Chapter Text
January 13th, 2019
The air in the library was always crisp, in Sam’s opinion. It never got too hot, and there was always a slight chill. It never had any smell other than maybe the pages of new books, and sometimes a hint of fresh linen. Other than that, it kind of smelt the same way a hot bath did. And he absolutely loved it, and couldn’t get enough.
It was a Sunday in West Ham, most were at church or with their families. Yet, here he was, sitting on a bean bag in the middle of the young adult section of the library, Lord of the Flies occupying his brain. His eyes scanned the pages quickly, as he let himself forget about anything going on around him.
That was, until Gareth Visser walked in.
For Sam, it was like something in the air shifted immediately. It went from crisp, chilly and stale to warm, welcoming. All because the boy smiled at him. And they just met five days ago .
On Grizz’s behalf, his heart was pounding, thinking back to the BSL book his signed out at the beginning of winter break, because of course he had always noticed Sam. He was hard to miss, and Grizz had his eyes on him since the beginning of Freshman year, when he saw him in the stands during a JV football game and got tackled because he was so distracted. And for years, he’s been working up the sliver of courage to even introduce himself, and in the blink of an eye, Ms. Mulrose just ruined his hard work. (Grizz knew deep down, she had helped him. He would have never talked to Sam.)
He took wide steps to get over to Sam, plopping himself down in the bean bag next to the reading boy. The seat let out a small puff of air as he sat down, due to him being so tall and bulky, and he leaned his head back to look at the books on the shelf behind him, upside down. Grabbing the first one he saw, I’ll Give You the Sun, he set it in his lap, before signing a phrase to Sam that he’d been practicing all week.
“Am I supposed to understand that?” Sam laughed, looking over at him with the quirk of his brow. Grizz’s whole face went red, recalling his memory. He was sure what he signed was right. His hands reached down into his bag for the book, pulling out the textbook he had checked out for the past month, and showed it to Sam, who only laughed again. “I use ASL, Gareth.”
“There’s a difference?” Grizz felt dumb, mostly because he had spent literally weeks on this, only to mess it up. Sam nodded.
“Huge.”
“Can you teach me sometime then?” His heart was practically pounding in his chest, and if Sam could hear he probably would have, loud and clear. When did he become so bold.
Sam’s face went red for a minute, confusion flooding his features. “Sure, but why?”
“I want to be able to talk to you in your language.”
August 10th, 2019
Los Angeles was absolutely, one hundred and twenty thousand percent terrifying. From the traffic, to the people, to the fact that Sam knew nobody at UCLA, it was his worst nightmare. His roommate was nice enough, a boy named Gordie from Tacoma, Washington, who was studying computer science. School started in a week, and he had just began settling into his dorm, and also applying for a part time job around Los Angeles. Before leaving West Ham, he sold his old car and already had bought one from a dealership in one of the suburbs.
Which means, so far, life in Los Angeles was going alright. It was stable, he had money saved up from his job back home and could live off of it until he got a new one. He had an okay roommate who he was going out to dinner with, but the bubbling feeling of loneliness settled into his stomach the first night he spent in his dormitory, after his long flight and a lot of crying on the airplane.
He missed Gareth. Of course he did, he was one of the most important people in his life, and Sam was so used to seeing him every day, being in his arms, laying in his bed and watching him talk. The hoodie he had, two sizes too big with West Ham Centurions - Fight Til The Finish! written in big golden letters across the maroon background. It reminded him of the boy he wanted to see the most, and he was scared to wash it because then it wouldn’t smell like him anymore.
Sam laid in his bed, the twin size mattress with white sheets and a tan duvet, swimming in the hoodie as he sat on his phone. He was obviously texting the boy, a slight smile gracing his face, and he couldn’t wait to get home from dinner to see Gareth's face, and talk to him. But for now, he was looking over to Gordie, waiting for him to slip his shoes on so they could go to dinner with his friend Bean from Washington, and her roommate Lexie.
Soon enough, they were in a little cafe in downtown LA, eating sandwiches and chatting lightly. Lexie was from Las Vegas, and was majoring in political science, with a minor in history. Bean's main focus was astrophysics, with a minor in theater. To Sam, that was a weird mix, but he told them of his literary major with a minor education, feeling insecure, considering all of them seemed to be way smarter than he was.
His mind seemed to constantly drift back to Gareth, and when Lexie asked him about life in Connecticut, on the East coast, he let it spill about their small prestigious town, his great boyfriend and all the state had to offer. Lexie didn't have a boyfriend back in Vegas, but she talked of her best friends that she missed dearly. Bean and Gordie had been friends since the second grade, and were elated when they got into the same school, which meant they could journey their friendship into college. Bean had a girlfriend who went to UC Berkley, who's name Sam couldn't remember, but Gordie was single and excited to finally be independent.
It was nice. Talking to people who had completely different backgrounds, from different places yet you could still get along with was refreshing. However, that didn't stop Sam from practically counting down the minutes until he could go home, crawl underneath his blankets, and skype Gareth. So you could imagine how disappointed he was when he got home, texted Gareth and received a text saying, "sorry, busy right now. call in an hour?"
