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Then I remembered something Aunt Gina had once told me: A good lawyer never asks a question she doesn’t already know the answer to. Logan must have been asked this same question during his deposition.

“Ms. Salvatore? What did Logan say to you just before he walked off to the bathroom?”

I spoke to the far wall of the courtroom. “He said, ‘Wait for me, Aura.’”

Stone crossed her arms and tapped her pen against her side as she paced. “And have you?”

My pulse surged. I hadn’t expected these questions. “Have I what?”

“Have you waited for him? Have you been involved with Logan since his death?”

“In what way?”

She stopped pacing. “Have you spent time with him in your bedroom?”

“Yes.” I was
not
getting into specifics.

Stone approached the witness stand, close enough that I could smell the hair spray keeping her black bun sleek against her scalp. “What did you do with him on these visits?”

Blood rushed to my face.
Logan, you didn’t.
Not that he would’ve had a choice. Ghosts can’t lie.

I opened and closed my mouth, then said, “We talked. Listened to music.”

“That’s all?”

“Sometimes we would read.”

Gina stood. “Objection, Your Honor. I fail to see the purpose in this line of questioning.”

Stone spoke directly to the judge. “I’m trying to establish the fact that the so-called victim has led anything but a tragic existence since his death. According to Logan Keeley’s deposition, he has walked the streets of Dublin, attended numerous concerts for free, and spent many a night indulging in sexual play with his living, breathing girlfriend.”

The crowd gasped. Even Megan put her hand to her wide-open mouth. I couldn’t look at Logan’s parents.

“Please continue,” the judge said, speaking loudly to restore order.

“Isn’t this true, Ms. Salvatore?” the lawyer asked me, arms folded in what looked like triumph.

My hands had gone cold and my face red-hot. I steadied my breath and slowly drew my palms over my cheekbones to cool them. They could try to humiliate me, they could try to sully my memory of Logan, they could try to turn what we had into something sleazy.

But I wouldn’t let them.

“That’s correct,” I said in a strong, steady voice. Before she could ask for details, I threw them at her. “I took off my clothes and I touched myself. We spoke to each other, we pretended, we made it as real as it could be.”

The lawyer unfolded her arms and tugged down her jacket as she
strutted away from the witness stand. “Thank you. No further questions.”

“Logan’s not suing you,” I blurted out. “His family is, so even if he’s having a good time—and you might want to ask him about that—”

Stone turned quickly. “Your Honor—”

“—they’re in more pain than you can imagine.”

“Your Honor, I ask that these remarks be stricken from the record as nonresponsive.”

The judge banged his gavel. “The witness may step down.”

Using the edge of the witness box, I dragged myself to stand. Then I pointed to the Warrant CEO. “You took him from us! Ghost or not, he’s still dead.”

“Step down now, miss,” the judge barked. “You are released.”

I almost scoffed at his choice of words.
Released into what? A deeper level of hell?

Instead I straightened my suit and said, “Thank you,” before retrieving my crutches.

“Furthermore,” the judge said, “the jury will disregard those remarks.”

“Thank you, Your Honor,” said the defense attorney, with a fake sweetness that almost made me choke.

As I hobbled away from the witness stand, I held my chin straight and high, meeting no one’s gaze—not Gina’s, not even Megan’s.

I was truly alone now, so I might as well get used to it.

By the end of the day, the news and rumors had spread to every corner of the Internet, or so it seemed. I thought about checking a few
Japanese websites to see how they translated the phrase “ghost fucker.”

“By the time school starts again next week,” my aunt said on the drive home, “they’ll have forgotten all about it. There’ll be some new scandal, you’ll see.”

I looked out the side window at the heavy white clouds and prayed for a nationwide blizzard that would knock out all power and phone lines. Or at least close school for another two weeks.

Then I sent a text message to Zachary.

ALL OUT OF PATIENCE YET?

“I’m proud of you, kid,” Gina said. “For the way you stood up for yourself. And the way you told the truth. I’m sure it wasn’t easy.”

“You knew, didn’t you? Both sides get to look at the same evidence, right?”

“I read Logan’s deposition. I never imagined they would use”—she waved her hand like she was swatting a gnat—“that part of it.”

