Paz
4:09 p.m.
I haven’t been to Althea Park since the first End Day.
Strolling—limping, really—through this park feels like a walk down a literal memory lane. I’m not even mad at how my foot
is slowing me down, it’s giving me a chance to take in how much has changed in the past decade—trees with plaques, interactive
kiosks, bigger playground—and I tell Alano about the last time I was here.
I had finished my audition for some educational toy commercial when Rolando hit up Mom after quitting his job at Death-Cast,
inspired to take bold leaps like everyone else that day. He joined us for lunch at Desiderata’s Restaurant, which I later
learned was where Rolando had first professed his love to Mom when they were college students. Then we kept the fun going
here at Althea, and while I was playing around on the jungle gym, like this little girl is now with who I’m guessing is her
mother and grandfather, Mom and Rolando were having a deep talk.
“They were here on one of these benches,” I tell Alano, wondering if the blue bench we’re now sitting on could be one and
the same. “Rolando was urging Mom to divorce Dad for her safety. She got inspired, and the rest is history.”
“That’s incredible,” Alano says. “He helped save your mother’s life.”
I should text Mom a photo of us here at the park so she knows I’m okay, but I can’t get myself to do it. It’s like my brain
isn’t sending the signal to my body to grab my phone. I think I’m still too hurt by everything that went down.
“I missed coming here,” I say.
It sucked moving from our apartment in Manhattan to Rolando’s in Queens, but it wasn’t like I could go to my usual spots anyway
without being treated differently. The pizza maker next door used to throw in free garlic rolls with our pies because he liked
Dad, but sometime after I killed him, Mom finished packing up our old apartment and went to the pizzeria for dinner, only
to be thrown out before she could order. A couple months after the incident, we went back to my acting studio to continue
my training, but when we noticed that my headshot had been taken down from their Wall of Fame, we took the hint that the coach
no longer wanted to be associated with a kid who she helped book a role in one of the highest grossing movies of all time.
And as much as I loved Althea Park, I couldn’t play here anymore because I couldn’t handle the harassment from parents and
kids who saw me as a threat. That’s when I saw the move to Queens as a fresh start, where I could go to a new park and swing
on monkey bars and go down the slide and be a kid without anyone knowing my face.
“Smart move,” Alano says. “I got bullied here.”
“Why?”
“It was Fourth of July, three days after President Reynolds announced Death-Cast. There was no Pro-Natural Order or Death Guard yet, but people were scared of how life was going to change once we started predicting deaths. I became a target. Kids were shoving me around. One punched me. They were all telling me to die.”
I hate anyone who hurts Alano. “I wish I was there, I would’ve kicked their asses for you,” I say. That was obviously a big
summer of playing hero.
“Thanks. It was really sad. I walked away crying and...” Alano stops and stares at the hopscotch board on the ground, but
I don’t think he’s actually paying anything any mind. He’s deep in thought. “And I think you were there, .”
“Um... what?”
“On our first date at Make-A-Moment you mentioned that your gay awakening happened over the summer when you were nine.”
“Yeah...”
“You thought that it took place on Fourth of July at a park.”
“Okay.”
“Were you at Althea Park on Fourth of July in 2010?”
It takes me a minute to remember because sometimes my family would barbecue in Central Park or up in Riverdale, but that year
was definitely Althea Park. “I was here. Dad was manning the grill and giving Rolando shit for applying for the Death-Cast
job. Mom told me to go play to get away from the bad language.”
“That means...”
“That we were both at Althea Park at the same time,” I say. The only crazier coincidence is Alano finding me on the Hollywood
Sign. “Wait, wait, wait. You don’t think I’m the kid who punched you at the park, right? I had never been in a fight before
then.”
Alano shakes his head. “No, I know who that boy was. It also couldn’t have been you because I don’t actually think we were
here at the same time. You may have been arriving to the park as we were leaving.”
“How do you figure?”
“Your gay awakening happened when you saw a boy wiping his tears on the street. You don’t remember his face, but you said
he gave you that butterfly feeling that told you something was different in yourself.” Alano works through this equation.
“What if that crying boy was me?”
I obviously know what Alano looked like when he was a kid, but I didn’t know him back then. I guess that light-skinned, dark-haired
boy could’ve been Alano? I can kinda see him now, but it’s hazy. I don’t know if I’m now forcing Alano into this memory or
not, and I can’t exactly trust my brain.
“I guess it’s possible,” I say.
Alano smiles. “If I’m right, this means that we were each other’s gay awakening,” he says.
