The House
3.5/5
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About this ebook
His shirt is black, jeans are black, and shaggy black hair falls into his eyes. And when Gavin looks up at Delilah, the dark eyes shadowed with bluish circles seem to flicker to life.
He lives in that house, the one at the edge of town. Spooky and maybe haunted. Something worse than haunted. And Gavin is trapped by its secrets.
Delilah and Gavin can’t resist each other. But staying together will exact a price beyond their imagining.
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Reviews for The House
78 ratings9 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Synopsis: Gavin starts dating Delilah and as they grow close he decides to share a secret with her. He has been raised by an animate house. He doesn't know who his parents are or what became of them. Gavin wants Delilah to meet his house but they both quickly realize that House is none to happy to share Gavin with anyone. My rating: 4/5I really enjoyed this book. It was a lot of fun to read. I didn't know what to expect when I started reading the book but I was pleasantly surprised by the twists and turns the book took. I had two complaints about the book but they are fairly minor.Firstly, there are two characters that are important to the ending of the book that didn't really get much development early on. I think that was a mistake and seeing more of them early in the book would have made the role they play at the end make more sense. My second complaint is the ending itself. While obviously there has to be a suspension of disbelief for any book about an animate house, I felt the end was too unrealistic. It just didn't work for me. It wasn't terrible but I really wanted more from the ending. The rest of the book was solid though and I do recommend it to those who enjoy YA and horror. I am really glad I read this. I have read other books by this author and really enjoyed them. I look forward to reading more.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Full review at Southern Bred, Southern Read!
Before I actually start my review, I want to give a HUGE shout out to the authors Christina Lauren for gifting me an ARC of this book through Edelweiss. I loved that Lauren personally responded to my emails (which, lets me honest, were me basically begging for an ARC) and that she was SO nice. I am definitely a Christina Lauren fan now solely on how interactive they are with their fans.
So, The House. Where do I even begin? This book was creepy AF. You know those movies you see late at night on the SyFy channel about haunted houses coming to life to plague their residents? Well, here ya go.
Delilah Blue is back from spending six years away at an all girls boarding school across the country. Now that she is back, she has her eyes set on her long time crush, Gavin. He is just as mysterious and handsome as she remembers, but now she has had six years to build up the confidence to actually talk to him. Gavin and Delilah click instantly. They are both odd, but they work well together. Gavin hasn’t ever had a real girlfriend like Delilah, and he hasn’t ever been to the point in a relationship to bring a girl home. No biggie right? Well, the catch is that Gavin doesn’t have parents. Well, he had parents at one time but they disappeared. Ever since he can remember, he has been living alone in The House. At first House seems almost enchanted like in Beauty and the Beast. However, you start to realize there is something a bit more sinister going on in House than just fun loving moving furniture. Once Gavin brings Delilah to House and they really start to develop their relationship, it is easy to see that House isn’t having it. Like an overprotective parent that doesn’t want their little sparrow to fly, House wants to keep Gavin all to its self. When Gavin pushes back and insists on having Delilah as part of his life, House takes a dark turn and starts to target Delilah outside of the Walls as an extreme form of warning.
I thought going into this (with the knowledge of Christina Lauren’s other NA books) that this was going to be some super weird/awesome smutty horror book. Let’s just say that if I didn’t know Christina Lauren were the authors, I would have NEVER guessed they were. The romance in the book is very slim. There is a strong emotional (dare I say insta-love.. but y’all know I don’t mind insta-love so I don’t say it as a bad ting) romance between the main characters. As for physical contact, there is some kissing here and there, a few non-descript sex scenes, and that’s about it. I don’t know if they left out all the smutty goodness because the characters are young in this book (17, almost 18) or because they were focusing mainly on the story. They even set it up in the beginning to where you think you’re about to embark on this weird smut fest—they go into detail about Gavin’s manliness and about Delilah’s obsession with medieval torture tools… Either way, it wasn’t what I was expecting. I don’t think all of this is necessarily a bad thing, but you have to clear your mind of what you think this book will be like if you have read other Christina Lauren books. Go in open-minded and thinking of it more as a YA horror novel and you won’t be disappointed.
