Before I start my part can I make a disclaimer? Yeah? Ok good, first of all, I've decided to name this title based on the whole series of decisions I've made last night, and is not just because of you Thomas, although you do have a small role on it. And also, trying to record this while walking in a trail in the dark is harder than you can imagine, so don't blame me if the story is a little shitty.
I woke up that day a bit later than usual, around eleven I think, and my head hurt a lot, I was indeed very hungover, as Steve guessed. And what is the first thing I see in the morning? 6 missed calls from an old friend that I haven't talked in forever. I wasn't very pleased, so I decided to ignore and went to my kitchen to make some coffee.
In the whole time I didn't realize that it was pitch dark when it shouldn't be, I actually glad I hadn't woken up with a excruciating sunlight on my face. It was only about an hour later when the coffee kicked in I realized there was something wrong. At first I thought my phone was fucked up for some reason and it was displaying the wrong time, but when I turned on the TV the news were all over the place.
I was in disbelief, I went back and forth to the balcon to look up to the sky wondering if it wasn't just a super long eclipse. That was about when Thomas called me and told me he was at Mike's and they were about to have a meeting, which made no sense at all, but I was starting to freak out, so I agreed to anything he said and went over to Mike's.
"Text me when you're downstairs, I'll pick you up." He said before hanging up the phone. I didn't know why he said that, but I was in a sort of automatic pilot, just following orders to whoever made most sense.
I don't live very far from their place so it took me about 15 minutes to get there, as I was walking on the street I've had barely seen anyone, the few people who was out looked as confused as I was. There was even a guy on a public square announcing it was the end of times and how that was god's punishment above us all. I didn't see any police, that's also worth mentioning, I guess.
I texted Thomas when I was about to get into the building and he promptly responded he was coming downstairs.
"I'm so glad you're ok." He said, hugging me as soon as he opened the door.
"What is going on?" I asked. He looked pale, and I'm pretty sure he was sweating, but he seemed extra anxious than anyone else I'd seen.
"I don't know..." he looked me in the eyes, worried, and then he hugged me again. "But listen, it's gonna be alright, ok?"
I nodded and we headed upstairs. Before we walked into the apartment he stopped and turned back to me.
"Listen, about what happened last night..." he was shifting his weight between his feet which made look like he hasn't thought out that part of the conversation. "Can we not talk about it in front of them?"
"Why? It wasn't that big of a deal, and I told you everything already, why are you worrying about it?" I asked him.
Thomas took a deep breath and look over his shoulder to check the door, there was nobody there.
"Yes, yes I get it, but let's just not bring it up ok?"
He didn't wait for an answer, he turned his back on me and walked into the apartment. I walked in behind him and was filled with this strange feeling. When Mike and Steve moved there we all helped him with the boxes, and that was before I moved away to college, which means it was probably the last time I've seen the those 3 idiots together and there we were again. Was it happiness I was feeling? Or was it nostalgia? Maybe even the bit of alcohol left in my bloodstream fucking with my head.
"Long time no see." Said Mike.
"Last time I saw you I'm pretty sure neither of your eyes were black." I replied.
"Yeah, that's on Thom-Thom there."
I looked to Thomas and he just looked down, I didn't really asked much about it.
"So we're really having a meeting, huh." I walked towards Steve and gave him a hug.
"It might be the last one." he said with a smile. "Chances are if the sun doesn't rise soon it's likely we'll die."
"Or society will crumble and the homeless will murder us all." Added Thomas.
"How exciting." I replied ironically.
We grabbed two chairs from the kitchen table and made a little circle on the living room, with Steve and Mike seated on each end of the couch and me and Thomas on the chairs. That used to always be the set up of the meeting, making a circle, or the closest we could get of a circle, and throwing questions trying to get some answers.
The first question was from my part.
"Do we have a theory?"
"Not really," Thom answered first "all of them sound too shitty"
"We thought maybe the sun had exploded or disappeared." Started Steve.
"But then we'd be dead either way." Finished Mike.
"We thought maybe the Earth just stopped, but Mikey boy here said we would also die if that was the case," Thomas said, "and we checked twitter and no one in the world seems to have sunlight, so it's not like it's has just stopped spinning"
"Ok, so we are lost on that," I concluded, "what about solutions, do we have any suggestions?" They all looked at each other for a while, but didn't say anything. "So we're all out on theories, and all out on solutions? What are we even doing here anyways?"
"Do you have a better think to do on a dark summer afternoon?" Mike replied.
"Yes, Mike, I actually do."
"Enlighten us, then." he shot back.
Thomas gave me a worried glance and I hesitated for a bit, but then I reasoned with myself, the sun hadn't rose and it was almost two in the afternoon, all around the globe the governments were incessantly working trying to figure out what was going on. We probably should be dead by now. And for fuck's sake, those are my friends, they knew everything about me ever since we were kids, why should I hide things from them?
"Ok, I might as well bring something useful to the table. I had a weird night out, had a bit way too much to drink and in result, I've made some bad decisions." Thomas had covered his face with his hand by now, and I'm pretty sure Mike realized it because he kept shooting glances at both of us.
"Well, at least something we can go through with." Steve said, fixing his posture on the couch.
"Ok, so..." I looked around to see if everyone was paying attention, their eyes were fixed on me, Thomas was shaking his head slowly. "I had a boyfriend in college, and we've been, I mean, we were dating for like a year and a half. But just before summer started, we broke up." I sighed a bit, it was still hard to talk about it, I am definitely not over it still, "and you know, coming back to hometown for vacations, trying to get my mind off of everything, last night I went out to have a few drinks..."
