Page 11 of You Belong Here

Outside of the dorm, a new set of students was arriving, pulling their cars up the road in the distance, so I kept to the side steps, tracing the far perimeter through the trees, heading back down on foot.

The bell tower of lower campus began to chime just as I emerged from the woods, drawing my attention up. I thought I saw a figure up there, looking down. Watching. But the sun was making my eyes water, and I couldn’t be sure.

My mind was playing tricks on me here, seeing the danger in everything.

So what if there was someone up there, for some innocent reason?

So what if there was someone out at the plot of the burned-down house last night, drawn by the same curiosity I was?

Maybe they’d seen me out there first. Maybe my arrival in the night had spooked them instead.

The back door of the bell tower pushed open slightly, making me pause. It was the way the door hovered, half closed, like whoever was inside was peering out, making sure they weren’t spotted.

I stepped back into the tree line and waited until a slender man slipped out, locking the door behind him.

He looked quickly over his shoulder before heading toward the main quad.

He was dressed like a professor, in a khaki blazer and navy blue pants, and his sandy blond hair was overlong, brushing his shoulders, pushed back from his face.

There was something familiar in the lope of his stride, the quick bounce of his step.

I found myself trailing after him, through the main quad, my mind trying to place the details.

A woman in a skirt suit was heading our way, and they both paused briefly, exchanged a few pleasant words.

He turned to the side, and I took in the hooked ridge of his nose, the sharp angle of his chin—and then it clicked.

Cliff Simmons. My ex from high school. The same man who once pretended to be a student during orientation, for entertainment. Was he still doing it? Only now he seemed to be pretending to be a professor.

He had always been a chameleon, at ease with any group. It had lured me in when I was younger, but looking back, I could never be sure which parts of him were real.

I kept pace as he continued through campus, curious where he would head next. To the cafeteria, where he’d grab lunch at the discount faculty rate? To the cluster of new students gathered on the lawn, to pretend to give them directions or advice?

But he moved at a quick, determined pace, straight down the brick path.

Eventually he turned for Beckett Hall and entered through the back lobby, the same place the tours had begun.

I was maybe ten seconds behind him when I pulled open the heavy wood door. I was not afraid to call him out, report him to campus security. It wasn’t a cute prank anymore, at the age of forty-two. It was unnerving, disturbing.

But when I stepped inside, the back atrium was empty. I started walking down the long hall, where the walls were interspersed with glass windows, displaying the lobbies for the administrative offices beyond.

I spotted him in the second window, at the Office of Student Life. His back was to the glass, and he was shaking hands with another man in the waiting area—as if he’d scheduled a meeting.

I checked the listing on the door to see who he was visiting.

My eyes trailed down the names for the offices within. And then I felt every muscle in my body tense: Cliff Simmons, Associate Dean.

The past was creeping out with the ivy here.

I shouldn’t have been surprised to see people I once knew.

Just because my parents barely mentioned them didn’t mean they were gone.

They were from a different phase of my life—a time before.

Before I crossed the divide from local resident to college student.

They were the people I left behind, before I fully left.

This was why I’d always avoided lingering in the area when I brought Delilah for a visit. Because I knew it was only a matter of time before a familiar face appeared. Maggie running into my parents in the grocery store. Violet on a tour. Cliff Simmons in Beckett Hall.

Would he recognize my daughter’s name? See the ghost of me in her appearance, walking across campus? What would he say to her under the guise of kindness?

I knew your mother. We grew up together. The stories I could tell you…

Or maybe he had also become someone new over the course of two decades.

He would’ve had to, to become a dean there.

The Cliff I knew had coasted through high school with no particular direction, getting by on wry humor and natural charm.

He’d stayed in town after graduation, juggling night classes and odd construction jobs, hopping between local crews and pitching himself as a jack-of-all-trades handyman, though I wasn’t sure he had the qualifications for either.

He must’ve changed since then, found a new path, crafted his own second life.

