Chapter Text
Phil dropped the last box on the kitchen table and stabilized himself with a hand on the back of a chair. Shifting his goddamn junk up three flights of stairs had taken longer than he’d liked, but he was finally moved in, deadbolt thrown on the door of his own apartment and everything. And he was tired enough that it kind of hurt to breathe.
He could sit on the scarred linoleum floor until everything ached less. Or he had a couch and no roommates who would get annoyed at him for monopolizing the living room. Options. Phil took a deep breath and pushed himself the half dozen steps to collapse onto battered cushions. He rested his head against the back of the couch.
Home sweet home, finally.
He could hear thuds and muffled voices from the surrounding apartments. The walls might be even thinner than he’d gathered during the hurried tour last week. He cracked one eye to glance around. The heat was paint-chipped radiators under the window, the cooling was a battered unit he’d bought off of Facebook Marketplace, the carpet was thin and patchy, and he could hear the fridge humming worryingly loud. The apartment was one room with pretentions, but it was his. It was finally his, just his, and he could lock the door and know there would be no arguments in his space. Phil grinned crookedly at nothing in particular.
Given the neighborhood, he wasn’t going to say that there’d be no more police outside, but at least they wouldn’t be in his living room, arguing roommates trying to get him to back one or the other side.
Finally alone, like he belonged.
The last few roommate situations had been bad, and Phil might be a dumbass but he was smart enough to find the common denominator. When it didn’t work out over and over again, icy silence or explosive shouting filling the weeks and months before he could escape, he could draw some conclusions. Everyone his age had paired off, and he couldn’t be enough for that, so he was left behind with the other bastards who were difficult to love. He would get distracted and leave dishes, he would walk into spaces without thinking about people already in them, he would be too much or have the wrong interests or cook the same thing too many days in a row. He would be tired and think the space was clean enough when anyone reasonable would disagree. He would fuck up his sleep schedule so he was in bed when he shouldn’t be and up and about too late.
And now, finally, he wouldn’t get on anyone else’s nerves with his many issues.
When you looked at the facts, living alone was the best possible solution, and now that his luck had come together enough to have found an apartment that he could afford on a fixed income, it was a beautiful reality. He had somewhere to put his shit, he had a door that locked, and he had no one in his space.
Good.
Someone in his apartment building played drums in the evening. The people in the next apartment had a child who was scared of emergency vehicle sirens. The couple on the other side of the hall argued most mornings. Phil took to wearing headphones whenever he was awake. Nobody dropped angry messages into the group chat or stood outside his door to yell their opinions at him. He did his dishes when he remembered them, which sometimes was 2am. No one spoke to him. He played through his video game library once, then again, mostly at night.
Sometimes he went the whole day without interacting with people. His voice came out too-rough and too-loud when he spoke to cashiers and bus drivers. He started using self check-out. He printed his disability paperwork at the library from the public computers. When he met his neighbors in the hallway, their gazes felt like pressing on a bruise. The person in the mirror when he brushed his teeth seemed like an imposition to view, hollow cheeks and lined eyes and hair in need of a cut. He started wearing a hat. The summer heated up.
Soon it was hot enough that the hum of window air conditioners ran through everything. His machine could only be run in short bursts before it overheated, so he laid on the couch and sweated while he tried to read. After three days where it didn’t cool down at night, he had a headache that wouldn’t go away. Phil hauled himself off the couch and decided to bus somewhere with air conditioning.
He got on the 87 this time, which ran down a street he hadn’t been on before. Storefronts advertising blades sharpened overnight sat next to narrow-and-deep businesses that ran straight through the interior of a city block and exited on back streets. Expensive housewares and stationary shops competed with restaurants with specialty menus. The bus speaker announced final stop at an almost-empty school parking lot, and Phil shrugged his backpack on and hiked back to the main street. He wasn’t feeling good about his odds to find a place that let you stay longer than thirty minutes, but he’d come this far.
After fifteen minutes of walking, the heat was making him lightheaded. Every cafe he’d seen was minimalist and expensive, backless chairs for people sipping eight dollar drinks, and more importantly, every seat was full. He wasn’t the only person who’d had the idea to take advantage of someone else’s climate control, and it was looking more and more like that opportunity window had closed at about 9am this morning. He was on the verge of turning around when he caught sight of a paper taped up inside a window he’d just passed.
“We now have house-made oat milk,” the hand-written sign said. Which certainly sounded like a cafe of some sort. He backtracked to peer through the window, but hanging plants obscured the details. He could just make out tables through the glass. Phil checked the sign over the door. It read “Prism House”.
Well, it didn’t say it wasn’t going to be a place to sit. He pushed through the door, exhaling as a wall of coffee-scented cooler air wrapped around him. There was the burr of beans being ground behind the counter, a hand-chalked menu on the wall, and most importantly, seats available throughout the store. If he wasn’t mistaken, there were even outlets by the chairs against the wall. Phil lined up at the counter behind a person in a mesh top and ripped jeans, hopeful relief surging in his chest.
