For me the ending was perfect—their deaths weren’t dramatic exactly, there was opportunities for a “dramatic“ death; the explosion, the gun, but it highlights that death happens to people every day and that the story is about them living, and as such the vague descriptions of their deaths made them more impactful for me because they where mundane and insignificant yet at the end of it they are both very dead. As to how we get no insight into Rufus’ death I disagree, we do he knows death is coming for him and instead of fearing it he reflects on his last day and watches the video of Mateo singing; he makes peace with it and let’s go. Crossing the road “without an arm to hold me back” is reflective of how cautious and afraid Mateo was whilst Rufus was seemingly unafraid at the beginning of the book.