Mateo

Mateo, a character in the With Every Heartbeat book, is Dakota Winchester's best friend. He is first seen in Chapter 2.

Appearance
Mateo has brown eyes, short wavy dark brown hair, and tanned skin. His casual clothes consist of gray and red hensley shirt and khakis, and a corded/braided brown bracelet.

Personality
"I'm basically a teen with the internal organs of a sixty-year-old boozehound."

- Mateo to you

Mateo has a good sense of humor and appreciates it when others joke along with him. Dakota says he is a terrible secret keeper.

With Every Heartbeat

 * Chapter 2: Hope Springs
 * Chapter 3: Just Friends
 * Chapter 4: Falling
 * Chapter 5: Mourning After
 * Chapter 6: Making the Cut (Off-screen; Physical Appearance Determinant)
 * Chapter 7: Worried Sick
 * Chapter 9: Waiting Game
 * Chapter 10: The Hereafter
 * Chapter 11: The Send-Off
 * Chapter 12: Left Behind
 * Chapter 13: Matchmaker
 * Chapter 14: Life After
 * Chapter 15: Dancing in the Dark
 * Chapter 16: Meant to Be

Family
Because his parents live a few hours away and work full time, they don't visit him as often as they want to.

Dakota Winchester
Dakota is one of Mateo's best friends, who visits him in the hospital every week. In Chapter 2, if you decide to eavesdrop on them, you hear Mateo tease Dakota about you. Mateo can tell that Dakota has a crush on you and wants Dakota to tell you about himself/herself (about his/her cancer) but Dakota can't bring himself/herself to do it yet. Mateo keeps pushing Dakota to tell you about his/her feelings until Chapter 4 when Dakota finally confesses them.

When Dakota wants to film his/her application entry "Dark Pact", Mateo jokes that you were the only one to volunteer, not them. Dakota says their promise to help was implicit because they're friends.

Lennox
Lennox knew Mateo first, before introducing him to Dakota. The three of them form the Three Musketeers, getting into various shenanigans in the hospital. In Chapter 3, Lennox pushes Mateo in a wheelchair against Dakota as they race down the pediatrics ward. They win the "Wheelchair 500-Foot Race" and Mateo and Dakota introduce Lennox to you. Mateo calls her the prickly pear in their fruit salad. In Chapter 5, Mateo tells Lennox to back off when you are mourning Gracie's death. In Chapter 11, if you suggest to Dakota that they have feelings for each other, he/she will laugh and say there’s no way.

Your Character
You first meet Mateo on your first day volunteering at Edenbrook Hospital. Your mother had gotten you a job as an intern with the Hope Springs charity foundation, and after helping Mrs. Batra with their social media account, she asks you to meet some of Hope Springs patients including a young man your age in room 307. When you travel the halls of the hospital, you spot a young patient named Gracie hiding as Dakota and Mateo "look" for her. Dakota introduces you two and Mateo calls himself "Dakota's better half."

In Chapter 6, when you are grounded for breaking curfew, Dakota, Mateo, and Lennox invite you to video chat, watch something on tv together and rag on it. It was how they spent a lot of their bad days in the hospital together. You have the premium option to join them or instead do chores. In Chapter 7, you have the premium option to convince Marlene (who Lennox has deemed "Nurse Ratched") and Danny to let you take Mateo out to a cat cafe on his day pass. If you do, you four play Plead The Fifth where Mateo says he's a Hufflepuff if asked, or that his wish would be that organ transplants did not require the organ donor to die.

In Chapter 9, if you decide to get Mateo and Lennox at the hospital, Mateo tries to assuage your fears by telling you that Dakota has good odds. He/she only has a twenty percent risk of recurrence especially once in remission for five years. However, Mateo's confident words don't last long when you three find out that Dakota's cancer has returned.

Trivia

 * Mateo shares his first name with Matt Rodriguez's Spanish first name.
 * The name Mateo is of Latin origin and means "gift of God".
 * Mateo has been diagnosed with hepatocellular carcinoma (liver cancer) and has been in the hospital for six months when you first meet him.
 * In Chapter 10, he announces that the chemo is shrinking his tumors. When they shrink further as the weeks go by, he is able to have surgery to remove the rest. At the end of the chapter, he says he is officially cancer free.
 * Mateo has a cat named Monty who has been his partner in crime since Mateo was 8 years old.
 * In Chapter 16, Mateo and Lennox mention graduating next year (in 2021); thus they were juniors in high school while you and Dakota were seniors.