Page 43 of You Belong Here

For the rest of the afternoon, I couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched. Trevor and Delilah eventually returned with several bags from the mall out of town and an assortment of groceries from our local shop.

I was shocked by the vision of Delilah. There were bruises forming on both of her knees, too, so that she looked younger, like she did as a kid, scraped up from falling off the school jungle gym.

The sneakers were her own—once bright white, now a little worse for the wear.

But the soles were squeaky clean, like she’d been desperate to wash the night off them.

I remembered the streaks of mud yesterday, when I’d arrived home. The smudge at the front door. Another at the basement steps.

So that was the noise in the dryer—the uneven thud of her clothes, with the shoes caught in between. I hoped my mother didn’t notice any damage to the dryer when she was back.

After Delilah dropped her bags in the foyer entrance, I gave her a hug, on instinct.

She tensed for a moment before giving in to it. “Is this going to happen every time you see me now?” she asked.

The fact that she was making a joke was a good sign. But it was also a sign that she probably hadn’t heard about the body on campus.

“Maybe,” I said. “Probably.”

“Phone acquired,” Trevor said, holding up a small paper bag in his left hand in triumph. “And food.” He held up his right hand, three plastic bags straining against his fingertips.

I took the plastic bags and carried them into the kitchen. Delilah brought her phone into the living room while the two of us unloaded the groceries.

Trevor raised an eyebrow at me over the rustling of the plastic bags—a question he didn’t want to ask when she was in earshot. Anything? he mouthed.

I shook my head. There were no updates. No answers. Not from Maggie and nothing online, either—I’d checked.

Trevor cleared his throat as he removed a carton of milk from a bag.

“I didn’t know…” he began. “I wasn’t sure how long I should stay.

” As if explaining the amount of groceries he’d purchased—clearly more than for the day.

“But until we know what’s going on, I thought… ” He trailed off again, waiting.

I paused at the counter, then turned to face him.

It was a question for me. An unspoken agreement. A line we always carefully walked and one I couldn’t be bothered to keep up with now.

“Can you take tomorrow off?” I asked, another vague question.

He nodded, then opened the refrigerator, storing the perishables inside.

“Yeah, of course. No problem. I already told my boss I had a family emergency, it’s just…

I don’t have anything to wear. Probably should’ve picked up some more clothes at the mall while we were out, but I stuck to Delilah’s list. The phone took precedence over fresh boxers. ”

I laughed, the sound foreign in the house. Maybe that was all we needed to break from the grip of the spiral. I hadn’t been able to free my mind from its high-alert level since her dropped call. “I’m out after today, too. I can run a load tonight to see us through.”

“I do know how to do my own laundry,” he said. “I’m something of an expert in that regard.” He smiled the same crooked smile he’d given me the first time we met, then he extended an open hand—waiting for me to pass him the juice.

But I was struck motionless. I’d gotten a sudden flash of another life. Another almost . Something I’d veered sharply away from. Something I might’ve missed.

I had dated a handful of men since him, more casually than seriously, which, I had come to learn, was primarily a fault of mine—that I was, to quote from my last significant breakup two years earlier, bad at committing .

But that wasn’t true. I was excellent at committing.

I made decisions quickly and often; I bought a house at first sight; named Delilah in a single glance; fell in love in a heartbeat—in no time at all. It just hadn’t been with them.

I stepped back quickly from the counter, needing air.

It was the proximity. The intimacy of being together in the house I’d grown up in. The vulnerability of the last day and the fact that my defenses had been all but stripped bare.

“Are you okay?” he asked, leaning against the counter.

I nodded, stepping back. “Can you finish this by yourself?” I asked. “I need to talk to Delilah before she gets that phone up and running.” I was sure word was starting to spread.

“Yeah,” he said, shaking his head slightly, like he was confused. “I know how to do this stuff, too, believe it or not.”

I leaned against the entrance of the living room, preparing myself. Watching as Delilah sat hunched over the new phone, working through the setup process. She didn’t have it completed yet, but I needed to prepare her.

“Hey,” I said before joining her on the couch.

“Hey,” she answered. Her hair had fallen in front of her face, so I couldn’t see the scratch—or her expression.

“Delilah,” I said, tucking one leg up, shifting to face her. “A girl was found dead on campus in the student center pit.”

She stared up at me in shock—or fear.

“Your friend Sierra was out looking for you. She’s okay, but she found the body,” I added. I gestured to Delilah’s phone. “I wanted you to hear it from me first. That’s what the sirens were for this morning.”

Her hand was trembling as she raised it to her mouth. “I don’t… I need to…”

I grabbed her wrist, tried to refocus her attention. “Delilah, there’s nothing you can do right now. We’re not allowed on campus.” I gestured to her phone. “You can check in with your friends from here.”

She fell silent, her expression, for the first time, completely unreadable to me.

Almost two months here, and as I had feared, this place had changed her, transforming her into someone quieter, more secretive.

Someone who didn’t tell me that she’d accused her roommate of theft; that she’d basically moved out of the dorm; that she’d been struggling.

It was time to hear what had been happening—not just over the last few days but since she’d arrived on campus. “Delilah, what happened at the dorm with Hana?”

She stared back at me but didn’t answer. Like she was trying to figure out what I knew and how I knew it.

“I know you’ve been staying here,” I said, my voice quiet, like I was in on the secret. “It’s fine. I get it.”

She shook her head, eyes widening. “I’m not —”

I lifted a hand, to stop her defense. To keep her from telling a lie that she’d have to walk back later.

“I went by the dorm yesterday when I couldn’t find you.

Hana told me you don’t stay there anymore.