There were still seats available, but the place definitely wasn’t empty. The cafe extended several buildings-depths into the block, open doorways showing yet more tables occupied by figures with rainbow hair. Wall murals diagrammed math things he didn’t recognize. Someone in a jean jacket covered in spikes and patches sat next to the counter, and two women wearing flannel talked intently at a nearby table, booted ankles hooked around each other. On top of the pastry case a plant he’d never seen before rested above cookies made with a selection of chopped candy bars. Glowing glass globes floated amid dark blue-green leaves, presumably held there by strings.
“What can I help you with?”
Phil looked up, startled. The person in front of him had moved down the bar, and the barista was smiling politely at him. “Oh, right,” he said. He glanced at the menu, frantically gauging price and the possibility of buying a second drink if he was staying longer. “Can I have a drip coffee, medium?”
She nodded, tapping something in at the register. The barista was taller than Phil, dark hair falling in a raven’s-wing sweep over her shoulder, a pin of a swirling galaxy in shades of blue and pink on her apron next to a she/her pronoun pin. “Will that be all?”
Phil gripped the top of his backpack as he swung it off to get to his wallet. “Uh, yeah, for now.” He was still hot and sticky after being outside, and his voice didn’t feel natural in his throat. “Is there a time limit to stay?”
The barista glanced at him in a way that made Phil feel like she was summing him up, from old t-shirt to mis-fitting jeans to the battered hat he’d been wearing recently. The nails he’d painted after an late-night drugstore run. The way he was always conscious of being an imposition in other people's lives, just not quite living up to the way a person was supposed to be. She smiled, the expression taking over her face. “You can stay as long as you want. We close at nine.” She pointed down the bar. “Wifi password’s on a card next to the cream and sugar.”
“Alright,” Phil said. He nodded, fished coins out of his wallet to pay, and then headed down the bar to accept his mug of coffee.
“Enjoy,” she said as she handed it to him.
“Thanks,” Phil returned, flushing. His voice still didn’t sound right, he still didn’t feel like a real person, but it felt less unnatural than usual to be in company. This company, at least. He went to the cream and sugar table, taking in the bulletin board above the containers of various milks. Someone was advertising a drag show next month, and a roller derby double-header on the weekend, and a drop-in TTRPG game open to everyone at the library, and “crystal consultations with negotiated rates of pay”, whatever that meant.
Everyone here was so colourful, so much more themselves, and he was—a history of absences and failures—but it was nice to be here. He stirred cream and sugar into his coffee and then went to find a seat.
Summer ground on, sunlight baking streets dug up for construction. Buses were late, or didn’t come at all. One blistering day, Phil gave up on waiting in the heat of the plexiglass-walled shelter and made the trek to the grocery store on foot. The journey back was an exercise in not stopping no matter how much he wanted to, because you couldn’t sit on the sidewalk in this heat.
When he made it up the staircase to his apartment, the world had narrowed down to a pin-point focus on the next task. The next turn in the staircase. Not stopping. Getting his keys out of his pocket. Not stopping. Putting the perishables in the fridge. Not stopping. Turning the air conditioner on and finally collapsing onto the couch, so tired it felt like his muscles were buzzing.
Phil let himself drift for a while, drowsing while the air conditioner finished its cycle and the room heated again. He woke up at sunset, sweaty and parched. When he pushed himself upright the room spun. Probably should eat something. He could hear his neighbor's TV though the wall, and he was pretty sure he was running a fever.
Overdid it. He knew he shouldn’t have walked that far.
Phil drank water, ate a hot dog and mustard without heating it up, and drank more water. He felt less hollow, but heat still burned under his skin and everything felt heavy. Nothing to do but sleep off the backlash from the exertion. From his other wall, his neighbors started listening to music, the sound mashing together with whatever drama his other neighbors were watching. Phil refilled his mason jar, alone in his apartment.
“No mate, everyone wants to listen to your fuckin’ music,” he said under his breath. “You’re so right.”
The sounds from strangers blared.
Sometimes—he did wish he had someone. Just to talk to. Just to make comments about the world, so he felt like he existed. Just to touch, in passing, a body who trusted another body. That was stupid, though, and he already knew why that couldn’t happen. He was difficult to live with, too much and not enough in horrible concert, so he lived alone. Anyone who wanted to be around him would discover the gaping absences in his core, so he shouldn’t start. Simple as that. Phil finished his water and stuck the jar in the sink. He wanted to go back to sleep.
The bed was too far away from the air conditioner, so he stripped the top sheet off the bed and rolled himself up in it on the couch. His head was starting to pound. He pressed his face into the back of the couch, away from the light and sound from the window. This probably would look funny if anyone happened to see it.
Which wouldn’t happen, because he was alone.
But if he had company—
“It’s called thermo-whatsit,” he said to the empty apartment, eyes closed. “Sleep better on the couch if you’re sick, that’s just science. I’ll make the bed back up tomorrow.”
He almost felt like he could hear a chuckle, amid the sound from his neighbors. The couch shifted under him, and a hand combed through his hair. Wow, he really was getting imaginative. Must be the fever he was running. Phil swallowed through a lump in his throat, voice coming out barely more than a rasp.
“Don’t fuckin’—don’t wait up for me. I’ll be fine. Just gotta sleep this off.”
The hand he was imagining in his hair didn’t leave, gentle fingers brushing through the strands. Bands of tension in his shoulders slowly let go. There was still that lump in his throat. Phil pressed his face into the back of the couch, and breathed, and drifted off to sleep.