Page 77

6:25 p.m.

It’s time to go die before I hurt anyone else.

It has to be now before I can fully transform into Dad, a piece of shit who definitely ran his mouth about how he didn’t mean

to hit Mom and how his anger brought out the worst in him. Then sometimes he would act like that violence never happened,

even though Mom had the bruises. I don’t wanna become a man who hits anyone and doesn’t feel anything.

I gotta stop myself.

Most news vans have left, but a couple are still lurking, waiting me out. They’re about to be rewarded for their patience

with videos of me flipping them off as I begin my final journey.

Mom and Rolando are in their room listening to spa music to try to relax during this fucked-up day. I gotta go now so they

don’t get suspicious later. I’m tempted to say goodbye to Mom and tell her I love her, but the suicide note I’ve left under

my pillow will have to do that for me.

As much as I hate to admit it—and I really fucking hate it—Alano was right that if I have to die, the last thing I leave Mom shouldn’t be a suicide note. I never got to pay for those gifts at Present-Time, but maybe the shopkeeper will still send them along to Mom and Rolando when she’s back in business. On my way to the Hollywood Sign I’m gonna call the shop to leave a message to make this happen. I can’t call as myself since I’m supposed to be dead and impersonations aren’t my strong suit, but I can probably pull off an Alano impression. All I have to do is be really polite and share a fun fact about the origins of clocks or some shit like that.

Thinking about Alano’s all-knowing brain makes me happy for a millisecond before I remember how his lying mouth broke my heart

and twisted my hand into a fist.

Everything happens for a reason, even being saved by Alano so he can wreck me. Maybe if I had gone through my original suicide

plan I would’ve somehow survived and been worse off. I won’t have the gun this time, but maybe that’s why it would’ve all

gone wrong, because nothing good comes out of guns.

My new plan is simple: jump to my death. That was enough for the Hollywood Sign Girl and it’ll be enough to turn me into the

Hollywood Sign Boy.

I didn’t know a damn thing about Peg Entwistle or her suicide before meeting Alano, but telling me her story has really boosted

my confidence in this plan. It’s almost like Alano came into my life to be some powerful herald who not only tells me I’m

about to die but also how.

I hate that I can’t stop thinking about Alano. What sucks the most is that it’s mostly the good stuff. How Alano never treated me like some cold-blooded killer. How Alano made me feel seen and heard. And how Alano became a reason to jump out of bed and celebrate not getting a Death-Cast call. But it feels wrong thinking about the good stuff, just like when Alano asked about a childhood memory that makes me smile and I told him about Dad caring for me. I need to remember the bad. How Dad abused Mom and tried to kill her, so I killed him first. How Alano made me so angry I almost punched him. How I might grow up and try to kill the person I love.

For as long as I live—hopefully just another six hours—I’ll never forget all the heartbreaks I’ve been through; my body won’t

let me, especially during the long, painful journey ahead to the Hollywood Sign.

I fight back tears as I limp to the front door, opening it fast to rush out, but I freeze.

I’ve gotta be hallucinating because I’m seeing the guy I was never supposed to see again. His green eye and brown eye are

staring at me in shock too. He’s wearing a gray hoodie and baggy blue jeans with a brown leather satchel hanging from his

shoulder. One hand is balled into a fist like he’s about to get his revenge hit—or like he was about to knock on the door.

Every rapid thought about the guy coming for revenge flies out of my head when I see something in his other hand that’s as

unbelievable as him being here.

Alano holds up the star rug from the market. “I figured you needed this now more than ever,” he says sympathetically—no, lovingly.

I unfreeze, but instead of taking the star rug, I break down crying, and even though I don’t deserve to ever touch him again,

I ask, no, I beg, “Can I hug you?”

“Yes,” Alano says.

I step into his arms, ignoring all the pain that is supposed to be warning me away from guys like him, and I sob as he pulls me even closer against his body, like we’re one person.

I will lie and lie and lie to anyone, but I can’t lie to myself about how much holding Alano feels like hanging on for dear

life so I don’t fall off the Hollywood Sign.

“?”

I hold on tighter because I’m scared he’s about to leave again. “Yeah?”

