by Adam Silvera
Like strangers.
Howie is currently in a car with more strangers. Two women from Infinite Weekly for a final interview. He’s only doing this for the fans. Howie knows he could’ve lived another ten years and everything he shares about himself would’ve never been enough. They’re ravenous for “content,” as his publicists and managers say. Every haircut. Every new magazine cover. Every tweet, no matter how many typos.
Howie’s tweet last night was a picture of his dinner.
He’s already sent out one last tweet: Thank you for this life. Attached is a photo, taken by himself, smiling.
“Who are you on your way to see?” the older woman asks. Sandy, he believes. Yes, Sandy. Not Sally like his very first publicist. Sandy.
“Is this part of the interview?” Howie asks. Whenever he does these pieces, his answers require zero focus, so he normally hops on his phone and scrolls through Twitter and Instagram. But keeping up with the outpouring of love, including messages from the author of the Scorpius Hawthorne series, is ten times more impossible than usual.
“It could be,” Sandy says. She lifts the tape recorder. “Your call.”
Howie wishes his publicist were here with him to shut down this question herself, but he wrote her a big check, had it sent down to her hotel room, and encouraged her to stay far away from him, as if he were infected with a zombie virus.
“Pass,” Howie says. It’s no one’s business that he’s on his way to see his childhood best friend and first love, Lena, who’s flown in from Arkansas to see him one last time. The girl who could’ve been more than a friend if he didn’t live in the spotlight. The girl he’d once missed so much he’d write her name around the city, like on pay phones and coffee tables, never signing his name. The girl who loves the quiet life her husband gives her.
“Very well,” Sandy says. “What’s your proudest accomplishment?”
“My art,” Howie says, fighting back an eye roll. The other woman, Delilah, stares at him like she’s seeing past his bullshit. Howie would be intimidated if he wasn’t busy being distracted by her beautiful hair, which resembles the northern lights, and the fresh bandage on her forehead, which is covering up a Scorpius Hawthorne–like wound.
“Where do you think you would be without the Draconian Marsh role?” Sandy asks.
“Literally? Back in San Juan with my parents. Professionally . . . Who can say.”
“Better question,” Delilah speaks up. Sandy is pissed and Delilah speaks over her. “What do you regret?”
“Excuse her,” Sandy says. “I’m firing her and she’s getting out at the next red light.”
Howie turns his attention to Delilah. “I love what I did. But I don’t know who I am beyond the voice of a Twitter account and the evil face for a franchise.”
“What would you have done differently?” Delilah asks.
“I probably wouldn’t have done that shitty college-bait film.” Howie smiles, surprised by his own humor on his last day ever. “I would’ve only done what meant a lot to me. Like the Scorpius films. That adaptation was one of a kind. But I should’ve used those fortunes to spend time with the people who mean a lot to me. Family and friends. I got caught up reinventing myself so I could land different roles and not be the evil wizard kid. For fuck’s sake, I’m in town to meet a publisher for another book I didn’t write.”
Delilah eyes the copy of Howie’s book, unsigned, sitting between her and her boss.
Former boss. It’s unclear.
“What would’ve made you happy?” Delilah asks.
Love comes to mind, immediately, and it surprises him like a lightning bolt on a day with clear forecasts. Howie never felt lonely, because he could go online at any moment and find himself flooded with messages. But affection from millions and intimacy from that one special person are completely different beasts.
“My life is a double-edged sword,” Howie says, not speaking of his life as if it’s already over as other defeated Deckers do. “I am where I am because my life moved as fast as it did. If I didn’t land that gig, maybe I would be in love with someone who loves me back. Maybe I would’ve been an actual son and not someone who thought being a bank account was enough. I could’ve taken time to learn Spanish so I could speak with my grandma without my mom translating.”
“If you weren’t successful and had all those things instead, would that have been enough for you?” Delilah asks. She’s sitting at the edge of her seat. Sandy is invested too.
“I think so—”
Howie shuts up as Delilah’s and Sandy’s eyes widen.
