I climb over Rufus and I bet he would kill me himself if he caught me leaving our safe island, but I want to introduce him to Dad. I leave the room and go to the kitchen to prepare tea for us. I set the pot over the stove’s burner and check the cabinets for tea selections and decide on peppermint.
When I switch on the burner, my chest sinks with regret. Even when you know death is coming, the blaze of it all is still sudden.
RUFUS
8:47 p.m.
I wake up choking on smoke. This deafening fire alarm makes it mad hard to think. I don’t know what’s happening, but I know this is the moment. I reach over to wake up Mateo, but my hand finds no one in all this darkness, just my phone, which I pocket.
“MATEO!”
The fire alarm is drowning out my cries, and I’m choking, but I still call for him. Moonlight beams through the window, and that’s all the light I have to work with. I grab my fleece and wrap it around my face while crawling on the floor, reaching out for Mateo, who’s gotta be somewhere here on the floor and not anywhere near the source of the smoke. I shake off thoughts of Mateo burning because no, that’s not happening. Impossible.
I get to the front door and open it, allowing some of the black smoke to spill out. I cough and cough, choke and choke, and the fresh air is what I need, but the panic is doing its damn best to keep me down and out for the final count. Breathing is so fucking hard. There are some neighbors out here, no one Mateo ever shared any stories about. There are so many things he hasn’t gotten around to telling me. It’s okay: we still have a few more hours together once I find him.
“We’ve already called the fire department,” one woman says.
“Someone get him water,” some man says, patting my back as I continue choking.
“I got a note from Mateo earlier,” another man says. “Said he was going to be passing and not to worry about the stove. . . . When did he come home? I knocked earlier and he wasn’t there!”
I beat the cough out of my system, the best I can, at least, before pushing the man aside with more strength than I’d have bet I had. I run back inside the burning apartment and straight toward the orange glow of the kitchen. The apartment is blasting with a heat I’ve never known, the closest thing being when I was in Cuba vacationing with my family on Varadero Beach. I don’t know why Mateo didn’t stay in bed, we had a fucking deal. I don’t know what problem the stove was having, but if I know Mateo, and dammit I do, I bet he was doing something nice for us, something that absolutely isn’t worth his life.
Into the flames I go.
I’m about to run into the kitchen when my foot connects with something solid. I drop to my knees and grab whatever it is, and it’s the arm that was supposed to be around me when I woke up. I grab Mateo, my fingers sink deep into boiled skin, and I’m crying hard as I find Mateo’s other arm and drag him away from the fire, out of the smoke, and toward all the sons of bitches who are shouting at me from the doorway but weren’t brave enough to run in and save some kids.
The hallway light hits Mateo. His back is badly burned. I turn him over, and half of his face is severely burned, the rest is deep red. I wrap my arm around his neck and cradle him, rocking back and forth. “Wake up, Mateo, wake up, wake up,” I beg. “Why’d you get out of bed. . . . We, we said we wouldn’t get out of . . .” He shouldn’t have gotten out of bed and he shouldn’t have ditched me in that home of fire and smoke.
Firefighters arrive. Neighbors try prying me away from Mateo and I swing at one, hoping that if I can deck one they’ll all fuck off or find themselves kicked into Mateo’s burning home. I wanna smack Mateo awake, but I shouldn’t hit this face that’s already been touched by flames. But this stupid Mateo kid isn’t waking up, dammit.
A firefighter kneels beside me. “Let us get him in an ambulance.”
I finally give in. “He didn’t receive the alert today,” I lie. “Get him to a hospital fast, please.”
I stay with Mateo as they cart him down the elevator, through the lobby, and outside toward the ambulance. A medic checks Mateo’s pulse and looks at me with sympathy and it’s fucking bullshit.
“We have to get him to the hospital, you see that!” I say. “Come on! Stop fucking around! Let’s go!”
“I’m sorry. He’s gone.”
“DO YOUR JOB AND GET HIM TO THE FUCKING HOSPITAL!”