“Mind if I come in? We’re being filmed.”

I look over Alano’s shoulders. There are reporters and camerapeople on the street. Agent Dane is also waiting by the curb,

locked in on us like the cameras. We step back, and Alano closes the door behind us.

“How are you doing?” Alano asks.

A minute ago I was defeated and on my way to jump to my death, and now I wanna fly, but I know how life works—I’m only gonna

crash down again.

I just shake my head.

“I’m here for you, . Agent Dane is going to knock on this door any moment now to conduct a search if you want me to stay.

Is there anything you need to hide?”

It kills me that Alano knows me well enough to suspect self-harming. I’m ashamed to nod.

There’s a knock on the door. “Go put it away,” Alano says.

I rush without thinking to my bedroom, pain shooting up my right leg, so bad that I almost collapse. I grab the knife out of my journal, and Dane knocks harder as I’m rinsing the knife in the kitchen sink before tossing it into the dishwasher. As Alano opens the door for Dane, Mom and Rolando come out of their bedroom, the spa music humming down the hallway.

Once Mom sees who’s here, her hand flies to her heart. “Please do not send my son to jail,” she says, tears flowing. She’s

about to cave in until Rolando helps hold her up.

“I only came to check on , Ms. Gloria,” Alano says.

“ito?” Mom asks, trying to catch her breath.

I hate that I was almost guilty of a crime and she’s still fighting for me as if I’m completely innocent.

“He surprised me, Mom,” I say. I still can’t believe he’s here after what I almost did.

Dane is tense when asking permission to do his inspection, but I don’t fight it, obviously. I’m just grateful that Alano gave

me the heads-up because I’m sure Dane’s search will be a lot more thorough this time. Even though I became a monster who almost

attacked Alano, Alano still trusts me enough with his life. And he still cares about mine.

Mom embraces Alano. “Are you doing okay?”

Alano nods. “I’m sorry I startled you, Ms. Gloria.”

“I’ve been thinking about you. If you need to talk, I’m here for you too.”

“I appreciate that,” he says.

I hate that Mom and Alano have been bonded over this. I’m losing the will to live again, knowing I’ll never be able to shake

off this shame.

“Can we get you anything?” Rolando asks.

“Is it possible to have some time alone with ?” Alano asks.

“We’re down the hall if you need us,” Mom says.

I’m not sure if she’s talking to me or Alano.

After standing around awkwardly as Dane finishes his inspection, Alano and I go into my room. He closes the door behind him,

another sign he trusts me. I sit on the bed, my heart racing as he approaches, but he only sets down the star rug before moving

on to my desk chair. He might trust me, but he’s still keeping his distance.

We’re both quiet, stealing looks at each other, and at the same time we say, “I’m sorry.”

I shake my head. “Why are you sorry?”

“I wasn’t careful with your brain or heart,” Alano says, his linked hands pinned between his knees, like he’s the one who

almost attacked me. “I’ve done more research on borderline personality disorder, and I understand now how my lack of transparency

about my past with Rio triggered your reaction.”

I sit up fast, and Alano flinches, like I’m about to actually hit him. I remember when Mom would get scared around Dad, and

how even when she mistook movement as an incoming attack, she would still hug me so tight I felt her heart pounding. “I hate

myself for almost hitting you,” I tell Alano, hating myself even more for how I’ve made his heart race out of fear.

I feel like I’m on trial again, except Alano is the judge, jury, and executioner. “I’m so scared I’m becoming my dad, like

this is just in my DNA to hurt the people I...”

I can’t bring myself to tell Alano I love him after almost hurting him. “To hurt the people close to me.”

Alano’s head hangs low. “You’ve grown up with unprocessed anger and you almost lost control.”

“I’ve totally lost control before,” I admit.

“What do you mean?”

“Back when I was nine,” I say, telling the story.

My attorney, Ms. Cielo, did her best to keep us from going to trial, but she always suspected it was inevitable because this

was the first court case where Death-Cast’s involvement was gonna factor in the ruling. She advised Mom to stay in the city

and do her best to help me settle into my new life while we waited for the trial to begin.

