordering me to lie down. “As a ghost, you can possess almost anything. People, animals, stuff. Surely you’ve heard of cursed mirrors and dolls and whatnot?”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“It’s kinda the same thing, I suppose.” Trystan looks out over the waves. “There’s a lot of white water today. Good surf for beginners.”

“Can we cycle back to the possession of objects?” I don’t know why I’m hung up on this, but I feel like people keep forgetting I’m just a baby ghost and don’t know the ins and outs of everyday ghost life yet. “You can possess any item? Like, anything? Have you ever done it?”