The car jerks and Howie closes his eyes, a deep sinking in his chest, like every time he’s been on a roller coaster, scaling higher and higher, past the point of no return, and he’s falling at incredible speed. Except Howie knows he’s not safe.
THE GANG WITH NO NAME
5:36 p.m.
Death-Cast did not call this gang of boys today, and they’re living as if this means their lives can’t be over while they’re alive. They run through the streets, not caring about traffic, as if they’re invincible against speeding cars and completely untouchable by the law. Two boys laugh when one car bangs into another, spinning out of control until it crashes against the wall. The third is too focused on reaching his target and pulling the handgun out of his backpack.
DELILAH GREY
5:37 p.m.
Delilah is still alive. She doesn’t have to test Howie’s pulse to know he isn’t. She saw the way his head banged against the reinforced window, heard the sickening crack that will stay with her forever—
Her heartbeat runs wild. In a single day, the same day when she received a call informing her she will die today, Delilah has not only survived an explosion by a bookstore, but also a car accident caused by three boys running through the street.
If Death wanted her, Death had two shots.
Delilah and Death won’t be meeting today.
RUFUS
5:39 p.m.
I wanna keep holding Mateo’s hand, but I gotta hug my people. I move through the crowd, pushing Deckers and others aside to get to the Plutos. We all hit Pause on ourselves—and press Play at the exact same second, like four cars moving at a green light. We group hug, four Plutos coming together in the Pluto Solar System embrace I’ve been wanting for over fifteen hours, ever since I ran out of my own damn funeral.
“I love you guys,” I say. No one cracks homo jokes. We’re past that. They shouldn’t be here, but taking risks is the name of the game today and I’m playing it. “You don’t smell like prison, Tagoe.”
“You should see my new ink,” Tagoe says. “We’ve seen shit.”
“We didn’t see shit,” Malcolm says.
“You guys ain’t shit,” I say.
“Not even house arrest,” Aimee says. “Damn shame.”
We pull apart, but stay really close, as if the crowd is forcing us to squeeze up against each other. They’re all staring at me. Tagoe looks like he wants to pet me. Malcolm looks like he’s seeing a ghost. Aimee looks like she wants another hug. I don’t let Tagoe treat me like a dog or shout “Boo!” at Malcolm, but I move in and hug the hell out of Aimee.
“My bad, Ames,” I say. I didn’t know I was sorry until I saw her face. “I shouldn’t have shut you out like that. Not on a damn End Day.”
“I’m sorry too,” Aimee says. “There’s only one side that matters to me and I’m sorry I was trying to play both. We didn’t have nearly as much time as we should’ve, but you’ll always be more important. Even after . . .”
“Thanks for saying that,” I say.
“I’m sorry I had to say something so obvious,” Aimee says.
“We’re all good,” I say.
I know I helped Mateo live his life, but he helped me get mine back in shape. I wanna be remembered as who I am right now, not for that dumbass mistake I made. I turn and Mateo and Lidia are standing shoulder to shoulder. I pull him over by his elbow.
“This is my Last Friend
, Mateo,” I say. “And this is his number one, Lidia.”
The Plutos shake hands with Mateo and Lidia. Solar systems are colliding.
“Are you scared?” Aimee asks us both.
I grab Mateo’s hand and nod. “It’ll be game over, but we won first.”
“Thanks for taking care of our boy,” Malcolm says.
“You’re both honorary Plutos,” Tagoe says. He turns to Malcolm and Aimee. “We should get badges made.”
I give the Plutos a beat-by-beat play of my End Day, and I fill them in on how color found its way to my Instagram.
“Elastic Heart” by Sia comes to an end. “We should be out there. Right?” Aimee says, nodding toward the dance floor.
“Let’s do this.”
Mateo says it before I can.
MATEO
5:48 p.m.