Easier said than done.

A few weeks after killing Dad, I started fourth grade, and people were acting like I walked into that classroom with blood

dripping from my hands and a gun holstered at my hip. Kids told on me for looking at them funny when I was only looking at

them funny because they were looking at me funny. The friends who were brave enough to talk to me kept asking stupid shit, like if it was fun to shoot a gun, or wanting to hear more about the killing like it was a cool story I brought back from the Scorpius set. Parents freaked out, filing complaints to the principal that their families were losing sleep every night while waiting for Death-Cast alerts as if I was gonna shoot up the school. Mom even agreed to have me patted down by security every morning, just to give everyone peace of mind, but there were still fears that I would grab scissors or staplers to hurt the kids who were still seen as kids, unlike me, a kid who had hurt once and would likely hurt again.

I transferred to a Catholic school after the holiday break because Rolando thought I would find more compassion there, which

was true for the teachers, but the parents were even crazier. They believed the devil was following me everywhere I went as

punishment for choosing the unnaturalness of Death-Cast over their God, who was the only entity that should know when we are

fated to die. Some kids ganged up on me at recess, always getting away with verbal warnings and detention, but when I fought

back and gave one boy a bloody nose and punched in another’s loose tooth, I was expelled before the final bell.

“Those kids and parents and administrators treated you unfairly,” Alano says.

“But see, I’ve always been violent.”

“That was self-defense, .”

“Punching you wouldn’t have been.”

“Are you ever going to try that again?”

“N-no, no, no. Never,” I say, like I’m begging a jury of twelve Alanos to believe me.

“What safeguards can you take to make sure it never happens?”

Last night I almost cut up my hand as punishment, knowing that I wouldn’t be able to hide those scars, which would then get

me thrown in a suicide-prevention facility so I would be forced to learn how to never hurt anyone, even myself, ever again.

Then I got scared over how powerless I would be in a facility.

A harsh truth about being suicidal is that you can wanna die and still fear for your life.

Since there’s no way in hell Alano will back a plan that involves me cutting up my hand, I know what has to be done if I’m

ever gonna learn to live with this brain.

“I’m gonna tell my therapist I wanna—that I need to start dialectical behavior therapy.”

“I think that’s the right choice. Do you want to do it now?” Alano asks.

I can’t tell if he’s being some accountability buddy or doesn’t trust me. He’s right to have his doubts. I’ve already lied

once today about hitting up my therapist.

I grab my phone and write to Raquel, asking when’s the soonest I can start DBT. I stare at the words. This is like signing

the Begin Day contract all over again. Something has to change. I’m gonna either be moving forward no matter how long it takes

to get the help I need or end everything now. I hit Send before I can change my mind.

“Done,” I say, tossing my phone onto my pillow.

“How do you feel?” Alano asks, sounding more like a therapist checking on my well-being than people in court deciding my fate.

“Like I’m scared it won’t be enough. Like I can’t stop my evolution into Dad.”

“Did your father ever go to therapy?”

“No.”

“Did your father ever change his ways?”

“No.”

“Did your father ever apologize?”

“No.”

“Did your father ever regret his actions?”

“No.”

“You can’t speak for the dead, but your father’s actions spoke for him,” Alano says, coming closer, sitting beside me on the

bed. “If it was written in stone somewhere that you were destined to become your father, you’ve just smashed that stone with

your remorse and fear and actions. DBT will only help you unlock your best self.”

My best self won’t ever wanna hit Alano—or anyone—ever again.

I try staring into his eyes to thank him for this compassion he’s showing me, but I’m still so ashamed. I have to fight off

this urge to punch myself over and over and over until I’m bruised and bloodied.

“I’m sorry, I’m so fucking sorry,” I say, choking on my apology. “I promise I’ll never hurt you.”

“I trust that you won’t. I’m more concerned about you breaking your promise to yourself.”

I hate being reminded that I already broke my promise to stop self-harming. My word means nothing. “I’m fine,” I lie, not

deserving Alano’s support. I should lie and lie and lie until Alano gets out of here and stays far the fuck away from me before

I can break my promise to him.

