Page 2 of Someone Like You

PHIL

P hilip Jonathan Hanson hadn’t felt like a human being or anything remotely close to it in months, maybe years, and, in retrospect, he’d been quite a fool to believe he could somehow prevent this from interfering with his life.

Despite the highs and lows, however, he prided himself on being a rather convincing impersonator of a functional adult: every day he rolled out of bed, trudged to the bathroom, splashed some cold water on his tired face and tried to ignore the purple circles under his eyes and the greying brown stubble lining his jaw, then washed down his daily dose of Seroxat, and finally proceeded to school his best smile into place before going downstairs to wish his fiancée a good morning.

Abby loved being here. She had been thrilled to move back to her hometown after a whole decade away.

She’d made herself perfectly at home in Chicago, in Phil’s demure bachelor pad in West Town, but she had never stopped waxing about the wonders of her Scotland, her homeland, while making a name for herself at one of the largest banks in Britain.

Phil had always listened, indulging Abby’s enthusiasm, because he loved his girlfriend and was only happy to do whatever made her happy.

Deep down, however, he’d never felt attracted to Scotland — or anywhere else, for that matter — probably because he was too fond of his consolidated routine in the Windy City: every day a different café, just himself and his laptop, a manuscript to work on, a huge cup of coffee and a bag of M&M’s at hand.

Simple.

But nothing was every truly simple with a firecracker of a woman as a partner, and Abby had revolutionised Phil’s lifestyle so smoothly and effortlessly that he hadn’t even realised he’d somehow evolved into an unrecognisable social butterfly until one Saturday night, during a party in his own honour, he’d found himself at the top of the Willis Tower, looking down at the city with the funniest of thoughts casually passing through his head.

I could jump.

Being only a bit of an idiot, Phil had realised that such a consideration wasn’t normal to make while celebrating your new, bestselling novel surrounded by friends and family, journalists, and renowned colleagues.

Not everyone had a book hitting the New York Times best seller’s list on release day, so obviously jumping off a 110-storey building wasn’t exactly the first instinct one would be expected to have in the middle of a toast to his own success.

It wasn’t even the idea per se that had unsettled him — everyone had intrusive thoughts from time to time —, but rather how appealing it had sounded.

That was when Phil had come to the conclusion that something must not be quite right with him.

He’d told his fianceé, of course — he and Abby told each other everything — and she’d taken it surprisingly calmly, but definitely not well.

After a lot of coaxing and cajoling, Phil had been persuaded to see a therapist, who, only five sessions in, had diagnosed him with chronic depression with a side of severe burnout, and instantly put him on Seroxat.

Phil had also been strongly advised to take a prompt break from every source of stress, which he’d soon realised encompassed the entirety of life as he knew it.

Abby, who was nothing but pragmatic, hadn’t even blinked at the doctor’s suggestion for a drastic change of scenery, and before Phil knew it she’d presented him a fully fledged plan for their new life in Glasgow — not Glasgow, the small village in Scott County, Bumfuck Nowhere, Illinois, like Phil had initially assumed, but Glasgow as in Glasgow, Scotland. Europe .

As in a whole different continent .

So here he was, six months after the diagnosis that had turned him into brittle glass in the eyes of everyone he knew, dragging himself down the stairs towards the inviting smell of fresh coffee wafting out of the kitchen, ready to kiss his beautiful girlfriend and tell her how good he felt today.

He glanced down at the bracelet around his left wrist: white and pink beads spelled ‘U R my sunshine’ with a yellow sun bead instead of the word sun .

He’d found it on the ground at the airport right after landing in Scotland, with a broken carabiner attached to it, suggesting that it’d probably been a charm on someone’s bag.

Deeming it a good omen, he’d decided to keep it, but now it just felt like it was mocking him.

He was still convinced he was meant to find it, though, because what were the chances of such a girly thing fitting a grown man’s wrist?

Perhaps one day this finding would make sense.

Abby was at the counter, dark hair tied up in a ponytail, glasses on her nose, beautiful as ever.

She was scrolling on her phone while taking nibbles from a banana muffin, her favourite.

