In the early 2000s in Chicago, six young men start high school. Though they’ve been friends since boyhood, their high school years set them on new paths: The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan begin, along with the protests against them; Ryan falls in love but struggles to hold onto it; and he and the others learn to lose themselves in alcohol. With each passing year―as they enter college or the military, then the world beyond; form new relationships with partners and children; and navigate shifting loyalties to a changing country --- the narrator feels the group breaking further apart and finds himself asking: What does it mean to move forward, both with and without one another?