“Any other surprises I should know about before the defense starts their side tomorrow?”

“I don’t think so. You don’t have to come. Your part is over.”

“I want to hear Logan speak.” I ran my finger along the rubber seal of the window. “It might be my last chance.”

“God willing,” she said under her breath.

I pretended I didn’t hear her as my phone vibrated with a new message from Zachary. I opened it, my pulse skittering.

NOT EVEN CLOSE.

That night I lay on the couch, staring at the darkened Christmas tree. Aunt Gina always insisted on leaving it up until Epiphany on January 6,
but we never turned the lights on after New Year’s Eve, so it might as well not have been there. It looked sad, with all its decorations slightly off balance. Even its plastic branches looked wilted.

I was finally drifting off to sleep when a violet glow filled the room.

I kept my eyes closed to see how long he would stay. His light grew brighter as he came nearer, until it enveloped my entire world.

“I don’t know if you can hear me,” Logan whispered, “but I came to give you something. Something I shouldn’t have kept.”

I almost opened my eyes then, but he shifted to my right, kneeling or sitting on the floor by my side.

He took a deep breath, which still sounded so real I could almost believe he was alive. “Here goes. It’s called ‘Forever.’”

Logan began to sing, a lilting tune I didn’t recognize. At first I wondered if we’d seen the band in concert together or had listened to it on one of our first dates.

Then he reached the chorus, and the words were us.

All my insecurities, all his excesses, all the ways we fought and pushed and pulled. And how it all didn’t matter. Those things that tore us apart were no match for forever.

Tears flowed from beneath my closed lids and tickled as they trickled down my cheeks. Logan must have seen them, but he didn’t let on. He just kept singing his last encore—his grand finale, all for me.

I’d been so wrong about us. If he’d lived, we would’ve been happy. Not every day, but over the span of time that made up forever.

But he hadn’t lived.

A hole opened up inside me, so raw I had to curl up on my side away from his light, pulling my good knee to my chest to ease the ache. The hole gaped so big it seemed like I could crawl inside, let the darkness swallow all thoughts of the future that once stretched before us. We had lost forever.

When Logan finished my song, he remained for several silent seconds. I heard nothing but my own shaky breath.

Then he said, “That’s all.”

And disappeared.

Megan sat with me the next day in the courtroom, in the back row, away from the Keeleys.

“I’ll be so glad when this is over.” She fanned herself with the magenta flyer for Logan’s “Passing On” party. “Mickey’s a total mess. I wish his parents hadn’t dragged out everyone’s pain with this trial. Greedy little mofos.”

“It’s not about the money.” I dabbed my runny nose with a ragged tissue. “Gina says they want to make sure it never happens again.” I looked at the clock. Two minutes to nine.

“Right. They’ll change the world with one lawsuit. Record companies will all become saintly and nonprofit and stop destroying the lives of starry-eyed dumb shits like Logan.”

“He’s not dumb. He had good grades.”

“Being smart doesn’t make someone undumb.”

I sighed, too tired for one of Megan’s rants. I’d stayed awake most of the night after Logan left, wondering whether to call him back to my side. To make matters worse, the courtroom was overheated today, increasing my exhaustion.

The bailiff entered, and we all stood for the judge. With my bad knee, by the time I stood, everyone else was sitting down.

Before my aunt took her seat, she turned to find me. I gave her a weak thumbs-up. From where I was sitting, I couldn’t see her opponent, Harriet Stone, but I knew the defense attorney would be wearing a more muted color today. I hoped her arrogance would be similarly toned down.

The first witness for the defense was the toxicologist who worked for the medical examiner’s office. His tests showed that the quantity and purity of cocaine in Logan’s system wasn’t enough to kill a healthy young man on its own. Even if he’d snorted the entire sample the A and R rep had given him, he should’ve experienced only a quick, intense high.

Problem was, Logan had a crap-load of alcohol in his system at the time, and the combination had triggered sudden cardiac death through ventricular fibrillation—Logan’s “worms in the chest.”

Gina cross-examined the witness, pointing out the obvious fact that without the drug, Logan would still be alive. “Isn’t it true that any amount of cocaine, when mixed with alcohol, can be deadly?”