Kid Alano saw Kid in the Scorpius Hawthorne movie and Kid saw Kid Alano outside Althea Park.
Alano and I have always grown up knowing about each other, but what if we could’ve actually known each other before the Death-Cast stuff really kicked off? Does this mean we could’ve met if Death-Cast never happened? What if his family didn’t go to the park that day? What if they did and Alano wasn’t bullied because there was nothing to bully him for, so he was still at the park when I got there? And what if Alano and I met at Althea Park and had been in each other’s lives since then?
“I don’t know if this is true,” I say, smiling back at Alano. “But I like this theory.”
“I love this theory,” Alano says, looking between my hand and my eyes.
My heart is racing. “I wish you had stuck around. Life could’ve been so different.”
“Me too. Though leaving Althea Park explains why I don’t remember seeing you that day.”
“Why would you remember me?” Who knows how many kids were out and about then.
“This is what I actually want to talk to you about,” Alano says. He takes a deep breath as he taps his foot. “I have a secret
I’ve been keeping from almost everyone, but I...”
Alano stops speaking as that woman, the little girl, and the older man slowly approach. Dane is quick to block us, and I shift
closer to Alano too, ready to shield him in case this innocent-looking family tries some shit.
“I’m sorry to bother you,” the young woman says, holding close the little girl who looks like her clone. They both have light brown skin, straight dark hair, and the same brown eyes. “My daughter wanted to say hi.”
“You’re not bothering us,” Alano says. He tells Dane not to sweat it and he backs off. He turns to the little girl. “Hi. What’s
your name?”
“Penny,” she says. She squints at Alano then looks up at the woman. “I don’t think that’s him, Mommy.”
“Your mother is right. I’m Alano. It’s nice to meet you, Penny.”
“My mom said your name is .”
Alano blushes. “Oops,” he says, turning to me.
My heart is racing as I look up at the woman.
“You’re Dario, right?” she asks.
I brace myself now. “Yeah...”
“I thought I recognized you from the news.”
“If you’re some Death Guard weirdo—”
The woman sucks her teeth and laughs. “Oh no, we have brains in this family. I’m Lidia. Last week I started watching the Scorpius
Hawthorne movies with Penny in honor of her godfather’s birthday. We were only supposed to watch the first, but she got really
sick and wanted more so we had a big marathon. She’s scarily become a big Larkin Cano fan.”
I’m speechless. It’s been a minute since someone said hi because they liked me.
Penny lights up. “I like when you cast that curse at Professor Indigo and that fire snake ate his insides.”
Alano laughs. “You didn’t find that scary?”
“I don’t get scared,” Penny says.
“Oh yeah?” the older man says. “Remember your nightmares?”
“Nightmares happen when I’m sleeping, Tío Teo. I can’t be brave when I’m sleeping!”
The man laughs. “That’s very smart, Penny.”
Penny sits on the bench next to me. “Was it fun casting magic?”
I don’t know if I’m supposed to keep up the illusion that the magic was real; it’s like trying to figure out if I gotta lie
about Santa. “It was a lot of fun,” I say. The magic didn’t have to be real for the fun to be true.
“My Tío Mateo really loved those movies,” Penny says.
“He loved the books more,” Lidia says. “No offense.”
“My mom says I’m too young to read the books,” Penny says, swinging her legs.
“That’s okay, you can read them when you’re older,” I say. “Maybe with your Tío Mateo?”
“I can’t. Tío Mateo died,” Penny says.
I’m quiet because I don’t know what to say.
“Mateo was her godfather,” Lidia says. “And Teo’s son.”
“I’m so sorry,” I say. “How—I mean, when—did he pass?”
The last person in this circle I expect to answer is Alano, but he says, “September 5, 2017.”
Teo and Lidia stare at him. “How do you know that?” he asks.
“How the hell do you know that?” Lidia asks.
“Ooh, bad word, Mommy,” Penny says.
“I recognized your names from the Time magazine article about Living Last Friends,” Alano says. “You have an impressive record, Teo. I think it’s so extraordinary
how you and Lidia and those Plutos commemorate your losses by making sure Deckers aren’t alone on their End Days.”
We’re all still surprised at how Alano pulled that out of nowhere.
Lidia and Teo exchange glances. “It’s what Mateo would’ve done for us and what Rufus would’ve done for his friends,” Lidia
says.
“I was in a coma when my son passed,” Teo says, tearing up. “Without Death-Cast, Mateo would have died alone. Instead Mateo
and Rufus lived a beautiful End Day. I thank your family for making that possible.”
