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7:12 a.m.
My phone vibrates and I’m counting on it being the Plutos, but that hope gets squashed once a chime follows. Mateo checks his phone and gets the same notification—another message we both got today: Make-A-Moment location nearby: 1.2 miles.
I suck my teeth. “What the hell is this?”
“You never heard of it?” Mateo asks. “They launched last fall.”
“Nope.” I keep it moving down the block, half-listening, half-wondering why the Plutos haven’t hit me back yet.
“It’s sort of like the Make-A-Wish Foundation,” Mateo says. “But any Decker can go, it’s not just for kids. They have these low-grade virtual reality stations designed to give you the same thrills as crazy experiences like skydiving and racecar driving and other extreme risks Deckers can’t safely experience on their End Day.”
“So it’s a straight rip-off, watered-down version of the Make-A-Wish Foundation?”
“I don’t think it’s all that bad,” Mateo says.
I check my phone again to see if I’ve missed any messages. As I step off the curb Mateo’s arm bangs into my chest.
I look right. He looks right. I look left. He looks left.
There are no cars. The street is dead quiet.
“I know how to cross the street,” I say. “I’ve sort of been walking my entire life.”
“You were on your phone,” Mateo says.
“I knew no cars were coming,” I say. Crossing the street is pretty instinctive at this point. If there are no cars, you go. If there are cars coming toward you, you don’t go—or you go really quickly.
“I’m sorry,” Mateo says. “I want this day to last.”
He’s on edge, I know. But he needs to step off at some point.
“I get it. But walking? I got this.”
I look both ways again before crossing the empty street. If anyone should be nervous, it’s the guy who watched his family drown in a sinking car. I didn’t exactly beat my grief to the point where I would’ve ever seen myself comfortably getting in a car over the next few years, but then there’s Malcolm, who digs fireplaces even though he lost his parents to a house fire. I don’t have that in me. But I’m also not looking right to left, left to right, like Mateo is until we make it to the opposite curb, like there’s a ninety-nine percent chance a car will pop out of nowhere and run us down in point-five seconds.
Mateo’s phone rings.
“Make-A-Moment people making house calls?” I ask.
Mateo shakes his head. “Lidia is calling from her grandmother’s phone. Should I . . .” He puts his phone back in his pocket and doesn’t answer.
“Well played on her end,” I say. “At least she’s reaching out. Haven’t heard shit from my friends.”
“Keep trying.”
Why not? I park my bike against the wall and FaceTime Malcolm and Tagoe. Both are no-gos. I FaceTime Aimee, and right when I’m about to hang up and send all the Plutos a picture of me flipping them off, Aimee answers, breathing quickly, her eyes strained, her hair sticking to her forehead. She’s home.
“I was knocked out!” Aimee shakes her head. “What time is . . . You’re alive. You . . .” She loses my eyes for a second; she’s staring at one half of Mateo’s face. She leans over like the phone’s camera is a window she can stick her head out of for a closer look. It’s like when I was thirteen and flipping through magazines, I’d scout for pictures of girls in skirts and dudes in shorts and would tilt the page to see what was underneath. “Who’s that?”
“This is Mateo,” I say. “He’s my Last Friend.” Mateo waves. “And this is my friend Aimee.” I don’t add that she’s the girl who body-slammed my heart, because I’m not trying to make everyone uncomfortable here. “I’ve been calling you.”
“I’m sorry. Everything got crazy after
you left,” Aimee says, rubbing her eyes with her fist. “I got home a couple hours ago and my phone was dead and I set it to charge but fell asleep before it came back on.”
“What the hell happened?”
“Malcolm and Tagoe got arrested,” Aimee says. “They wouldn’t stop mouthing off and Peck threw them under the bus since they were with you.”
