My fate was sealed before the curtains drew. Sickness had already set in.

Suspended lights turned and curled inwards. Center stage became fully illuminated. There, standing in the middle of his fellow first graders was Jeffrey. My Jeffrey. The son who had made me so proud when he first told me he landed the lead role in the school play.

No father was meant to feel ill at a time like this. Yet, for me, sitting in the rows of seats lined up on the gymnasium floor with the other parents, it felt inevitable.

Jeffrey took a couple steps forward. He stood alone, ahead of the other children. He began to recite the lines I had helped him rehearse just a few hours earlier.

At first, I heard his words clearly.

“In the beginning,” he said. “There were only a few of us.”

I mouthed the words along with him silently. With deliberate attention to detail, I tried to stay with every syllable. I tuned in. I didn’t want to leave the makeshift auditorium.

“But times changed, and now we are many.”

His words sounded further away. The voice had gotten deeper. I started to slip.

“From this day forward we will…”

The rehearsed words trailed off. The voice I then heard was no longer that of my son’s. It was the voice of the daytime news anchor broadcasting a breaking report. He spoke with the casual professionalism of a man with no personal connection to the heartache his words would create. The buzzing static of an old TV was in the background.

It was a recording I could never forget. I had only played it over in my mind a thousand times before.

Tragedy strikes close to home today. The body of eighteen-year-old Westmount resident, Amy Bray, was found in a dumpster behind a bakery near the downtown core. The body shows signs of severe sexual assault and trauma around the neck. All evidence suggests she was strangled to death with a rope.

An anonymous tip was given to police this morning stating that screaming could be heard from the parking lot and a bald man could be seen running from the area shortly after. Police were on the scene within minutes and have since taken homeless man, Troy McAllen, into custody. Authorities are urging whoever called to step forward and provide more information.

The mug shot of his wrinkled face came into view. That bald headed mother-fucker left his DNA sprinkled all over the crime scene. His eyes glared back at me, just like they did from the TV screen for the first time nearly twelve years prior.

I was no longer in the school gym watching my son’s play. I was somewhere else.

The routine of running through the same memory over and over against my will was not a new development. I had been trying to get over it with the support of family, friends and medical professionals for years.

But things weren’t getting any better. They never got any better. Something needed to change. That much was obvious.

The bathroom floor was sticky. My dress pants clung to it as I tried to lift myself above the open toilet. As I knelt there dry-heaving, I dreaded two things.

First, the idea of having to wait alone in this school bathroom for the vomit (if there would be any) to come out.

Second, the fact that at some point in the evening, I would have to explain to my wife why I had gotten up from my seat. Why I embarrassed both of us as I ran out of the gymnasium with one hand on my mouth, the other on my stomach.

I gave up on the former after twenty-five uneventful minutes. But there was no way I was going to try and squeeze my way back to the empty seat in the gym. Instead, I succumbed to the temptation. With shaking fingers, I dialled my brother’s number.

“Hello,” Noah answered. His voice sounded tired. He knew my reason for calling.

“Noah,” I said. “It’s happening again. I’m leaning over the toilet seat in Jeffrey’s school bathroom right now. It’s bad, it’s real bad. Don’t think I can get up.”

The sigh was long on the other end of the line. I clenched my teeth and stretched across the closed toilet lid.

Perhaps even my brother, the one person I felt I could trust above anyone else, had grown weary of dealing with me.

I couldn’t bring myself to blame him, though. On our last phone call, I took the gamble and crossed the line. I mentioned the proposition. Surely, I sounded delusional. And perhaps, I was delusional.

After what I’m sure was much deliberation, Noah spoke again.

“Roger, remember what the doctor said. Relapses are part of the healing process. You need to keep the pills with you. Always need em on you.”

“But I’ve been taking them, and all the other pills I’ve tried for almost ten years now, Noah. Doesn’t help, it never fucking helped. Can’t make it go away. I think I’m going to try to-“

“Stop it!” Noah interjected. “I don’t want to hear that proposition shit again. It’s nonsense, and you know it’s nonsense.”

