Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in They Both Die at the End, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Mortality, Life, and Meaning
Human Connection and Social Media
Choices and Consequences
Friendship and Chosen Family
Business, Ethics, and Dehumanization
Summary
Analysis
Rufus wakes up choking on smoke. He reaches for Mateo, but he’s alone. Rufus grabs his phone, shouts for Mateo, and crawls to the front door, searching for Mateo. He coughs in the hallway, thinking that later, Mateo can tell him about all these neighbors. Rufus coughs and runs back inside. He doesn’t know why Mateo broke the rules and got out of bed, but he’s certain that Mateo was trying to do something nice. Near the kitchen, Rufus finds Mateo’s body—his skin is boiled. Rufus drags Mateo away from the fire. In the hallway, Rufus cradles Mateo’s body. Neighbors try to pull Rufus away as firefighters arrive, but Rufus lashes out. He finally tells a firefighter that Mateo didn’t receive an alert today and he shouts for the firefighters to do something. A medic pulls out a body bag. Rufus snatches it away—he thinks that Mateo isn’t dead.
Even though Rufus knows that both he and Mateo are going to die today, it doesn’t make it any easier to deal with Mateo’s death when it happens. In this sense, the world of the novel isn’t so different from the reader’s world, and the novel’s lessons still hold true: humans are mortal and could die at any time, so it’s important to make the most of each moment and do one’s best to connect with others. Rufus’s reaction also speaks to the intensity of his relationship with Mateo. In some ways, his chosen family with Mateo may have been more meaningful than Rufus’s actual familial relationships.
Themes
At 9:16, Rufus sits on the curb as medics bag up Mateo’s body. The medics attend to Rufus in the ambulance. Rufus is enraged, but he talks to Mateo through the body bag. Ten minutes later, from a hospital bed, Rufus scrolls through his phone and reads all the comments on his Instagram. Tagoe, Malcolm, and Aimee all leave heartfelt comments. Rufus texts them all that Mateo died, and he tells them to scatter his ashes at Althea Park and to be there for one another. Twenty minutes after this, Rufus snaps awake from a nightmare in which Mateo was on fire, blaming Rufus for his death. Rufus knows that Mateo wouldn’t blame him. He thinks that Mateo didn’t deserve to die like that, but he died a hero. Mateo saved Rufus.
Rufus is entirely justified in feeling cheated and as though this isn’t fair—it isn’t. However, rather than allowing his anger to rule his final hours, Rufus chooses to reach out to his friends. By doing this, he’s able to connect one final time. When, like Mateo, Rufus also experiences a nightmare the last time he sleeps, it drives home that both boys are, to a degree, living through a nightmare. However, they can choose to reframe this and live to the fullest on their last day.
Themes
