The companion piece to Little Lights in my Heart following Phil’s story set to another song by passenger – things you’ve never done.

 ~~

When you were younger
Blue eyed boy wonder
Always used to ponder
On what life may hide.

Now that you're older
The nights are so much colder
Never even told him
How you feel inside.

These were the words Phil Lester spoke aloud to himself one winter’s night; alone in his small living room at the very top of the block of flats.

You were so proud
With your head up in the white clouds
 

Regret is a cruel emotion. It’s the possibilities that could have been that cause the ache deep inside. The knowledge that all he had to do was reach out, but Phil had let Dan Howell slip through his fingers and now he was alone with only his regret for company.

Now that you're wiser
You'd never compromise him
Ever day you'd realise him
But this bird has flown.

It was the kiss that sealed it. Something as simple and sweet and innocent as a first kiss lit so many lights until it was as if they were entwined in a halo. It was so different. Not like in the stories or the songs, just happier. Warmer. Completely comfortable.

Most of the time when Phil kissed girls he was tense; trying to make sure he was doing it right and utterly self conscious. Figuring out at what point he was supposed to move his hands and where to. Wondering endlessly if it was rude to come up for air or stop to flick his hair out of his eyes.

But with Dan it was different; they had laughed through the kiss and smiled at each other with light in their eyes. Phil had got a crick in his neck and pulled away without even thinking because he knew Dan would understand and move for him. He knew there was no awkwardness between them.

~

Phil asked a friend one day, what it was like to be in love. It’s like an intense friendship and complete security. But it’s different for everyone and sometimes it’s not clear straight away, not until they’re gone and you realised how much you miss.

He frowned and was silent for a while, staring at the ground with his bottom lip between his teeth. What about sex? He’d asked. Is it endlessly perfect and utterly passionate? Is it really so romantic?

Jack had furrowed his brow and looked him straight in the eye.

“Mate,” He’d said, “if you can’t laugh during sex you’re not doing it with the right person. It’s not really romantic; it usually goes wrong anyway - especially if you’re being adventurous. Or sometimes you slip out or fall over or whatever and you laugh and you smile and that’s okay and I think that’s love. At least it is for me.”

Phil remembers the way Dan had moved his hand to reassure him. He remembers the way Dan smiled when they stopped to readjust.

He remembers Dan’s smile.

And you've blown out all your candles one by one
And you curse yourself for things you've never done.

Regret is a cruel emotion.

~

Phil remembers his first girlfriend: Charlotte; with her chocolate brown hair and periwinkle blue eyes. She was like something out of a movie, quiet and shy yet stunningly beautiful as the sheet of dark hair fell over her eyes casting her pale face into shadow. Phil had been dizzy with success when she’d said yes – she was perfect, a million guys would kill for the taste of her lips. And Phil wanted to make sure he was everything she deserved. He bought her flowers, took her to the movies and kissed her under lampposts. They went for long walks in the parks and finally he took her back to his house and up to his bedroom and tried to kiss her again but it was wooden, systematic and emotionless. Every touch was carefully measured, each kiss planted with pinpoint accuracy. But as she lay vulnerable on the bed she looked up at him through wide eyes with a furrow between her brows. An uncertainty in her eyes. And he looked down and bit his lip.

I’m sorry, he’d said, I can’t do it.

And she’d just nodded and left without a word.

Phoebe came next. He was determined to do better this time; he got tips from all his friends and read romantic novels till his skin crawled.

She was beautiful too. Brown eyes this time and blonde-white hair that hung in messy ringlets down to her waist. And he did it better this time, focused instead on gaining trust and friendship as he would with anyone else. Their first kiss came after lying for hours in a blossom coated meadow just talking about nothing. Like he used to with Dan. And when she turned suddenly and pressed a kiss to his startled lips Phil had smiled. She felt warm and soft in his arms, and his hand seemed to fit safely into the curve of her waist. It was perfect. Only the lights didn’t shine, they just glowed with warmth as they always did when he was happy.