And your grandfather said he gave you your own key…

You’re allowed to be here. You’re not in any trouble for it. ”

But that seemed to be the least of her concerns. “Mom, I’m not . I just told my RA that I was spending time at my grandparents’ place in town so they wouldn’t worry.”

I shook my head, trying to recalibrate. “Where have you been staying, then?” I asked.

A friend—Gen, in another dorm. A boyfriend. That butter yellow house where Carly and Sierra lived. I waited for her to say it—whatever she didn’t want me to know.

She tipped her head up and groaned at the ceiling. “You’re not going to understand,” she said dramatically.

“Try me,” I said.

She pressed her lips together, debating. When the words came, they were small and quiet. “The theater.”

My eyes widened. “You’ve been staying in a theater ?”

“I knew you wouldn’t understand.”

I had to stop myself, bite my tongue. Wait for her to explain it.

She shook her head, waves falling over her shoulders.

“It was an accident at first. I was doing my work there one night in the back room after a meeting and fell asleep on the couch. I have a key to the back entrance from stagecraft, and it’s close to everything, and there’s a bathroom and shower in the dressing rooms… ”

I felt the rage rising. My daughter was staying in an empty building, alone. And no one knew where she was. “Why?” I asked.

“It’s just so loud everywhere else. And it’s so quiet there.”

I actually could understand that. Delilah and I were both only children.

When I first moved to the dorms, I’d been so excited for a roommate.

Ready to share the experience with someone my age.

I had welcomed the noise and the chaos. But on weekends, sometimes I’d sneak back home for the quiet.

For the space. For the privacy. Eventually Adalyn followed me back here, too.

But Delilah still wasn’t telling me everything. I had learned, as she got older, that I had to ask the right questions.

“Delilah, I know you put in a request to move dorms. I know something happened there.”

She looked away, took a deep breath. “Someone was messing around with my stuff. Just little things at first, like the sign on the door. Or if I left my shower shoes outside. But then it was things inside the room.” She looked to the ceiling again, like she was trying not to cry.

“I thought it was my roommate. It was obviously only my things that were taken. So I reported it.”

I nodded. I’d heard that much.

“But then it started happening when Hana wasn’t even around—when I knew she was in class.

If I took a shower and got back to the room, I could feel it.

There was always something small missing.

Nothing I could prove. The book I was reading for class.

The photos on the wall. Like someone was messing with me. It freaked me out.”

Her eyes were locked on mine. I was shaken just listening to it.

“So I figured it had to be someone with a key, right?” she said. “I thought it was the upperclassmen in my dorm, some sort of hazing. But last week, they took my laptop.”

“Your laptop?” I said, unable to keep the emotion from my voice. “You should’ve reported that to the police, Delilah, that’s a crime —”

“Mom, I’m handling it!” She seemed angry, but at me instead of the situation.

I tried to slow my heart rate; tried not to jump three steps ahead and lose her in the process. “Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked.

Her eyes were shining, like she was trying desperately to hold back the tears. She was so much like me that way—I knew, if they spilled over, they wouldn’t stop. “Because you didn’t even want me here! I know that, Mom. I know that. You would’ve wanted me to come home.”

“I could’ve helped—”

“I didn’t need your help. I asked Dad for money and got a new laptop from the campus bookstore. I bring it with me now, or keep it in the theater, where no one would even know to look.”

She looked pleased, vindicated. Like she’d successfully handled it. Meanwhile, there was someone in her orbit who had clearly escalated things beyond any claim of hazing.

I tried to steady myself before responding. I channeled Trevor, calm and contained.

“You haven’t been staying in the room upstairs,” I said, trying to keep the doubt from my voice. “Not at all?”

She shook her head. “There was no Wi-Fi. I wouldn’t even be able to get work done. Why would I stay here ?”

“So you didn’t see—” I abruptly cut myself off.

She tilted her head. “See what?”

Like she was daring me to say it: Hey there, Delilah. I can still see you. Did you think you could hide?

“I think we should go,” I said impulsively.

“Go where?”

“Home. Back to Charlotte. Once we can get back on campus and grab your things.” It’s not safe here. Not for either of us.

“I knew it!”

“I want you to be safe —”

“No, you don’t want me here .”

“Someone was killed on campus, Delilah!” I shouted. A mistake, I knew, as soon as I said it.

“And we don’t even know who it is !” she yelled back, her entire body shaking.

Trevor stood in the entryway then. “I agree with your mother on this one,” he said, in a united front.

“Seriously?” she said. “ Now you want to get involved?”

I saw him flinch, just as I spoke her name, loud and sharp.

Her phone chimed suddenly, setup complete.

Then it started buzzing with a string of messages finally coming through.

Somewhere in there, I knew, would be mine, desperately trying to make contact.

I was glad to see a collection of people checking in on her.

To know she hadn’t been totally alone here.

Delilah stood, pulling at the bottom of my old shorts, then disappeared toward the kitchen.

I assumed she was heading up the back steps to my bedroom—where, I imagined, she would start making calls.

Checking in with friends. Making sure it wasn’t one of them.

Trying to get a grasp on any rumor spreading through the school—or the town.

“She didn’t mean it,” I said to Trevor, hurt still evident on his face.

He pressed his lips together. “No, she did.”

For now, she was done with this conversation. Done with the both of us.

I knew there was more: things she didn’t want to say; something she wasn’t ready to share with me.

Or maybe she really hadn’t noticed the writing upstairs. How much time did she spend reading the lines on the walls anyway?

But I was stuck on what she’d told me earlier.

Someone with a key, she’d said. I tried to work it through. It wasn’t someone with just a key to her dorm room. It had to be someone with a way in here, too.