Alano calls me out for lying. “I already know you had a knife in this room. What happened? Were you self-harming or did you try taking your life?”

“No, I was gonna try again tonight, right when...”

Alano doesn’t finish my sentence. He just sits with the weight of what would’ve gone down if he was five minutes late. Alano’s

timing has always been amazing. Actually, not always. He was nowhere in sight last night when I could’ve used him to stop

me from making a big mistake.

“I wish you would’ve called me,” Alano says.

“I didn’t think you would be there for me,” I say, sobbing, and feeling pretty damn stupid considering how he’s here for me

now without being asked.

“You self-harmed because of me,” Alano says, his voice cracking. It’s not a question, but I can tell he wishes it was and

that the answer was no. We both know better. “I promise all I want is to take care of you, but I was not careful yesterday,

and for that I’m sorry.” He holds my hand in his like I’m glass. “I’m here now, and I’d like to help any way I can.”

I desperately want Alano to help, but it’s hard, it’s like asking Dad’s ghost to help undo everything that went wrong with

my life because I killed him.

“Do you mind telling me what you did to yourself?” Alano asks after my long silence.

I flinch at the memory. “I don’t wanna scar you.”

“You might not be able to see them, but I have my own deep scars. I promise I can handle learning about yours. That knowledge

will help me protect you from yourself.”

I’ve never told anyone about how exactly I self-harm and it feels like a second coming-out.

“I started self-harming after that first trailer dropped for Grim Missed Calls ,” I say, trapping both my hands between Alano’s as if I’m at risk of hurting myself by reliving everything. “I was eating

Thanksgiving leftovers in my room when my Instagram comments got crazy out of nowhere. People were saying that the truth was

gonna be out, that they never forgot about what I did, that I’m screwed now. I found the trailer online and told myself not

to watch, but I didn’t listen. I literally choked on air when my old headshot flashed in the trailer for the longest second

ever.” I’m crying so hard that I have to catch my breath, all so I can spit out, “I didn’t even think about it, I took my

fork and started scratching my thigh over and over.”

Alano leans his forehead against mine and continues pressing his hands into mine. “I’m so sorry,” he whispers, failing to

hide another voice crack.

“That was just the start,” I say, my eyes rolling over as I go through everything.

I kept self-harming throughout the holiday season, even after I deactivated my Instagram account so I wouldn’t be flooded with daily hate comments from people who are out for blood even though they’ll never know the full story, especially if they’re only working off that docuseries. But I didn’t need strangers calling me a psycho or murderer or dad-killer to set me off so bad that I turned to self-harming. Rejected from taking an acting class? I self-harmed. Rejected by agents and managers? I self-harmed. Rejected for a commercial? I self-harmed. And I started exploring other ways to hurt myself. I switched from a plastic fork to steel. I burned myself with hot water. I started smoking. I wrote hateful things on my skin. And after my first failed suicide attempt and those three torturous days in the psych ward, I upgraded from a fork to a serrated knife to get through my Not-End Days.

“I always cut high up on my thigh so no one would ever know, but last night I wanted to hurt myself somewhere new.” I squeeze

my eyes shut, just like I had to last night while suffering through that unbearable pain. It’s so horrific that I don’t wanna

tell him where. Turns out I don’t need to.

“Your foot,” Alano says. I open my eyes in shock and look down to see if I’m still bleeding. “You’ve been favoring your left

foot.”

I shake my head, not because it’s not true but because I’m so ashamed. “I figured if I could make walking painful, I would

never forget how bad heartbreak is,” I tell the boy who broke my heart. I have so many regrets, and cutting myself isn’t even

the biggest one. “I shouldn’t have told you this, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have told you, I shouldn’t have told you, I shouldn’t

have told you.” This has been nothing like coming out as gay, I felt good about that, but right now I feel guilty for not

only putting this on Alano but also blaming him. “I’m sorry, I’ll shut up.”

“Don’t apologize. No matter how hard this is to hear, I want to hear it.”

I rip my hands out of Alano’s grip. “Okay, but now you know. You should go, I’m okay, I got it out of my system, thanks.” I’d like to meet the casting director stupid enough to buy that unconvincing line delivery.

