They Both Die at the End (Death-Cast #1)(37)

“Of course not.”

I’ve set the bar so high it should be easy enough for him to stay under. “Then what?”

“I jumped someone,” Rufus says. He’s staring straight ahead at his bike, parked by the pathway. “Aimee’s new boyfriend. He was mouthing off about me and I was pissed because it felt like my life was ending in a lot of ways. I felt unwanted, frustrated, lost, and I needed to take it out on someone. But that’s not me. It was a glitch.”

I believe him. He’s not monstrous. Monsters don’t come to your home to help you live; they trap you in your bed and eat you alive. “People make mistakes,” I say.

“And my friends are the ones being punished,” Rufus says. “Their last memory of me will be running out the back door from my own funeral because the cops were coming for me. I left them behind. . . . I’ve spent the past four months feeling abandoned by my family dying, and in a split second I did the same damn thing to my new family.”

“You don’t have to tell me more about the accident if you don’t want,” I say. He feels guilty enough as it is, and just like I wouldn’t ever push a homeless person into sharing their story so I can determine whether or not they deserve my charity, I don’t need Rufus to jump through any more hoops to keep my trust.

“I don’t wanna talk about it,” Rufus says. “But I have to.”





RUFUS


7:53 a.m.

I’m lucky to have a Last Friend, especially with my boys locked up and my ex-girlfriend on block. I get to talk about my family and keep them alive.

The sky is getting cloudy, and some strong breezes come our way, but no drops of rain yet.

“My parents woke up to the Death-Cast alert on May tenth.” I’m gutted already. “Olivia and I were playing cards when we heard the phone ring, so we rushed to their bedroom. Mom was on the phone and keeping it together while Dad was across the room cursing them out in Spanish and crying. First time I ever saw him cry.” That was brutal. It’s not like he was mad macho, but I always felt like crying was some little bitch move, which is freaking stupid.

“Then the Death-Cast herald asked to speak with my pops and Mom lost it. It was that this-must-be-a-nightmare shit. Nothing scarier than watching your parents freaking out. I was panicking but I knew I would have Olivia.” I wasn’t supposed to be alone. “Then Death-Cast asked to speak with Olivia and my pops hung up the phone and threw it across the room.” I guess throwing phones is in our genes.

Mateo is about to ask something, but stops.

“Say it.”

“Never mind,” Mateo says. “It’s not important. Well, I was wondering if you were nervous about being end-listed that day and not knowing. Did you check the online database?”

I nod. Death-cast.com is helpful that way. Typing my social security number and not finding my name in the database that evening was a weird sort of relief. “It didn’t seem right how my family was dying without me. Shit, I make it sound like I was getting left behind from a family vacation, but their End Day was spent with me already missing them. And Olivia could barely look at me.”

I get it. It wasn’t my fault I got to keep living, and it wasn’t her fault she was dying.

“Were you two close?”

“Mad close. She was a year older. My parents were saving up money so Olivia and I could attend Antioch University in California this fall. She had a partial scholarship but hung back here at the community college so we wouldn’t be separated until I could go with her.” My breaths are tight, like when I was laying into Peck earlier. My parents tried convincing Olivia to take off to Los Angeles without me and not settle at a school in a city she was hating on, but she refused. Every morning, afternoon, evening, I always think she’d still be alive if she’d listened to our parents. She just wanted to reboot our lives together. “Olivia is the first person I came out to.”

“Oh.”

I don’t know if he’s playing it off like he doesn’t know this from my Last Friend profile or if he’s impacted by this piece of history between me and my sister or if he overlooked this on my profile and is some ass who cares about who other people kiss. I hope not. We’re friends now, hands down, and it’s not forced. I met this kid a few hours ago because some creative designer somewhere developed an app to forge connections. I’d hate to disconnect.

“Oh what?”

“Nothing. Honestly.”

“Can I ask you something?” Let’s get this over with.

“Did you ever come out to your parents?” Mateo asks.

Avoiding a question with another question. Classic. “On our last day together, yeah. I couldn’t put it off any longer.” My parents had never hugged me like they did on their End Day. I’m really proud I spoke up to get that moment out of them. “My mom got really sad because she’d never get a chance to meet her future daughter-or son-in-law. I was still a little uncomfortable, so I just laughed and asked Olivia if there was anything she wanted us all to do, hoping she’d hate me a little less. My parents wanted to ditch me.”

“They were just looking out for you, right?”

“Yeah, but I wanted every possible minute with them, even if it meant being left with the memory of watching them all die in front of me,” I say. “I didn’t know any better.” That idiocy died too.