“They can’t hold us,” Tagoe says, fighting for space so he can be seen too. “You see us?”

“Screw all of this. Roof, where you at?” Malcolm is squinting, looking beyond my head. I have no idea where they’re at either.

“I’m at Clint’s.” I can give them a better goodbye. I can hug them. “Can you guys get here? Soon?” Making it past five has been a fucking miracle, but time is running out, no doubt. Mateo is holding Lidia’s hand, and I want my best friends here too. All of them. “Can you grab Aimee too? Not that asshole Peck. I’ll beat his ass again.” If there was a lesson I was supposed to learn here, I didn’t. Dude ruined my funeral and got my friends locked up, I get to deck him again and don’t try to tell me I’m wrong.

“He’s lucky you’re still alive,” Malcolm says. “We’d be spending our night hunting him down if you weren’t.”

“Don’t leave Clint’s,” Tagoe says. “We’ll be there in twenty minutes. Smelling like prison.” Funny how Tagoe swears he’s a hardened criminal now.

“I’m not going anywhere. I’m here with a friend. Just get here, all right?’

“You better be there, Roof,” Malcolm says.

I know what he’s really saying. I better be alive.

I take a photo of the sign for Clint’s Graveyard and upload it to Instagram in full color.

PATRICK “PECK” GAVIN

5:05 p.m.

“Got him,” Peck says, hopping off his bed. Clint’s Graveyard. He puts the loaded gun in his backpack. “We gotta be fast. Let’s go.”

PART FOUR

The End

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new.

—Steve Jobs

MATEO

5:14 p.m.

This day has some miracles.

I found a Last Friend in Rufus. Our best friends are joining us on our End Day. We’ve overcome fears. And we’re now at Clint’s Graveyard, which receives high praise online, and this could be the perfect stage for me if I outgrow my insecurities—in the next few minutes.

From all the movies I’ve seen, bouncers are normally stubborn in their ways and absolutely intimidating, but here at Clint’s Graveyard there’s a young woman wearing a fitted cap backward welcoming everyone.

The young woman asks for my ID. “Sorry to lose you, Mateo. Have fun in there, okay?” I nod. I drop some cash into a plastic donations container and wait for Rufus to pay his way in. The girl eyes him up and down and my face heats up. But then Rufus catches up to me and pats my shoulder and the burn is different, like when he grabbed my hand back at the Travel Arena.

Music is booming from the other side of the door and we wait for Lidia.

“You good?” Rufus asks.

“Nervous and excited. Mainly nervous.”

“Regret making me jump off a cliff yet?”

“Do you regret jumping?”

“No.”

“Then no.”

“Are you gonna have fun in there?”

“No pressure,” I say. There’s a difference between jumping off a cliff and having fun. Once you jump off a cliff, there’s no undoing it, there’s no stopping midair. But having the kind of fun that seems daring and embarrassing in front of strangers requires a special bravery.

“There’s no pressure,” Rufus says. “Just our last few hours left on this planet to die without any regrets. Again, no pressure.”

No regrets. He’s right.

My friends stand behind me as I pull open the door and walk into a world where I immediately regret not having spent every minute possible. There are strobe lights, flashing blues, yellows, and grays. The graffiti on the walls was marked by Deckers and their friends, sometimes the last piece of themselves the Deckers have left behind, something that immortalizes them. No matter when it happens, we all have our endings. No one goes on, but what we leave behind keeps us alive for someone else. And I look at this crowded room of people, Deckers and friends, and they are all living.

A hand closes on mine, and it’s not the same one that grabbed mine less than an hour ago; this hand carries history. The hand I held when my goddaughter was born, and the many mornings and evenings after Christian died. Traveling that world-within-a-world with Lidia was incredible, and having her here in this moment, a moment I couldn’t buy, makes me happy despite every reason to be down. Rufus comes up beside me and wraps an arm around my shoulders.

“The floor is yours,” Rufus says. “The stage, too, when you’re game.”

“I’m getting there,” I say. I have to get there.

Onstage there’s a teenager on crutches singing “Can’t Fight This Feeling” and, as Rufus would say, he’s absolutely killing it. There are a couple people dancing behind him—friends, strangers, who knows, who cares—and this energy elevates me. I guess I could call this energy freedom. No one will be around to judge me tomorrow. No one will send messages to friends about the lame kid who had no rhythm. And in this moment, how stupid it was to care hits me like a punch to the face.

I wasted time and missed fun because I cared about the wrong things.

“Got a song in mind?”

“Nope,” I say. There are plenty of songs I love: “Vienna” by Billy Joel; “Tomorrow, Tomorrow” by Elliott Smith. “Born to Run” by Bruce Springsteen is one of Dad’s favorites. All these songs have notes I have no chance of hitting, but that’s not what’s stopping me. I just want the song to be right.

The menu above the bar is illustrated with a skull and crossbones, and it’s striking to see the skull smiling. Last Day to Smile, it reads. The drinks are all alcohol-free, which makes sense since dying isn’t an excuse to sell alcohol to minors. There was a huge debate a couple years ago about whether or not Deckers eighteen and up should be allowed to purchase drinks. When lawyers presented percentages about teenagers dying from alcohol poisoning and drunk driving, it was ruled things would remain as they have been—legally. It’s still really easy to get liquor and beer, is my understanding; always has been, always will be.

“Let’s grab a drink,” I say.

We push past the crowd, strangers dancing against us as we try to clear a path. The deejay calls up a bearded guy named David to the stage. David rolls onto the stage and announces he’s singing “A Fond Farewell” by Elliott Smith; I don’t know if he’s a Decker or singing for a friend, but it’s beautiful.

We reach the bar.

I’m not in the mood for a GrapeYard Mocktail. Definitely not Death’s Spring.

Lidia orders a Terminator, this ruby-red mocktail. They serve her quickly. She takes a sip, scrunching her face like she’s eaten a handful of sour candy. “Do you want?”

“I’m good,” I say.

“I wish this had some kick to it,” Lidia says. “I can’t be sober when I lose you.”