Page 9 of You Belong Here
There was someone already inside Delilah’s third-floor dorm room when we arrived at her move-in time. I could hear the catch of their rubber soles on the linoleum floor through the heavy door as Delilah fumbled for her key, already lost somewhere in the recesses of her backpack.
The building layout was the same as I remembered from my own freshman dorm, when I’d hauled my essentials over by myself. My parents had been busy with their own orientation responsibilities—there was no ceremony to my start here, no need for the formality of a long goodbye.
Now, when Delilah slipped the key into the lock, the movement on the other side stopped. But instead of her roommate, a man in a gray uniform stood beside the single window in the center of her dorm room, with a set of keys dangling from his belt loop.
Delilah froze in the open doorway just in front of me.
The man blinked twice, like we’d been the ones to surprise him.
“Hi! Welcome,” he said, squinting as his expression shifted to a smile.
He was in his fifties, maybe, rounded face, ruddy cheeks, hair buzzed military-short, receding at the corners.
He gestured to the toolbox open on the desk beside him.
“I was trying to beat you here. Stuck window. Should be all set now.”
“Oh, thanks,” Delilah said, carrying her bags to the nearest bed. Both were currently stripped bare.
The man clamped his toolbox shut, preparing to leave. “Would you be Delilah or Hana, then?” he asked, as if he had the room assignments already memorized.
“Delilah,” she answered, tucking a loose wave of hair behind her ear. “This is my mom.”
He nodded. “I’m Lenny. This here’s my building.
” Up close, a line of sweat was visible along his forehead, despite the cool blast of air-conditioning coming from above.
He cleared his throat. “I’ve got an office in the basement, but I’m on call day and night if there are any maintenance issues.
The number’s posted on the hall bulletin. ”
“Nice to meet you,” I said, trying to prod him along. We had limited time to set up, and the room felt too claustrophobic for the three of us.
“One last tip,” he continued, lingering in the doorway.
“The doors lock automatically. Don’t go anywhere without your keys.
Otherwise the only person who can let you in is your roommate, or me.
” He pointed to the alarm system overhead.
“Can’t tell you how many kids get locked out after a fire alarm in the middle of the night and have to wait for security to show up. ”
That seemed to get Delilah’s attention, at least. I watched as she slipped the dorm key onto the carabiner clip hanging from her bag.
“Don’t worry,” Lenny added, with a wink in my direction. “We take good care of them here.”
Three trips to the car and nearly an hour later, we were finally putting the finishing touches on her side of the room. I was helping Delilah string the lights of her name over her bed when I felt the presence of another person in the entrance.
I turned to welcome a roommate named Hana, but the woman in the doorway introduced herself as the RA. Her shoulder-length hair was an unnatural shade of maroon that perfectly matched her lipstick.
“You must be Delilah.” She greeted Delilah with open arms, sharp chin resting on her shoulder, winged eyeliner accentuating amber eyes.
“I’m Raven,” she said. “I’ll just be in the lounge when you’re ready.
” She gave me a quick, tight smile but didn’t address me at all.
As if I had already overstayed my welcome.
I stepped back, taking in the room. It felt like Delilah’s, even though it was half bare and mostly beige. But she’d managed to make it her own, from the electric blue bedspread to the glowing lights, an assortment of hardy plants in small pots, and a photo montage of her friends over her desk.
“Smile,” I said, taking a picture of her in front of the decor.
And then, because I was feeling nostalgic, I sent the photo to Trevor.
It was a generosity he’d always afforded me during her visits: Delilah on his shoulders at the Washington Mall, her toddler hands gripped into his light brown hair; Delilah in front of a fossilized dinosaur, copying its pose; Delilah and him eating hot dogs at the ballpark last summer, in matching caps flipped backward.
She still used that one as his contact photo in her phone.
Here we go, I wrote.
His response came immediately, like he’d been watching the clock himself.
God. Give her a hug from me please.
Though I knew that Delilah was geographically closer to him now, halfway between me in Charlotte and him in D.C.
, it felt like she was somehow farther from us both, stranded in between.
There was a difference from shuttling her on a ninety-minute plane ride between our cities than in driving through the mountains.
The closest major airport was over two hours away.
I slipped the phone away; could feel our time running out.
“Can I help with anything else?” I asked Delilah, not ready to leave her alone just yet.
But Delilah shook her head. “I have a lunch soon,” she said, checking the schedule on her phone, happily back on Wi-Fi. “And then a group orientation. I think Raven is waiting for me to meet them in the lounge.”
I nodded. “Right.”
She shifted on her feet, like she didn’t want to have to tell me to go.
I knew it was time.
Though I made my living with language, sometimes, when the moment felt too big, I struggled to find any words at all. I’d short-circuit, say something that barely grazed the surface, forgettable and meaningless at the same time.
I wanted to tell her how proud I was. I wanted to tell her that the world was so large. So much larger than this.
I wanted to tell her to be careful.
“Don’t forget to call me,” I said instead, pulling her in for a hug—and then one more, from her father.
There was a moment of hesitation, a break in her demeanor—something that seized my heart. A pause of uncertainty. A chance where I could’ve done something different. Said something else: You don’t have to do this. We can go. Right now.
But then it was gone, and she wrapped her arms around my back tight and quick in that familiar teenage way.
“See you soon,” she said.
I tried to freeze the moment. Remember her exactly this way, at this singular fulcrum in time, right on the cusp of the rest of her life—where I could suddenly see both Delilah the child and the Delilah she might soon become.