Page 15 of Someone Like You

“I brought a guest.” Ian hooked a thumb in Phil’s direction, who raised a hand in greeting, receiving a nod in return.

“What can I get you? Pint of Tennent’s?”

Phil was about to intervene, but Ian was way ahead of him: “We’ll take two Cokes.”

“Coke!” The barman threw his head back in a boisterous laugh. “Nice one! Two lagers coming right up!”

“ Cal .” Ian placed an elbow on the counter, leaving forward. The guy sitting nearby pulled himself aside, looking alarmed. “I said Coke . Unless Phil here prefers something else.” Ian turned back with a questioning look that Phil instantly dismissed.

“Coke’s good,” he said, hoping Ian could see how grateful he was for the backup. “Pepsi, perhaps?”

Cal popped them two bottles of Pepsi; they refused the glasses they were offered and took their drinks to a small booth in a corner that was miraculously empty. When they sat down, Phil noticed there was a reason for that: a hand-written note propped to the menu said ‘Reserved’ .

“Go ahead,” Ian coaxed.

“But it says—”

“It’s reserved for us. ”

Phil took his seat with that simple sound reverberating in his ears.

Us.

Why was he feeling so giddy over a random syllable?

Ian sat beside him and set down the Pepsis.

It wasn’t a good spot to watch the game, unless they both sat sideways, as the screen they had the best view of was at the opposite side of the room.

It was, however, a secluded corner with no immediate neighbours and Ian had conveniently positioned himself between Phil and anyone who might try to squeeze in later.

“Thank you,” Phil whispered.

Ian didn’t bat an eyelid. “What for?”

Phil finally blurted what had been building up on the tip of his tongue for weeks: “Everything.” Ian went unnaturally still, glued to the screen ahead of them, but Phil could tell he had his full attention. “If you hadn’t bumped into me that day—”

“ You bumped into me .”

Phil bit down on yet another grin. “—I doubt I’d haven been able to live up to my good intentions. Running is giving me some juice back… Feels good. And it’s all thanks to you.”

Ian’s Adam’s apple bobbed. His knuckles paled around the bottle in his hand. “Anytime.”

“We should take a pic for Abby,” Phil said. He waited for a sign of protest from Ian, but was surprised to feel him scoot closer. Phil turned his phone into selfie mode. Ian had to reach past Phil’s back to lean on the bench so that they both fit into the frame.

“Cheer up, old man!” he huffed then, in reproval to Phil’s tepid expression.

It wasn’t like Phil didn’t want to smile.

He was just afraid that allowing himself to smile would expose how unreasonably content he was to be there, in an unfamiliar place crammed with unfamiliar people, next to a guy whose sole presence made up for any discomfort.

He gave it a try, relaxing his muscles so that they reflected how he felt, and watched his features open up on the screen, brightening, emphasising the lines at the corners of his eyes.

He couldn’t believe how much he’d aged in just a couple of years.

But then Ian smiled, too, and Phil’s perception of himself changed.

He saw past the wrinkles and the grey in his beard, the tiredness in his eyes.

He saw the man Ian called Handsome and for the first time something sank in: there had never been any sarcasm in that moniker.

When he sent the photo to Abby, the arm around him disappeared, slipping away with a brush of fingertips that sent a shiver down his back.

“Say hi to her from me,” said Ian.

Phil obliged and started typing. “You two really hit it off, huh?”

“You’ve got a rare gem, hope you know that.”

“I do,” said Phil. The same sadness that had caught him in the kitchen a few days prior descended on him again, polluting his contentment. “She shouldn’t be with someone like me.”

A glare of disapproval hit him like a slap.

“Abby’s all sunshine and energy, and I’m…

” He glanced down at himself with sagging shoulders.

With him, Abby was like a wild sparrow locked in a cage, and the fact that she loved her cage so unconditionally made everything even harder for Phil, who’d torn all the bars away, hoping the sparrow would just leave and be free, to no avail.

“The first time I considered killing myself, it sounded so logical in my head. It was like… like when there’s a noise that drives you crazy and covering your ears isn’t enough…

You have to kill the source to stop it. In my case the source happened to be…

being alive.” He could still remember the sick sense of elation he’d felt in realising dying was a viable option. “It just… made sense, you know?”

