RUFUS

4:46 a.m.

I’m sitting outside Mateo’s father’s room and I’m charged with telling Mateo it’s time to go. Getting him out of his apartment was one thing, but I’m probably gonna have to knock the dude out and drag him out the hospital; someone would’ve had to do the same to get me away from my pops, coma or no coma.

That nurse, Elizabeth, looks at the clock and then at me before carrying a tray of stale-smelling food into another room.

Time for me to grab Mateo.

I get up from the floor and crack open the door to the room. Mateo is holding his father’s hand and singing some song I’ve never heard before. I knock on the door and Mateo jumps, straight startled.

“Sorry, man. You good?”

Mateo stands and his face is flushed, like we got into a snapping battle and I played him hard in front of mad people. “Yeah. I’m fine.” That’s a damn lie. “I should tidy up.” It takes a minute before he lets go of his father’s hand, almost like his father is holding him back, but Mateo manages to break free. He picks up a clipboard and drops it into a rack above his father’s bed. “Dad usually leaves all his cleaning for Saturdays because he hates the idea of coming home from work on weekdays to more work. On the weekends we cleaned and earned our TV marathons.” Mateo looks around and the rest of the room is pretty damn clean. I mean, I’m not eating off the floor, but that’s a hospital thing.

“Did you get your goodbye in?”

Mateo nods. “Sort of.” He walks toward the bathroom. “I’m going to make sure it’s clean in there.”

“I’m sure it is.”

“I should make sure they have clean cups ready for when he wakes up.”

“They’re gonna take care of him.”

“He might need a warmer sheet. He can’t tell us if he’s cold.”

I walk over and hold Mateo by the shoulders, trying to still him ’cause he’s shaking. “He doesn’t want you here, okay?” Mateo’s eyebrows squeeze together and his eyes get red. Sad-red, not pissed-red. “I didn’t mean it like that. I say stupid things. He doesn’t want you wasting away here. Look, you got a chance to say goodbye—I didn’t get that with my fam. I took too much time trying to figure out what I was gonna say. I’m happy for you, but mad jealous, too. And if that isn’t enough to get you out, I need you. I need a friend by my side.”

Mateo looks around the room again, no doubt convincing himself he definitely does need to scrub the toilet this very second, or to make sure every single cup in this hospital is spotless so his father can’t end up with a bad one, but I squeeze his shoulders and wake him out of all that. He heads over to the bed and kisses his father’s forehead. “Goodbye, Dad.”

Mateo walks backward, dragging his feet, and waves bye to his sleeping father. My heart is pounding, and I’m only a witness to this moment. Mateo must be about to explode. I place a hand on his shoulder and he flinches. “Sorry,” he says at the doorway. “I really hope he wakes up today, just in time, you know.”

I’m not betting on it, but I nod anyway.

We leave the room, and Mateo peeks in one last time before closing the door behind us.

MATEO

4:58 a.m.

I stop at the corner of the hospital.

It’s not too late to run back to Dad’s room and just live out my day there. But that’s not fair, to put others in the hospital at risk of me, the ticking time bomb. I can’t believe I’m back outside in a world that will kill me, accompanied by a Last Friend whose fate is screwed too.

There’s no way this courage will hold.

“You good?” Rufus asks.

I nod. I really want to listen to some music right now, especially after singing in Dad’s room. I cringe because Rufus caught me singing, but it’s all right, it’s all right. He didn’t say anything, so maybe he didn’t hear that much. The awkwardness of it all makes me even more antsy to listen to music, to hide away with something that has always been very solitary for me. Another of Dad’s favorites is “Come What May,” which my mother sang to him and womb-me during a shower they took together before her water broke. The line about loving someone until the end of time is haunting. The same could be said for my other favorite song, “One Song,” from Rent. I’m extra wired, wanting to play it, especially as a Decker, since it’s about wasted opportunities, empty lives, and time dying. My favorite lyric is “One song before I go . . .”

“Sorry if I pressured you to leave,” Rufus adds. “You asked me to get you out of there, but I’m not sure you meant it.”

“I’m glad you did,” I admit. My dad would want this.

I look both ways before crossing the street. There are no cars, but there’s a man on the corner up ahead tearing through trash bags, furiously, as if there’s a garbage truck approaching to steal them all away. It’s possible he’s searching for something he accidentally threw out, but judging by the split leg of his jeans and the grime on his rust-colored vest, it’s safe to guess he’s homeless. The man retrieves a half-eaten orange, tucks it into his armpit, and continues going through the trash bags. He turns toward us as we approach the corner.

“Got a dollar? Any change?”

I keep my head low, same as Rufus, and walk past the man. He doesn’t call after us or say anything else.

“I want to give him some money,” I tell Rufus, even though it makes me really nervous to do so alone. I go through my pockets and find eighteen dollars. “Do you have some cash to give him, too?”

“Not to be a dick, but why?”

“Because he needs it,” I say. “He’s digging through trash for food.”

“There’s a chance he’s not even homeless. I’ve been duped before,” he says.

I stop. “I’ve been lied to before too.” I’ve also made the mistake of ignoring others asking for help, and it’s not fair. “I’m not saying we should give him our life savings, just a few bucks.”

“When were you duped?”

“I was in fifth grade, walking to school. This guy asked for a dollar, and when I pulled out my five singles for lunch money, he punched me in the face and took it all.” I’m embarrassed to admit that I was pretty inconsolable at school, crying so hard until Dad left work to visit me in the nurse’s office to see how I was doing. He even walked me to school for two weeks afterward and begged me to be more careful with strangers, especially when money is involved. “I just don’t think I should be the judge of who actually needs my help or not, like they should do a dance or sing me a song to prove they’re worthy. Asking for help when you need it should be enough. And what’s a dollar? We’ll make a dollar again.”

We won’t actually make another dollar, but if Rufus was smart (or paranoid) like I was, he should have more than enough money in his bank account as well. I can’t read Rufus’s face, but he parks his bike, hits down on the kickstand. “Let’s do this then.” He reaches into his pocket and finds twenty dollars in cash. He walks ahead of me and I tail after him, my heart pounding, a little nervous this man might attack us. Rufus stops a foot away from the man and gestures to me, right when the man turns around and looks me square in the eye.