Alano
12:03 a.m.
Death-Cast cannot call me, but I don’t need them to anyway: it appears today is my End Day. Paz’s too. The only difference
between us is that I want to live, even if it hasn’t always been that way.
“You tried killing yourself?” Paz asks. The gun sinks to his side.
I’m not surprised Paz is questioning that someone with a seemingly glamorous life would try to kill himself, but it is one of the reasons I’ve never told anyone about my attempt. Actually, that’s not true. I’ve technically told a lot of people. Last Halloween, Rio threw a blackout party in his basement for his eighteenth birthday. The first two hours were devoted to everyone showing off their costumes, but once the lights went off, people began shouting secrets throughout the night. One girl admitted to cheating on her boyfriend. A boy lied about crying Death-Cast. Rio came out of the closet, which I obviously already knew. Ariana confessed to missing the ex-girlfriend she ghosted. I shouted that I tried killing myself the week before. Someone nearby asked if I was okay while someone else rushed to turn on the light as if I was an active danger to myself, so I shoved my way across the room and acted like it wasn’t me.
But now, up here on the Hollywood Sign, Paz Dario sees me for the survivor I am.
“Yes,” I answer. The confession feels like releasing a deep breath. But I’m still scared that all I’ve done is share a secret
with someone who will take it to his grave any minute now. “Will you come down with me? We can talk about whatever brought
you up here.”
Paz shakes his head. “No, this is it for me.”
“Not yet. Just sit with me.”
I carefully crouch down. One wrong move and I’ll plummet to my death. I sit on the beam and hold on to the sides as my legs
dangle, sending an awful chill down my spine. I might have a new rebellious spirit, but I’m no daredevil. Being up this high
is absolutely terrifying, especially without knowing what destiny of mine has been written in stone, and even though this
is resurrecting my fear of heights, I’ll sit up here with Paz for three hours until I know Death-Cast hasn’t alerted him.
Paz keeps standing. “How did you try killing yourself? Was it like this?” He stares at the gun while choking on his cries.
“Or like this?” he asks, turning toward the dark depths below. He flinches. Fear is a good sign. If he’s scared to die, then
there’s hope to get him down alive.
“Sit-with-me-and-I’ll-tell-you-everything,” I quickly say, almost like it’s one word because time is of the essence.
It’s the best I can offer. My psychology book about treating suicidal patients got left behind in New York before I could read more of it. That wasn’t my fault, since I was busy recovering from getting stabbed, but I am mad at myself for grabbing that Vincent van Gogh biography off my father’s shelf instead of the crisis-negotiations guidebook I remember seeing and thinking I would never need. That would’ve been a lot more helpful in this moment instead of offering up one of Van Gogh’s many depressing anecdotes, like how despite how famous he is in death, he only managed to sell one of his estimated nine-hundred-plus paintings in life. The injustice would make any fragile artist put a gun to their head.
Paz looks between me and the darkness and decides to sit instead of leap. We’re directly across from each other, several feet
away. It reminds me of playing on the jungle gym seesaws pre-Death-Cast except none of those kids were holding guns.
“So?” Paz asks, wiping snot from his upper lip. “Tell me how you did it.”
I don’t actually want to relive my suicide attempt, but I’m scared that Paz will kill himself if I don’t honor my word. “I
was going to jump off a roof,” I say. I don’t tell him where. It’s too depressing and personal and even if it wasn’t, my chest
is too tight from admitting this out loud for the first time. The memory is coming back to me in sharp detail like usual.
October 24, a Thursday. The sky was clear, a beautiful send-off. “I got down and, ironically, almost died anyway because I
was hyperventilating from how scary and close that was. I thankfully reached my inhaler before it was too late.”
Paz’s eyes narrow. “Thankfully?”
“Thankfully,” I repeat. “I wanted to live, Paz.”
“No. You never wanted to die, .”
I’m tempted to tell Paz everything bad about my life that led to me trying to jump off a roof, but fighting him for not respecting
my suicide attempt isn’t going to stop him from trying to kill himself. “I think suicide is less about wanting to die and
more about wishing your life was better. I don’t know why you’re suffering, but I’m sorry you are,” I say, trying to be as
delicate as possible, like I’m disarming a bomb.
“It’s not your fault,” Paz snaps. He’s maybe not fully defused, but he hasn’t exploded.
“Do you want to tell me whose fault it is?” I gently ask.
“My dad’s,” Paz says.
I know plenty about Paz because of his court case, the documentary, and my own research over the years, so I’m about to ask
more about Frankie Dario when Paz says, “Your dad’s fault too.”
It’s both surprising and obvious to hear this. My father has been blamed for enough over the past decade that I can sense
where Paz’s anger is coming from. “Is this because of Death-Cast serving as a suicide prevention tool?” The words come out
of me like I’m at some press conference. I hate it.
“I’ve tried killing myself before too,” Paz confesses. He begins breathing faster as if the fuse has been lit. “I swallowed my antidepressants with alcohol and lived. Then I was gonna jump off this sign on my birthday, but Death-Cast not calling scared me away.” Paz is hyperventilating, ready to explode. “If I shoot myself in the head and fall from this high up I’ll die, right?” Angry tears flow down his sweet face. “Especially if I do it before the Death-Cast calls end, right? Please, , please tell me I’ll die.”
It breaks my heart how Paz is begging for permission to kill himself. I can’t give it to him.
“There’s no guarantee you’ll die,” I say, even though I can’t see how it wouldn’t work. I’ll never say it would because the
truth could literally kill him. Besides, there have been many freak accidents from people who tried proving Death-Cast wrong.
Hell, it could play out like Van Gogh’s death, where he shot himself in the chest but missed all of his major arteries. It
was ultimately the doctors’ failure to retrieve the bullet that led to the infection that killed Van Gogh two days later.
Paz himself could suffer a terrible miracle like that. “Take a deep breath and—”
My own words get swallowed by the loud whirring of a helicopter that is flying up the hill and toward us. Beams of light illuminate
us like spotlights for troublemakers. The helicopter hovers near us, and its blades are blowing gale-force winds our way.
“This is the LAPD,” an officer announces through the loudspeaker. “You are trespassing and must leave the premises now.”
Paz rushes to stand, and at first I hope he’s about to follow their instruction, but he stares at the vast, rocky drop below. I’m terrified he’s about to go through with his suicide plan. I shout for Paz to stop, but he doesn’t hear me over the helicopter. I quickly crawl across the beam and fight for balance against the winds as I stand. I’m tempted to grab Paz, but I’m scared we’ll topple over and die together. I hold out my hand instead.
“Come with me!” I beg.
“Why?!”
“Because we didn’t meet so I could watch you die! I believe we met because of...”
“Because of what?”
I say the only thing that makes sense. “Fate!”