My first reaction when I finished (because I did finish this all in less than a day) was disappointment. I was really hoping for some good Christina Lauren- style NA smut, but when that didn’t happen, I was pretty pissed. Now that I have had time to sleep on it, I can actually appreciate the book for what it is. Because of this, I change my rating from barely a 3 to a 3.5/4. The book is really creepy, the characters are funny, and overall the story isn’t bad. There are some big plot holes that I wish were addressed, but I don’t want to get into them because they happen at the end of the book and are spoilers. I think if those plot holes would have been filled, I could have possibly stretched my rating to a 4 star. There are just too many things that don’t make sense at this point for me to, unfortunately.
I would say definitely give this book a chance. It actually reminded me of Anna Dressed in Blood, so if you are a fan of Kendare Blake’s writing then you probably will enjoy this. It’s finally October so it is the season of creepy books, so when this book comes out on October 6th definitely add it to your list!
3.5/5 stars - Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This book would make a creepy movie. A house that is alive, and caring for a child/teen is an interesting premise. There isn't any killing for a real horror movie, and the ending is highly satisfying, so Hollywood probably wouldn't want it. But I don't like creepy books, and I liked this one.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I was fonder of the house than the people, so while an inventive story, it also proved a bit of a struggle to get through scenes with only the humans since they rarely felt all that human to me. After years away at boarding school, teenager Delilah returns to her home town every bit as consumed with and protective of the mysterious Gavin as she had been as a kid, the only problem is Gavin’s house, which is very much alive and very much an overbearing parent to Gavin. The house is even more consumed and protective of Gavin than Delilah is and it’s in no mood to share him.The house was easily the most interesting aspect of the book, I loved how it was temperamental one minute, warm and affectionate the next, and all the little details of how it “raised” Gavin were entertaining, too, showing Leave It To Beaver on the television, the way it had milk and cookies waiting, the transportation to school, providing the trampoline and taking it away, in many ways the house felt like a more realistic parent than either of Delilah’s parents did. It speaks to how little attachment I felt to the actual characters that even in the house’s sinister moments, I was more intrigued by what was going on with it, by its next conniving move than I was concerned for the people it threatened.I’m not someone who generally enjoys the villain more than the heroes so this book was an odd experience. I just had a really hard time buying into the characters, the extreme detachment of Delilah’s parents, the instantaneous obsessive feelings between Delilah and Gavin, the way Gavin had spent little to no time thinking about the unusual circumstances of his life including the absence of his parents, and it felt like the few who found out about House had fairly muted reactions rather than exhibiting more of the disbelief, fear, or just plain weirded out responses that you’d think a person would initially have to something so unexpected. Most everything about the characters felt so unreal that a house that’s alive somehow ended up seeming more believable. I had mixed feelings about the ending. I do appreciate it when the heroine is the one required to step up rather than play the damsel in distress, however, the ending seemed a little too easily accomplished, and again, with the unreal characters thing, I thought there maybe should have been more complicated/complex emotions from Gavin after everything. It also surprised me that a certain someone was simply mentioned rather than featured in a scene with Gavin considering the significance it would have had.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5So, I really like this cover. That's ultimately why I bought it. I'm a sucker for a good cover. But, I do enjoy reading the odd spooky story. This unfortunatly, isn't all that spooky.
Now, don't get me wrong, I did enjoy the premise, the idea of the story, but, it took FOREVER to get there. These characters are ridiculous. They are both so incredibly un-relatable. Ugh.
It felt like, although there was a big scary house they had to deal with, sex was more important. Constantly touching each other was more important then the giant house that wanted to kill people!
