I approach the door slowly, nudge up the peephole’s cover, and squint at Rufus, who’s looking right at me, even though I know he can’t actually make me out.

“It’s Rufus,” he says from the other side.

I hope it’s only him out there as I slide the chain free from its track. I pull the door open, finding a very three-dimensional Rufus in front of me, not someone I’m looking at through video chat or a peephole. He’s in a dark gray fleece and is wearing blue basketball shorts over these Adidas gym tights. He nods at me. There’s no smile or anything, but it’s friendly all the same. I lean forward, my heart pounding, and peek out into the hallway to see if he has some friends hiding against the walls, ready to jump me for the little I have. But the hallway is empty and now Rufus is smiling.

“I’m on your turf, dude,” Rufus says. “If anyone should be suspicious, it’s me. This better not be some fake sheltered-kid act, yo.”

“It’s no act,” I promise. “I’m sorry, I’m just . . . on edge.”

“We’re in the same boat.” He holds out his hand and I shake it. His palm is sweaty. “You ready to bounce? This is a trick question, obviously.”

“I’m ready-ish,” I answer. He’s come straight to my door for my company today, to lead me outside my sanctuary so we can live until we don’t. “Let me grab a couple of things.”

I don’t invite him in, nor does he invite himself inside. He holds the door open from the outside while I grab the notes for my neighbors and my keys. I turn off the lights and walk past Rufus, and he closes the door behind me. I lock up. Rufus heads toward the elevator while I go the opposite way.

“Where you going?”

“I don’t want my neighbors to be surprised or worried when I’m not answering.” I drop off one note in front of 4F. “Elliot cooked extra food for me because I was only eating waffles.” I come back Rufus’s way and leave the second note in front of 4A. “And Sean was going to take a look at our busted stove, but he doesn’t have to worry about that now.”

“That’s chill of you,” he says. “I didn’t think to do that.”

I approach the elevator and peek over my shoulder at Rufus, this stranger who’s following me. I don’t feel uneasy, but I am guarded. He talks like we’ve been friends for a while, but I’m still suspicious. Which is fair, since the only things I know about him are that his name is Rufus, he rides a bike, he survived a tragedy, and he wants to be the Mario to my Luigi. And that he’s also dying today.

“Whoa, we’re not taking the elevator,” Rufus says. “Two Deckers riding an elevator on their End Day is either a death wish or the start to a bad joke.”

“Good point,” I say. The elevator is risky. Best-case scenario? We get stuck. Worst-case scenario? Obvious. Thankfully, I have Rufus here to be calculating for me; I guess Last Friends double as life coaches that way. “Let’s take the stairs,” I say, as if there’s some other option to get outside, like a rope hanging from the hallway window or one of those aircraft emergency slides. I go down the four flights like a child being trusted with stairs for the first time, its parents a couple steps ahead—except no one is here to catch me should I fall, or should Rufus trip and tumble into me.

We get downstairs safely. My hand hovers over the lobby door. I can’t do it. I’m ready to retreat back upstairs until Rufus moves past me and pushes open the door, and the wet late-summer air brings me some relief. I’m even hit with hope that I, and only I—sorry, Rufus—can beat death. It’s a nice second away from reality.

“Go ahead,” Rufus says. He’s pressuring me, but that’s the whole point of our dynamic. I don’t want to disappoint either of us, especially myself.

I exit the lobby but stop once the door is behind me. I was last outside yesterday afternoon, when I was coming home from visiting Dad, an uneventful Labor Day. But being out here now is different. I check out the buildings I’ve grown up with but never paid any special attention to. There are lights on in my neighbors’ apartments. I can even hear one couple moaning; the roaring audience laughter from a comedy special; someone else laughing from another window, possibly at the very loud comedy show or possibly because they’re being tickled by a lover or laughing at a joke someone cared enough to text them at this late hour.

Rufus claps, snapping me out of my trance. “You get ten points.” He goes to a railing and unlocks his steel-gray bike.

“Where are we going?” I ask, inching farther away from the door. “We should have a battle plan.”

“Battle plans usually involve bullets and bombs,” Rufus says. “Let’s roll with game plan.” He wheels his bike toward the street corner. “Bucket lists are pointless. You’re not gonna get everything done. You gotta go with the flow.”

“You sound like a pro at dying.”

That was stupid. I know it before Rufus shakes his head.

“Yeah, well,” Rufus says.

“I’m sorry. I just . . .” A panic attack is coming on; my chest is tightening, my face is burning up, my skin and scalp are itchy. “I can’t wrap my head around the fact that I’m living a day where I might need a bucket list.” I scratch my head and take a deep breath. “This isn’t going to work. It’s going to backfire on us. Hanging out together is a bad idea because it’ll only double our chances of dying sooner. Like a Decker hot zone. What if we’re walking down the block and I trip and bang my head against a fire hydrant and—” I shut up, cringing from the phantom pain you get when you think about falling face-first onto spiked fences or having your teeth punched out of your mouth.

“You can do your own thing, but we’re done for whether we hang or not,” Rufus says. “No point fearing it.”

“Not that easy. We’re not dying from natural causes. How can we try to live knowing some truck might run us down when we’re crossing the street?”

“We’ll look both ways, like we’ve been trained to do since we were kids.”

“And if someone pulls out a gun?”

“We’ll stay out of bad neighborhoods.”

“And if a train kills us?”

“If we’re on train tracks on our End Day, we’re asking for it.”

“What if—”

“Don’t do this to yourself!” Rufus closes his eyes, rubbing them with his fist. I’m driving him crazy. “We can play this game all day, or we can stay out here and maybe, like, live. Don’t do your last day wrong.”

Rufus is right. I know he’s right. No more arguing. “It’s going to take me some time to get where you are with this. I don’t become fearless just because I know my options are do something and die versus do nothing and still die.” He doesn’t remind me that we don’t have a whole lot of time. “I have to say goodbye to my dad and my best friend.” I walk toward the 110th Street subway station.

“We can do that,” Rufus says. “I have nothing I’m gunning to do. I had my funeral and that didn’t exactly go as planned. Not really expecting a do-over, though.”