Then the hour passed, and then a couple hours, and soon it reached 11 o'clock, 2 am on the East coast. Just as Sam was about to shut his laptop down, turn his lamp off and go to bed, he saw the screen light up and the Skype logo with Gareth's face popped up. Sam never answered a call so fast, giddy as ever.
"Sorry, baby, I was out with some friends," Gareth signed, Sam making sure to mute his laptop to not wake up Gordie, who fell asleep in the middle of watching Forrest Gump on the small TV in their room. The boy across the screen smiled apologetically, the tender look in his eyes making Sam want to melt into the blankets.
"It's okay," he signed back. "How is school? New friends?"
"My roommate Luke," Gareth gushed, jabbing a thumb to what Sam assumed to be the other side of his apartment. Instead of staying at the dorms Columbia had to offer, the boy decided to look on Facebook for someone who needed a roommate, and found dude in Queens who was going to NYU, and decided to move in with him. "His girlfriend Helena, and her friend Gwen."
"People in LA are crazy smart," Sam signed, peeking over at his roommate, who seemed to have a brain the size of a full grown watermelon. "I feel dumb. I wanna be an english teacher, and this girl is training to become a senator."
Gareth decided it was a good idea to turn on the lamp in his room, the light flooding his features and Sam got to have a good look at him. His hair was newly trimmed, cut carefully to frame his face, and his cheeks were flushed bright red. Either he had been drinking, or he was really embarrassed, and Sam assumed the former. One of his hands raked his scalp, a smile plastered on his face. "Is that my hoodie?"
"Yeah." Sam plucked at the red fabric for a second, grinning to himself. He was hanging onto that last bit of vanilla mixed with mint mixed with fireplace before he had to wash it, and then he wouldn't be able to smell it anymore.
"It suits you. Look, I gotta go babe. Early morning. I love you," he signed to him, blowing a kiss into the camera. Sam said it back, before closing his laptop.
It was all he had been waiting for since he left, and now a frown covered his face. Was that all this was going to be? Short skype calls, lazy texts, quick FaceTimes? He knew nothing was going to compare to them spooning in Gareth's bed and watching movies while it snowed, or driving around at the other boy listened to music and Sam placed his hand over the speakers to feel it coursing through his veins
But Sam didn't expect for it to hurt this bad when he hung up.
October 24th, 2023
A Tuesday in New York City in late October, and the rain splashed against the road as the busy cars drove through it with no care. People walked with umbrellas up, trying their best to speed-walk to their destination before the rain turned to a massive downpour. Gareth, however, watched it all from the comfort of his own apartment, looking out the windows with a cup of tea in his hands. Losing himself in the rain, he forgot about the two people sitting on the couch.
"Grizz," Allie started, and a sour taste entered his mouth as soon as she spoke. Nobody had called him that in months, all of his new friends in New York simply called him Gareth. Nothing more, nothing less. To be honest, he had become quite the bore. "Are you coming to the reunion?"
His face wrenched as he placed his mug on the stone counter space, looking to where her and Elle sat, before joining them, taking up the entire love seat. "It depends. Am I a masochist? Do I want to see my ex who painfully dumped me and then never talked to me again?" The look on his face gave it all away. He wasn't going, or at least he had no intentions to.
"What happened?" Elle spoke this time, her voice soft as she clutched her mug of hot chocolate in her lap. When the two boys were in high school, they were so madly in love, and she was sure it would last for a long time. Nobody even knew they broke up until six months after it happened, when Sam deleted all of the pictures of them on his Instagram and Grizz returned the favor.
Gareth chuckled dryly, his eyes beginning to tear up. "Why don't you ask him, Elle? Maybe you can get an answer why. Because I sure as hell didn't."
To see him like this was sort of a mind-fuck for both of the girls, knowing him as Grizz Visser, the soft jock who was always level headed and didn't let his emotions get in the way of him. So to be sitting on his couch as his eyes welled up, listening to him talk about his first love and first heartbreak, it felt like they were intruding on a sliver of intimacy that was too intimate to be seen.
"The book's sure gotten a good reaction," Allie tried to change the subject, but Gareth didn't want to think about the book, that screamed desperation. The whole thing reeked of him and Sam, and he had written it as a sort of failed love letter. To get Sam's attention. It didn't work, not in the slightest, and now he was left with a constant reminder that he apparently was never good enough.
"It's about him."
"We know," Elle sighed, offering a soft smile. "You need to come to the reunion, Grizz."
Gareth nodded, because she was right. He wanted to see his old friends, see Clark and Jason for old times sake, maybe visit his teachers, especially Ms. Mulrose, and tell her everything about how his life went to shit. Originally, he weren't going to go home for Thanksgiving, he had too much work to do on his next novel, but the offer looked more appealing as they days past. "Yeah, I know. But I can't, because I can't see him."
"What are you so afraid of?" Elle asked, near whisper. She was scared of overstepping, but was trying to push her friend into being rational.
"I haven't seen him since the breakup. And if I see him, and he looks at me, and pretends like nothing has happened, it's going to break me. Because all I want is for him to see me, and its been three and a half fucking years, Elle. It's going to ruin me."
"But what if it doesn't?"