The First to Die at the End (Death-Cast #0)(92)

“How do you find love, Dad?” Mateo had asked. “Where is it?”

“Love is a superpower,” his father had said. “It’s one we all have, but it’s not a superpower you’ll always be able to control. It’ll get harder when you get older too. Don’t be scared if you find yourself loving someone you’re not expecting to. If it’s right, it’s right.”

Mateo wonders if those two older boys were scared to love each other.

It didn’t seem so.

Mateo stands, ready for his challenge. Then the fear comes back and tries shoving him back onto the bench, but he stays strong on his feet. “I’m going to try, Dad. But if I don’t make a friend, can we go home?”

“Absolutely. I’ll make you a cup of tea, and we can watch a movie.”

He would really like that.

But first.

Mateo walks toward the park and goes to the swings. The closer he gets, the more one boy seems familiar. His dark hair is sitting flat, but if Mateo pictures it swooped up, it reminds him of someone else. Then it hits Mateo like the magical blue lightning bolt from his favorite books. He doesn’t know the boy’s name, but he was the actor who played Larkin Cano in a flashback scene for the adaptation’s final movie. It was a small part, but Mateo still thinks it’s so cool. This kid actually got to explore the magical castle and meet the people who’ve played Mateo’s favorite characters. This is easy, so easy, Mateo can ask about Scorpius Hawthorne stuff and make a friend. He stands there, like he’s waiting his turn to swing, and he opens his mouth— “Pazito!” a woman calls from a bench, not far off from Teo. “Let’s go get ice cream!”

The boy—Pazito—hops off the swing and runs away before Mateo can introduce himself.

Bad timing.

Mateo is ready to call it a day when he decides to give it one last shot. There are girls on the monkey bars and playing jump rope. A boy goes down the slide backward and laughs as he slams onto the mat. Some teenagers are playing handball and it seems so intense.

Then Mateo sees the boy with the bike again. He’s inspecting the chain, and maybe he cares a lot about safety, just like Mateo. Mateo walks toward the boy right as he gets back on his bike, pedaling away.

“Pops, look!” the boy shouts as he leans over his handlebars and glides under a tree’s low-hanging branches.

“Great job, Rufus!” the father responds.

Rufus . . . Mateo really likes that name. It’s not one he hears enough, but it’s nice.

Not believing the third time will be the charm, Mateo spins around and returns to his father. “I tried.”

“That’s all I can ever ask of you,” Teo says. “Home?”

“Home,” Mateo says.

Home is the place where Mateo can be himself, where he can live, live, live.





Orion


3:17 p.m.

The journey is off to a rough start.

First, Valentino and I debate the safest way to get home. I think taking a taxi can get us there sooner, but he’s nervous about being in a car after Scarlett’s accident, especially on his End Day. I can’t knock him. The thing is . . . today might be my End Day too. But I let it go because the certainty of his fate trumps my possibility. Not that that makes me any less nervous about riding the train uptown, since I feel that bastard grim reaper shadowing me again. I got to take some blame, I guess, since I’ve shown Valentino how dreamy train rides can be with running from car to car like it’s a race or traveling through secret subway stations or putting on shows and getting standing ovations.

But when you flip that coin, shit gets real.

As the train exits Manhattan and enters the Bronx, I make sure there’s space between us on our bench in the corner. Not so much space that we can be targeted individually, but not so close that we draw attention for being together. I hate talking shit about my home borough, because I love the Bronx, but I can’t pretend like we’ve got our act together, like being gay is going to fly with everyone. In Manhattan, it’s way less of a risk to lounge my leg across Valentino’s lap and rest my head on his shoulder and kiss him. Here, I’ve got to keep everything to myself. Our lives could depend on it.

The last few stops are the most intense, they feel like the dwindling hours of an End Day. The closer you’re getting to your final destination, the more alert you have to be, not wanting it to all go wrong when you’ve still got time to get it right.

I feel the tension in my chest, like my heart is being choked out. I’m too scared to even breathe because I might breathe too gay. I know that might sound like overkill to someone, but unless they’ve done years in the Bronx, I’m not interested in what they have to say. Body language is everything when you’re trying to stay alive. Think of all the animals in the wild who will bluff and have you thinking they’re tough as fuck when maybe they’ve never fought for their lives before. Valentino has got muscles, but can he fight? I can fight, but I don’t have the muscles to win, so I try to blend in, camouflage like a white-passing rabbit in the snow. That means not drawing attention to myself by holding the hand of the boy I really like. It’s heartbreaking to even have these thoughts, but that’s where we’re at up here.

We hit that last stop and arrive in Mott Haven without any predators lunging at us. I never get cocky in my neighborhood either, because there’s always people rolling through who you don’t know and they don’t know you and everyone is sizing each other up and the wrong person makes moves to come out on top. We pass this one dude who’s minding his own business, deep in his beef patty. Then another asks us for the time, and I get nervous because sometimes someone is just trying to get you to whip out your phone so they can steal it. I have Valentino check his watch and tell the dude that it’s forty past three.