I felt strong enough to lift myself off the bathroom floor. I stumbled out of the stall and used the nearest sink for support. I looked at myself in the mirror. The man who looked back didn’t look crazy. At least, not to me.

“I’m not delusional,” I said. “I was there. I was fully there both times. It was real. I remember what it said.”

“Listen,” Noah responded, his voice noticeably calmer. “There’s no one I care about more than you, Roger. Fucking kills me getting these phone calls though. Amy died twelve years ago. It hurt everyone, not just you. Think about her parents, think about her two brothers. Think about everyone who knew her at school, think about everyone else at the party who also could have done something. Hell, even I get nightmares about it.”

I dug the phone into my ear. Guilt over the amount of stress I was likely putting on Noah ran through me. He never married, and I was the closest family that he had. And this is what I was doing to him.

“I know it’s hard,” he continued. “But this isn’t just about you, don’t forget that. You have a family now, and they need their father. You can’t keep disappearing into some twisted fantasy world of self-despair. Amy is dead, and you need to move on. And you will move on. That much I promise you. Please don’t go down this road. Amy wasn’t for you. It’s best you don’t think about her. There is only pain for you there.”

Click.

Noah’s voice stopped coming through the phone.

Later that night, the bedroom was completely dark. I hadn’t let my eyes close since going to bed. They were well adjusted. I relaxed my neck and let my head roll to the side. The clock read 2:44 AM.

It was almost time.

Chelsea was asleep. At least of that, I could be sure. Somehow, I had managed to avoid explaining my absence during the play. We didn’t speak a word about it, or anything else after leaving the school.

The truth is, she likely knew full well the reason. She was aware of the mental sickness that had controlled my mind for all the years of our marriage.

It wasn’t fair. All this time, she was stuck between being the supporting wife of a sick man and living with the hurt that came with the knowledge that the source of his misery was longing for another woman. And it wasn’t just any woman. She knew Amy well. They used to be best friends.

Chelsea had every right to be as upset as I was. More upset if anything. She was at the party that night as well. Her actions also indirectly led to the final outcome.

That night was just like the morning after the party, the first time Chelsea and I had shared a bed together. I had woken up and lay there beside her for some time as she slept. I remember mixed feelings towards how things had played out the night prior. I was already fantasizing that it would have been Amy who I had slept with instead.

I tried to take a mental photo of the scene. Separated by nearly twelve years, Chelsea and I lay together in bed before something terrible was about to happen. The first and last times were so similar in that way.

I rose and tiptoed towards the door.

Before I left the room, I momentarily considered looking back. I owed Chelsea that at least. Part of me genuinely loved her. She was the one who stayed up with me, running her hand through my hair on the countless, sleepless nights. She was the woman I made love to more than any other. She was the mother of my son.

But, the burden was too heavy. I listened for the click as the door closed behind me.

I wish I could have been as decisive as I passed Jeffrey’s room. His door was open a crack, just as it always was. It made a long, high pitched creak as I nudged it forward.

Jeffrey was on his side, facing the wall on the far side of the room. His feet stretched outwards and rubbed together.

The sight of him made my knees buckle. I slid my hands upward on the door frame until they were straight above my shoulders.

For a long time, that room was where I would go to be alone. It was after Chelsea and I had bought that house, and before Jeffrey was born. I would often come to that room and stare out the window above his bed.

It was like a portal for me. When I looked outside, I could go back to the night where it all went wrong. Where I had blundered and not acted as I should have. I was too cowardly to pick up on the cues. I didn’t take the girl I longed for. That decision was what had ultimately led me to where I was then.

I resisted the urge to go up and rub his shoulder one last time. The view from where I stood would have to suffice. I wish I had the courage to say the three words I held in my heart.

For the rest of the journey through the house, my mind alternated between trying to keep quiet and considering the possibility of turning back. There was still time to turn around. I could easily return to the bed where my wife slept and simply pretend the whole thing never happened. And maybe, I could work it all out. I could live happily ever after with the family I built.

But if I really wanted to go back to bed, I would have.