The last 50 pages were the most interesting, and still the book ended with a sex scene. Unnecessary. - Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I couldn't wait to get my hands on this one! There is nothing like a unique and twisted book that leaves you in awe! I mean, really. This book wasn't what I expected. After reading the blurb, not only did I know I needed this book, but I anticipated some heebie jeebies. I sure got more than I bargained for!
The blurb lead me to believe that someone creepy and dangerous lived inside this house that everyone was afraid of. I didn't expect for the house itself to be the creepy and dangerous being. Yes, THE HOUSE. It's alive. It's self-sufficient. It even had feelings and mood swings. Say what? Yes, you read that right. It's almost like the house edition of Mad Max. The original one. Some of you reading this review might be a bit young to know what I am talking about, but anyhow...
This isn't just a story about a house who is alive. It's about two teenagers who fall for one another, but can't be together... because of house. Okay, so the story really is more about the house than anything. The house is protective. The house is jealous. The house is angry. The house will stop at nothing to keep Gavin in it forever.
Gavin's mother has been MIA since he could remember. He has never known anything but the house. It takes care of him. It feeds him. It keeps him safe. It calms him when he is upset. It takes care of him when he is sick. Now enters this new female in his life and house is not happy. House will do anything to scare her off; to keep Gavin as its own.
This story is all kinds of unique and goosebumps. I really enjoyed reading this book. I couldn't seem to put it down. It had all of the feels of eeriness and chills, but still not too spooky that my young teenagers wouldn't be able to read. I really like coming across books that both me and my children can enjoy equally.1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This was a young adult version of Monster House to me basically but I liked that movie so this was a good story to me. I liked the ending but I will not spoil it here. I was getting the Monster House vibes a few chapters in so if that’s not your thing you may not like this book but I liked the way it played out with some sneaky twists and turns.
1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5A somewhat underwhelming story. It did have its moments but the conclusion was where this book shined. it was tense and fraught with a terrifying entity. For most of the book however, the pace was slow and even the sweet romance couldn't detract from that fact. That being said, the ending was fantastic and made reading The House totally worth my time.
1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5I've got such mixed feelings about this book, but in the end, it wasn't at all what I expected, and I can't say that I'd give the authors another try either, much as I loved the concept and wanted to love this book.First of all, this is a YA book--and there's no indication of that on the cover or in the blurb on the jacket. The ONLY indication is in small print, running sideways on the inside of the jacket, where it says 'Ages 14 up'--but, beyond that, there's no indication at all that this is YA or a book for teens. The author writes both YA and Adult works (supposedly), so that's also no help. Genre is also something of a surprise. This book is more romance than horror, and while it's meant to be a mash-up of the two, it seems clear that the authors were more engaged with the romance aspect than the horror. Considering that the book looks like a horror book and the blurb makes it sound like a horror book... again, it's a surprise. If I'd gone into the book expecting a YA romance enmeshed with a YA horror book, then maybe I would have fallen in love from the start, but instead I was incredibly put off.Then again, I love haunted house stories, and have never had any desire to try a YA romance, so maybe I'm just the type of reader that the marketers wanted to draw in. Well, that be the case or not, I was kind of disgusted and dismayed when I first started the book--it wasn't for me, and I wish the marketing had been on point enough to make that clear from the beginning.The thing is, the concept is interesting, and I wanted to love this book--I kept going, hoping the authors would move more toward horror, balancing things out since the beginning was more focused on romance, but that just didn't happen. I did get more interested in the book as it went on, but the genre never really satisfied. There were some creepy moments, yeah--not scary, certainly, which is what the blurb promised--but that's about it. Making things far worse, the horror element of the plot was wrapped up in one quick chapter that felt like it was over almost as soon as it began, so incredibly easy and happy-ending-ish that it kind of disgusted me... like the writers got to the part of the book that a horror reader would most love to really get wrapped up in, and were either too lazy to write it or just not interested in doing so. I read the last chapter, thinking there'd be more... and it was just an epilogue-ish wrap-up of the romance to ensure that that side of things got its forever-ago predicted happy-ever-after. (And, no, that's not a spoiler because this book is so clearly a romance, from the very beginning, that there's no question at all, ever, that that's where the authors are heading.)I'd also be remiss, considering the romance element, if I didn't mention that I never did get to like the female protagonist. In the beginning of the book, she simply annoyed me, and as things kept going, I got used to her... but I never really cared. I cared about the male protagonist and the horror element of the book, but both of those were given far less attention than the female voice.So, yeah, I didn't enjoy this. I'm giving it two stars only because, if I'd known exactly what I was getting into, I might have felt a little bit more generous toward the romance. Then again, if I'd known it was so much more romance than horror, I don't know that I would have bothered picking it up. And I've never read YA romance, so maybe this is a great, spooky read for that audience. But, for a horror reader, who loves both YA and Adult horror, it just doesn't measure up.I wouldn't recommend it, and I won't be giving the author another try, no matter how spooky r good a book looks or sounds since, quite obviously, the marketing for this book was intent on selling books at any cost rather than actually representing the story written on the pages.
