Page 17 of You Belong Here

“Hi, Raven, right?” I said. “Delilah wasn’t answering her phone, and I assumed she was sleeping.”

Raven frowned, moving the shower caddy from one hand to the other. “You aren’t allowed in here without a resident.”

“Delilah is a resident,” I said. Not to mention, Lenny seemed to have no issue with it.

Raven widened her eyes, took a step forward, the squeak of her shower shoes almost comical given the situation. “But she’s not here.”

I wondered how much she knew about Delilah’s rooming situation—or lack thereof. I swallowed dry air, a lump of panic stuck in my throat. “Have you seen her?” I asked, facade giving way to desperation.

Her expression softened for a moment, and she tugged at the edge of her towel. “Look,” she said. “There are policies about this.” Her eyes slid away. “She’s an adult.”

As if she, too, were embarrassed for me.

As if I were not the first parent to arrive on campus, demanding answers about my child’s whereabouts.

As if there were a protocol for this—parents who couldn’t let go—and she’d seen it before.

Like my father had claimed: Same as every other parent who’s come before you…

But the legality of adulthood seemed so arbitrary. A sudden and jarring before and after, when I was the one who still coordinated her doctors’ appointments. I was the one who made sure she paid any bills for miscellaneous funds due to the school, even though she had a scholarship.

I had signed her up for the dining plan, purchased the books, filled out the paperwork.

But it was her name on the contract.

“It’s a family emergency,” I said, to spare Delilah the future embarrassment of my panic. Hoping for any sort of information to put my mind at ease.

I looked Raven over carefully, trying to see any signs of a long night on her. I assumed she was a senior. But Raven was up and showered early in the morning, and there was no evidence of anything unusual in the building. Nothing more than typical for a freshman dorm early on a Saturday morning.

“Then you’ll have to call your daughter,” she said, free hand up, absolving herself. “I’m sorry, I can’t give you anything more.”

My daughter was eighteen, and officially I had no right to her comings and goings.

How many students got into fights with their parents and didn’t answer their calls?

But there had to be a policy to reach them in an emergency.

Administrators who would know how to track them down.

Cameras situated around campus. An electronic log of their movements.

It was a Saturday morning, so there was no class schedule I could follow.

It was so different from the last year of high school, when the school sent an automated call if your kid hadn’t shown up for class.

When I knew I’d always be able to track her down through the parents of friends or the friends themselves—a group of kids who’d spent the past decade in the back of my car singing along to the radio, or filled my kitchen, or were the topic of dinner conversations.

Her friends—mostly other theater kids—had been loud and dramatic.

They didn’t seem to believe in secrets, stage-whispering in a way that made sure those around them heard.

Wearing their emotions on their sleeves.

Always, it seemed, believing this life was their great performance and we were their audience.

Watching, carefully, to gauge our reactions.

Now all I had were snippets that Delilah chose to share, and where did that get me? She liked enchilada day. Joined the stagecraft crew. Barely mentioned her roommate.

None of this led me any closer to her.

I mumbled a few words to Raven in understanding, drifted down the steps, back out the front door, and thought of Delilah walking home from dinner, calling before she got back to her room.

Maybe this was the reason she always called from outside the dorm. A roommate she didn’t get along with. Or… someone she preferred to be with instead.

A boy she didn’t want to tell me about just yet. A secret.

In my memory, the gasp before the phone went dead became a laugh.

Someone sneaking up behind her—the phone slipping from her hand at the shock of it.

Her expression, a welcome surprise. Someone she was happy to see.

The phone had broken, but it was an issue to deal with later, in the daylight. Tomorrow, she’d say with a shrug.

I returned to the wooden bench, wondering where to go next. I thought about how I could track down her friends—Gen, Sierra—without embarrassing her. They had to be somewhere in this quad of dorms. On-campus housing was required.

But first I opened my phone, connected to the campus Wi-Fi, and sent her an email.

Hey, I’ve been trying to reach you. I’m in town (surprise!) and wanted to take you out. Can you call me please?

If she’d damaged her phone, she’d at least be able to call me from someone else’s. She knew my number by heart. It was the first thing I had her memorize as a child, in case she was ever lost.

I also checked her Instagram account and saw she was last active eighteen hours earlier. But I decided to cover my bases, figuring she’d be more likely to scroll social media before checking email, and sent a message there, too: My texts don’t seem to be going through. Call me?

I prepared to head back to my parents’ place, settle down, regroup. Wait for a reasonable hour—sometime in the afternoon, when I knew she’d be up.

It would be best to come back to campus when it was more active, when Delilah would have to log onto her laptop or venture out for food. When her friends would be roaming around as well.

I had just stood from the bench when a runner darted out from the woods, emerging from a trail that had been obscured.

A young man, gangly limbs, dressed in all black. He paused for a moment, pushed his dark hair off his eyes. He was tall, slightly hunched, like he was trying to remain inconspicuous—I recognized him then as Violet’s son Bryce.

He seemed out of breath, and I took a step forward, wondering if he could help me.

But there was something about the way he moved—with an awkward, sporadic gait—so that suddenly I questioned whether he’d been out for a run or was returning from his night out.

It was the way he had emerged from the woods, like he was being chased. As if he had successfully reached safety and was finally able to recover—bent over, hands on his thighs.

He took a quick glance behind him into the woods before continuing across the quad, toward another dorm.

I narrowed my eyes at the place he’d just been, felt a pull drawing me closer.

Nearly six hours after Delilah’s dropped call and there were kids still out there.

Whatever was happening, it might still be going on.

As I approached the trees, another strong gust of wind funneled through the woods, stinging my eyes.

Please let me be overreacting.

But if I’d learned anything from twenty years earlier, it was that you had to act fast. Before the clues drifted, before the trail faded, before the possibilities branched out, endless and cold. Before she was well and truly gone.

There was always a chance, in hindsight, to alter the series of events to follow. But you had to make a decision. You had to move.

I ducked my head and pushed forward, straight into the trees.