I’m happy too. Even now when I’m destroyed again, Mateo repaired me.
I play the video, which I could listen to on loop. “And here he was singing me ‘Your Song,’ which he said you sung too. Mateo acted like he was singing only because he wanted to make me feel special. I no doubt did, but I know he was singing for himself too. He loved singing even though he wasn’t very good, ha. He loved singing and you and Lidia and Penny and me and everyone.”
Mr. Torrez’s heart monitor doesn’t respond to Mateo’s song or my stories. No skips, nothing. It’s heartbreaking, this whole thing. Mr. Torrez stuck here alive, nowhere to go. Maybe it’s an even bigger slap in the face than dying young. But maybe he’ll wake up. I bet he’ll feel like the last man in the world after losing his son, even though thousands will surround him every day.
There’s a picture on top of the chest beside Mr. Torrez’s bed. It’s Mateo as a kid, his dad, and a Toy Story cake. Kid Mateo looks so damn happy. Makes me wish I’d known him since childhood.
An extra week, even.
Extra hour.
Just more time.
On the back of the photo there’s a message: Thank you for everything, Dad.
I’ll be brave, and I’ll be okay.
I love you from here to there.
Mateo
I stare at Mateo’s handwriting. He wrote this today and he delivered.
I need Mateo’s dad to know about what his son was up to. I dig into my pocket and there’s my drawing of the world from when Mateo and I first sat down this morning at my favorite diner. It’s beat up and a little wet, but it’ll do. I grab a pen from inside the chest drawer and write around the world.
Mr. Torrez,
I’m Rufus Emeterio. I was Mateo’s Last Friend. He was mad brave on his End Day.
I took photos all day on Instagram. You gotta see how he lived. My username is @RufusonPluto. I’m really happy your son reached out to me on what could’ve been the worst day ever.
Sorry for your loss,
Rufus （9/5/17）
I fold up the note and leave it with the picture.
I head out the room, shaking. I don’t go looking for Mateo’s body. That’s not what he would’ve wanted in my final minutes.
I leave the hospital.
10:36 p.m.
The hourglass is almost out of sand. It’s getting creepy. I’m picturing Death stalking me, hiding behind cars and bushes, ready to swing his damn scythe.
I’m mad tired, not just physically, but straight emotionally drained. This is how I felt after losing my family. Full-force grief I have no chance pulling myself out of without time, which we know I don’t have.
I’m making my way back to Althea Park to wait this night out. No matter how normal that is for me, I can’t get myself to stop shaking ’cause I can be alert as all hell right now and it won’t change what’s going down mad soon. I also miss my family and that Mateo kid so much. And yo, there better be an afterlife and Mateo better make it easy to find him like he promised. I wonder if Mateo found his mother yet. I wonder if he told her about me. If I find my family first, we’ll have our hug-it-out moment, and then I’ll recruit them in my Mateo manhunt. Then who knows what comes next.
I throw on my headphones and watch the video of Mateo singing to me.
I see Althea Park in the distance, my place of great change.
I return my attention to the video, his voice blasting in my ears.
I cross the street without an arm to hold me back.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I survived writing another book! And I definitely didn’t do this alone.
As always, huge thanks to my agent, Brooks Sherman, for greenlighting my gut-punching pitches and for finding my book-shaped things the best homes. I’ll never forgot how excited he was to hear I was writing a book titled They Both Die at the End, or how he texted me back around six a.m. when I finished the first draft. My editor, Andrew Harwell, deserves ten thousand raises for helping me turn this book-shaped thing into a “dark game of Jenga”—his genius words, not mine. The countless rewrites for this book still weren’t easy, and they would’ve been impossible without Andrew’s attentive eye and thoughtful heart/brain.
Huge thanks to the entire HarperCollins team for embracing me. Rosemary Brosnan is a fierce joy in this universe. Erin Fitzsimmons and artist Simon Prades created this undeniably gorgeous and clever cover—legit love at first sight. Margot Wood is always casting Epic witchcraft and wizardry. Thanks to Laura Kaplan for all things publicity, Bess Braswell and Audrey Diestelkamp for all things marketing, and Patty Rosati for all things School & Library. Janet Fletcher and Bethany Reis made me look smarter. Kate Jackson championed this book before even meeting me. And to the many people whose fingerprints are on this book, I look forward to meeting you and learning your names.