“No,” said Ian. “Makes no sense to me. It gives me chills that it made sense to you .” Phil was used to the tirade that usually came at this point: ‘You have everything a man can wish for, what on earth are you depressed about?’ , ‘There’s people out there who have real problems’ , and so on.

But none of that came. “The amount of pain it must’ve taken to convince someone as intelligent and educated as you that suicide was a logical step…

I probably couldn’t have taken it.” Ian made a pa use, locking eyes with Phil, as solemn as he’d ever been. “But you did.”

It was just three trivial words, but the effect they had was an instant confidence boost that helped Phil sit up a little straighter, lifting some weight off his hunched shoulders.

He had never talked so openly about this, not even with Abby, ashamed, but also afraid she wouldn’t understand.

He didn’t have this issue with Ian: Ian wasn’t influenced by the past, didn’t have a Before Phil to make comparisons with. Ian saw him , not the man he’d become.

“I didn’t do it for myself. I already felt dead inside, so why not go through with the whole package?

Like… ‘Oh, this glass is broken, might as well dispose of it’ .

My life felt like that. But then I thought of Abby, and how much she’d suffer if I’d died…

And picked therapy over jumping off a skyscraper. ”

Phil’s heart was racing. Opening up about his mental illness wasn’t his forte, but Ian had never made him feel like he should pretend , and over time Phil’s defence mechanisms had evolved to automatically switch off around Ian, whose presence had the singular power to make any space feel like a safe space.

No shame. No guilt. Just honesty and respect.

And, once again, Ian didn’t disappoint him.

“I don’t know much about depression, but I know it kills people.

I know it takes a lot of courage and an awful lot of strength to put someone else’s pain before your own.

Be proud of yourself.” Ian raised his Pepsi, expecting Phil to do the same, but Phil didn’t feel like he had anything to toast for.

“She’d have gotten over it. She’d have moved on, found someone else…”

“I don’t think she wants someone else.” Ian took Phil’s hand and placed the bottle into it, coarse fingers urging Phil’s to close around the glass. “For the last time: stop being a cunt to yourself .” And then he lifted Phil’s hand up to finally get the toast he was after. “Cheers.”

Phil shook his head, but his laugh was real this time. Being repeatedly called a cunt by a raging Scot was quite a humbling experience .

The match started and that sense of sadness faded, smothered by the rising excitement in the atmosphere.

Scottish soccer fans were as loud as they were passionate about their teams, which unfortunately meant that soon there were dozens of people screaming at the top of their lungs every other second, making Phil wish his drink was whisky.

After the umpteenth mass scream, he was having a hard time following the game.

He couldn’t say he wasn’t enjoying it, so far it had been surprisingly entertaining and he loved the energy of these people, but the skyrocketing decibels were giving him a headache.

It wasn’t long before Ian picked up on his discomfort.

“Not your thing, eh?”

Phil let out a faint groan. “We could place it right at the border of my comfort zone.”

“You could’ve said no if you—”

“I would have if I’d wanted to.”

Celtic scored. The exultation it caused was so deafening The group of young men at the adjacent table jumped up to celebrate, louder than anyone else. Phil flinched before he could control himself.

“Lads!” Ian yelled. “Mind toning that down a bit? My head’s killin’ me.”

The boys looked like they were tempted to just tell him to fuck off and start a fight, but when they took in Ian’s size, one by one they docilely sat back down.

Phil glanced at Ian, whose eyes were firmly trained on the match. “We can leave if that headache is so bad.”

“I’ll live.” The light curve that Ian’s mouth took was simultaneously infuriating and heart-melting.

Phil felt that surging warmth in his chest again, and this time it was impossible to downplay it as a mere flattered reaction.

A shadow of awareness settled on him like a feather slowly drifting to the ground.

He left it there, sweeping it under a rug of neglect, because he couldn’t possibly deal with the depth of it now .

The game wasn’t half as boring as he’d feared, albeit not quite as gripping to him as it was to everyone else in the room.

To be fair, he mostly liked it because it gave him a chance to witness how passionate Ian was about Celtic: he tensed when things got concerning, startled up and then deflated at every missed goal, yelled at fouls, and — Phil’s favourite part — jumped up and threw his fist in the air with everyone else when the team scored.

Shockingly enough, observing Ian absorbed him so much that the noise faded out of his ears and his head.

In the end, Celtic crushed Real Madrid 4-1.

Ian refused to stay for the celebrations.

“We kicked those cunts’ arses, that’s all the celebration I need.”