Alano gets up and watching him walk away is more painful than that knife slicing my foot. He stops at the door and kicks off

his sneakers. “I’m not going anywhere until I know you’re okay.”

“That could take years.”

“Then we better get comfortable.”

I go out into the kitchen and grab some iced waters, pretzels, and fig Newtons as Rolando is cooking a real dinner. By the

time I’m back, Alano has laid out my weighted blanket on the floor for our indoor picnic. I’ve been starving myself since

yesterday, but Alano says that if I won’t take care of my body for myself to please do it for him, which is enough to get

me to start filling my stomach. My headache from all that crying is gone by the time I’m done running my mouth about how the

news vans and Make-A-Moment rejection and Golden Heart announcement all happening today felt like a sign from the universe to kill myself on top of all my shame.

“It’s hard to believe in Begin Days when your past twenty-four hours look like that,” Alano says.

“Yeah.”

“That’s not all that happened, though. If you’re interested and feel as if you’re in a good enough headspace to talk about my history with Rio, I’ll be fully transparent so you have all the information you need. I don’t want to keep you in the dark, but it can wait until you’re sure it won’t trigger a spiral. I just wanted to offer you the opportunity before I leave for New York on Wednesday.”

I’m on edge, scared of learning more, but if there’s a world where I can have a future with Alano, even just as a friend,

I can’t be haunted by his past with Rio. And if I’m ever gonna confront this, it’s now, when Alano is still in LA to ground

me.

“Let’s talk,” I say nervously.

“Before we do, I think it might be helpful if I shared some self-regulating tips I’ve been learning from this guidebook by

Marsha M. Linehan, the psychologist who invented dialectical behavior therapy,” Alano says.

He rattles off the four modules and seven skills I’ll be learning in my DBT program. The first module is mindfulness , which includes observing my environment without judgment so I can improve my mental clarity and describe what I’m feeling

so I can figure out how best to manage the emotions. The second module is distress tolerance , which involves a temporary solution called TIPP (temperature, intense exercise, paced breathing, progressive muscle relaxation)

that I can use to de-stress quickly; Alano tells me to take note of that one especially, like it’s not the hardest one to

remember so far. The other half of distress tolerance is radical acceptance, which means accepting reality so you don’t get

lost in spirals of denial, like I have. I really doubt that radically accepting my life fucking sucks is gonna make me feel

better, but we’ll see. The third module is emotional regulation , which begins with the opposite action from whatever my negative emotions are telling me to do, something like, if I don’t wanna eat, I go eat anyway, or if I wanna be alone to self-harm, I go hang out with someone. The other part is checking the facts, which I’m gonna be able to do with Alano as he tells me what actually went down with Rio instead of making shit up in my head. And the last module is interpersonal effectiveness , which is supposed to help communicate what I want and need without, let’s say, yelling at the boy I love in an amusement

park.

“I’m not gonna remember all that,” I say. “I don’t have your brain.”

“Be grateful you don’t. My brain is a blessing and a curse,” Alano says, as if there’s something bad about being a quick study.

“You don’t need to memorize everything I said now. You’ll study this soon enough, but until then, I’ll be your talking textbook.

Do you remember the TIPP skill?”

“I thought you were remembering everything for me, I’m not ready for a pop quiz.”

“Try.”

“Um, T is for ‘temperature,’ I is for ‘I-don’t-remember...’?”

Alano laughs, which is the brightest light in this darkest day. “ I is for ‘intense exercise.’ P is for ‘paced breathing,’ and the other P is for ‘progressive muscle relaxation.’ These are the skills that will really help manage any panic attacks or negative impulses. For instance, instead of self-harming, you can hold on to ice for a minute. It lowers your heart rate to calm you down, and it gets so painfully uncomfortable that it can also scratch that itch to hurt yourself without inflicting actual harm on yourself. Or if you have anger to expel, you can throw ice around your room. Harmless destruction.”

Unlike the almost-punch seen around the world.

“Why are you teaching me all of this?”

“If my past with Rio triggers you, I want you to self-regulate. Throw the ice, do some crunches, meditate. Deal?”