1 person found this helpful
Book preview
The House - Christina Lauren
Chapter One
Her
Places with boys always seem so dirty.
As soon as Delilah had the thought, she hated herself for it because it was exactly what her mother would think. Girls were just as dirty after all, with thick, sticky makeup and every flavor of perfume clouding the locker rooms. The public high school seemed to have a dim film layered over the lockers and floor, walls and windows. It was the first day back after the winter, so Delilah assumed that everything had been cleaned vigorously over the break, but maybe the fog of girl and boy hormones mixing together had permanently dulled every surface.
All around, students pressed past her and lockers slammed near her head, and she struggled to appear unaffected by the public-school chaos. Delilah looked down to the piece of paper clutched in her hand. Before she’d even been dressed and fed this morning, her mother had already begun highlighting all of the important information for her: locker number, locker combination, class schedule, teacher names.
I should have printed a map for you,
Belinda Blue had said as the highlighter squeaked across the page. Delilah had looked away to the neat rows on the carpet left by the vacuum cleaner, had waved politely to her father as he’d walked into the kitchen wearing his standard outfit of tan pants, a short-sleeved white collar shirt, and a red tie. Even though he wasn’t going to work and maybe didn’t even have a job interview today, she couldn’t fault him for dressing the part. She, too, was still more comfortable in clothes that resembled her private-school uniform than she was with having this new freedom to wear whatever she wanted.
Mom, it’s only two main buildings. I can handle it. Saint Ben’s had seven.
Morton City High was smaller than Saint Benedict’s Academy in pretty much every way possible, from the size of the classrooms and number of buildings, to the minds of the student body. Whereas—perhaps unexpectedly—imagination had been embraced and nurtured in her beautiful Catholic school, there had always been a single way of thinking in her small Kansas hometown, a tendency to embrace normal and disregard anything else in hopes that it might simply go away.
It was what had happened to Delilah six years ago, after all. Her parents had tolerated her strangeness with shared looks of exasperation and long-suffering sighs, but then had shipped her off to Massachusetts as soon as an excuse presented itself.
"Still, you’re used to calm. This school is so big and loud."
Delilah smiled. When her mother said loud
she really meant full of boys.
I’m pretty sure I’ll make it out alive.
Her mother had given her the look Delilah had seen countless times over winter break—the look that said, I’m sorry you can’t finish your senior year in a fancy school. Please don’t tell anyone your father lost his job and your nonna’s money is all tied up in her nursing care.
The look also said, Be careful of the boys. They have thoughts.
Delilah had thoughts too. She had a lot of them, about boys and their arms and smiles and how their throats looked when they swallowed. She had infrequent contact with these things, having been sequestered away for the past several years at an all-girls boarding school, but she certainly had thoughts about them. Unfortunately, the schedule in her hand didn’t mention a thing about boys, and instead read: English, Phys Ed, Biology, Organic Chemistry, World Studies, AP French, AP Calculus.
