Page 105

10:38 p.m.

I can’t believe I’m going back to New York so I can act!

This Death-Cast promo isn’t a movie or TV show obviously, but it’s a commercial that’s gonna be seen by everyone around the

world. That’ll kill all the rumors that I’m some secret Death Guarder and also show everyone—directors, producers, studios—what

a great actor I am.

Once I get out of the shower (without using any burning hot water or hurting my wounded foot), I spend some time cleansing

and moisturizing my face to get camera ready. I’m definitely gonna need some concealer to treat the bags under my eyes, but

that’s an easy fix, unlike my hair that’s been getting yellower since I haven’t been using the recommended purple shampoo

because I didn’t really give a flying fuck about how yellow my corpse’s hair would be.

I gotta care about my life again, and that means staying on top of basic needs: brushing my teeth, washing my face, eating

right, staying hydrated, and getting back into working out. These are all the ways I can show love to the body I never wanna

harm again.

I get dressed and limp down the hall. I gotta check for any last-minute things to pack before Alano returns at eleven thirty.

I go into my room and it’s been trashed—clothes thrown around, doors and drawers opened, my mattress knocked off the slats.

It’s like I’ve been robbed, but why would Mom and Rolando, the only other people in my room, rob me? And why is Mom on the

floor crying?

“You tried killing yourself again,” Mom sobs.

My nightstand and closet door and copy of Golden Heart are all open, and Mom is surrounded by everything I’ve been hiding from her:

The 365-day journal’s secret compartment.

The dream obituary written on the back of the Hollywood DIEner waiver for Deckers.

The bloody sheets I forgot to wash.

The gauze, petroleum jelly, and bandages for my wounds.

Thankfully the gun and knife are gone, but nothing is more incriminating than the suicide note in Mom’s hands.

This is bad. This is really bad.

Why the hell did they start going through my stuff? Did Joaquin call Mom and tell her that I tried killing myself once he

got Alano back home? Was that all some game? Is this job in New York even real? I should’ve known better than to get hyped

about my life turning around for the good, I cut my foot open so I would never be this stupid again. What’s it gonna take

before I never forget that life is nothing but pain? Cutting the other foot? My hand? My face?

No, no, no, no. I gotta get the facts. I gotta know why Mom and Rolando went through my shit.

“What are you doing in here?” I ask.

“A package arrived,” Rolando answers since Mom is incoherent. “From Present-Time.”

Son of a bitch. My will to live has shifted so much since Present-Time that I kept going back and forth on whether or not

I was scared it would bite me in the ass or give Mom closure. Those gifts are biting me in the ass.

Am I supposed to say some shit like “This isn’t what it looks like!” even though it’s exactly what it looks like? No, facts

go both ways. I gotta own up.

“I wanted to die so bad,” I say.

“Why didn’t you come to us when you were struggling?” Rolando asks.

“Because I’m struggling every day.”

His eyes water. “I love you like you are my own son, -Man. If you are struggling every day, then we will be there for you

every day.”

“That’s the last thing I want. I hated being on suicide watch. You guys were all over me, I couldn’t even sleep alone—”

Rolando grabs the bloody sheets and shouts, “This is why!” He’s never yelled at me before. He seems just as surprised as he

takes a breath. “How long have you been hurting yourself?”

I should lie, I should just lie. “Since November,” I confess. I explain that the self-harming started after the Grim Missed Calls trailer dropped and how I could already see the writing on the wall that my life was gonna become totally unlivable. “I wasn’t wrong.”

Mom cries as she rocks back and forth on the floor. I bet she thought this started after my first suicide attempt in March,

not months before.

“Are you still doing this?” Rolando asks.

“I’ve been trying to stop.”

“When did you hurt yourself last?”

I really should just lie because every time I tell the truth it’s like I’m cutting Mom. “Yesterday,” I say because I’m trying

to show them how honest I am and not even as a Happy trick. “I was heartbroken and hating myself for almost hitting Alano.”

Rolando stares at the blood on the sheet. “Where are you hurting yourself?”

That feels too far. “That’s private.”

“Privacy is for journaling and masturbating. Not self-mutilation!”

“His foot,” Mom says. She’s talking about me like I’m not in the room. Like I’m dead.

Rolando nods. “You did not stub your toe on the bed. You cut yourself.”

“Yeah.”

“You have not been limping like this since November. Where else?”

“This isn’t helping, it’s just torturing Mom!”

“You not letting us help you is what tortures your mother! You can be mad at us all you want for not giving you your privacy after you attempted suicide, but protecting you is our responsibility. We want to watch you have a full life—”

“That’s all I wanted too, but it wasn’t fucking happening!” I shout, breaking down in tears as I remember everything that

brought me up to the Hollywood Sign. “Nothing was changing in my life and everything was changing in yours. You got together.

You got engaged. You got a house. Now you got a baby on the way. You got a happy life, and I got nothing!”

“You have us,” Rolando says.

That’s not enough, even he’s not enough for Mom if I kill myself.

“I need to have my own people, my own friends, but no one invited me to any parties or out on any dates because I was the

school freak who killed his dad. For fuck’s sake, I was so lonely that I started hanging out with Deckers from the Last Friend

app. This life sucks.”

Mom cries even more, like she’s failed me, but she hasn’t, I said that in my note.

“Things will get better,” Rolando says, which I hope is true, but it’s honestly really fucking annoying to hear that when

I need things to be better now. “You are still very young.”

“But I feel so old,” I say.

Time moves differently when you want every day to be your last.

Mom slowly gets up from the floor, crying so hard that she’s struggling. She pushes Rolando away when he tries helping. She’s

red in the face as she waves the suicide note. “This is how you were going to say goodbye, ito?”