I’m now terrified that this is gonna be worse than I thought, like Alano and Rio got secretly married by one of those End

Day officiants. No, this is where I got to take a step back and check the fucking facts as Alano tells the story.

“Deal,” I say.

First Alano apologizes again because even though he suspected I had feelings for him, he didn’t set me up for success when

he didn’t clue me in to his complicated past (and present) with Rio. That’s when he dives deeper into the origins of their

friendship.

“I first met Rio at his brother’s memorial,” Alano says, his voice quiet like it will ease the sting of hearing Rio’s name. “There was an open invitation to the public, and I wasn’t sure why the Moraleses didn’t want more privacy, but I felt compelled to go. Then everything made sense during Rio’s wrathful eulogy. He was using the memorial as a rally. The only thing that mattered was gathering supporters to hunt down the Last Friend serial killer. Rio spent more time talking about avenging Lucio than about his life. At the end, I offered Rio my condolences. He proceeded to grill me on Death-Cast not using its power more efficiently. I didn’t fight him. I just let him be angry at a time when no one else was validating his trauma or grief. I gave Rio my number, but it was almost a year later when he finally reached out on the evening of May twenty-fifth, hours after the serial killer had been caught. The arrest didn’t close any of Rio’s wounds. He was so angry and sad . . . and empty. Everything changed when we started hanging out.”

I unfortunately know all about agonizing sadness, burning anger, and depressive black holes that swallow up everything happy

so you’re left feeling like a shell of yourself. I also know firsthand how Alano is so powerful that he can fish out smiles

and laughter and hope from someone who is feeling everything bad or nothing at all. I would be devastated to lose his company,

and as Alano tells me more about his evolving friendship with Rio, I begin understanding why Rio felt so possessive of Alano

and threatened by me.

That summer, Alano and Rio became inseparable, hanging out so much that Ariana got annoyed with Alano for not admitting that

they were dating, but he was telling the truth. They were just friends and nothing more at the start. Alano was always getting

Rio out of the house, and they got to know each other on long walks across Central Park, Althea Park, the Brooklyn Bridge,

and the High Line, and they would also get lost in random neighborhoods, challenging themselves to get back home without outside

help.

“Things took a turn on June twenty-fifth, when we were supposed to be attending the Pride March.”

I’m so jealous of Alano and Rio’s closeness that I’m already itching for my knife, and as much as I’d like to do some jumping jacks right now, my foot can’t handle that shit, so I grab an ice cube, holding on to it until it burns so bad that I drop it back in the glass. Alano is right, my heart rate is going down, and it’s hard to focus on anything else except how much holding ice hurts.

“I can skip ahead if you want,” Alano says.

“You’re good, go on.”

I have to get through the good memories before seeing how it ended.

Alano seems cautious, like when I first tried climbing the Hollywood Sign on my birthday and then fell down the ladder, but

unlike me, he pushes on. “That morning the police uncovered the remains of the serial killer’s last victim. Rio wasn’t exactly

in the Pride mood anymore, but his mother wouldn’t stop watching the coverage, so my driver took us up to Riverdale, and we

walked all the way from the Bronx to Brooklyn. Over those nine hours, Rio and I talked about our callings in life and how

hard it is to find happiness after tragedies, especially one as brutal as his brother’s murder. He swore he was going to be

broken forever. I told Rio that I was sad that I would never meet Lucio or know who Rio was before losing him, but that I

liked the person in front of me. His passion, his grief, his curiosity, his anger. Every last piece.” Alano stares off toward

my window, like he’s lost in this memory. “That’s when we kissed like it was our End Day.”

As Alano goes down memory lane, he sounds as if he’s falling in love with Rio all over again, or like he’s never stopped loving him.

I should’ve gone on my own painful long walk across the city instead of listening to this.

“That’s really special” is the best I’ve got for him.

“It was until it wasn’t. In my head we were boyfriends, especially after we started having sex, but I got a rude awakening

that September when I confessed my love for him. Rio was stunned. He didn’t even think we were dating,” Alano says, no longer

sounding lovesick, just heartbroken. “We agreed to be best friends and nothing more.”