Alano nods. “Of course. You know, I’ve never been a Last Friend before, but has a few times.”
“That so?” Teo asks.
“Not as many times as you,” I say, which is obvious because he wouldn’t be the record holder if I had as many Last Friends
as he did. “Sounds like you’re the good ones on Last Friend. Some people on that app suck.”
“You mean like that serial killer?” Lidia asks. “Mateo was so creeped out by those stories. He was obsessing over every news
report.”
“No, I mean, yeah, that guy too, but there are other ways people abuse that app,” I say, thinking about my two shitty experiences with one real Decker and one fake Decker. “It’s just good to see someone doing good on it.”
Teo nods. “I’ve met many people who were treated unfairly in life. It hurts my heart, but I can rest knowing that I helped
make their final hours easier. I will do this for as long as I can, in honor of my son.”
If I had died, there’s no way in hell my dad would’ve spent the rest of his life honoring me. Honestly, it’s more likely he
would’ve spent the rest of his life behind bars for being the reason I was dead. Whoever this Mateo was, he had a great dad.
Surviving the death of a loved one isn’t easy. Penny lost her godfather. Lidia lost her best friend. Teo lost his son. I wonder
if there’ve been times when Teo and Lidia didn’t know if they would keep breathing. Or if they no longer wanted to. If Lidia
didn’t have Penny, would she want to take her own life, like Mom was planning? Was Teo put on suicide watch after he woke
up and found out his son was dead? I don’t know, but even if they wanted to die, they’re still here, breathing anyway.
“Do you mind taking a picture with Penny?” Lidia asks.
For a moment I think she’s talking to Alano before I remember Penny is my fan. Somehow.
“I’d love to,” I say.
Penny grabs a stick for the picture and holds it up like a wand. “Cheese!”
It’s honestly the sweetest thing and a glimpse into the life I could’ve had if I only became famous as that child actor from a Scorpius Hawthorne movie and not from you-know-what. It gives me hope for what might happen after I film the Death-Cast promotion.
Lidia tears up. “This would’ve made Mateo so happy.”
“This is making Mateo so happy,” Teo says, gazing at the sky.
They thank us for being so sweet to Penny and return to the playground where Penny uses her stick to cast curses at her mom.
“You’ve come a long way from getting harassed at this park, superstar,” Alano says.
I should call Mom to let her know there are people in this world who think I’m cool, but there’s bigger business to get to.
“I’m kind of dying here, I gotta know this secret,” I say.
“Absolutely. I don’t want to keep you in the dark. It’s about my brain.”
“And how you know everything?”
“I don’t know everything.”
“You almost do. What’s your deal? Do you have a high IQ? Are you actually an alien?”
“I’m not actually an alien. Not that I’m aware of, at least.”
“So you’re just supersmart.”
Alano blushes. “I’m technically a genius.”
“That’s not a secret. It doesn’t take a genius to know you’re a genius.”
“It’s more than that. My parents and teachers sensed I was gifted and had my IQ tested when I was six. The WISC—Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children—examined my verbal comprehension, visual spatiality, problem-solving, working memory, and processing. The average score is anywhere between ninety and one hundred and nine. I scored one thirty, marking me gifted with two percent of the population. The psychologist suspected I had eidetic memory, better known as photographic memory, but when I tested again four years later with another psychologist, he identified my ability as something rarer.”
Okay, so we’ve ruled out that Alano is an alien, but maybe he’s a real-life demonic wizard. Honestly, if Death-Cast has some
secret ability, maybe all the Rosas do too.
“Do you have some magical power or something?” I ask.
The longer Alano takes, the more I start suspecting that’s true. Like I’m about to find out that Alano Rosa is the Clark Kent
to some Superman who’s been flying around unnoticed.
Alano takes deep breaths, squeezing his eyes shut. “I’m sorry. This is scarier than coming out because I’ve only ever told
this secret to one person outside my parents.”
My chest squeezes. “Rio?”
“No. Ariana.”
I hope Ariana doesn’t run her mouth like her mom and keeps Alano’s secret, but I know I will. I reach out and hold his hand.
“You can trust me, Alano, but you don’t gotta tell me.”
“I have to if anything is going to happen between us,” Alano says, gazing at me with his brown eye and green eye. Then he
takes a deep breath and squints like the sun is in his eyes as he sheepishly says, “I have the power to remember everything.”
Did Alano just say he has the power to remember everything? Is that a thing?
This makes perfect sense but also no sense.
