So, I finally understood why I was missing Phil so much. I understood why he always made me so happy too. I loved him. Would he love me too, though? Phil had never dated a guy before, but he hugged me all the time. I hoped that wasn't just a friend thing. But then again, I had never dated a guy before and hugged him a lot too, so maybe we were on the same page. I hoped that was true and walked through to the kitchen. There were a few eggs in the fridge and stuff to make a decent omelette with, but not much else. I decided that I would go shopping first thing in the morning. I tucked into my omelette while I watched the third season of Buffy. My activities for the evening were to finish watching Buffy, have a shower and then sleep. The water was cold when I got into the shower and when I checked the temperature dial, it had been set to cold. If Phil had been leaving notes around the flat, had he also reset the shower? I turned the temperature up and the water warmed up slowly.
When I stepped out of the shower, I picked up a towel off of the radiator and it was warm. I towel dried my hair and fell into my bed. I slept soundly the whole night and didn't hear anyone else in the house. I woke and squinted at the sun. There were no notes in my room, so I got dressed into my usual get-up of black shirt, black jacket, black jeans and black shoes. I grabbed my keys and walked down the million flights of stairs to the front door. London was strangely quiet for a Saturday, but it was quite early. There was a supermarket not too far away, so I decided to walk and not get the underground. When I reached the supermarket, I grabbed a trolley and walked inside. I brought just the essentials: cereal; milk; eggs; things to put in an omelette; Chinese takeaway and a small cuddly lion to give Phil when he came back.
I stopped saying if Phil came home and started saying when Phil came home, because he had to at one point. Even people who had disappeared ages ago had appeared eventually. When I reached the checkout, I noticed the lion had a small heart on its paw. I couldn't give that to Phil! He didn't know how I felt about him, and I didn't know how to tell him. I reached to put it back when the shop assistant scanned it past her barcode reader. She looked at me weirdly so I had to pretend that I was checking the sell-by date on the milk. I picked it up, nodded, and put it back down on the conveyor belt. I handed over the money for my small shopping trip, along with an extra 5p because I forgot to bring a bag with me. When I walked home, London had gotten a bit busier. I stopped at a nearby cafe and ordered a hot chocolate. I remembered how the last drink Phil made me had smiley faces on the marshmallows. This one didn't. It tasted a bit rich for my liking, but it gave me time to think things over.
When I finally got home, I unpacked everything and made myself another omelette. It was the first semi-normal shopping trip I had been on in a long time. Phil usually fell into a clothing rack or two along the way. There had been nothing like that this time unless the attempted lion grab made the trip like the usual ones. I finished my omelette and walked upstairs to the office. The screen was dark but I suddenly got a feeling of guilt. I sat down in front of the screen and double clicked a game on my desktop. The loading screen for The Sims 4 appeared. Perhaps Dil would help me forget about Phil for a while. I pressed record on my camera and waved.
'Hello Internet, you may notice that it's still just me here' I began 'and that's because Phil's still not here' I gestures towards where Phil usually sat. 'I thought I'd just check up on Dil to make sure he hasn't broken the sink again or anything'. I managed to get a good fifteen minutes of video content recorded, but it felt flat and empty without Phil's contribution. I uploaded the video to my side channel instead under the heading 'IS DIL ALIVE?' Short, but to the point. Filming and editing the video had taken up a chunk of the day and so I went back downstairs to make myself a hot chocolate. I found a packet of marshmallows open on the side and to my complete surprise, two of them had letters on. I picked them up. They had the letters "O" and "E" on them. I scrubbed the letters down onto two notes and stuck them beside the rest on my wall. I rearranged them until I found a phrase which made vague sense. "NO MORE HA" the notes on my wall read. It sounded a bit strange, as if I was being told off for laughing. I laughed at the notes as a form of rebellion and went back to the living room.