I cross my arms, remembering how they hooked up two weeks ago. “How long did that last?”

“About two months,” he admits sheepishly. “Rio was vulnerable on Halloween. It was another birthday without his brother. He

needed to get lost and be loved.”

“But he didn’t love you, right?”

“No, but it allowed me to get lost too and pretend he loved me back.”

I don’t wanna know how many times they’ve gotten lost together, but I bet it’s a lot. I can’t even imagine what it’s like

to be wanted by someone so much, and I’m scared I’ll never get to find out with Alano. “I got to be real, you both hooking

up for three years looks a lot like you’re in love. Moving in together doesn’t help. Listen, I appreciate you checking in

on me, but I’m not stupid, I can see this for what it is—”

“You’re not stupid, but you’re wrong,” Alano interrupts. “My position at Death-Cast has made it hard to trust people’s intentions, but I do trust Rio as a safe person who I can be with when I’m lonely. It helps that we love each other, but we’re not in love.” He stares straight into my eyes when he declares this, like he’s begging me to believe him. “At least, I’m not in love with him.”

Anger flashes through me. “You said he doesn’t have feelings for you.”

“I didn’t know he did until this afternoon. Rio stopped by. My near-death scared him into confronting his feelings, but I

don’t feel the same anymore.”

My heart rate is coming down. I got the facts from Alano. I fucking hate the facts, but I got them. It’s hard to believe that

Alano won’t fall back in love with him. “Are you still moving in together?”

“No. Even if Rio didn’t have feelings for me, I see now how our past not staying in the past can risk my chances of having

a future with someone else.”

Yesterday I swore I would never see Alano again for the rest of my life, and if I did, I definitely wouldn’t trust him. I even punished myself as if that would break the Begin Days contract so I could go back to living my Not-End Days in peace—well, not peace, but without the special hell of heartbreak. Tonight I’m regretting cutting my foot more than any other time I’ve self-harmed because it was all for nothing. Alano has a past, but I was wrong, he’s not trying to live there. He wants to move on, and I wish I was walking into that future without a mutilated foot, but that’s gonna heal, just like my heart.

I grab Alano’s hand, massaging his palm. “You’ve given me a lot of advice on living Begin Days, and I got something for you.”

“I’m listening.”

“Only be with someone who wants to be with you,” I say, tearing up over two other regrets. If that’s the only advice I ever

give him, it’ll save him a lot of pain.

“That’s all I want,” Alano says, his head leaning against my bed. “Is that what you want?”

“I’ve only ever wanted to feel wanted, but...,” I say.

“But what?”

I don’t wanna just grab an ice cube, I wanna dunk myself in a frozen pond while thinking about these betrayals I never like

talking about. “I lost my virginity to my second Last Friend.”

Carter was this beautiful guy who had childhood dreams of being in the NBA. He wanted to spend his End Day playing basketball,

so we bounced between courts and gyms around the city to find him some challengers. He dunked on this one guy so hard he broke

the backboard. I legit thought the raining glass was gonna somehow kill him, which he thought would’ve been an epic way to

die. Carter challenged me to a game and I sucked, but he had a lot of fun teasing me. I honestly swore I was about to have

one of those magical and painful End Days worthy of an indie movie where the Living Last Friend falls for the Decker, especially

when Carter dragged a wrestling mat into the empty locker room for us to have sex.

“He finished, showered, and left without saying goodbye.”

“He’s an asshole,” Alano says. “Was.”

To this day I have no idea how Carter died. I only remember going home that night glad that he did so he couldn’t hurt me

or anyone else ever again.

I had promised myself I would never have sex with another Last Friend. It was hard to imagine having sex with anyone after

being ghosted by the Decker who took my virginity.

Unfortunately, I’m a human who was lonely and wanted to feel something—someone.

Enter my sixth Last Friend. Over the app, Kit invited me to his dorm room since he was agoraphobic. Helping a Decker get out

into the world would’ve been the most rewarding feeling as a Living Last Friend, but when I got there, Kit wasn’t trying to

leave. He called me hot and kissed me and brought me to his bed, and I would’ve preferred talking more, but time was obviously

running out for him. Or so I thought.