Atop the flight of old wooden stairs leading to the basement, I paused. I looked down at the black pit below. No amount of adjusting to the darkness would allow my eyes to make out the shapes down there. I flicked the light switch. The single bulb hanging from the ceiling flickered before lighting the room up.

The grey concrete floor of the unfinished cellar was covered by a single yellow rug in the middle. Surrounding the rug was a collection of old furniture, sports equipment, partially opened boxes and of course – the mirror.

My breaths were short. Grinding my teeth, I took the first step down and nearly jumped when the old wooden board groaned. I had to force my legs to descend each of the next steps. With each one, the creak of the old staircase seemed to grow louder.

I reached the bottom and dead silence returned. I looked in every cranny, every shadow that was within my line of sight. There was nothing there.

My eyes told me that I was alone. And by all means, they should have been correct. However, it wasn’t the truth. And I knew that before I had made the decision to go down there in the first place.

My phone read 2:58 AM. Only two minutes remained.

I allowed myself a few more moments of illuminated silence before I reached for the light switch. When the basement was dark again, I felt my way to the yellow carpet and positioned myself squarely in front of the mirror. My body trembled profusely.

I raced through the possibilities again, trying to reassure myself. As if through my endless hours of deliberation, I did understand everything. As if it were possible for a man to think through the infinite numbers of factors, responses, and outcomes and have some idea of how things were going to play out.

The arrival was imminent. Before it came, I remembered Noah’s last words on the phone.

“There’s only pain for you there.”

The reflection in the mirror changed. Breaking through the darkness was one white spot just above my shoulder.

I turned to look at where it appeared to be in the reflection. But there was only blackness. This was no surprise, I had tested it before. But back in the mirror, it had developed.

There were now two spots and another line running below them. The face was there, clearly. It radiated a bright white that hurt the eyes if looked at directly for too long. The outlines of the facial features pulsed. Their exact shape was always changing. The corners of the mouth pulled upwards into a shape resembling a smile.

The breaths came. I could feel the moist air on the nape of my neck. And then, it spoke. Its deep voice seemed to come from every direction in the darkness around me.

“Back again I see? I take this means that you’ve been intrigued by my proposition?”

I didn’t answer. I hated hearing the thing talk. It knew me too well. It spoke with complete understanding of my reason for being in the basement that night.

“Shall we get started then?” it asked. “You know this is the last time I will come here. You must act tonight, or forever lose the opportunity.”

“Lay the rules out for me one last time,” I said.

I already knew the stipulations. But, I took comfort in hearing them again, as if I would have some brilliant flash of insight that would help me understand everything.

“One chance to go back. You cannot return here, and you cannot go backwards again. All outcomes are final.”

“Tell me how it turned out for the others. What happened to the other people you’ve done this with?”

“You must decide now, Roger,” it answered me abruptly. “I have no more patience for your concerns. I care only for your decision now.”

My knuckles ached from gripping them so tightly. The eyes and mouth in the reflection slowly started to fade.

“Do it,” I said. “Take me back.”

The thing did as I commanded.

At first, it was all a blur. The darkness was gone, replaced by a range of opaque waves. They ran against each other, colours of all kinds shot out behind them. I heard the muffled sounds of conversation. My body felt lighter, newer.

One thing came through clearly. It was the audible voice of a young woman. I recognized it as Amy’s immediately. My vision started to clear shortly after. She was right there in front of me. She was eighteen years old, she was alive. Her image matched the one I had kept in my mind for all the years.

“Roger,” Amy said. “Still working on the first beer?”

All my surroundings became clear. The faint outlines of the shapes around me sharpened. I could see the familiar glass chandelier hanging from the ceiling. Recognizable, young faces were leaning on my parents grey, leather couch in the living room.

Condensation from the beer can dripped onto my fingers. I looked down at my hands and saw that they were young. A visual scan of my body revealed the same. I looked eighteen again. I was eighteen again.

Amy put her hand over mine. I felt the comforting softness I had fantasized about for what had felt like an eternity. She pulled the beer from my hands, bringing it to her lips.

Everything was in perfect order. I was back at the party. The thing had done exactly as it said it would.

