I know that! But do you see what I see?? We can’t be together here in Morton. House may not hurt you, but clearly it doesn’t have the same rules for me. I want to be with you, but the only way to do that is to leave & go far away. I’m going back East for school, whichever one I get into. I want you to come with me.
Gavin stared at the note, his heart rising to his throat and pounding, pounding, pounding so hard and fast he felt like he was choking. It was April. They would graduate in two months, and Delilah would move with or without him.
He pressed his palms to his eye sockets, pushing until he saw stars. He had to decide whether he would stay here or find a way to go. But now the idea of staying here indefinitely seemed insane. Every second he let himself really think about it, he saw House so differently. It had once been his own magical place, his safe haven when the outside world was terrifying and ostracizing. Now he still believed it loved him, but it did it all wrong. It wasn’t human; it didn’t operate under the same rules. It was willing to hurt the girl he loved in order to keep him.
But he couldn’t just leave. He had nothing.
Lilah, of course I would come with you. But we need some sort of plan. We need money, and I need time to figure out how to deal with House. I still feel like there’s a chance I can help it learn to understand, so that I can go without feeling like I’m escaping.
Delilah twirled her pencil around her long fingers, lost in concentration. He could tell she was frustrated by the way she took several deep breaths and pressed her hands to her face. But then she started to write again. He tried to ignore the sound of her pen moving over the paper, tried to stay calm while he waited for her answer.
He looked around the room, his gaze flicking on instinct to the window again, to the tree on the other side. He wondered if it was his imagination that the branches seemed to be closer to the glass than he remembered or if he’d really become this paranoid.
The note landed on his desk, and he opened it with slightly trembling fingers.
Then you have 2 months until school ends. Take money from the jar. You said it’s always there, so start taking little chunks at a time. You’ll give it to me in the music room and I’ll hide it, so House will never know. If House doesn’t come around before then, at least we’ll have enough to get out of here.
? ? ?
The decision to actually leave had been easy in the end, because the prospect of being in House forever had started to feel wildly claustrophobic. A new routine began: As soon as he got to school he would change into clothes that had never been at House, and Delilah would take them back after school, to wash at her home. He took money from the jar, five dollars here, twenty dollars there, and would leave it in his desk, where Dhaval would switch it with bills from his own wallet and deposit it into his own account where House could stalk it all it wanted. Each afternoon Gavin would meet Delilah in the music room, and without talking, she would take the money, hiding it somewhere when she got home. Gavin didn’t want to know where, having gotten so distrustful of House he worried if it ever knew what they were up to, it might use him to find out.
The plan was overly complicated, and at times they both questioned their sanity, hiding any clue of their relationship until they were able to escape to the windowless music room. It became a sanctuary of sorts, where they could be alone together and talk about their plans, where he could kiss her and touch her, where she would touch him. He lived for those tiny slips of time.
And it was working. After just a week they had ninety-three dollars. He got paid the next week and added another one hundred and sixty to that. If they could be patient, by the end of the school year they’d have enough that they could leave. House seemed to have calmed down. Delilah seemed less scared. Gavin didn’t know what exactly came after graduation—he hadn’t yet applied to colleges, and it was probably too late to do it anyway—but it was enough to hope.
It was the first time Gavin had let himself hope in a long time.