I sat on a bench at the edge of campus and pulled out my phone, searching Cliff Simmons, Wyatt College . His administrative listing popped up immediately—a smiling headshot, along with his office contact.

This was the problem with avoiding a place for so long. You didn’t even realize what you might be missing.

His presence here wasn’t a secret, if only I’d been looking.

My parents were cleaning the house when I returned—the drone of a vacuum in the living room and the scent of lemon cleaner coming from the kitchen. Final preparations for the semester away.

In the office, the sheets from the futon had been stripped, and I imagined the washing machine in the basement was already running.

My mother appeared in the entrance of the office; I hadn’t heard her approaching over the sound of the vacuum. She crossed her arms, frowning at my things scattered across the fading patterned throw rug.

“Do you want lunch before you go? I was about to see what I could scrape together with the leftovers before we clean out the refrigerator.”

“Sure,” I said, because I was in no rush to leave yet.

“Sorry, I didn’t know how long you’d be staying today or I’d have been more prepared.”

I felt a pang as I followed her into the kitchen, passing an old family photo on the wall—the three of us posing in front of Beckett Hall, me as a toddler in my father’s arms. How long had it been since it was just the three of us in the house?

A jarring before and after, bookending the last eighteen years.

“Did you know Cliff Simmons works at the school now?” I asked as my father joined us in the kitchen.

My mother paused, peering into the refrigerator. “Now, that’s a name I haven’t heard in a while.” A nonanswer, her specialty.

“I think he started a couple years ago. After we left,” my father said, taking off his glasses and cleaning the lenses with the hem of his shirt.

My mother pulled out a few packets of sliced meat and cheese from the fridge drawer. “I don’t know why you’re so surprised,” she said. “The college is the second largest employer in town. Who else do you think works on the staff there?”

I felt myself gritting my teeth. “I’m surprised that no one told me,” I said.

She spun around, taking me in. “I barely remember him, Beckett,” she said, clearly exasperated. “You dated for, what, a year in high school, on and off? Not like you brought him around much back then. I doubt I’d even recognize him if I saw him now.”

My father opened the pantry and pulled out a stack of paper plates and a mostly empty bag of sliced bread. “Think this is enough?” he asked, dangling the bread between us. “I can run over to the deli if not.”

I frowned. The pantry behind him was practically bare. “When do you fly out?” I asked.

“Early tomorrow,” my mother said. “So we’re getting a car to Richmond tonight.”

I froze, imagining this empty house. I had thought they would be here for a few more days, in case of emergency.

“I’m thinking of staying an extra night,” I said suddenly, though I hadn’t packed for it. “In case Delilah decides she needs anything before the start of school.”

My mother laughed, turning to my father. “ Now she wants to stay.” And then, with a shake of her head, “You’ll be back for parents’ weekend in no time. And Amazon delivers here, you know.”

“We need to close up the house, Beckett,” my father added, in a gentler type of nudge. It’s time to go.

“I know how to lock a door,” I said, sharper than anticipated.

He blinked twice, light blue eyes unnaturally large behind his bifocals. And then he smiled slightly. “Look at you. Same as every other parent who’s come before you after all,” he said.

This was my father’s main argument about humanity.

I’d heard it at their dinner parties more times than I could count.

He always said human behavior doesn’t change, it just finds a new frame of reference.

Forced gladiators become paid players, but we all still fill the stadiums and cheer for blood, don’t we?

My mother leaned against the counter and smiled like she could see right through me. “Everyone has to let go, Beck.”

I gestured in the direction of campus. “I literally went to college across the street. And you worked there. I don’t think it’s really the same, Mom.”

I felt her gaze sharpen. “And yet you never came back home after, did you?”

My father sighed, hands out, as if trying to defuse a situation before it began. “She’s going to be fine, Beck.” Then he gestured to the leftovers on the counter. “Eat something and go, before you have to drive through the mountains in the dark. You know I don’t like when you do that.”

I didn’t like the way they were talking down to me. I understood, of course, that my parents were probably right.

But I also knew that driving in the night wasn’t the only dangerous thing here.