Into the flames I go.
I’m about to run into the kitchen when my foot connects with something solid. I drop to my knees and grab whatever it is, and it’s the arm that was supposed to be around me when I woke up. I grab Mateo, my fingers sink deep into boiled skin, and I’m crying hard as I find Mateo’s other arm and drag him away from the fire, out of the smoke, and toward all the sons of bitches who are shouting at me from the doorway but weren’t brave enough to run in and save some kids.
The hallway light hits Mateo. His back is badly burned. I turn him over, and half of his face is severely burned, the rest is deep red. I wrap my arm around his neck and cradle him, rocking back and forth. “Wake up, Mateo, wake up, wake up,” I beg. “Why’d you get out of bed. . . . We, we said we wouldn’t get out of . . .” He shouldn’t have gotten out of bed and he shouldn’t have ditched me in that home of fire and smoke.
Firefighters arrive. Neighbors try prying me away from Mateo and I swing at one, hoping that if I can deck one they’ll all fuck off or find themselves kicked into Mateo’s burning home. I wanna smack Mateo awake, but I shouldn’t hit this face that’s already been touched by flames. But this stupid Mateo kid isn’t waking up, dammit.
A firefighter kneels beside me. “Let us get him in an ambulance.”
I finally give in. “He didn’t receive the alert today,” I lie. “Get him to a hospital fast, please.”
I stay with Mateo as they cart him down the elevator, through the lobby, and outside toward the ambulance. A medic checks Mateo’s pulse and looks at me with sympathy and it’s fucking bullshit.
“We have to get him to the hospital, you see that!” I say. “Come on! Stop fucking around! Let’s go!”
“I’m sorry. He’s gone.”
“DO YOUR JOB AND GET HIM TO THE FUCKING HOSPITAL!”
Another medic opens the ambulance’s rear doors, but he doesn’t put Mateo in the back. He pulls out a body bag.
Hell no.
I snatch the body bag from his hand and throw it into the bushes because body bags are for corpses and Mateo isn’t dead. I return to Mateo’s side, choking and crying and dying. “Come on, Mateo, it’s me, Roof. You hear me, right? It’s Roof. Wake up now. Please wake up.”
9:16 p.m.
I’m sitting on the curb when the medics bag Mateo Torrez up.
9:24 p.m.
I’m receiving medical attention in the back of the ambulance as they rush me to Strouse Memorial. Sitting here reminds me of my family dying all over again. My heart is burning and I’m so pissed off at Mateo for dying before me. I don’t wanna be here, I should find a rental bike or go for a run even if breathing hurts, but I also can’t leave him like this.
I talk to the boy in the body bag about all the things we said we’d do together, but he can’t hear me.
When we reach the hospital they split us up. They take me to Intensive Care and wheel Mateo off to the morgue for observation.
My heart is burning.
9:37 p.m.
I’m in a hospital bed getting good air from an oxygen mask and checking out all the love from the Plutos on my Instagram pics. There’s no bullshit crying-face emojis, they know I’m not about that. Their messages on my last pic with Mateo are the ones that get me:
@tagoeaway: We will live it up for you, Roof! #Plutos4Life #PlutosForever
@manthony012: I love ya, bro. Catch ya at the next level. #Plutos4Life
@aimee_dubois: I love you and I’ll look for you every day. #PlutoConstellation
They don’t tell me to stay safe or nothing like that because they know what’s what, but they’re no doubt rooting for me.
They’ve left comments on all my pics, wishing they were with us at the Travel Arena and Make-A-Moment and the cemetery. Everywhere.
I open up my Plutos group chat and send them that painful text: Mateo is dead.
Their condolences spill in mad fast, it’s dizzying. They don’t ask for details, and I bet Tagoe is really fighting that urge to ask how it happened. I’m relieved he doesn’t.
I need to close my eyes for a bit. Not a long time because I don’t have that. But in case I don’t wake up because of some complication, I shoot them one last text: Whatever happens to me, scatter me at Althea. Orbit each other so damn hard. I love you.
10:02 p.m.
I snap awake from the nightmare. Nightmare-Mateo was completely ablaze, blaming me for his death, telling me he would’ve never died if he hadn’t met me. It sears into my mind, but I shake it off as nothing but a nightmare because Mateo would never blame anyone for anything.
Mateo is dead.
That was no way for him to go out. Mateo should’ve gone out saving someone, because he was such a selfless person. No, even if he didn’t die a hero’s death, he died a hero.
Mateo Torrez definitely saved me.
LIDIA VARGAS
10:10 p.m.
Lidia is home on her couch, eating comfort candy, letting Penny stay awake. Lidia’s grandmother has gone to bed, exhausted from watching Penny, and Penny herself is winding down. She isn’t cranky or whining, almost as if she knows to give her mother a break.
Lidia’s phone rings. It’s the same number Mateo called her from before, Rufus’s. She answers: “Mateo!”
Penny looks at the door, but doesn’t find Mateo.
Lidia waits for his voice, but he doesn’t say anything.
“. . . Rufus?” Lidia’s heart races and she closes her eyes.
“Yeah.”
It’s happened.
Lidia drops the phone on the couch, punching the cushions, scaring Penny. Lidia doesn’t want to know how it happened, not tonight. Her heart’s already broken, she doesn’t need every last piece shattered to bits. Tiny hands pull Lidia’s hands away from her face, and, like earlier, Penny is tearing up because her mother is crying.
“Mommy,” Penny says. This one word says everything to Lidia—fall apart, but piece herself back together. If not for herself, for her daughter.
Lidia kisses Penny’s forehead and picks up the phone. “You there, Rufus?”
“Yeah,” he says again. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
“I’m sorry for your loss too,” Lidia says. “Where are you?”
“I’m at the same hospital as his dad,” Rufus says.
Lidia wants to ask him if he’s okay, but she knows he won’t be soon enough.
“I’m gonna visit him,” Rufus says. “Mateo wanted to come out to him, but . . . we didn’t make it. Should I tell his dad? Is it weird that it’s me? You know him best.”
“You know him really well too,” Lidia says. “If you can’t, I can.”
“I know he can’t hear, but I wanna tell him how brave his son was,” Rufus says.
Was. Mateo is now a was.
“I can hear you,” Lidia says. “Please tell me first.”
Lidia holds Penny in her lap while Rufus tells her everything Mateo didn’t get a chance to tell her himself tonight. Tomorrow she’ll build the bookcase Mateo bought for Penny and put his pictures all around her room.
Lidia will keep Mateo alive the only way she can.
DELILAH GREY