"Oh boy..." Mike giggled.
"Yeah..." I went on, "So at some point in the middle of the night, I ended up drunk calling him and said I wanted to see him again and all that crap. Long story short, I bought a bus ticket to see him, and it leaves tonight. But I'm starting to have doubts about it, I don't really know if I should go."
"Why did you guys break up?" Steve asked.
That was the topic I was most sensitive about, but I've gone too far to come back now.
"He cheated on me."
"Dude, what the fuck?" Exclaimed Mike. "Why the hell would you even consider going back to him?"
"Yeah, I mean he's an asshole just by doing that do you" Steve added.
"I know, that's what Thom said too, but I don't know... I just miss him, you know?"
"Hey, hey, hey..." Mike interrupted me. "Thomas didn't open his mouth this entire time." Steve shot a confuse glance to everyone around the room. "What do you mean he said that too?"
"That was the second bad decision of the night." I added.
"Hey!" Thomas tried to defend himself but shut up when we looked at him.
"We met outside a bar last night, and I told him this story then."
"How was that a bad decision?" Steve questioned.
At this point Thomas was in complete despair, as if I was just about to murder him or something.
"You see, he noticed I was pretty sad and all that, so... He tried to comfort me, you know..." Steve was still clueless, I wonder how can someone be smart but stupid at the same time. "We fucked last night." I finish impatiently.
There was a awkward silence in the room, Steve and Mike slowly turned their eyes to Thomas, who was looking down at his feet.
"You fucking broke the promise!" Mike yelled, standing up and pointing his finger on Thomas' face.
"Oh come on..." He tried to defend himself.
"I can't believe you, man" Steve said, but his tone was more disappointment rather than anger.
"It was a stupid promise, ok?!" Now Thomas had stood up as well.
"A meeting promise is not a stupid promise!" Mike shouted back. "We talked a lot about this, and it took effort to get into an agreement, for you to just fucking ignore it?"
To clear things out, a said 'meeting promise' is a promise the four of us agree on during a meeting that we could never break. For an example, in junior year we made a meeting promise for Mike to stop lying to this girl about his feelings towards her, and on the following day he told her all the truth and she slapped him in the face. He was pretty angry about it, but it was a meeting promise, it was stronger than anything else, we didn't even set a punishment in case someone broke it, that's how much we believed in the promise.
"Grow up Mike, we made that stupid promise on freshman year. Why are you still obsessed with it?" shouted Thomas.
"Because I'm pretty sure that stupid promised was the reason we stayed friends for the rest of high school." Mike shouted back.
Steve was just sitting back, still with a disappointed look on his face. There was a bit of silence after that, I was in shock of how quickly the situation escalated and how everyone seemed to know what they were talking about. Everyone but me.
"Wait, let's go back a little bit," I started, "what promise are you guys talking about? Because I don't remember any major meeting promise in freshman year."
"You weren't there" Said Thomas in a quiet tone, "the meeting was about you"
"What?!"
"Remember the fight these two fuckers had that year?" Mike pointed to both of them and all they could do was look away, as if they were ashamed of it. "Well, yeah, they were fighting because both of them had a crush on you. So I had to step up and call a meeting to figure everything out."
"You made a fucking meeting without me?!" I shouted. "That ruins the whole fucking point of a fucking meeting, you dumbass!"
In hindsight I don't know why I was so angry about it, but the little teenager inside me felt so fucking betrayed.
"Yeah Sofy, what I was supposed to do? Let them beat each other over you? They didn't want to involve you either, it's not only on me."
"Well, maybe not give two shits about their opinions just like you didn't give a shit about mine?" he didn't answer. I'm glad he didn't try. "God, I can't believe this... And what was the promise about?"
"About that..." Mike started shyly.
"None of us could date you." Steve said, interrupting mike and finally for once since this shit went down he looked at me. "We both liked you and it wouldn't be fair to risk our friendship, so we decided to call out. But now I see it was stupid not to include you. I'm sorry"
I tried to yell at him, but I couldn't. I felt he was being genuine with his words. But of course I could yell if I wasn't looking at him, so I sat down back in my chair and looked down.
"I can't believe you guys tried to control my life..."
"Well we've been doing that do each other every meeting." Mike said.
"Without me knowing!" I shouted at him.
"Oh ok..." he replied.
"I'm mad with all of you." I said finally.
"And I'm mad at Thomas because he broke his fucking promise." Said Mike sitting down.
"I'm just feeling bad about this whole thing." Steve added.
"To be honest I am pissed at every single one of you. You are all here bringing shit from the past when there is an actual problem to be discussed and you are all ignoring it like fucking children!"
Me, Mike and Steve exchange a few glances with each other.
"Thomas is right," Mike started, "you shouldn't go back to your ex."
"Oh yeah, I'm not. That's final."
"Good call." Steve added.
Thomas, who was now the only one standing up, took a deep breath trying to calm down, which didn't work because he pointed to the window and proceeded to yell at us.
"I'm talking about the goddamn sun problem we are having here!"
"What is there to talk about?" Steve asked.
"Exactly, we don't have a clue about what's going on, not even the fucking NASA knows what's happening." Mike said.
Once again Thomas took a deep breath, he kept looking at his feet for a bit, he opened his mouth once but hesitated.
"Well..." he finally said. "I might know what happened."