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“I have hyperthymesia, also known as highly superior autobiographical memory. There’s approximately a hundred documented cases
of this ability; I’m not one of them, as my parents don’t want anyone knowing. I understand why. If I was harassed for being
the Death-Cast heir, what would happen if anyone knew I had this power? My parents feared someone might try and dissect me
as if I’m all-knowing like Death-Cast. That’s not true, though. Death-Cast is not all-knowing about death, and I’m not all-knowing
about life. Not all life, at least. Unlike eidetic memory, which has a short-lived recall, my power allows me to remember
my entire life.”
“Hold up, hold up. You can remember your entire life? Like even when you were one?”
“My entire life,” Alano says.
“No fucking way.”
“Test me.”
“How do I test you?”
“Ask me anything about my life. You can get specific.”
I look around, not even knowing where to start. I guess here at Althea. “Okay, who was the boy that punched you?”
“Patrick Gavin, later known as Peck once initiated into a gang. He was arrested on Tuesday, September 5, 2017, for trying to kill Rufus Emeterio at Clint’s Graveyard and Rufus was saved by”—Alano points at Teo—“that man’s son, Mateo, which I only know because she”—he now points at Lidia—“was an eyewitness who is quoted in the police report that I read on Saturday, September 9, 2017, at exactly 11:12 a.m. Not that I could’ve said any of that just now without coming across as even more of a stalker than I already did by knowing about their Last Friend experiences from the article Time magazine published on Monday, July 20, at 10:00 a.m., later read by me during my lunch break at 12:46 p.m., when I was eating
leftover rigatoni in my father’s office.”
Alano stares at me with this smile like he might say, “Gotcha!” But he doesn’t. He’s serious.
I’m tempted to go find this police report or look up that Time magazine article to see if the timestamp matches what Alano said, but I don’t need to. “So if I asked you what was the first
thing I ever said to you, you would know?” I’m not even sure I do.
Alano nods. “You lowered your gun after I asked you not to shoot me. Your voice trembled as you said, ‘Get out of here.’ I
didn’t, so you shouted, ‘What are you doing? Alano, go!’ I was terrified, but I got closer. That’s when I recognized you.
I said to you, ‘Your blond hair threw me off. But I never forget a face.’ The whole truth is that I never forget anything.”
Alano Rosa knows everything. This is why I always thought of him as a walking encyclopedia. My own memories start playing back, not with times and dates and other super-specific details, but enough that helps me look at Alano in a new light: he knows so much about Peg Entwistle, the Hollywood Sign Girl, like he’s her personal biographer; he knows about those Hollywood stars who made comebacks despite their troubled pasts; he knows so many languages, I don’t even remember how many because I don’t have this power; he knows about those women who had late-in-life pregnancies; he knows when exactly Present-Time opened; he knows the exact day that Joaquin was supposed to meet Mom; and he knows way more than me about borderline personality disorder even though he wasn’t familiar with it until I gave him my diagnosis. Anyone can know all these things too, but if asked, how many of them can answer as quickly as if being asked their name?
“This is fucking amazing,” I say.
“Like all superpowers, there’s a cursed side to being gifted,” Alano says, shifting around again. “Remembering everything
means never forgetting anything. When I’m reliving a moment, it’s as if I’m time-traveling back to that day and experiencing
those feelings all over again. Good and bad.”
“So when I asked you about that boy punching you...?”
“It’s as if I was reliving that moment,” Alano says.
Instead of bringing that up again, I should’ve just punched Alano myself—oh shit, I actually almost did. I already hate myself
for almost hitting Alano, but I couldn’t survive knowing that he would forever relive that punch. Still, knowing that I almost
did is gonna haunt him anyway.
“I’m sorry I almost hit you, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” I say as if my apology will be all that he remembers.
Alano squeezes my hand, like he knows I’m about to get sucked into a violent tornado of a spiral. “I accepted your apology because that’s the only way I can move forward to create better memories instead of getting stuck in the bad ones.”
I think about some of the bad memories that could’ve been, like Alano watching me blow my brains out on the Hollywood Sign,
or even shooting me himself, and yeah, no one would forget those violent memories, but only Alano would relive it like it’s
happening right then and there. It’s not just violence that traumatizes people. It’s words too.
“I’m seriously so sorry I said you were dead to me,” I say.
“That was honestly the second worst thing you said that day.”
My blood was boiling in that argument, who knows what I said in the heat of the moment. I’m struggling to think about what’s
worse than telling the boy you love that he’s dead to you. Was it how I regretted staying alive for him?
No. Oh fuck, no.
