Page 2 of Someone Like You

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 wordsun. 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’. Shewastiny. 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’sunshakable 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 restoredFunctioning Adultportfolio.

“Tomorrow,” he promised, accepting the cup of coffee Abby was handing him. She rolled her eyes:tomorrowhad 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 makeonefriend. 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 waybefore 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 themedication. 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.

After completing the testing task of putting the dishes in the dishwasher and cleaning up the counter, his autopilot led him back upstairs, where he diligently brushed his teeth, made the bed, and folded his pyjamas. His will toexisthad almost entirely evaporated by the time he finally opened the wardrobe. Nonetheless, he was proud of himself for sticking to his promise long enough to get to this point, and that gave him a little extra motivation to grind on. Finding his running clothes was no easy feat: he vaguely remembered shoving them into some drawer while unpacking the suitcases, but also piling more useful stuff on top of them — useful like the formal suits he was supposed to be wearing for his seminars at Glasgow University, if he ever found the guts to pencil one in.

When he finally managed to dig up a pair of sweatpants and a hoodie, he slipped them on and placed himself in front of the mirror, trying and failing to understand how he’d allowed himself to become the raggedy loser staring back at him. He was still handsome, despite the swollen bags under his eyes and the greying beard. His body wasn’t as fit as it used to be before the burnout and he doubted it’d ever get back to that impeccable shape, but if he started running again there would surely be an improvement.

His feet felt like lead. He dragged them across the brand new hardwood floor Abby’s parents had replaced before moving to Italy after their retirement just a couple of years back. Phil wasn’t a fan of the choice, but one couldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth.

Outside the day was warm and rainy. Autumn was around the corner and Phil still hadn’t ventured too far around the city. The only part he knew was the portion of the West End closest to the apartment and Kelvingrove Park, which was where he was headed for his lazy jog.

It wasn’t half as bad as he’d feared: after the first couple of challenging miles, his muscles warmed up and his legs began feeling less heavy. He was surprised to discover he still had some staminaleft in himself and enough breath to speed up a little when he felt his body was ready. The familiar burn of exertion put a satisfied grin on his face. He threw his head back, relishing the drizzle on his sweaty skin, and realised he was feeling somewhat close to good for the first time since… He couldn’t even remember when it’d been the last time he hadn’t felt like a useless lump of decaying meat. He owed Abby a big thank you for persuading him to do this.

He skirted along the River Kelvin, startling a group of ducks napping by the path, and sprinted past the skatepark towards the old fountain. As he circled around it, he checked his heart rate on his smartwatch: 150. Not bad, considering he’d been an utter slug for months.

He grinned to himself, a rush of adrenaline pumping through his body. He looked up to decide which direction to take, when suddenly everything went black. Next thing he knew he was lying on his back with a throbbing pain radiating from his tailbone. He had to blink a couple of times to gather his bearings: the fountain was looming above him, as grey as the sky, and a massive dark figure advanced in his visual field.

“You alright, mate?”

Phil groaned, pushing himself up on his elbows. Before he had a chance to even think about standing up, an iron grip seized him by one arm and effortlessly put him back on his feet.

“Are you alright?” he was asked one more time by a voice so deep that he felt it in his chest.

“Been better,” he grumbled, flexing his back experimentally to make sure that everything worked properly. “Not every day you run into a human brick wall.” He glanced up grouchily at the unreasonably tall stranger. “Thank fuck.” His voice quivered a little as he processed the guy’s appearance: a six-foot-five mountain in shorts and an unzipped sleeveless hoodie under which a wet tank top clung obscenely to an array of rippling muscles.

It was a miracle Phil had just bounced offall of thatwithout breaking anything.

As if reading his mind, a thick, dark eyebrow rose on the guy’s sweaty face. “You sure nothing’s broken there?” Bright blue eyes shone in the pale sunlight, framed by jet black hair tied back in a thick ponytail. There was a twinkle in them, something Phil couldn’t define, unless he was ready to describe a guy’s eyes ascharming, which he definitely wasn’t.

“Yeah, pretty sure.” Bruised ego aside, Phil was more or less unscathed, save for a slightly dry mouth that couldn’t have any correlation with the fall. He’d better bring a bottle of water on his next run. “Didn’t see you coming.”

“Aye, no harm done.” A conciliating smile spread in the middle of the guy’s dark beard, and, between that and the pain in his arse, Phil was ready to start a fight, even more so when the guy added: “You don’t see many senior runners around here.”

---