Alex got home from work and took a deep breathe, his chest felt so heavy. Why did this have to happen to them? Out of all the friend groups in the world, why theirs? It was only about 10 at night, but he was already tired. He needed to finish some work up, but his eyes were heavy. He felt himself slowly drifting to sleep, but he didn’t try to stop it. He needed rest.

When he woke up, he checked his phone to see the time. His phone read “August 1st, 7:47 p.m.”  What? What is this? How did time go.. in reverse?

It felt as something inside of him had woken up, he made a huge realization. Maybe this was his chance to be able to fix everything.

He tried to remember what was the first thing to go wrong in timeline. And then it clicked. The first nightmare he had was of Sam’s suicide. His suicide began a domino effect. His suicide caused Milo’s suicide, Milo would rather be dead than without the love of his life, and then Milo’s suicide caused Oliver to mentally break and kill his abusive father (Oliver lived with Milo up until his unfortunate demise, and after it happened Oliver had to move back in with his dad). If Alex stopped Sam from ending his life, he’d be able to save him, Milo, and Oliver. And everything would be alright again. He dived deep into his memory, trying to remember where in his dream Sam had jumped from.

Aha! It was one of the old, abandoned building downtown, he knew exactly where it was. He rushed to the building but he didn’t see anyone on top of it. He kept his eyes glued to the top, waiting for his friend to appear.

August 1st, 9:07 p.m.

Sam was walking by himself downtown. It was late at night and he was in a bad part of town. The sounds of bottles clinking and people walking around in the distance. People’s yells and bellows echoed off the sides of the alley he was walking down. Two men, older than him, were walking down the same alley and weren’t paying attention to where they were going.

Sam and one of the men crossed paths, bumping shoulders along the way. Sam closed his eyes, fearing the man would try to pick a fight with him.

“Hey! You need to watch where you’re going, kid!” The man turned around and yelled at him.

Sam turned to face the man that talking to him, “Do you think I’m obligated to move out of the way just because I’m younger than you?”

The man stepped closer to Sam and scoffed, “Yeah, you need to respect your elders”

Sam laughed, he was looking to get a rise out of the man.

“Do you think something about this is funny,” the man poked Sam’s chest, “kid?”

His attempt to get a rise out of the man worked, judging by the infuriated look on the man’s face.

“Yeah, it’s kind of funny when people get so angry over small things like this, it’s idiotic,” Sam retaliated.

The man pushed Sam backwards, making him hit his head against the brick wall of the alley that they’re in, “You know, kid,” He said right before he punched Sam right in his abdomen, “You shouldn’t go around acting all arrogant and running your mouth like that, it’s gonna get you in trouble.”

Sam continued on laughing, and the man became even more infuriated. He punched Sam again.. and again, and again, and again. Sam fell to his knees, holding his stomach. The man and his friend began kicking him anywhere they could; his stomach, his legs, his head, his face. They continued on for 30 seconds and then they decided that enough was enough.

Sam was whimpering and crying on the ground, cradling his head in his arms.

The two men laughed at him, making him feel even more defeated and weak than he already felt.

“You know,” the first man began to say, “this is why you need to learn respect.”

“Kids like you don’t even deserve to be alive,” the other man chimed in, “picking fights with people. Dirtying up the streets. You’re the reason this town is going to hell.”

The men walked away, leaving Sam to catch his breath from the beating he had just endured.

Their words echoed in his mind, “Don’t deserve to be alive, don’t deserve to be alive, don’t deserve to be alive, don’t deserve to be …”

“Were they right?” He said quietly to himself, “Maybe I don’t deserve to be alive.” He wasn’t going to lie, the thought of suicide has crossed his mind many times. He had had a particularly rough life, and it only got worse when him and his group of friends were no more.

His parents kicked him out, he dropped out of school halfway through his senior year. At this point, he would rather be dead than continue on taking up space and air on this godforsaken Earth.

He got up and looked across the street to an old, abandoned building. Him and his friends one time went ghost hunting there when there was nothing else to do. He walked up to it, blacking out as he made his way up the stairs and found himself on the roof.

He walked over to the ledge, looking down and smiling. He saw a familiar face down below, it was his eldest friend, Alex.

Alex looked up and saw his friend so close to the edge. Sam was swaying back and forth, smiling maniacally.

“Sam … don't you dare move!” Alex yelled, “I’m gonna come and get you, it’s all going to be okay.”

Sam looked down at him and began to cry, “... I’m sorry,” he said as leaned forward and let his body fall.

Alex ran toward where Sam was falling in an attempt to try to catch him, but to no avail. Right before Sam hit the ground Alex closed his eyes and winced.

And… Splat!

Alex woke up and gasped, “ What happened? What time is it? What day is it?” he thought to himself. He immediately grabbed his phone. “August 1st, 7:47 a.m.” Memories from the past night had started flooding back to him. He must of blacked and went back home. But what was with the time again? Was he getting another chance to fix everything? Was this finally the day where he was going to fix the timeline and save everyone. He got out his phone and called Nick, and to his surprise he actually answered.

“What is it, dude? What do you want?” Nick’s voice sounded groggy, like he had just woken up.

“I uh- We should get the gang together. Hang out like old times, ya know?” Alex’s voice was shaky, if he messed this up then everything would be ruined.

“Oh, not what I was expecting. Yeah, totally. I’ll get ahold the other's and tell them. Your place at 7, okay?” Mike didn’t show it, but he was happy.

Alex was trying to contain  his excitement, “Yeah! I’ll get snacks and everything,” He couldn’t hold back his smile, “See you then, bye!”

He hung up and squealed like a schoolgirl that had just gotten ask out by her crush. He was going to fix everything.

The others showed up at around 7:30, all being fashionably late like always. Alex hugged each and every one of them. He forgot how much each one of them meant to him, unfortunately.

“Why did we ever stop hanging out?” Sam said while chuckling.

Gabe looked at him and smiled, “I honestly don’t know, but I didn’t realize how empty my life was life was without you guys. Let’s never stay apart for a long period of time again.”

They all looked at each other and nodded silently, and Alex smiled to himself, feeling as if he had fixed their fates.

Everything normal for the first time in forever, everything felt okay. Alex looked around at his wonderful friends and began to tear up. He was never going to let this go again.

The seven boys laughed through the night, time slipping away from them. Before they knew it, it was past midnight and it was too dark (and frankly, too dangerous) to walk home. They all decided to just stay at Alex’s house where it was nice and safe.

When the conversation began to die down and they all decided to get tired, Alex had one last thing to say before they all went to bed, “Guys, I know that Gabe already brought this up, but let’s promise to stay in each other’s life forever okay? I know we started to drift apart recently and there’s no one to blame but ourselves. I feel like our lives would fall apart without each other,” He felt tears pooling up and threatening to fall out of his eyes, “I know our lives would fall apart without each other. Let’s just make a pact to never leave each other okay? I care about you all too much for anything to happen to you.”

And that’s what they did. Seven boys made a pact to not drift apart like they had already began to and decide to stay by each others’ sides. And that’s what they did. The timeline was fixed, and everything was okay.