My Phobia Man

10. Getting to Know Him

"Tomorrow is my day-off, so shall we have coffee then?"

Hearing his words, my mind gave a blue screen. As you can guess, it had been four years since I had coffee outside; and therefore, even the idea of it was frightening for me.

"We can have it in the backyard at night when there is no one around or we can drink it here when it is cool enough," Talay said immediately with an apologetic gaze.

Being embarrassed, I just nodded, and handing the blanket to him, I lay down on the sunbed. Talay stood a few more seconds, then his shadow left my side as he lay down as well.

"So, your social phobia is pretty serious, ha?"

Well, it wasn't surprising that he noticed, so I didn't evade the remark. Sighing heavily, I said "I also have panic disorder."

He laughed.

I jumped on my feet to confront him. When I opened up to him, he had the audacity to laugh at me! As if he had no fears!

"Are you laughing?" I asked coldly, my veins on my temples popped up with anger as well as disappointment.

He looked at me with soft eyes and rose to his feet as well. Leaning his arms on my fence, he said "I was laughing at the situation, we are truly a jigsaw puzzle!"

"Ha?" I gaped at him while my anger dissolved a bit.

"Other than social phobia, I have almost everything."

My eyes got narrowed, but my lips kept sealed.

"Look," he continued, seeing I was still confused, "I have Claustrophobia, Thalassophobia, Acrophobia, Aichmophobia, Pyrophobia, Hemophobia, Elevatophobia, Nyctophobia... and many more probably."

What the hell?!

It was the only thought echoing inside my mind. Was it even possible for someone to have that many phobias? Was it six buy- one pay? What kind of accidents did he have to develop that many phobias? What the hell was Aichmophobia?

"So," I started, words falling painfully out of my dry throat, "you are afraid of closed-areas, height, sea, fire, blood, elevator and darkness, is that so?"

"And sharp objects," he added nonchalantly.

Oh true, I missed that! So, Aichmophobia means sharp object phobia, ha? As if it was a crucial bit of knowledge, my brain noted the term down while I continued to stare at him blankly.

"See?" he shrugged with a smirk, "you are a lot better than me."

I just nodded, absent-minded, and slumped on the sunbed again. Was this guy a deity?

"Hahaha," Talay laughed as he slipped his hair off his eyes, "I declare this round is mine."

"How can you be cool about it?" I asked with curiosity.

"Well, I tried to get help many, many times, but sessions were not useful. Therefore, I just learned to live again despite those damn phobias... well, if you don't count my nightmares, of course."

"You are pretty awesome," I said out loud, but didn't regret doing it.

"Haha, thanks!" Talay chirped, grinning from ear to ear.

I lightly chuckled and we lay down on the sunbeds again. Keeping the silence, I watched the bright stars and sniffed the fresh air. It was as if we were at the seaside, lying on the sunbeds, watching stars.

The only thing missing was the sea, haha.

Wait, sea!

Only then did it occurred to me. Raising a suspicious finger up in the air, I asked "you have a sea phobia?"

Talay chuckled on his side and hummed positively.

"Your name is Talay though."

He laughed, "yes, my mom loves seas, so she named me Talay. I also love the concept of the sea, even if not itself."

"And you also love blue?" I asked with astonishment. How could it be possible to love the pieces of something while you were afraid of it as a whole.

"Yes!" he exclaimed, "that is my favourite colour, what's yours?"

"Black."

"That's boring, what else?"

"White."

"That's even worse."

"..."

"You should find an interesting colour to like."

"Just sleep, will you?" I snorted and he chuckled again.

"Okay, I will leave you alone for the night, but you should think about a good colour representing you."

I rolled my eyes, but he couldn't see because of the fence.

"I can feel you rolling your eyes."

"..."

"Hahaha, okay I will stop," he promised, "can I see you tattoo?"

Sighing, I put my hand on the fence. As I had to hold it upwards, I hoped that he would fall asleep fast.

He did, so did I.

I believed we slept for two to three hours until Talay was struck with the nightmare again. Hearing his grunting, I woke up with a start and took a sitting position to look at him. Poor guy, he was holding his arms in front of him, defensively while his face was showing signs of fear.

"It is okay, you are not alone," I repeated as I held his arm over the fence.

As usual, it took a while to calm him down. His sweat mixed with his tears and trickled down from his small face while he kept squirming on the sunbed. At least he was small; otherwise, he would be on the ground after that much squirming.

When finally he was stable, I covered him with the blanket again and returned to my sunbed, dead tired. It was very interesting that when he was alone in his flat, he used to wake up after a nightmare and listen to some music, but not even once he woke up when he was with me. Was it because he unconsciously felt safe with someone around or the tatt- NO! Come on, I have been a sensible man for a few years.

"This whole thing is driving me crazy," I murmured into the night and closed my eyes to get some sleep.