Page 21 of You Belong Here

From the front porch, I stood before the window to my father’s office, visible through the gauzy curtain.

Inside, the row of masks along the back wall stared out at me, like a warning.

I pushed the window from the base, and it gave, sliding upward.

I almost laughed to myself. This, I knew, was my own oversight.

My irresponsibility from a month earlier, when I’d neglected to lock up after slipping out into the night.

What was it they had said? I wasn’t in a city anymore. Shouldn’t worry about my full car left at the curb. They’d never had an alarm system or cameras pointed outside. And they’d left a spare key on the back porch, in the same place it had always been, for years.

I peered over my shoulder once just to make sure the neighbors weren’t watching as I stepped inside my father’s office, directly over the ledge, and onto the dark futon.

When I closed the window behind me, I was engulfed in silence. Without their presence, the house had a different scent to it. Something that existed deep in its bones, in the walls. A sweetness from old cooking, maybe. A remnant of those who had existed before.

I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been in here all alone. Twenty years probably, give or take.

I removed the red mask from my bag, still cool and damp, and brought it to the kitchen. I draped it on top of the table, hollow face staring back up at me, then emptied the rest of my bag to give everything a chance to dry out.

I took a cup from the cabinet to fill in the sink, then paused. There was a single plate beside the sink, like something my mother had forgotten in their rush to leave, after a last-minute snack. And then, in the basin of the sink, a glass, pink lip print marking the rim.

Not my mother, then. I’d be shocked if she owned any makeup, and she definitely wouldn’t be wearing it on her way to the airport.

I opened the trash cabinet under the sink, knowing it should be empty—something they surely would’ve handled before leaving for three months—to find the remnants of a bagel, and a Styrofoam cup, just like the one I’d received from the deli.

My heart raced. Of course. Of course. Who else would know the place my parents hid their spare key? If she hadn’t been getting along with her roommate, of course she would come here. A safe place, a whole house, all for herself.

“Delilah?” I called as I headed straight for the steps, up to my old bedroom. “It’s just me!”

When I reached the landing, I could see straight through the open doorway—empty.

But there were signs that someone had been staying up here.

In the bathroom, toothpaste residue was visible in the sink, and a dark green bath towel hung from the shower rod.

Beside the sink, the attic door was unlatched.

I pulled it shut as I passed, on instinct.

Then, in my bedroom: a rumpled comforter, partially pulled up; a tissue in the trash can beside the desk.

I sat on the edge of my bed, feeling myself relax for the first time since that dropped call. I’d finally found a trace of Delilah, discovered why she hadn’t been in her dorm. She wouldn’t be able to check messages here with the Wi-Fi turned off. She wouldn’t even know I was looking.

I lay back on the bed, feeling the imprint of my daughter in this same place.

I imagined what she thought when she looked around the room from this angle. All the words circling the room—the ghost of who I used to be.

Even when I was her age, I had already wanted to be a writer. I felt like I was reaching for some great truth, frustratingly out of reach. One that I believed I could wrestle into form, make concrete.

There was the string of lyrics in cursive painted sideways down the wall.

A stanza from Poe behind an empty ornate frame that Maggie had found in a thrift shop.

On the wall directly over my wooden headboard, a collection of the first and last lines from every novel I’d read during my senior year of high school, in my own secret project.

A meaning I believed I could extract from the pattern.

At seventeen, I had watched Cliff’s eyes widen in surprise when I sneaked him upstairs—a side of me he hadn’t expected. And at eighteen, I’d listened to Adalyn reciting the lines back to me as she dragged her fingers across the walls, claiming it was like looking straight into the heart of you .

I wasn’t so different from my parents, who wanted to pry into the human psyche or understand the predictable rhythms of humanity. We just had a different angle of approach.

After I left home, after Delilah, I switched my aim to marketing and graphic design, where I learned to refocus someone else’s message most efficiently. And then I learned to inhabit other people’s stories completely—my fingerprints on everything, my name on nothing.

Still, my parents kept my room intact, like proof of who I was supposed to be.

The ghostwriting had surprised them both. But the evidence was right here all along: I had always preferred to live inside other people’s words.

The adrenaline from the morning was wearing off, fatigue settling into my limbs.

I scrolled to Maggie’s new contact in my phone. It was after ten, and with young twins, I was sure she’d be up by now.

She answered on the fourth ring, sounding out of breath, like she’d been running after them through the yard again. “Beckett?” she said—just like she had when she found me on her porch.

“Hi, sorry to call you on a Saturday morning. I was wondering if you’ve seen Delilah around? Has she called you at all?”

“No. Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, I’m at my parents’ house. I came up here on a whim, and I think she’s been staying here. I’m just trying to track her down.”

“Sorry, I haven’t heard from her,” Maggie said. “I’m not on campus much, so I haven’t had the chance to run into her.”

“Thanks. I’m gonna head over that way soon.” I ended the call, then rolled onto my side, like I would when talking to Maggie during a sleepover, one ear pressed to the pillow, whispering until we fell asleep.

Another line caught my eye. Something near the top of the far wall in blocky black ink. Something I didn’t remember.

I sat up, the words tilting into focus: Hey there, Delilah

The line jarred me at first—how long had it been since I’d sat in this spot, reading the quotes? I imagined my father dragging my desk chair over to the wall, marker in hand, adding another layer of history. It was the name of a song he would sing to her as a child. Maybe he still did.

I scanned the walls for evidence of any other new additions. And there, another, also near the ceiling, in that same deep black, thick lettering.

I can still see you

Goose bumps rose up the back of my neck.

Was this another song title? Something Delilah listened to?

Part of a game they played? I couldn’t imagine my father writing that.

It sounded so unsettling without context.

Threatening, even. Not something to include on the wall where his granddaughter slept.

I stood from the bed, walking closer, searching now, scanning for anything out of place. One more, just over the open doorway—

I swallowed air, my throat tight.

Not a list of song titles at all.

Above me, instead, I read the final line of the message:

Did you think you could hide?