It was two, maybe three, in the morning when they appeared.

It was going to be another of those sleepless nights anyway. So there I was, laptop on the counter, revising the paper I had to submit in the morning, running on caffeine and desperation, when I heard a strange pop. I looked up.

There, in the middle of my living room, were my ex-boyfriends. All five of them. Derek from high school. Richard and Nathan from undergrad. Callum from that one study-abroad semester I’d rather forget. And Jackson, my longest and most frustrating partner, who I’d just broken up with in May.

They did not move, but stood there in some sort of group pose. Like they were a boy band. Exactly like that, in fact. Eyes closed, hands covering their faces like visors. Backlit from the balcony window.

“Why are you here?” I asked. “What are you doing in my apartment?”

Silence. Nothing but preternatural calm, undisturbed serenity on their faces.

“Wait—how do you even know each other?” There was no way they’d have each other’s contact information, unless—

“Jackson?” I snarled, to the curly-haired bastard in the center. “Did you do this?”

Jackson removed his hand and opened his eyes. He stepped forward, and I saw his face in the light from my kitchen. A visage more chiseled, more finely sculpted, than I remembered this lovable slob to be. And did he have stage makeup?

I had to do something. “If you don’t get out of here this very instant,” I warned them all, “I’m gonna—”

Jackson raised an arm, elbow perpendicular, and snapped.

Suddenly there was music. A beat, radiating from no discernible source. A slinky bassline. Very late-nineties, Backstreet Boys vibes.

“Ooooooooh…,” sang my other four exes in a crystalline chord. I had no idea any of them, except for Callum, could sing, much less harmonize, but I had to admit they were pretty good. Almost professional, even.

Against the swirling chorus, Jackson began to sing:

Hey Lauren, I know you think you’re doing fine

That you’ve got me out of your mind

And Lauren, I betcha think you’re moving on

But there’s just one thing

You haven’t thought of—

The other four exes stepped forward with backup choreography. They all had stage makeup, too. And I noticed something else disturbing.

Derek hadn’t aged. He ought to be twenty-six or something, but he was very much just as I remembered him at eighteen, a lanky high schooler. And Richard and Nathan hadn’t aged either. Richard was exactly the unruly dirty-blond frat bro I remembered him to be, Nathan still had his preppy business cut, and neither had gained a single wrinkle on their foreheads. Callum was sporting the exact same tattoos and wearing the exact same flannel he had on the Zoom call when I broke up with him.

What in the world?

Something was very wrong.

I got up from the counter, ran over to my roommate’s door, and knocked hard. Pounded on it. “Rebecca!” I shouted. “Rebecca, can you help me?”

Jackson and his entourage, still maintaining crisp choreography and harmony, followed me step by step.

So what’s it gonna be?

You ain’t done with me!

You spend every minute, every hour,

Bedroom to the shower,

Thinkin’ of me—

Now they had me cornered, pinned against Rebecca’s door. “Rebecca!” I screamed. And then I heard footsteps from within her room.

The door opened. “Lauren,” she said, disheveled in her pajamas and evidently annoyed to be woken up, “what’s going on?” My ex-boyfriends paid her no heed, as they continued to perform.

“Don’t you see them?” I gestured at the dancing quintet of pretty boys.

“See who?”

“Jackson! And my other exes! Right there! Singing!”

Rebecca stared in the direction I was pointing.

“No,” she said. “There’s nothing there.”

“What’s it gonna be?” Jackson led them all into a final chord and a final pose. The music stopped.

And then they were all upon me. Jackson’s lips smothering mine, underneath a writhing pile of bodies. The last thing I remember hearing was Rebecca saying something along the lines of, “Do I need to get you checked?”