I never expected to live long enough to learn that my suicide note sucks. I did try personalizing that Present-Time pendant for Mom before the Death Guarder destroyed the shop, but I doubt that would’ve been good enough either. “There was no saying goodbye to your face, Mom. I’m sorry.”

“How am I supposed to trust your apology or anything you say when you have been lying to me? I had to find out about your

borderline diagnosis from your suicide note? Your self-harming from your blood? What else do I not know?”

“I wasn’t myself, and I’m still trying to figure out who the hell I am, especially after that diagnosis, but everything has

been different since Alano saved me. It’s like I can finally see a future now—”

“Alano saved you?” Mom asks.

I fucked up.

“He saved you from suicide? Where?”

I’m scared to keep telling the truth, knowing how much it’s gonna hurt Mom. This is why I have spent this year lying as much

as I have, but we’re in too deep now.

“On top of the Hollywood Sign,” I say, and Mom looks like she’s about to faint. “I know that sounds scary, but Alano’s timing

was amazing. If it wasn’t for that assassination attempt, he wasn’t even gonna be in the city. That night, Alano said our

meeting was written in the stars and I didn’t agree then, but I do now. He’s been this amazing life coach, and I’m finally

getting hyped about my future again.”

Mom drops the suicide note and holds out her hands for me to take. I do. She squeezes.

“I love you, my ito, but you can’t go running off to New York when we all need to be working together to heal as a family. To get you the care you need.”

“Like what, some suicide-prevention facility?” I ask, pulling my hands out of Mom’s like I’m about to have to run for it.

“Whatever it takes for you to get better.”

“I will fucking kill myself before I go there,” I say, which is, no shit, the worst thing I can say but I’m losing control.

“Look, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that. I already hit up my therapist to start DBT. That’s gonna be an intense program, but

Alano is helping me get ready for that.”

“Alano is very bright, but he is not a psychiatrist. You need professional help.”

“Yeah, I’ll start my DBT program when I’m back from New York.”

“You’re not going to New York, ito.”

I’m nineteen, I don’t need permission.

I walk past Mom and grab the bag I packed, and I’m about to head out early. The only way that I can prove I’m not going to

New York to kill myself is to come back alive with new opportunities.

Mom blocks my door. “You’re staying.”

This is even more childish than Joaquin’s dick-measuring contest.

“Mom, please move.”

“No.”

I turn to Rolando. “Can you talk some sense into her?”

“I agree with Gloria,” Rolando says. “It is best that you stay with us.”

Why did I bother with him? “Mom. I’m leaving.”

“No, you’re not.”

“Yes, I am.”

“No, you’re not.”

“Yes, I am.”

“No, you’re not! No, you’re not! No, you’re not!”

“Come on, Mom, move!”

Mom glares with teary eyes. “Or what, ito? Go ahead and hit me like your father!”

I’ve never started crying faster in my life. It’s not just that she’s compared me to Dad, it’s that she’s looking at me like

I might actually hit her.

“I killed Dad to save you, Mom,” I say, choking on my words. “That ruined my life, but I did it because I love you. Because

you screamed for help. Because you needed a hero, but now you’re treating me like the bad guy.”

“Oh, ito. I’m sorry—”

“How would you like it if I blamed you for not leaving Dad sooner?”

“I wish I had,” Mom says, clutching her chest. “Every day, I wish I had.”

“But you didn’t, and now my brain is broken.”

In some other universe, Mom ditched Dad sooner and they got divorced and I maybe saw him on weekends for a few months before that fizzled away and Mom and Rolando got together while Dad rotted in that apartment and my life got to be good. But I live in this hell where I get punished over and over and over.

Mom looks haunted and ashamed. “I thought I was doing what was best for you.”

“No, Mom, I’m not actually blaming you! Dad’s the asshole who tortured you.”

“No matter your feelings, I will always regret not leaving before my nine-year-old had to come to my rescue. Now I’m begging

you to let me do my job as your mother to support you in your time of need. I love you too much to live without you, ito.”

I feel like I’m waking up in the hospital after my suicide attempt, handcuffed to the bed. “That’s why I gotta lie to you!

You can’t handle seeing me in pain.”

“No mother can!”

“But you’re not only a mother! You deserve your own life, Mom. You spent years stuck in a marriage for me, but you’re finally

free of Dad’s bullshit, you gotta let me go too. But I know you won’t, so even in my lowest lows, I forced myself to keep

living, but then I got so happy that there’s a new kid on the way because it means you can’t make good on your threat.”

Mom’s hand goes to her mouth. She knows what I’m talking about.

Rolando doesn’t. “What threat?” he asks.

“To kill herself if I kill myself,” I say.

Now Rolando knows that the woman he’s marrying, the woman whose life he’s so concerned about, will not live for him if I take my own life. “Glo?”

“I love you, but that’s my son,” Mom says, almost like she’s ashamed to admit this.

“What about our child? Will you survive for our child?” Rolando asks.

Mom puts her hands on her belly and closes her eyes, crying against the doorframe. I’m scared that the new kid won’t be enough.

That Mom will give birth and leave the baby with Rolando. That my death will ruin everyone’s lives, even the new kid’s.

I should’ve taken this secret to the grave.

Instead of hugging Mom or saying sorry for blowing up her relationship, I sneak past her while she’s crying and limp as fast

as I can out of the house.

“ito! ito, come back!” Mom shouts, following me outside. “ito! PAZITO!”

I run so fast that my wounded foot is screaming in pain, but I gotta go get my life back, even if that means leaving Mom behind

before she can make living unlivable.