I remember the moment Alano started sobbing. “I told you that you were stuck in the past.”
“And I said, ‘Please don’t say that, , you have no idea how much that hurts.’ Now you know why, but I’m not telling you about my power to guilt you. Between my hyperthymesia and your borderline personality disorder, we both can’t escape our pasts, but we have to know about each other’s conditions if we’re going to build a future together,” Alano says. He scoots closer on the bench, so close that our shoulders are touching. “I really want a future with you, but I have to protect you as much as I need to protect myself from a total psychotic break. It’s so hard to stay afloat when I’m trying to remain grounded in the present only for my mind to get whisked away to another time, or how I can’t even find peace in sleep because my vivid memories trigger horrible nightmares. I think I finally snapped after last Thursday at 12:03 a.m., when I heard Harry Hope shoot himself and then less than twenty-four hours later I was almost killed by Mac Maag.” He’s shaking and twisting, like a gun has been fired and that knife is still inside him. “I’m in this time loop where someone is trying to kill me over and over and over—”
“Remember our first date?” I interrupt, rescuing Alano from those horrible memories and the pain they bring. “And when we
were laughing on the Ferris wheel? And cooking with Mom and Rolando and dancing to Bad Bunny? And how happy you got when I
gave you the vanitas vase?”
Alano relaxes as he travels back through time. His brown eye and green eye water. “Thank you,” he says.
“I’ll always save you, and you’ll always save me,” I say, locking my fingers through his, like a promise that can’t be broken.
“Remember that.”
Alano’s unforgettable smile comes out. “I’ll remember that.”
I wanna lean in and kiss him so bad, it’s like my chest is on fire, but I gotta cool it. “And I’m down to take it slow to
make sure our heads are good.”
“I really appreciate that. I was scared to bring that up to you because I didn’t want you to get the wrong idea. I’m really trying to be careful, and I regret when I wasn’t. It’s easy for me to memorize an entire textbook, but emotional intelligence is only learned with experience. We’ll have our bumps in the road, but we’ll get over them together.”
There’s gonna come a time when I get sucked into some stupid-ass spiral over something Alano says and I’m gonna bust out of
it by reminding myself that Alano wants a future with me, even though he knows that’s gonna come with highs and lows.
“Thanks for opening up about all that. I’m gonna keep it a secret, obviously,” I say, almost mentioning how I won’t even tell
Mom when I remember that I’m not saying anything to her right now. “Was that all you had to tell me?”
“Actually, there is something else,” Alano says, then pauses. I can’t tell if he’s lost in the past or just his thoughts.
“I don’t know if you...”
I sense one of those stupid-ass spirals circulating. “You don’t know if I what?”
“I don’t know if you’re going to think I overstepped here, but I know time is of the essence for you to face your father’s
ghost. You’re filming the promotion tomorrow before the gala and then you’re returning to Los Angeles to spend the anniversary
with your mother.”
I mean, I’m not sure that’s still happening, but that’s gotta wait. “I don’t get where you overstepped,” I say, getting nervous.
“One of the reasons I chose Althea Park is because it’s ten blocks from your old building,” Alano says.
“I never gave you my address,” I say. If I did, I definitely forgot.
“No, but I remembered it from when my father was supposed to meet you and your mother.”
That’s wild and gonna take some getting used to.
“Anyway, I went online and saw there were some apartments listed for rent. One of them is 6G,” he says, and gently adds, “I
made an appointment for us to check it out.”
My old apartment is vacant. “I’m not moving back there,” I say.
“Of course not. If you want to return to that space to confront your father’s ghost, I’ll be there with you. If you don’t,
no harm, no foul. I can cancel the appointment and we’ll stick to your original plan.”
“What time is the appointment?” I ask.
Alano checks his watch. “Twenty minutes from now.”
That’s so soon, it’s too soon, I don’t know if I can do this, or if I should.
Alano reminds me that I don’t have to. “I’ve only known you for five days, but you’ve shown me so much strength in that time.
You got down from that Hollywood Sign. You applied for a new acting job under your real name. You committed to dialectical
behavior therapy. You watched Grim Missed Calls . You stood up to my father. You survived over and over, even when you reached new lows. The only thing holding you back is your father’s ghost. You will never forget him, but you can leave your guilt in the past so he can’t haunt you anymore.” He offers a gentle smile. “If it’s too overwhelming, I’ll be right there. Don’t forget: I’ll always save you, and you’ll always save me.”
It’s now or never if I want closure before the anniversary.
I get up, taking the first of many painful steps through the park, all so I can finally close my most painful wound.