“There has to be an explanation we can find without letting people know you’ve been alone.. . .” She rubbed his middle finger with the tip of her thumb. “A way to keep you both safe.”
This close it was impossible to miss the way her eyelashes looked resting against her cheeks when she blinked, or how her forehead furrowed in concentration. She twisted her fingers with his, examining them one by one. His hand looked positively massive next to hers, giant palms with long spindly fingers smudged with ink. His mind had started to bend away from the topic, and he was just starting to imagine how his large hands would look on parts of her body he hadn’t seen before, when she spoke, snapping his attention back to her.
“You don’t think,” she began, then paused, chewing on her bottom lip. The parts of Gavin that were distinctly boy took notice; he even licked his own lips in response. “You don’t think the house had anything to do with—”
Ice filled Gavin’s veins, and he leaned forward, placing his fingers over Delilah’s mouth to silence her. “Don’t say that,” he whispered, eyes darting around the room. Even the idea of House doing something malignant made his stomach do a hideous flip. To imagine House hearing them talk about it like that made him dizzy.
Had he just felt a shuffle from under the floor? A slither? The part of Gavin that had grown paranoid in the past twenty-four hours felt certain that something had moved—stretched or uncoiled—beneath his shoes. Carpet covered aluminum, aluminum rested on cement, cement covered dirt, and inside that dirt were rocks and bugs, the roots of trees. He froze, meeting Delilah’s startled gaze.
“What is it?” she mumbled behind his fingertips, but he could only shake his head. Sweat pricked at the back of his neck, and Gavin closed his eyes, counted to ten before he stood and walked to the door, opening it just enough to peek out at the rows of trees that lined the sidewalk clear to Mulberry Street.
To his neighborhood.
Closing the door, he said, “She left me, Delilah. She left, and House didn’t. That’s all I know.”
The walls had ears. The sky had eyes. And Gavin wondered if there were answers somewhere to questions he’d never thought to ask and where he would need to look to find them.
? ? ?
Gavin wasn’t sure if he was going crazy. How was it possible to feel so warm and secure one day and so paranoid the next? House hadn’t changed; he had. He’d become suspicious and untrusting, and as he made his way around the corner across from home, he felt a wave of guilt. House had protected him through winter storms and lonely days. It had fed him and clothed him and been everything he’d always needed it to be. Until Delilah.
He wondered if this was what every parent and child went through. Growing pains, he reasoned. That was all this was. Despite what House wanted, Gavin wasn’t a little boy anymore, content with model airplanes and boxes of Legos. Things were changing, and they would both have to adjust.
The gate creaked open and the air seemed to warm around him. Vines unfurled and gripped his T-shirt as he passed. Front Door opened as soon as he started his way up the walk. Smoke puffed from Chimney in black, sooty spirals, the clouds heavier and more persistent the closer to House he got. It reminded him of a dog who’d just heard their owner’s keys jiggle in the lock, and he could almost imagine a tail sprouting out of the back door, wagging wildly.
His steps sounded on the porch, and he walked inside, the scent of warm cookies filling the air.
“I’m home,” he said, just like he did every day.
The furniture seemed to angle itself toward him; everything seemed to be listening. But for what? Everything was the same, and yet he couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off. That House was waiting.