They Both Die at the End

["RUFUS 10:14 p.m. The last photo I\u2019m throwing up on Instagram is the one of me with my Last Friend. It\u2019s the one we took in his bedroom where I\u2019m wearing his glasses and he\u2019s squinting and we\u2019re smiling because we won some happiness before I lost him. I scroll through all my pictures, mad grateful for the pops of color Mateo gave me on our End Day. The nurse wants me to stay in bed, but it\u2019s not only in my Decker rights to refuse assistance, there\u2019s no way in hell I\u2019m camping out here when I gotta see Mateo\u2019s father. I have less than two hours to live and I can\u2019t think of a better way to spend that time than respecting Mateo\u2019s final request to meet his father, but for real this time. I gotta meet the man who raised Mateo into the dude I fell in love with in less than a day. I head to the eighth floor with the insistent nurse. Yeah, she\u2019s well intentioned and wants to assist, I get it. I just don\u2019t have much patience in me right now. I don\u2019t even hesitate when I get to the room. I march in. Mateo\u2019s father isn\u2019t exactly what I pictured Mateo would look like in the future, but close enough. He\u2019s still sound asleep, completely unaware that his son won\u2019t be around to welcome him home if he ever wakes up. I don\u2019t even know what\u2019s left of their home. Hopefully the firefighters stopped the fire from spreading. \u201cHey, Mr. Torrez.\u201d I sit down beside him. The same seat Mateo was in when he was singing earlier. \u201cI\u2019m Rufus and I was Mateo\u2019s Last Friend. I managed to get him out of the house, I don\u2019t know if he told you that. He was really brave.\u201d I pull my phone out of my pocket and I\u2019m relieved when it powers on. \u201cI\u2019m sure you\u2019re really proud of him and you knew he had it in him all along. I\u2019ve only known him for a day and I\u2019m really proud of him too. I got to watch him grow up into the person he always wanted to be.\u201d","I scroll through the photos I took from the beginning of the day, skipping over the ones from my time before meeting Mateo and starting with my first color photo. \u201cWe did a lot of living today.\u201d I give him the full recap as I go from photo to photo: a sneaky shot of Mateo in Wonderland, which I never got to show him; the two of us dressed up like aviators at Make-A-Moment, where we went \u201cskydiving\u201d; the graveyard of pay phones where we discussed mortality; Mateo sleeping on the train, holding his Lego sanctuary; Mateo sitting inside his half-dug grave; the Open Bookstore window, minutes before we survived an explosion; that dude riding my bike I no longer wanted because Mateo was scared it would be the death of us, but not after one first and last ride together; adventures in the Travel Arena; outside of Clint\u2019s Graveyard, where Mateo and I sang and danced and kissed and ran for our lives; Mateo jumping around on his bed for me; and our last photo together, me in Mateo\u2019s glasses and he\u2019s squinting but so damn happy. I\u2019m happy too. Even now when I\u2019m destroyed again, Mateo repaired me. I play the video, which I could listen to on loop. \u201cAnd here he was singing me \u2018Your Song,\u2019 which he said you sung too. Mateo acted like he was singing only because he wanted to make me feel special. I no doubt did, but I know he was singing for himself too. He loved singing even though he wasn\u2019t very good, ha. He loved singing and you and Lidia and Penny and me and everyone.\u201d Mr. Torrez\u2019s heart monitor doesn\u2019t respond to Mateo\u2019s song or my stories. No skips, nothing. It\u2019s heartbreaking, this whole thing. Mr. Torrez stuck here alive, nowhere to go. Maybe it\u2019s an even bigger slap in the face than dying young. But maybe he\u2019ll wake up. I bet he\u2019ll feel like the last man in the world after losing his son, even though thousands will surround him every day. There\u2019s a picture on top of the chest beside Mr. Torrez\u2019s bed. It\u2019s Mateo as a kid, his dad, and a Toy Story cake. Kid Mateo looks so damn happy. Makes me wish I\u2019d known him since childhood. An extra week, even. Extra hour. Just more time. On the back of the photo there\u2019s a message:","Thank you for everything, Dad. I\u2019ll be brave, and I\u2019ll be okay. I love you from here to there. Mateo I stare at Mateo\u2019s handwriting. He wrote this today and he delivered. I need Mateo\u2019s dad to know about what his son was up to. I dig into my pocket and there\u2019s my drawing of the world from when Mateo and I first sat down this morning at my favorite diner. It\u2019s beat up and a little wet, but it\u2019ll do. I grab a pen from inside the chest drawer and write around the world. Mr. Torrez, I\u2019m Rufus Emeterio. I was Mateo\u2019s Last Friend. He was mad brave on his End Day. I took photos all day on Instagram. You gotta see how he lived. My username is @RufusonPluto. I\u2019m really happy your son reached out to me on what could\u2019ve been the worst day ever. Sorry for your loss, Rufus (9\/5\/17) I fold up the note and leave it with the picture. I head out the room, shaking. I don\u2019t go looking for Mateo\u2019s body. That\u2019s not what he would\u2019ve wanted in my final minutes. I leave the hospital. 