I grab Rufus’s hand and drag him to the dance floor right as a young black guy named Chris takes the stage. Chris says he’s about to perform an original song called “The End.” He raps about final goodbyes, nightmares we want to wake up from, and the inevitable squeeze of Death. If I weren’t standing here with Rufus and our favorite people, I would be depressed. But instead we’re all dancing, something else I never thought I would get to do—not just dancing, but dancing with someone who challenges me to live.
The beat pulses through me and I follow the lead of others, bopping my head and bouncing my shoulders. Rufus does a mock Harlem Shake to either impress me or make me laugh, and it works on both counts, mainly because his confidence is glowing and admirable. We close the space between us, our hands still very much to our sides or in the air, but we’re dancing against each other. Not always in sync, but who cares. We remain pressed together as more people flood the dance floor. Yesterday Mateo would’ve found this claustrophobic, but now? Don’t ever move me.
The song changes and now it’s superfast, but Rufus stills me and puts a hand on my hip. “Dance with me.”
I thought we were dancing already. “Am I doing it wrong?”
“You’re great. I meant a slow dance.”
The beat has only increased, but we place our hands on each other’s shoulders and waist; my fingers dig into him a little, the first time I’m getting to touch someone else like this. We take it slow, and out of all the ways I’ve lived today, maintaining eye contact with Rufus is really hard; it’s easily become the most intense intimacy ever I’ve ever experienced. He leans in to my ear, throwing me into this weird phase where I’m relieved to be free of his gaze but also miss his eyes and the way he looks at me, like I’m good enough, and Rufus says, “I wish we had more time. . . . I wanna ride bikes through empty streets and spend a hundred dollars at an arcade and take the Staten Island ferry just to introduce you to my favorite snow cones.”
I lean in to his ear. “I want to go to Jones Beach and race you to the waves and play in the rain with our friends. But I want quiet nights, too, where we talk about nonsense while watching bad movies.” I want us to have history, something longer than the small window of time we’re actually sharing, with an even longer future, but the dying elephant in the room crushes me. I rest my forehead against his, the both of us sweating. “I have to talk to Lidia.” I kiss Rufus again before we break through the crowd. He grabs my hand from behind, following me through the path I’m clearing.
Lidia sees us holding hands right as Rufus lets go and I take hers in mine, leading her toward the bathrooms, where it’s a little quieter. “Don’t slap me,” I say, “but I’m obviously into Rufus and he’s into me and I’m sorry for never telling you someone like Rufus is someone I would be into. I thought I had more time to accept myself, you know, even though I never really saw anything ugly or wrong about it. I think I was waiting around for a reason—something beautiful and awesome to accompany any declaration. It’s Rufus.”
Lidia raises her hand. “I still want to slap you, Mateo Torrez.” She wraps her arms around me instead. “I don’t know this Rufus character, and I’m not sure how well you know him either after one day, but—”
“I don’t know every detail about his past. But what I’ve gotten out of him in one day is more than I feel like I ever deserved. I don’t know if that makes sense.”
“What am I going to do without you?”
This loaded question is the reason I didn’t want anyone to know I was dying. There are questions I can’t answer. I cannot tell you how you will survive without me. I cannot tell you how to mourn me. I cannot convince you to not feel guilty if you forget the anniversary of my death, or if you realize days or weeks or months have gone by without thinking about me.
I just want you to live.
On the wall there are markers of many colors, most of them dried out, hanging from rubber cords. I find a bold orange marker that works and I tiptoe to reach this blank space where I write: MATEO WAS HERE AND LIDIA WAS BY HIS SIDE, AS ALWAYS.
I hug Lidia. “Promise me you’ll be okay.”
“It would be a huge lie.”
“Please lie to me,” I say. “Come on, tell me you’ll keep moving. Penny needs you at one hundred percent, and I need to know you’ll be strong enough to take care of the future global leader.”
“Damn it, I can’t—”
“Something is wrong,” I say. My heart is pounding. Aimee is standing between Rufus and the Plutos and three guys who are yelling over her. Lidia grabs my hand, like she’s trying to drag me backward a bit, to save my life before I can get caught up in this. She’s scared she’s going to have to watch me die and I am too. The shorter guy with the bruised face pulls out a gun—who could want to kill Rufus like this?
