They Both Die at the End (Death-Cast #1)(10)
I download the Last Friend app on my phone. It’s the fastest download ever, like it’s some sentient being who understands the whole point of its existence is that time is running out for someone. The app has a blue interface with an animation of a gray clock as two silhouettes approach each other and high five. LAST FRIEND zooms into the center and a menu drops down.
Dying Today Not Dying Today I click Dying Today. A message pops up: We here at Last Friend Inc. are collectively sorry for this loss of you. Our deepest sympathies extend to those who love you and those who will never meet you. We hope you find a new friend of value to spend your final hours with today. Please fill out the profile for best results.
Deeply sorry to lose you,
Last Friend Inc.
A blank profile pops up and I fill it out.
Name: Mateo Torrez
Age: 18
Gender: Male Height: 5’10”
Weight: 164 lbs.
Ethnicity: Puerto Rican
Orientation: <skip> Job: <skip>
Interests: Music; Wandering Favorite Movies TV Shows Books: Timberwolves by Gabriel Reeds; “Plaid Is the New Black”; the Scorpius Hawthorne series Who You Were in Life: I’m an only child and I’ve only ever really had my dad. But my dad has been in a coma for two weeks and will probably wake up after I’m gone. I want to make him proud and break out. I can’t go on being the kid who keeps his head low, because all that did was rob me of being out there with you all—maybe I could’ve met some of you sooner.
Bucket List: I want to go to the hospital and say goodbye to my dad. And then my best friend, but I don’t want to tell her I’m dying. After that, I don’t know. I want to make a difference for others and find a different Mateo while I’m at it.
Final Thoughts: I’m going for it.
I submit my answers. The app prompts me to upload a photo. I scroll through my phone’s album and there are a lot of photos of Penny and screenshots of songs I’d recommend to Lidia. There are others of me out in the living room with Dad. There’s my junior year photo, which is lame. I stumble on one I took of myself wearing the Luigi hat I won in June for entering this Mario Kart contest online. I was supposed to send the contest host my picture to be featured on the website, but I didn’t think the boy-goofing-around-in-the-Luigi-hat was very me so I never submitted it.
But I was wrong, go figure. This is exactly the person I always wanted to be—loose, fun, carefree. No one will look at this photo and think it was out of character, because none of these people know me, and their only expectations of me are to be the person I’m presenting myself as in my profile.
I upload the photo and a final message pops up: Be well, Mateo.
RUFUS
1:59 a.m.
My foster parents are waiting downstairs. They tried rushing in here the second they found out, but Malcolm played bodyguard because he knew I still needed a minute. I change into my cycling gear—my gym tights with blue basketball shorts over them so my package isn’t poking out there like Spider-Man’s, and my favorite gray fleece—because there’s no other way I can imagine getting around this city on my End Day except on my bike. I grab my helmet because safety first. I take one last look at the room. I don’t break down or nothing like that, seriously, even as I remember playing catch with my boys. I leave the light on as I step out and keep the door open so Malcolm and Tagoe don’t get weird about going back in.
Malcolm gives me a little smile. His playing-it-cool game is weak ’cause I know he’s been losing his head, they all are. I would too if the cards were reversed.
“You actually got Francis awake?” I ask.
“Yeah.”
It’s possible I’m gonna die at the hands of my foster father; if you’re not his alarm clock, you shouldn’t wake him up.
I follow Malcolm downstairs. Tagoe, Jenn Lori, and Francis are there, but they don’t say anything. The first thing I wanna ask is if anyone has heard from Aimee, like if her aunt is holding her up, but that’s not right.
I really hope she didn’t change her mind about wanting to see me.
It’s gonna be okay, I gotta focus on everyone who is here.
Francis is wide awake and wearing his favorite-slash-only bathrobe, like he’s some kingpin whose business makes him stacks on stacks of money instead of a technician spending the little he makes on us. Good guy, but he looks mad wild because his hair is patchy since he cuts it himself to save a few bucks, which is crazy stupid because Tagoe is a haircut artist. I kid you not, Tagoe gives the best fades in the city and that bastard better open up his own barbershop one day and give up his screenwriting dreams. Francis is too white to rock a fade, though.
Jenn Lori dries her eyes with the collar of her old college T-shirt before putting her glasses back on. She’s at the edge of her seat, like when we’d watch Tagoe’s favorite slasher flicks, and just like then, she gets up, but not because of some gross spontaneous combustion. She hugs me and cries into my shoulder, and it’s the first time anyone’s hugged me since I got the alert and I don’t want her to let go, but I have to keep it moving. Jenn stays by my side as I stare at the floor.
“One less mouth to feed, right?” No one laughs. I shrug. I don’t know how to do this. No one gives you lessons on how to brace everyone for your death, especially when you’re seventeen and healthy. We’ve all been through enough seriousness and I want them to laugh. “Rock, Paper, Scissors, anyone?”