He took this as a good sign - something he could build on - and so he put his heart and soul into Phoebe with the slender arms and delicate fingers. Phil was determined to fall in love. If Ryan Alderson could do it with a girl three years younger who wore short skirts and a full face of makeup then so could he.

The more he worked the easier it became. The kisses came freely and frequently, just out of habit and affection rather than necessity now. And they were sweet and soft. But he could tell she wanted more, that she was waiting for him. And he would do anything for her of course – so he did. He went to her house and lay in her four poster bed with the gossamer curtains floating down around them from the ceiling. And there amongst the duvets and the pillows he felt a small light flicker and die somewhere deep inside and he didn’t smile, he just kissed her cheek and closed his eyes and tried to block out the image in his mind. The image of her smile as she looked up at him from the pillows – only it wasn’t her smile he saw, it was Dan Howell’s. It was only then he’d realised how similar the shade of their chocolate eyes.

Only he’d seen Dan kissing Katie Clark with the bright red lipstick and bleached blonde hair only last night. So he took a deep breath and opened his eyes to return Phoebe’s smile.

~

He’d given his everything to Phoebe, throwing each spare minute into his desperate quest for true love until high school had passed him by and it was time to choose a college. He followed Phoebe without a second’s thought even though she was going to an arts college. And then when he walked through the gates for the first time he blinked in horror for there was no familiar figure with brown hair and skinny jeans on the other side of the road. Here there were boys in chinos and carefully faded denim shorts – designed by the elite of the fashion industry to look like they’d come out of a charity shop in some quirky old town. Here people clutched pretentious sketchbooks and canvases and oversized art folders. There wasn’t an MCR shirt in sight, and Phil was lost.

He’d wanted out since the first time someone had scorned him for listening to his music on mp3 rather than vinyl but he was scared of losing Phoebe. Scared of losing the emotion he’d taken so long to develop.

So he stayed. And he never saw Dan Howell again.

You let it linger,
Slip on through your fingers,
So that September
He moved across the land.

How your face dropped
And how your heart stopped
Sitting at the bus stop
When they told you that he’d gone

So you run to the station
Need to tell him that you love him
As the train disappears
You never felt so alone.

Dan was in Manchester University studying law. He was every parents dream, and he was Phil’s too. His smile was all Phil saw when he closed his eyes. His face as he smiled at his new best friend and his beautiful girlfriend and his sea of admirers. Phil swore that one day he would find the money to move to Manchester and search till he was old and greying.

~

Phoebe was beautiful. Phil knew that, but so did so many others. It was the subtle tan of her skin – contrasting so harshly against Phil’s pallid complexion. The white of her hair a shock against his blackened mop. Her tinkling laugh no longer sparking his sad blue eyes.

She told him the news mid January – four months after she had watched him run out of the door and down the street towards the train station.

I’m pregnant.

What?

Pregnant. I’m going to have a baby, and I want to keep it.

Oh. I-

Do you love me?

What?

Do you love me? Am I the person you care most about in the world? Do you love me more than you’ve ever loved anyone and is it true love?

I don’t understand I-

That’s all I needed to know. Goodbye Phil, I don’t want to raise my child with you. Because you’re lovely and beautiful and incredible and you’d stay with us because you’re too kind to leave. But you wouldn’t be happy. And I don’t want my baby growing up with that. We’re not soul mates, Phil. We’ve both known that from day one. It was fun and it was nice but it wasn’t love. You’ll be like godfather or uncle or something like you’ll still get to see your baby as much as you want - I would never take that away from you, don’t worry. But we can’t be together as a parent unit. You understand that don’t you? I need to find someone else – my real other half I guess. It’s time you found yours. Goodbye Phil, I know I’m going to miss you.

~

Phil had been there for the birth of his son. He had held her hand and rubbed her back and done whatever he could, but try as he might he couldn’t escape the cold glare from Phoebe’s mother on the other side of the bed.