“He wasn’t a Decker.”

There’s a fire burning down the forest in Alano’s eyes. “He lied to you?”

“He saw me on the app and thought it would be hot to have sex with someone famous, but he wasn’t trying to play the long game

of getting to know me, so he posed as an agoraphobic Decker.”

Now Alano’s eyes are being flooded. “I’m sorry you experienced that.”

“You know what’s the worst part about all that?”

“Worse than these monsters using Last Friend like Necro? Worse than ghosting you? Worse than lying about dying?”

“They both saw my scars and never asked if I was okay.” I’m rocking back and forth and crying over how dehumanizing that was.

“Imagine taking the time to call someone a D-list actor who got upgraded to a B-list celebrity because of the docuseries that

made them self-harm but never ask if they’re okay.”

Alano pulls me in, letting me cry against his chest. “You deserved better, .”

I wish my first time had been with someone like Alano. No—I wish it was Alano, period.

I don’t know how long Alano holds me, but when my cries finally quiet down, he doesn’t let me go. His chin rests on top of

my head. I snuggle my face deeper into his chest, being moved like a wave as he breathes in and out. I can’t believe I’m so

close to his heart that I can hear it racing, to feel it pulsing against my cheek. I never thought I would be able to touch

him again, and now I’m the closest I’ve ever been and it still doesn’t feel like enough. I need more—I grab the back of his

neck, clutch on to his forearm, and I swing my legs over his. I want every inch of my body touching his. And judging by his

heartbeat, he feels the same way. Or I think he does until he winces. I freak out, embarrassed, and let go, giving him space.

“Sorry,” I say.

“No, I’m okay. That was nice, but...” Alano rolls up his sleeve, revealing his bandaged arm. “You squeezed too hard.”

I forgot about his own wound that’s scarring. “Do you need help rebandaging again?” I ask since it has to be done every forty-eight hours.

“My mother helped this morning, but what about you?”

“What about me?”

“Have you treated your foot today?”

Washing that wound in the shower was its own circle of hell, but it might be time for another cleaning. I unroll my sock,

and we both immediately see the blood staining the bandage.

“I got to re-up.”

“I can help if you’d like,” Alano says.

“You don’t have to do that.”

“I’d like to repay the favor. I want to.”

It’s been scary enough to open up about the self-harm, but letting Alano witness the damage I’ve done to myself is straight-up

terrifying. What if he’s disgusted by me? What if he doesn’t care like my Last Friends? Nope, nope, nope, I’m not letting

my mind tell me more lies about Alano when he showed up here uninvited to make sure I wouldn’t do the very thing I did. There’s

a lot to figure out with Alano still, but one thing is true: he cares about me and wants to take care of me.

I direct Alano to the old camera bag in my closet where I hide my first aid supplies. I’m running low on gauze and petroleum

jelly after the brutal Not-End Days I’ve lived through lately, but there’s enough to get us through.

Alano undoes my bandage, and we both brace ourselves, as if we know our future hinges on how he reacts in this moment. His gaze falls on my bare bloody foot, and while his eyes tear up, they don’t gloss over my wound. He cleans the blood, gently applies the petroleum jelly, gives me new gauze, and rebandages my foot.

“You won’t need stitches,” Alano says, holding my hand. “You’ll heal with time.”

Friday marks ten years since I killed Dad, and I’m starting to believe that there isn’t enough time in the world to heal those

scars. Maybe it’s time to accept that I’ll always be scarred.

“Are you serious about staying until I’m okay?” I ask.

“Do you think you’re in danger to yourself if I leave?”

“There’s something I wanna try.”

“What’s that?”

“Finally watching Grim Missed Calls .”

“Do you think that’ll help you?”

“It’s why I started self-harming. Maybe watching will help me end it.”

Alano stares off, like he’s scared this is gonna trigger the shit out of me. “If you believe this will be healing, then I’m

here for you.”

I’m done trying to win back love from the rest of the world.

I only wanna be loved by someone who sees me for who I am, scars and all, and never looks away.

I only wanna be loved by Alano Rosa.