“It has been fatal in some cases,” the toxicologist said, “especially if the user has an undiagnosed cardiac condition. But the man who gave him the substance couldn’t have expected—”

“Doctor, I’m not asking you to read a drug dealer’s mind. I’m asking
if cocaine mixed with alcohol can trigger sudden cardiac death. Yes or no.”

The doctor hesitated. “Yes.”

I sagged in my seat, wishing I could box up that testimony and send it back in a time machine as a seventeenth birthday present for Logan. Such a small slice of knowledge could have saved his life.

After a few more witnesses for the defense, we took a quick lunch break; then the trial resumed at two o’clock.

When everyone was seated, someone dimmed the lights. The BlackBox indicator glowed red above the rear door.

Next to the witness stand, two kids sat back-to-back with a blue light next to each. The witnesses would switch off from question to question, each of them answering for Logan in turn.

One of them was a slim African-American boy of about fifteen; the other, a little blond girl who looked about ten years old, though she must have been at least fourteen, since that was the minimum age for this work. They both seemed scared, and I felt a tug of sympathy.

The judge nodded to the bailiff, who hit another switch on the wall. The BlackBox lights winked out.

Logan appeared on the witness stand, summoned by the clear quartz disc. Out of place in his unbuttoned shirt and baggy skate shorts, he scanned the courtroom, astonished.

Megan leaned close and whispered, “The diva in him is totally loving this.”

I tried to smile. She had no idea what was at stake. I leaned over the armrest into the aisle so Logan could see me.

When our eyes met, the rest of the room seemed to darken. It felt
like a spotlight was shining down on each of us. My chest hurt, just as it had when he’d sung to me last night.

I wrapped my arms around my waist.
Please end this, Logan. Please nail this case so you can leave.

Harriet Stone walked up to the witness stand. She spoke softly to the kids, then hit the switch under the boy’s blue light, making it glow. Finally she faced Logan, though she couldn’t see him.

“Please state your name for the record.”

“Logan Patrick Keeley.”

The boy repeated what he’d just said. Stone asked basic questions like Logan’s age and hometown, which he answered with an edge of boredom in his voice. After each response from the translator, the kid who hadn’t translated would nod to confirm.

Finally the lawyer progressed to the matter at hand. “Please tell us how you became personally acquainted with Warrant Records.”

“The A and R rep called us,” Logan said. “A friend of his had seen one of our shows in September.”

“When you say ‘our shows,’ you’re referring to the band the Keeley Brothers, correct?”

“Yeah. So he comes to our gig at the community center on my birthday. And since we totally kicked ass—” He stopped and spoke to the girl, whose turn it was to translate. “You can say ‘kicked butt’ if you want.”

Megan laughed. She was the only one.

The girl recited Logan’s words, and then he continued:

“So afterwards the rep comes up and introduces himself. Says he’s dying to sign us right away.” Logan waited for the girl to catch up.
“But Warrant wasn’t our first choice, and besides, we promised our folks that we wouldn’t sign anything without their permission.” He beamed at his parents, as if expecting them to praise him. I guess they didn’t respond as he’d hoped, because his expression darkened for a moment.

“Anyway, I saw the rep offer the drugs to Mickey, who got so pissed—um, so angry that he told him to, um …” Logan seemed to fumble for a synonym for “fuck off.” “Well, he said he wasn’t interested.”

“What about you?” Stone asked. “Were you interested?”

“I was interested in a contract. So I wanted the guy to like me, right?” He waited for the translation, this time by the boy, whose nervousness seemed to be fading. “My parents always taught me that part of making friends is accepting hospitality. It makes people feel good when they can do things for you.”

“Are you saying you accepted the cocaine to make the defendant’s representative happy?”

“Exactly. I never planned to try it. I’ve seen enough burned-out musicians. I even stopped smoking pot to save my singing voice. No drugs for me, uh-uh.”

I mirrored Megan’s
yeah, right
glance. No drugs, other than enough alcohol to drown a whale.

After the translation, Stone stepped right up to Logan’s box. “Then why did you take the cocaine?”