The Switch - jschlatt

13

Now was the time for answers. I gathered Josh, Charlie, and Noah in the living room and got down to buisness.

"So we all switched. Let's try to figure this out," I said.

"Well, you wake up in a different place," Charlie started. "As a different person." We all nodded in agreement.

"And your past self has no trace of existing," Noah added. I hadn't thought about that.

"Really?" I asked. 

"Yeah. I started looking for my old accounts and stuff and found nothing. I even went to my old house and my family wasn't there. When I finally tracked down my parents, they assured me they had the wrong person, as they had never had any kids," he elaborated. Wow. I had completely forgot about my parents; Even in my old life I hadn't talked to them in years, so I wasn't missing much.

"Wait, do I have new parents?" I asked.

"No," Josh answered. "You were a foster kid until you were 18." This was news to me. At least I didn't have to pretend to love my "parents" in the same way I had to pretend to love Schlatt. I nodded, then realizing the rest of them probably had to go through that. 

"I'm sorry, guys," I offered and they all know what I meant.

"It was awkward and hard at first but I got used to it," Josh shrugged. The other two boys mumbled something under their breath like they didn't want to talk about it.

"What else do we know?" I asked, changing the subject.

"Maybe we're all just crazy," Charlie said. "Like we should get therapy."

"That's what we're doing right now, with people that believe us," I sighed.

"I really don't want to understand it," Noah said. It's been a few years for me, and I've accepted it. Trying to wrap my head around it is just going to dig up all those old feelings again. I'm good now." I gave him an apologetic smile. He made a good point.

"I don't think we're going to be able to understand it," Josh said. "But if you wanna vent we can probably understand what you're going through."

"Thanks, guys. Now what do we do about Schlatt?" I asked. I still really felt bad for everything, even if it wasn't totally my fault.

"Noah and I will talk to him," Charlie said. "We'll tell him the truth, invite him back, and then you guys can have a clean slate." I felt so relieved. These boys were too good to me, I owed them so much. I thanked them profusely, giving them each hugs.

"While they call Schlatt, let's stream," Josh offered. "You've been losing subs like crazy." I agreed that it was a great idea, and followed Josh into his room. I didn't have a computer to stream on, so I sat next to Josh as he got everything ready. We decided it would be best to stream on his channel for now, and we could transition onto mine later in the week. He started stream with some songs and a "starting soon" screen.

"I have a guest, and it might surprise you," Josh said, turning on the camera. Chat was very confused at first. Some people did not know who I was, and starting making jokes about Josh getting a girlfriend, those people quieted down once they saw the other messages. There were very few angry messages, which I was happy about, but a lot of confusion.

"Hey, guys," I said simply into the camera. 

"So, let's clear this up, chat," Josh was saying. He was definitely the type of guy to try to quickly fix a situation and then act like it never happened. "So you probably saw Schlatt's tweet, but it was a misunderstanding. Miki is staying with us, us being Charlie, Noah, Cooper, and Travis, and there's no bad blood. So we're just going to stream together for a bit." I smiled quietly at him.

"So, what are we going to do?" I asked. We looked at chat for ideas, Josh reading some of them out, and mostly calling them dumb.

"Is Schlatt still mad?" Josh read out.

"Charlie and Noah are explaining everything to him right now, and I think we'll be on good terms soon enough," I answered.

"That's it," Josh stated. "We're playing chess." We spent the next hour playing chess, and Josh was just as bad as I was, so each game took a pretty long time. After my second win, Josh closed the game with a sigh. With perfect timing, Charlie walked through the door. Josh muted his mic.

"Everything good with Schlatt?" He asked quietly, like the mic still could have picked it up if he talked too loudly.

"He's confused, which makes sense, but he agreed to come back for a bit. I think he wants to believe it, but he's not sure if he does. Anyway, how's chat doing?" Charlie asked. Josh unmuted the mic. Chat was going crazy with Charlie emotes as he pulled up a chair to join us. For another few hours we did some Just Chatting, and it felt so good to be working again and spending time with my friends. As our conversation died down, I looked over to chat to notice more spam, but this time they were saying Schlatt's name. I quickly saw his name go by with a message that said: "AIR MATTRESSES SUCK!!!!" He must have been talking about coming back to stay with us.

"Hey, Schlatt," I said casually. At least chat would think we were cool, but I was really hoping everything would be okay between me and Schlatt. I still really liked him. He shouted some more nonsense about air furniture, and I took that as my cue to stop.

"Well, I'm hungry, so I'm gonna end stream," Josh said. "Make sure you all follow MikGames on Twitch and Youtube."

"And Slimecicle!" Charlie interjected.

"No, don't follow that loser. Bye," Josh said before ending stream.

We all collectively sighed.

"So when is Schlatt coming?" I asked.

"A week," Charlie answered. That was good. I had a week to mentally prepare before facing Schlatt. I really hoped we could be friends again, if not more, but I knew it was a lot to ask for. The three of us went downstairs to eat, but my mind was on the future, one week from now.