The Casanovas (2)

15 | The Casanovas

Michael hesitated before he knocked on Sam's door. He waited and listened for any sign of life inside the home. While waiting he reflected on the past couple of weeks.

After the 'email incident' at school, Sam had stormed off and didn't come back. No doubt he needed to cool off, and Michael had let him go, figuring he needed space to escape further taunting. Apparently, he had misunderstood who Sam wanted space from, as it turns out, it was Michael.

Sam didn't respond to any texts, and when Michael drove to pick him up the next day, he'd already left for school on foot. Michael offered a lift to the girls and noticed their hesitancy before they accepted. It prompted him to ask them a few careful questions during the journey to try and establish where Sam's headspace was at. They didn't give much away, and from his continuous glances in the rear-view mirror, he could see their gazes were each cast to the side or down in their laps whenever they answered. They were evading him, even Jess.

After he dropped them off, his mind analysed the prior day frame by frame, word by word, starting from the moment he picked Sam up and ending when he watched him leave the school. Why was he being ignored?

School cemented Michael's suspicions. Sam avoided him all day. When it came to lunch, Michael went to approach him on the field, but when their eyes connected, Sam immediately looked away. Utter dismissal. Michael switched off from that point on, his shell ate lunch, sat in class and wrote notes, but his consciousness retreated deep into his thoughts.

At the end of the day, he returned home and took a seat on the balcony. He stayed there for hours, looking across the lake at the Hanz household. Elsie came out to check on him but left him to it when she noticed the pot of red lollipops next to his chair. They were a tell-tale sign he was in one of his brooding moods. He didn't react to Elsie's presence in the slightest, his eyes were fixated across the lake, even after dark.

His initial reaction was irritation over the fact Sam had pushed him away without having the courtesy to confirm why. Michael assumed it had something to do with the emails, perhaps Sam was ashamed they'd been linked romantically. Michael never took Sam as being insecure about his sexuality, in fact, ordinarily, he oozed confidence. Sam teased Michael before by suggesting he fancied him and wore glitter in the past like war paint around his sisters. The more Michael thought about it, the more confident he felt that Sam wasn't the sort of guy to care about being labelled as gay, it wasn't an insult. So what then? The teasing had frustrated Sam, but what about it made him turn away from Michael. His irritation developed into full-blown frustration when he failed to come to a satisfying conclusion.

After a day or so of the same behaviour, Michael stopped looking for Sam at school and didn't drive round to pick him up. If Sam was determined to ignore him, Michael would beat him at his own game, he was the definition of tenaciousness. Michael could play the long game, he'd spent most of his life being ignored, Sam would come back to him eventually or he wouldn't, either way, Michael refused to chase him.

The door to Sam's home opened.

At least, he tried not to chase him. When the Christmas holidays came, and they still hadn't spoken, Michael's resolve began to crack. It wasn't just Sam. Even though it hadn't been all that long, Michael's life had become intertwined with the Hanz family. It was difficult to picture what Michael did before he met them. When he thought of Sam's family, he found noise, laughter, warmth, blonde hair and bronzed skin. When he tried to picture life before them, it was quiet and bland, at least it had been for a long time. When Sam went away, it all went away.

Milly stood in the doorway, smiling politely at him.

"Michael, nice to see you" she greeted. Her hand subtly pulled the door close to her body. "Sam's not here I'm afraid" she added without prompting.