10:36 p.m. The hourglass is almost out of sand. It\u2019s getting creepy. I\u2019m picturing Death stalking me, hiding behind cars and bushes, ready to swing his damn scythe. I\u2019m mad tired, not just physically, but straight emotionally drained. This is how I felt after losing my family. Full-force grief I have no chance pulling myself out of without time, which we know I don\u2019t have.","I\u2019m making my way back to Althea Park to wait this night out. No matter how normal that is for me, I can\u2019t get myself to stop shaking \u2019cause I can be alert as all hell right now and it won\u2019t change what\u2019s going down mad soon. I also miss my family and that Mateo kid so much. And yo, there better be an afterlife and Mateo better make it easy to find him like he promised. I wonder if Mateo found his mother yet. I wonder if he told her about me. If I find my family first, we\u2019ll have our hug-it-out moment, and then I\u2019ll recruit them in my Mateo manhunt. Then who knows what comes next. I throw on my headphones and watch the video of Mateo singing to me. I see Althea Park in the distance, my place of great change. I return my attention to the video, his voice blasting in my ears. I cross the street without an arm to hold me back.","ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I survived writing another book! And I definitely didn\u2019t do this alone. As always, huge thanks to my agent, Brooks Sherman, for greenlighting my gut-punching pitches and for finding my book- shaped things the best homes. I\u2019ll never forgot how excited he was to hear I was writing a book titled They Both Die at the End, or how he texted me back around six a.m. when I finished the first draft. My editor, Andrew Harwell, deserves ten thousand raises for helping me turn this book-shaped thing into a \u201cdark game of Jenga\u201d\u2014his genius words, not mine. The countless rewrites for this book still weren\u2019t easy, and they would\u2019ve been impossible without Andrew\u2019s attentive eye and thoughtful heart\/brain. Huge thanks to the entire HarperCollins team for embracing me. Rosemary Brosnan is a fierce joy in this universe. Erin Fitzsimmons and artist Simon Prades created this undeniably gorgeous and clever cover\u2014legit love at first sight. Margot Wood is always casting Epic witchcraft and wizardry. Thanks to Laura Kaplan for all things publicity, Bess Braswell and Audrey Diestelkamp for all things marketing, and Patty Rosati for all things School & Library. Janet Fletcher and Bethany Reis made me look smarter. Kate Jackson championed this book before even meeting me. And to the many people whose fingerprints are on this book, I look forward to meeting you and learning your names. The Bent Agency, especially Jenny Bent, for championing my books. My assistant, Michael D\u2019Angelo, for continuing to boss me around. And his crying selfies. My friend group has grown because of words we wrote and that will never not be cool to me. My sister\/work wife, Becky Albertalli, and my bro\/fake husband, David Arnold-Silvera, for group chats and group hugs. Corey Whaley, the first person I hit up when I had the","idea for this book in December 2012. My wealth of unbelievable friendships also includes Jasmine Warga, Sabaa Tahir, Nicola Yoon, Angie Thomas, Victoria Aveyard, Dhonielle Clayton, Sona Charaipotra, Jeff Zentner, Arvin Ahmadi, Lance Rubin, Kathryn Holmes, and Ameriie. And then the friends who have been there long before More Happy Than Not, like Amanda and Michael Diaz, who have suffered me since the very beginning of our lives, and Luis Rivera, who is a literal lifesaver. Thank you all for always knowing when to get me away from the laptop and ultimately inspiring me to return to each story. Lauren Oliver, Lexa Hillyer, and the entire Glasstown gang. I\u2019ve never had the privilege of writing a book through the company, but I\u2019ve learned so much about storytelling by working with this beyond- talented group. Grateful for early feedback from Hannah Fergesen, Dahlia Adler, and Tristina Wright, to name a few. My mom, Persi Rosa, and Gemini soul-sister, Cecilia Renn, my role models and cheerleaders who\u2019ve always encouraged me to chase every dream (and every dude). Keegan Strouse, who proved someone can change the game up on you in under twenty-four hours. Every reader, bookseller, librarian, educator, and publishing badass who give us their everything to keep books alive. The universe sucks less because of all of you. And, lastly, to every stranger who didn\u2019t call the cops on me when I asked them \u201cWhat would you do if you found out you were about to die?\u201d None of your answers inspired anything in this book, but wasn\u2019t it absolutely fun having a stranger make you observe your mortality?","BACK AD DISCOVER your next favorite read MEET new authors to love WIN free books SHARE infographics, playlists, quizzes, and more WATCH the latest videos www.epicreads.com","ABOUT THE AUTHOR Photo by K. W. Strauss ADAM SILVERA is the New York Times bestselling author of More Happy Than Not and History Is All You Left Me, and he was named a Publishers Weekly Flying Start. Adam was born and raised in the Bronx. He was a bookseller before shifting to children\u2019s publishing and has worked at a literary development company and a creative writing website for teens and as a book reviewer of children\u2019s and young adult novels. He is tall for no reason and lives in New York City. Visit him online at www.adamsilvera.com. Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com.","BOOKS BY ADAM SILVERA More Happy Than Not History Is All You Left Me They Both Die at the End","CREDITS Cover art by Simon Prades Cover design by Erin Fitzsimmons","COPYRIGHT THEY BOTH DIE AT THE END. Copyright \u00a9 2017 by Adam Silvera. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books. www.epicreads.com ISBN 978-0-06-245779-0 (hardcover bdg.) ISBN 978-0-06-268851-4 (international edition) EPub Edition \u00a9 August 2017 ISBN 9780062457813 17 18 19 20 21 PC\/LSCH 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 FIRST EDITION","ABOUT THE PUBLISHER Australia HarperCollins Publishers Australia Pty. Ltd. Level 13, 201 Elizabeth Street Sydney, NSW 2000, Australia www.harpercollins.com.au Canada HarperCollins Canada 2 Bloor Street East - 20th Floor Toronto, ON M4W 1A8, Canada www.harpercollins.ca New Zealand HarperCollins Publishers New Zealand Unit D1, 63 Apollo Drive Rosedale 0632 Auckland, New Zealand www.harpercollins.co.nz United Kingdom HarperCollins Publishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF, UK www.harpercollins.co.uk United States HarperCollins Publishers Inc. 195 Broadway New York, NY 10007 www.harpercollins.com"]