Amy finished the beer and set it on the table. All the while, her eyes were firmly fixed on mine.

“Looks like you have some catching up do,” she said.

As I anticipated, she took a step forward. She slid her hand in a straight vertical line from my chest to my stomach. As she let it rest there, I tested my recollection.

Next, she will grab me by the collar.

Sure enough, her hands slid upwards towards my neck and grabbed the shirt. I said her next words along with her inside my head.

“Why don’t you grab us another?” she asked.

The first time through, I hesitated before speaking. That I remember clearly. My unconfident former-self would wait at least five seconds before spitting out the word “okay”.

Not this time.

Blessed with the wisdom of seeing everything in hindsight, I spoke a new set of words. I said what I had been planning to say when all of this was a dream. A time when the situation I found myself in was nothing more than a distant fantasy, impossible to realize within the reality I thought I existed in.

“Maybe I’ll do that,” I said. “But I’ll have to stop in my bedroom on the way back. Might be a little delay. Hope that’s okay with you.”

If they hadn’t already, the two timelines officially diverged after that. I hoped that would make it easier to let go of the old life I had abandoned. Nobody would get hurt tonight. It was just a matter of execution.

I smiled and pulled Amy’s hand from my collar onto hers. I released, looking at her one more time before leaving the room. I wished that moment could have lasted forever.

Noah stood near the fridge, just as I remembered. He talked with some girls I hadn’t cared to keep in my memory. I grabbed him by the shoulder and yanked him aside. My entrance caught him off guard.

“Can I help you?” he asked.

“Noah, I need your help,” I said, reciting more lines from the mental-script in my head. “Remember how I told you about the Amy girl from my grade? I think I got her.”

He bit his lower lip.

“I don’t know little bro,” he said. “I think you have the Chelsea girl all lined up. Don’t try and bite off more than you can chew now.”

“Yeah, but I’ve been secretly in love with Amy girl for like four years. You should see her, she’s the hottest girl in my grade.”

“I know,” he said, much to my surprise.

“You know who she is?”

“Yeah, I think I’ve seen her a few times.”

“Then why are you trying to talk me out of it?”

“I just think you’re being over-confident,” he said. “You’ve known for days that you have this Chelsea lined up. Take the sure thing, don’t fuck it up.”

The conversation was already taking too long. I saw both Amy and the younger version of my former wife, Chelsea come into the front hall. They stopped there and started talking privately. Amy’s eyes cheated over in my direction. Chelsea was listening to her, nodding. She also peeked over. Her eyes were jealous. It was a look that I knew too well.

In approximately two minutes, Amy was going to head down the other hall toward the bathroom. Or, as I was almost positive now, my bedroom.

The first time through, I had been so unsure where exactly she had gone. Or perhaps more accurately, I was uncertain of myself. Instead of following her, I took the easy way out. I settled for the sure thing. I approached Chelsea instead. All because I didn’t believe that what I wanted could possibly be attained.

That’s how it happened. That’s the way I fucked everything up.

Not this time.

I stared hard at Noah. His help was instrumental for this to work. My words were firmer than before.

“Listen, Noah. I’m going for this Amy girl. If it doesn’t work, then fine, you can have her. I don’t give a damn.”

He shook his head.

“I need you to do one thing for me,” I continued. “If you don’t see me for a little while, trust that means things went well. But please, please just do me one favour. Walk Chelsea home if that happens. Bang her if you want, I don’t care. I’m sure you could probably get her if you wanted.”

“I’m not taking any girl to bed tonight.”

“Fine, then just walk her home. I need you to do that for me.”

Noah looked like he was searching for his rebuttal. I didn’t stick around for any further deliberation. That part of the sequence was complete.

Right on cue, Amy had left Chelsea standing alone and disappeared down the hallway. I grabbed two beers from the fridge and started in her direction.

I always imagined that the walk past Chelsea would have been the hardest part. I tried to make it easier on myself. I kept my eyes on the ground, the door, the ceiling or anywhere that wasn’t her.

Only from my peripheral vision could I see the look on her face. I recognized that expression as well. More so, I detested it. It was the insecure, desperate longing that I had seen so many times before in our life together that no longer existed.

