Gavin had jumped all day. He’d taught himself to do backflips and front flips, turning only at the sound of laughter and applause from the other side of the fence. A group of kids from school were watching him, visible only on the highest point of each bounce. Gavin had smiled at them and waved, making it into a game each time their heads appeared and reappeared as he jumped.
They’d played along from the street, even calling his name at one point and asking if they could come play. Gavin didn’t know what to tell them. Would House mind if friends came over? Nobody had ever asked before, and so Gavin wasn’t even sure if that was allowed. He’d jumped down to the grass, stumbling as he regained his footing, and raced up the stairs and inside. But House had dinner waiting for him and had closed and locked Back Door, pulling down the shades until his new trampoline was hidden from view.
It was gone the next morning.
Gavin had never asked about it, in the same way he’d never really questioned anything House did.
When a book he’d been reading disappeared, Gavin would look for it, only to have another push itself from the shelves of Bookcase. When TV wouldn’t turn on, he figured there had to be a good reason. He’d always assumed House did what was best for him.
But this was different. He was almost eighteen. He was allowed to have a girlfriend and date and even bring a girl home if he wanted. Gavin and Delilah had been making out in a park, not committing a felony. He’d always done what he was supposed to. He’d gotten good grades and stayed out of trouble. So why was House acting like this now? Now that he’d managed to find someone who didn’t look at him like the weirdo he was—someone who accepted House. Didn’t it see that?
And didn’t it see how much he needed someone who was like him, too?
This thought finally pushed his anger from the pit of his stomach out into the room. “Why are you doing this!” he shouted, his voice echoing all the way up the stairs. “You scared her!”
Silence rang around him; only the sounds coming in from the street behind him pierced the eerie quiet. Gavin took another step forward, hesitating over whether or not he wanted to close Front Door. He didn’t.
“Delilah’s nice. She’s good,” he insisted, trying to smooth a layer of calm into his voice that he didn’t feel. “I like her. She’s my girlfriend, and you’re going to have to figure out a way to be okay with it. With her.”
Nothing.
Anger melted away and a trickle of fear slipped along Gavin’s spine, a cold sweat that made him feel both too warm and too cool at once. A breeze wandered up the porch and inside, and he shivered.
Gavin had always lived here by himself—and other than Television or Radio, Delilah’s had been the only other voice he could clearly remember hearing inside these walls—but he’d never actually been alone. House didn’t speak with words, but he knew what it was saying as if it did. Right now it wasn’t saying anything. It was the go-to punishment from House—being closed-off and silent—and Gavin felt a twinge of long-buried panic: What if he truly was alone? After all these years, what if he’d been abandoned? Again?
Fireplace was filled with nothing more than glowing embers. Piano remained quiet and still. Lamp stayed dark even as the sun began to burn itself out, slipping lower and lower in the sky. The image of a skull flittered through Gavin’s thoughts, hollowed out and lifeless.
Don’t go, he felt himself think, the words filling him with a sadness he didn’t quite know how to handle. House knew this was his panic button. When he’d done something he shouldn’t as a child—tiny things like not wanting to go to bed or leaving his toys scattered on the floor—the air would cool, the rooms growing as quiet as a grave. And now, at seventeen years old, it had the same effect as it had had when he was seven.
House knew how to play him; it knew how to get its way.