On the window sill sat her favourite mug, the one that said ‘Tiny, whiny, and ready to bite’ .

She was tiny. Phil was no small man, standing at a dignified six foot, and Abby was more than a whole head shorter than him and so petite he could lift her up with one arm.

It had been hard for someone as dainty and young-looking as her to be taken seriously as a financial advisor in such a cut-throat industry, but Abby’s unshakable determination was the reason Phil had fallen in love with her and it had always been the key to her brilliant career.

“Hiya!” Abby beamed as soon as she noticed him. She accepted his kiss on her cheek and readily returned it, scrunching her pretty nose at the feeling of his stubble under her lips. “We’re still not shaving?”

Phil stifled a sigh. Shaving was one of those tasks he had a hard time reintegrating into his habits. He was still struggling with showering daily and couldn’t possibly try any harder than that.

There’d been a period, back in Chicago, when he would lie in bed all day and couldn’t find it in himself to take care of himself, not even when Abby’s pleading tears had mortified him so intimately he’d considered moving into a hotel to relieve her of that sorrow.

But after a few weeks of therapy he’d managed to slowly weave showers back into his routine, fuelled by nothing but love and guilt towards Abby and her undying patience with him.

‘One little step at a time,’ Doctor Raji had said, and Phil was living by it as best as he could, which meant that, for now, there was no room for shaving regularly in his freshly restored Functioning Adult portfolio.

“Tomorrow,” he promised, accepting the cup of coffee Abby was handing him. She rolled her eyes: tomorrow had been his answer for the past couple of weeks.

“Aihan says she needs me in London starting next month.” Abby gave Phil a meaningful look.

“I’d feel better going if I knew you had someone to rely on while I’m away.

” She stroked his cheek with a silent plea and he felt awful for letting her worry so much about him.

All Abby was asking of him was to make one friend.

He could do that. He had plenty of friends back in Chicago, surely it wouldn’t be hard to make new ones on this side of the pond.

Meeting new people wasn’t the issue. It just tended to be slightly more complicated when you barely set foot out of the house.

Even back home, Phil had never been an outdoorsy person.

Not before Abby, anyway. He was happy in his home office or in one of his trusted cafes, with little to no disturbance and the pleasant company of his characters.

Phil was a writer, had been a writer way before getting his PhD in English Literature almost twenty years ago, and not even once had he wished to be someone else, doing something else.

Just because he lived in a different city now, it didn’t mean there would be a different him: he was here to heal, not to get a personality upgrade.

All he wanted was to find his writing spark again.

“You need friends, Phil.” Abby’s tender tone shook him out of his ruminations. “It’s been two months… You don’t even know the name of our next door neighbour.”

False. The man next door was one Sarif Eid, lover of nature and animals. Phil had found an envelope from Greenpeace addressed to him in his own mailbox a few days back. He caught the drift though.

“I’ll be in and out of town every week,” Abby pressed on.

“I need to know you won’t be rotting in here all alone.

” A light caress trailed down his face. “Why don’t you go out, get some fresh air?

You haven’t even touched your running shoes since we arrived…

Maybe a run will get some dopamine into your system…

” Soft brown eyes locked into Phil’s, melting away his will to argue.

He couldn’t let Abby leave with the burden that he would be alone with his intrusive thoughts: she barely dared to leave him unsupervised for a few hours a day.

Soon she would be needed more and more in London, he had to make sure she could focus on her clients without fearing for her fiancé’s wellbeing.

Besides, he was putting on some weight around his middle…

“You know what? A run sounds good.” He offered Abby a big smile that made her light up like a Christmas tree and earned him a crisp kiss on the lips.

“That’s my boy!”

Abby left to do errands half an hour later.

Alone with his breakfast and the rising sun peering at him through the buildings on the other side of the street, Phil decided he’d aim for three miles to test his legs.

Running was part of his recovery plan and Doctor Raji had been adamant about the importance of committing to a regular exercise schedule and a healthy diet if he wanted to cut down the medication.

Doctor Raji had also recommended getting plenty of fresh air and finding new stimuli, but Phil only had the energy to unignore one recommendation at a time.