A few feet away, I caught the scent of Chelsea’s perfume. One more time, the thought of returning to my former life burrowed into my mind. I entertained the idea. Maybe I could still correct the sequence. Maybe I could somehow say and do the right things to converge the timelines. Perhaps I could recreate all the memories that we were supposed to make going forward.

I pushed the thought out of my head as quickly as I could. I passed Chelsea without giving her a glance. As I walked down the adjacent hallway, the burning sensation of her eyes into the back of my head eased with every step.

I didn’t bother checking the bathroom on the way to my destination.

I pushed the bedroom door open. A slender female figure was sprawled across my bed. The light from the hallway provided just enough brightness for me to see that Amy was smiling. It felt like a dream. But it wasn’t. It was real.

I didn’t offer her a drink. I set the beers down on the night table and leaned over. She wrapped her hands around the back of my neck and pulled me down to her. Our lips met and I slipped away. I never thought that doing something that seemed so evil on the surface could have ever felt so right.

Hours passed. When the sex finally ended, Amy didn’t take long to fall asleep. The adrenaline still coursing through my veins wouldn’t allow me to do the same.

From outside the bedroom door, I could hear the party had grown quieter.

Much like the last time I was awake in bed while the woman beside me slept, I got out of bed as gently as possible. I tiptoed towards the door and pressed my ear against it. I tried to see if I could hear Chelsea’s voice in the remaining bits of conversation. It wasn’t there.

I went over to the window to see if anyone was hanging around in my front yard. I was relieved to see two people there. Chelsea stood at the end of the driveway, shivering in the cold autumn air. Noah was coming up the driveway with a sweater to put around her.

They exchanged a few words before heading down the street in the other direction. Her house was only a few blocks away. Nowhere near downtown and certainly not close to wherever that piece-of-shit, Troy McAllen camped out that night.

As they rounded the corner and went out of sight, a thought occurred to me for the first time. And it scared me.

I wondered what it would be like going forward. Would I have to live the rest of my life with all the vivid memories of a timeline that no longer existed? I could still remember my old life with complete clarity.

As I returned to lie beside the girl I loved, I prayed. I prayed that with time, the old memories would fade away. Hopefully, I could seamlessly adjust and settle into this new life as a young man once more. The thought lingered until I fell asleep.

A strange sound woke me the next morning. The sun was starting to rise and faint beams of light were coming in through the window. When I came to my senses, I realized that I was alone in bed. It was not how I was expecting to wake.

I heard the sound of the TV from the living room. Shortly after, I heard Amy whimper. I shot up and ran in there as quickly as my tired legs would take me.

Amy sat hunched over, curled into a ball on the couch. Her head was pressed into her palms, her cheeks red.

She had the TV on. It was set to our local news station. Before I had a chance to ask what had happened, I heard the familiar voice. With only slight variation from before, he delivered his report.

Tragedy strikes close to home today. The body of eighteen-year-old Westmount resident, Chelsea Arcobello, was found in a dumpster behind a bakery near the downtown core. The body shows signs of severe sexual assault and trauma around the neck. All evidence suggests she was strangled to death with a rope.

An anonymous tip was given to police this morning stating that screaming could be heard from the parking lot and a bald man could be seen running from the area shortly after. Police were on the scene within minutes and have since taken homeless man, Troy McAllen, into custody. Authorities are urging whoever called to step forward and provide more information.

The bald man’s face came up onto the screen just as I heard the front door push open behind me.

Noah stepped in. His mouth was open wide as he took in long gasps of air. Clumps of hair stuck to his forehead where his sweat had dried. He looked up at us in horror. As if he thought it was impossible for us to be awake so early in the morning.

Blood dripped from the scratches on his face. From inside his half-unzipped jacket, I could see a piece of rope stained completely red.

“What’s the matter, Roger?” he said.

“Where were you last night,” I managed to spit out. “Didn’t you walk Chelsea home and come back?”

“She’s gone, Roger. Chelsea wasn’t for you. It’s best you don’t think about her. There’s only pain for you there.”