'Cause you’ve blown out all your candles one by one
And you curse yourself for things you never done
Where were you when his hour of need had come?
Now you curse yourself for things you never done

Phil didn’t go to uni. He got a job in an office to help Phoebe pay for James (He chose the name. It was the first time he’d ever argued with Phoebe and he knew he’d hurt her, saying the words he’d told himself that he’d never say. Please let me choose, it’s all I want – all you’re giving me when you’re taking away my first and only son. Don’t I get that one thing? That one little part of me in his life?

 And after it was decided and she lay sobbing quietly on the sofa cradling James in her arms he wondered to himself if he’d made the right decision. It was Dan’s middle name; a living breathing reminder of the things he’d never done. Of the possibilities slipping away from him even now every second wasted in his office chair working for a son that would never truly be his.

Phil never got another girlfriend.

Before James was a year old Phoebe had found her soul mate, and within three years they were married. He was gorgeous and tanned with a mop of messy blonde hair above his sparkling blue eyes. Phil liked him. He was kind and gentle and funny, but they were never close. How could they be? Trying to find the perfect balance for raising a son that didn’t truly belong to either of them. And how badly Phil wanted to leave then – travel the world in search for the boy he let slip through his fingers. A boy who was probably married now too and with kids of his own, but that didn’t bother Phil. He would settle for friendship. For their friendship. He wanted his best friend back, the one he’d known since nursery and shared every moment of his life with until he’d become so infatuated with finding the one that lit the lights in his heart that he’d let him slip out of his life.

He had thought he was setting Dan free. To be with the people on his level but far too cool for Phil and to sleep with all the girls at uni then become a successful, happy lawyer with a beautiful wife in a big house in the country somewhere.

But the light that had died that day at the train station still hurt him even now, the blackness clouding his eyes and making it hard to breathe. True love. It had been right under his eyes the whole time, but he’d been too blind to see it. Because friendship is the truest form of love. Because Dan’s friendship was like nothing else he’d ever found, and now it was gone. And maybe if they had been together their love would have blossomed into something altogether more special, but it was too late now and Phil would never know if the things that could have been would have.

Sometimes when he lay in his creaky single bed at night he imagined this Dan. He imagined walking ghost like through his house and watching his hectic, love filled life unfold around him. The kids running to meet him at the door when he came home from work and the lights that lit up when he took them into his arms. The blonde haired blue eyed wife swooping down to peck him on the cheek and the blazing lights that would join around the happy family as they headed through to the kitchen for dinner.

Phil would think these things as he walked across the faded carpet of his flat to put a ready meal in the microwave and wait for the beep. He would think of them as he stood under a feeble stream of lukewarm water each morning, staring in the mirror at his pale flabby body and the damp hair hanging ragged over his eyes.

He watched the lights blossom in Phoebe’s family. He watched the confusion in James’ eyes each time he turned up to take him out for the day. Uncle Phil is taking you to the zoo today! Phoebe would smile, and his little eyes would light up and Phil would take him in his arms and feel the warmth of millions of shining new little lights.

He was holding him in his arms the day they’d sat down to explain to him that Phil was his real Daddy, not beautiful Jason who picked him up from school and swung him high into the air. As he’d turned his green eyes round to his Phil had seen the light go out in a cloud of darkness and confusion.

~

Phil grew old. And as he did, he thought of Dan growing old somewhere near or maybe somewhere far. He wondered what Dan would look like now; if he was greying as much as Phil; If the circles under his eyes merged into deep wrinkles the way Phil’s did; if his hairline was receding and his belly expanding.

But most of all he wondered if Dan ever thought of him. If he remembered the weirdo friend with the blue eyes and strange noises that had followed him around like a small puppy for so many years.

Now your grandson blonde haired blue eyed handsome,
Calls you up from London and sits and asks you why.
So your answer: don’t be scared of failure,
For the only failure is never to try.