Another medic opens the ambulance’s rear doors, but he doesn’t put Mateo in the back. He pulls out a body bag.
Hell no.
I snatch the body bag from his hand and throw it into the bushes because body bags are for corpses and Mateo isn’t dead. I return to Mateo’s side, choking and crying and dying. “Come on, Mateo, it’s me, Roof. You hear me, right? It’s Roof. Wake up now. Please wake up.”
9:16 p.m.
I’m sitting on the curb when the medics bag Mateo Torrez up.
9:24 p.m.
I’m receiving medical attention in the back of the ambulance as they rush me to Strouse Memorial. Sitting here reminds me of my family dying all over again. My heart is burning and I’m so pissed off at Mateo for dying before me. I don’t wanna be here, I should find a rental bike or go for a run even if breathing hurts, but I also can’t leave him like this.
I talk to the boy in the body bag about all the things we said we’d do together, but he can’t hear me.
When we reach the hospital they split us up. They take me to Intensive Care and wheel Mateo off to the morgue for observation.
My heart is burning.
9:37 p.m.
I’m in a hospital bed getting good air from an oxygen mask and checking out all the love from the Plutos on my Instagram pics. There’s no bullshit crying-face emojis, they know I’m not about that. Their messages on my last pic with Mateo are the ones that get me:
@tagoeaway: We will live it up for you, Roof! #Plutos4Life #PlutosForever
@manthony012: I love ya, bro. Catch ya at the next level. #Plutos4Life
@aimee_dubois: I love you and I’ll look for you every day. #PlutoConstellation
They don’t tell me to stay safe or nothing like that because they know what’s what, but they’re no doubt rooting for me.
They’ve left comments on all my pics, wishing they were with us at the Travel Arena and Make-A-Moment and the cemetery. Everywhere.
I open up my Plutos group chat and send them that painful text: Mateo is dead.
Their condolences spill in mad fast, it’s dizzying. They don’t ask for details, and I bet Tagoe is really fighting that urge to ask how it happened. I’m relieved he doesn’t.
I need to close my eyes for a bit. Not a long time because I don’t have that. But in case I don’t wake up because of some complication, I shoot them one last text: Whatever happens to me, scatter me at Althea. Orbit each other so damn hard. I love you.
10:02 p.m.
I snap awake from the nightmare. Nightmare-Mateo was completely ablaze, blaming me for his death, telling me he would’ve never died if he hadn’t met me. It sears into my mind, but I shake it off as nothing but a nightmare because Mateo would never blame anyone for anything.
Mateo is dead.
That was no way for him to go out. Mateo should’ve gone out saving someone, because he was such a selfless person. No, even if he didn’t die a hero’s death, he died a hero.
Mateo Torrez definitely saved me.
LIDIA VARGAS
10:10 p.m.
Lidia is home on her couch, eating comfort candy, letting Penny stay awake. Lidia’s grandmother has gone to bed, exhausted from watching Penny, and Penny herself is winding down. She isn’t cranky or whining, almost as if she knows to give her mother a break.
Lidia’s phone rings. It’s the same number Mateo called her from before, Rufus’s. She answers: “Mateo!”
Penny looks at the door, but doesn’t find Mateo.
Lidia waits for his voice, but he doesn’t say anything.
“. . . Rufus?” Lidia’s heart races and she closes her eyes.
<
br /> “Yeah.”
It’s happened.
Lidia drops the phone on the couch, punching the cushions, scaring Penny. Lidia doesn’t want to know how it happened, not tonight. Her heart’s already broken, she doesn’t need every last piece shattered to bits. Tiny hands pull Lidia’s hands away from her face, and, like earlier, Penny is tearing up because her mother is crying.
“Mommy,” Penny says. This one word says everything to Lidia—fall apart, but piece herself back together. If not for herself, for her daughter.
Lidia kisses Penny’s forehead and picks up the phone. “You there, Rufus?”
“Yeah,” he says again. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
“I’m sorry for your loss too,” Lidia says. “Where are you?”
