“You’ve got an extra forty pounds on me,” Mateo says. “You’re safe. You said spreading your parents’ and sister’s ashes didn’t do much for you. I thought maybe you could get some closure here.”
“They all died on our way upstate,” I say. Fingers crossed those road barriers our car flipped over, freak-accident style, have been repaired by now, but who knows.
“It doesn’t have to be the crash site. Maybe the river will be enough.”
“Not sure what I’m supposed to get out of this.”
“I don’t know either, and if you don’t feel comfortable, we can turn around and do something else. Going to the cemetery gave me peace I wasn’t expecting, and I want you to have that same wonder.”
I shrug. “We’re already here. Bring on the wonder.”
There are no boats docked by the pier, which is a huge waste, like an empty parking lot. In July, I came by the pier a little farther uptown with Aimee and Tagoe because they wanted to see these waterfront statues, and came back there a week later because Malcolm missed out on account of food poisoning.
We walk across this arm of the pier. It’s not made up of planks, otherwise I’d be too nervous to go forward. I’m straight catching Mateo’s paranoia, like a cold. The pier is all cement and sturdy, not some rickety mess that’s gonna collapse under me, but feel free to put down a dollar on optimism tricking the shit out of me. We reach the end and I grab the steel-gray railing so I can lean out and see the river’s currents doing their thing.
“How are you feeling?” Mateo asks.
“Like this whole day is a practical joke the world is playing on me. You’re an actor and any minute now my parents, Olivia, and the Plutos are gonna run out the back of some van and surprise me. I wouldn’t even be that pissed. I’d hug them and then kill them.”
It’s a fun thought, massacre aside.
“Seems pretty pissed to me,” Mateo says.
“I’ve spent so much time being pissed at my family for leaving me, Mateo. Everyone’s always running their mouth about survivor’s guilt and I get it, but . . .” I’ve never talked about this with the Plutos, not even Aimee when we were dating, ’cause it’s too horrible. “But I’m the one who left them, yo. I’m the one who got out the sinking car and swam away. I still think about if that was even me or some strong reflex. Like how you can’t keep your hand on a hot stove without your brain forcing it away. It would’ve been mad easy to sink with them, even though Death-Cast hadn’t hit me up yet. If it was that easy for me to almost die, maybe they should’ve worked harder to beat the odds and live. Maybe Death-Cast was wrong!”
Mateo comes closer and palms my shoulder. “Don’t do this to yourself. There are entire forums on CountDowners for Deckers confident they’re special. When Death-Cast calls, that’s it. Game over. There isn’t anything you could’ve done and there isn’t anything they could’ve done differently.”
“I could’ve driven,” I snap, shaking off his hand. “Olivia’s idea since I was tagging along. That way ‘Decker hands’ wouldn’t be steering the car. But I was too nervous and too pissed and too lonely. I could’ve bought them a few more hours. Maybe they wouldn’t have given up when things looked bad. Once I was out the car they just sat there, Mateo. No fight in them.” They only cared about me getting out. “My pops reached for my door immediately, same time my mom did from behind. I could’ve opened my own door, it’s not like my hand was jammed somewhere. I was dazed because our fucking car flew into the river, but I snapped out of it. They just gave up, though, once my door was open—Olivia didn’t even gun for the escape.”
I was forced to wait in the back of an ambulance with a towel that smelled like bleach around me as a team pulled their car out of the river.
“This was never your fault.” Mateo’s head is hanging low. “I’m going to give you a minute alone, but I’ll be waiting for you. I hope that’s what you want.” He walks off, taking my bike with him, before I can answer.
I don’t think a minute is enough—until I give in, crying harder than I have in weeks, and I hammer at the railing with the bottom of my fist. I keep going and going, hitting the railing because my family is dead, hitting it because my best friends are locked up, hitting it because my ex-girlfriend did us dirty, hitting it because I made a new dope friend and we don’t even have a full day together. I stop, out of breath, like I just won a fight against ten dudes. I don’t even want a picture of the Hudson, so I turn around and keep it behind, walking toward Mateo, who’s wheeling my bike in pointless circles.
“You win,” I say. “That was a good idea.” He doesn’t gloat like Malcolm would or taunt me like Aimee did whenever she won at Battleship. “My bad for snapping.”
“You needed to snap.”
He continues moving in his circle. I’m a little dizzy watching him.
“Truth.”
“If you need to snap again, I’m here. Last Friends for life.”
DELILAH GREY
12:52 p.m.
Delilah rushes to the only bookstore in the city that miraculously carries Howie Maldonado’s science fiction novel, The Lost Twin of Bone Bay.
Delilah speeds toward the store, staying far away from the curb, ignoring the catcall from a balding man with a large gym bag, and rushing past two boys with one bike.
She’s praying Howie Maldonado doesn’t move up the interview before she can get there when she remembers there are greater stakes at play in Howie’s dying life.
VIN PEARCE
12:55 p.m.
Death-Cast called Vin Pearce at 12:02 a.m. to tell him he’s going to die today, which isn’t that surprising.
Vin is pissed the beautiful woman with the colorful hair ignored him, pissed he never got married, pissed he was rejected by every woman on Necro this morning, pissed at his former coach who got in the way of his dreams, pissed at these two boys with a bike who are getting in the way of the destruction he’s going to leave behind. The boy in the biker gear is so slow, taking up sidewalk space with the bike he’s walking beside—bikes are meant to be ridden! Not carted around like a stroller. Vin barrels forward, no consequences in mind, bumping the boy’s shoulder with his own.
The boy sucks his teeth, but his friend grabs his arm, holding him back.
Vin likes to be feared. He loves it in the outside world, but he loved it most in the wrestling ring. Four months ago, Vin began experiencing muscle pains, but refused to acknowledge his weaknesses. Lifting weights was a struggle with poor results; sets of twenty pull-ups became sets of four, on good days; and his coach pulled him out of the ring indefinitely because fighting would be impossible. Illnesses have always run through his family—his father died years ago after being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, his aunt died from a ruptured ectopic pregnancy, and so on—but Vin believed he was better, stronger. He was destined for greatness, he was sure of it, like world championships and unbelievable riches. But chronic muscle disease pinned him down and he lost it all.
Vin walks inside the gym where he spent the past seven years training to become the next world heavyweight champion, the smell of sweat and dirty sneakers bringing back countless memories. The only memory that matters now is the one where his coach made him pack up his locker and suggested a new career route, like being a ringside commentator or becoming a coach himself.