I'm Glad I Met You

The Office Party

Phil felt uncomfortable in his suit while his mother fussed over him, fixing his hair and wiping the nonexistent smudge off his cheek. “Mum, I don’t understand why I need to be there in the first place, I don’t even know the people,” he complained.

His mum tisked at his childness, “Because, Phillip, they invited our family, and if I’m not mistaken, you are a Lester.”

He sighed, knowing very well he wouldn’t be able to get out of this one that quickly. ‘It’s y only for a few hours,’ he reminded himself, ‘then I can go back to my flat and be alone.’

This is what pushed him on. Even when he was still in high school he had hated going to his dad’s fancy work parties. There was never anything interesting, just the same old thing, old people talking to each other about the weather and traffic, things that really didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. All in all, it really just bored Phil to death. Sure, occasionally there’d be a kid or two his age there, both equally as annoyed and bored as him, but they never really seemed to like the things Phil liked, or even want to socialize with him in general. Not that he expected it any different, however, it’s the same thing that has happened to him since grade school.

They still had a few minutes until they had to leave, so Phil decided to lay on his old bed and check his tumblr. After a couple minutes of mindless scrolling on his laptop, Phil saw the icon of his favorite mutual, ‘danisnotonfire.’ They had the same taste in Phil as everything, from anime to funky pictures of llamas. Though he’d never tried to contact this mysterious ‘danisnotonfire,’ but even seeing his URL made Phil calmer. “Phil, love, we’ve got to go now, or else we’ll be late. C’mon. And remember, no complaining, it means a lot to your father that we’re tagging along. Believe it or not, he hates these things as much as we do.

Begrudgingly, Phil plodded down the stairs and to the car. It wasn’t a long car ride, ten minutes at the most, until they were there. The place Phil had spent so many hours of his childhood at. He almost felt reminiscent. Almost. Then he remembered how much he had actually hated this place and all possibilities of reminiscence vanished. “Alright, Phil, you know what to do,” his dad implied.

Of course Phil could, how could he forget, he spent every weekend doing this years ago. “Yeah dad, I do.”

His father gave him a suspicious look. “You haven’t been to one of these things since before you graduated from college, you sure you remember?”

At this point, Phil could tell his dad was teasing, so he decided to go along with it. “Well, actually, I’m not really sure-”

“Lester!” a voice boomed over Phil’s own, and he knew it had begun, for another five painstakingly long hours, he’d follow his parents around until they shooed him away to talk with important people.

“This is my son, Phil, I don’t know if you remember him. The last time you saw him he was in college, now the lad’s off and living in London all alone!” his father exclaimed proudly clapping Phil on the chest.

“Ah, I have a son myself, he seems to be around the same age as your Phil, let’s see, where is he…” the man scanned the room, looking for his seemingly lost son. “Ah! There the lad is,” he raised his voice, “Oi! Dan, c’mon over here! I have someone I want you to meet.”

The boy took his time wandering over to their group, almost reluctantly as if his dad had asked him to kill a small puppy. “Dan, this is Mr. Lester. Remember me talking about him? He has a son about your age, Phil.”

The boys’ fathers continued on talking, leaving Dan and Phil with nothing to do but face each other. Phil smiled weakly at the boy, knowing that he was another person that would forget who Phil was as soon as their fathers left. As soon as they made eye contact, though, Dan quickly looked down at the floor, seemingly studying the carpet (which was admittedly very distracting with fancy swirls heading every which way and different colors.