“I’m at the same hospital as his dad,” Rufus says.
Lidia wants to ask him if he’s okay, but she knows he won’t be soon enough.
“I’m gonna visit him,” Rufus says. “Mateo wanted to come out to him, but . . . we didn’t make it. Should I tell his dad? Is it weird that it’s me? You know him best.”
“You know him really well too,” Lidia says. “If you can’t, I can.”
“I know he can’t hear, but I wanna tell him how brave his son was,” Rufus says.
Was. Mateo is now a was.
“I can hear you,” Lidia says. “Please tell me first.”
Lidia holds Penny in her lap while Rufus tells her everything Mateo didn’t get a chance to tell her himself tonight. Tomorrow she’ll build the bookcase Mateo bought for Penny and put his pictures all around her room.
Lidia will keep Mateo alive the only way she can.
DELILAH GREY
10:12 p.m.
Delilah is writing the obituary based on the interview her boss didn’t fire her over. Howie Maldonado may have wanted a different life, but the legacy Delilah has learned from him is an important one—life is about balances. A pie chart with equal slices in all areas of life for maximum happiness.
Delilah was positive she wouldn’t be meeting Death today. But maybe Death simply has other plans for her. There’s still a little under two hours left until midnight. In this time, she’ll be able to see if it’s been coincidence or a doomed fate pushing her back and forth all day, like wave after wave.
Delilah is at Althea, a diner named for the park across the street, where she first met Victor, and she’s nearly done writing the obituary for the man she’s mostly only ever known from afar, instead of confronting the man she loves in what could possibly be her final hours.
She pushes aside her notebook to make room so she can spin the engagement ring Victor refused to take back last night. Delilah decides on a game. If the emerald is facing her, she’ll give in and call him. If the band is facing her, she’ll simply finish the obituary, go home, get a good night’s rest, and figure out next steps tomorrow.
Delilah spins the ring and the emerald points directly at her; not even the slightest bit favoring her shoulder or other patrons.
Delilah whips out her phone and calls Victor, desperately hoping he’s screwing with her. Maybe one of the many secrets regarding Death-Cast is they decide who dies, like some lottery no one wants to win. Maybe Victor went in to work, slid her name across Mr. Executive Executor’s table, and said, “Take her.”
Maybe heartbreak kills.
VICTOR GALLAHER
10:13 p.m.
Death-Cast did not call Victor Gallaher last night because he isn’t dying today. Protocol for telling an employee about their End Day involves an administrator calling the Decker into their office “for a meeting.” It’s never obvious to the outside employees whether the person is dying or being terminated—they simply never return to their desk. But this is of little concern for Victor since he’s not dying today.
Victor has been pretty depressed, more so than usual. His fiancée—he’s still calling Delilah his fiancée because she still has his grandmother’s ring—tried breaking up with him last night. Even though she claims it’s because she’s not in the same headspace he is, he knows it’s because he hasn’t been himself lately. Ever since starting at D-C three months ago, he’s been in—for lack of a stronger word—a funk. He’s on his way to the in-house therapist for all D-C employees, because on top of Delilah trying to end things with him, the weight of the job is killing him: the pleading he can’t do anything about, the questions he has zero answers for—all of it is crushing. But the money is damn good and the health insurance is damn good and he’d really like things to be damn good with his fiancée again.
Victor walks into the building—undisclosed location, of course—with Andrea Donahue, a coworker who doesn’t stop to admire the portraits of smiling Victorians and past presidents on the yellow walls. Death-Cast’s aesthetic is not what you’d imagine it to be. No doom and gloom in here. It was decided the open floor plan should be less professional, and bright, like a day care, so the heralds wouldn’t drive themselves crazy as they delivered End Day alerts in cramped cubicles.
“Hey, Andrea,” Victor says, pushing the elevator button.
Andrea has been working at D-C since the beginning, at a job Victor knows she desperately needs, even though she hates it, because of the damn good pay for her kid’s rocket-high tuition and damn good health insurance since her leg is busted. “Hi,” she says.