The guy he jumped.
Everyone notices the gun and pandemonium rages in the club. I run toward Rufus, guests charging into me as they run for the door. I get knocked down and people are stepping on me and this is how I’m going to die, a minute before Rufus gets shot to death, maybe even the same minute. Lidia is screaming at everyone to stop and back off, and she’s helping me up. There haven’t been any gunshots yet, but everyone is steering clear of the circle. This stampede is impossible to get through and I can’t reach Rufus and I’m not going to be able to touch him again while he’s still alive.
RUFUS
5:59 p.m.
I wanna get at Aimee, thinking she led him here, but she’s standing between me and his gun. I know she’s not gonna die today, but that don’t make her bulletproof. I don’t know how Peck knew to find me here, with his goons and a gun, but this is it for me.
I can’t be stupid. I can’t be a hero.
I don’t wanna make peace with this—maybe if I had a gun pointed at me before I met Mateo and got my Plutos back, yeah, whatever, pull the trigger. But my life is stepping its game up.
“You not talking shit now, huh?” Peck asks. His hand is shaking.
“Don’t do this. Please.” Aimee shakes her head. “This will end your life too.”
“You begging for him, right? You don’t give a shit about me.”
“I will never give a shit about you if you do this.”
She better not be saying this just to calm him down, because I will haunt the hell out of these two if they actually stay together. I wanna take my shot at hiding behind Malcolm for a second and dashing toward Peck, but that’s not gonna get me far.
Mateo.
He’s coming up behind Peck and I shake my head at him, which Peck sees. Peck turns and I run at him because Mateo’s life is threatened. Mateo punches Peck in the face, which is straight unbelievable, and it doesn’t send Peck to the floor or nothing like that, but we got a chance now. Peck’s homie swings at Mateo and is about to rock his head off his shoulders, but he pulls back at the last second, like he recognizes him—I don’t know, but Mateo finally steps back. Peck lunges for Mateo and I charge at him, but Malcolm beats me to it, running into Peck and his boy like a train, carrying them through the air as the gun drops, and he slams them against the wall.
The gun doesn’t go off, we all g
ood.
Peck’s other boy goes for the gun and I kick him in the face as he goes to grab it, and Tagoe jumps on top of him. I grab the gun. I can try and end Peck for good and keep Aimee safe from him. I point the gun at him as Malcolm clears away. Mateo is looking at me the way he did when I caught up with him after he ran away from me. Like I’m dangerous.
I unload the gun.
All the bullets find their way into the wall.
I grab Mateo and we jet because Peck and his people are here to kill and we’re the ones most likely to find a knife in our necks or bullets in our heads.
This day is doing me dirty on goodbyes.
DALMA YOUNG
6:20 p.m.
Death-Cast did not call Dalma Young because she isn’t dying today, but if they had, she would’ve spent the day with her half sister, and maybe even a Last Friend—she created the app, after all.
“I promise you don’t want to work for me,” Dalma says, her arm interlocked with her half sister’s as they cross the street. “I don’t want to work for me. This job has become such a job.”
“But this internship is so stupid,” Dahlia says. “If I’m going to work this hard in tech, I might as well get paid triple what I’m receiving now.” Dahlia is the most impatient twenty-year-old in New York. She refuses to slow down and is always ready to move from one phase of her life to the next. When she started dating her last girlfriend, she brought up getting married within a week. And now she wants to turn her tech internship into a Last Friend job. “Whatever. How did the meetings go? Did you get to meet Mark Zuckerberg?”
“Meetings went really well,” Dalma says. “Twitter may launch the feature as soon as next month. Facebook may need a little more time.”
Dalma is in town meeting with developers from both Twitter and Facebook. This morning, she pitched a new Last Message feature that will allow respective users to prepare their final tweets/statuses so their online legacy is more meaningful than, say, their thoughts on a popular movie or some viral video of someone else’s dog.