“How’s the kitty?” Small talk before and after shifts is encouraged by the D-C administrators; mini-opportunities to connect with those in possession of tomorrows.
“Still a kitty,” Andrea says.
“Cool.”
The elevator arrives. Victor and Andrea get on and Victor quickly presses Close so he doesn’t have to share the elevator with some of his coworkers who do nothing but ramble on about things that don’t matter, like celebrity gossip and bad TV, on their way to basically ruin someone’s life. Victor and Delilah call them “Switches” and they both hate that people like them exist.
His phone buzzes inside his pocket. He tries not psyching himself into thinking Delilah is calling and his heart races when he reads her name. “It’s her,” Victor tells Andrea, turning to her as if she’s in the know. She’s as interested in his life as he is in her new kitty. He answers the phone: “Delilah! Hi.” A little desperate, sure, but this is love we’re talking about.
“Did you do it, Victor?”
“Do what?”
“Don’t mess with me.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The End Day call. Did you have someone harass me because you’re pissed? If you did, I won’t report you. Just tell me now and we can forget about it.”
Victor’s spirit drops as he reaches the tenth floor. “You got the alert?” Andrea was about to get out, but stays on the elevator. Victor doesn’t know if she’s staying because she’s concerned or interested, and he doesn’t care. Victor knows Delilah isn’t playing with his head. He can always tell when she’s lying by the tone of her voice, and he knows she’s accusing him of an actual threat she most certainly would report him for. “Delilah.”
Delilah is quiet on the other end.
“Delilah, where are you?”
“Althea,” she says.
The diner where they met—she still loves him, he knew it.
“Don’t move, okay? I’m coming.” He presses Close again, trapping Andrea in there with him. He presses Lobby thirty-something times, even as the elevator is already descending.
“I wasted the day,” Delilah cries. “I thought . . . I’m so stupid, I’m so fucking stupid. I wasted the day.”
“You’re not stupid, you’re going to be okay.” Victor has never lied to a Decker before today. Oh shit, Delilah is a Decker. The elevator stops on the second floor and he bursts out, running down the stairs, losing cell service as he does so. He runs through the lobby, telling Delilah how much he loves her and how he’s on his way. He checks his watch: two hours, exactly, but for all he knows, it could be over in two minutes.
Victor gets i
n his car and speeds to Althea.
RUFUS
10:14 p.m.
The last photo I’m throwing up on Instagram is the one of me with my Last Friend. It’s the one we took in his bedroom where I’m wearing his glasses and he’s squinting and we’re smiling because we won some happiness before I lost him. I scroll through all my pictures, mad grateful for the pops of color Mateo gave me on our End Day.
The nurse wants me to stay in bed, but it’s not only in my Decker rights to refuse assistance, there’s no way in hell I’m camping out here when I gotta see Mateo’s father.
I have less than two hours to live and I can’t think of a better way to spend that time than respecting Mateo’s final request to meet his father, but for real this time. I gotta meet the man who raised Mateo into the dude I fell in love with in less than a day.
I head to the eighth floor with the insistent nurse. Yeah, she’s well intentioned and wants to assist, I get it. I just don’t have much patience in me right now. I don’t even hesitate when I get to the room. I march in.
Mateo’s father isn’t exactly what I pictured Mateo would look like in the future, but close enough. He’s still sound asleep, completely unaware that his son won’t be around to welcome him home if he ever wakes up. I don’t even know what’s left of their home. Hopefully the firefighters stopped the fire from spreading.
“Hey, Mr. Torrez.” I sit down beside him. The same seat Mateo was in when he was singing earlier. “I’m Rufus and I was Mateo’s Last Friend. I managed to get him out of the house, I don’t know if he told you that. He was really brave.” I pull my phone out of my pocket and I’m relieved when it powers on. “I’m sure you’re really proud of him and you knew he had it in him all along. I’ve only known him for a day and I’m really proud of him too. I got to watch him grow up into the person he always wanted to be.”