She felt her enthusiasm wilt a little before the day had even started. Who wants to have PE so early in the day? She’d be a sweaty mop and would never factor into any thoughts anyway.
Delilah successfully negotiated her locker combination, stowed some books, and headed to English. The only empty seat in the room—Room 104, Mr. Harrington, highlighted in yellow, thank you, Mother—was of course in the middle, up front. Delilah was a bull’s-eye for the teacher and for the fellow students. But even if she sat in the back of the room, it wouldn’t have made a difference: She was a target anyway.
Delilah Blue was back from the fancy East Coast boarding school.
Delilah Blue had come home to go slumming.
Although she spent some of each summer back in Morton, being at school here was different. Delilah had forgotten how many teenagers could come out of the woodwork, and all around her they were yelling, throwing notes, whispering across aisles. Was this how they always behaved while waiting for the teacher? When your time is yours, use it to create something, Father John had always told them. A picture, some words, anything. Don’t rot your brain with gossip.
Having seen only her best friend, Dhaval, with any sort of regularity—and maybe a handful of her classmates around town during breaks—Delilah’s memories were an old stack of pictures of her eleven-year-old peers. She struggled to place the faces she remembered from six years ago with the reality of the faces now.
Rebecca Lewis, her best friend from kindergarten. Kelsey Stiles, her archnemesis in third grade. Both were looking at Delilah as if she’d kicked a puppy before class. Rebecca probably glared at her because Delilah had left Morton so successfully. Kelsey probably glared at Delilah for having the gall to come back.
Not everyone had been hostile when they recognized Delilah; some girls had greeted her in front of the school with hugs and high-pitched welcomes, and Delilah knew that she had a completely blank slate there. She could be anyone she wanted to be. She didn’t have to be the girl whose nervous parents sent her away when she was only eleven for getting into a fistfight defending her unrequited first crush.
Delilah took her seat next to Tanner Jones, the only person to ever have beaten her at tetherball in sixth grade, her last year of public school.
Hi, Delilah,
he said, eyes on her legs and then chest and then mouth. Six years ago he’d been looking at her pigtails and skinned knees.
She smiled to hide her surprise. Delilah hadn’t expected the first boy to speak to her to also have thoughts. Hi, Tanner.
I heard you had to move back because your dad lost his job at the plant.
She kept her smile and stayed quiet, thinking of her mother’s innocent-at-best, naive-at-worst hope that people would assume Delilah came home for a single semester for educational purposes, and not because Nonna’s well of money had dried up. Clearly the town knew better.
Your business is only yours until you share it, Father John had always told them.
Just as Mr. Harrington was closing the classroom door, a boy slipped in, mumbling an apology and staring with determination at the floor.
Delilah’s breath grew trapped in her throat, and the old protective fire flickered to life between her ribs.
He was the same, but not. His shirt was black, jeans were black, and shaggy black hair fell into his eyes. He was so tall he must have been pulled like taffy. When he looked up at Delilah as he passed, the same eyes she remembered from all those years ago—dark and stormy and shadowed with bluish circles—seemed to flicker to life for a moment.
Just long enough for her to lose her breath.
He looked like he knew every one of her secrets. Who would have guessed that after six years Gavin Timothy would still seem so perfectly dangerous?
Apparently, Delilah was still smitten.
Chapter Two
Him
It wasn’t unheard of for girls to watch him, but usually it meant one of two things. Either they were terrified that Gavin might pull a knife from his shoe (which had never happened), or they were building up the courage to ask him out, with hopes of bringing him home to terrify their parents into buying them a car (which had happened twice).
Delilah Blue was back in Morton and was watching Gavin in a singularly different way. She looked like a wolf stalking a rabbit.
He spun a pencil on his notebook and blinked up, looking right into her eyes and causing her to whip around in her seat, sitting ramrod straight. Her caramel hair was braided and secured tightly with a red elastic band, swinging into position at the middle of her back just below her shoulder blades. Her foot tapped impatiently under her desk. For the remainder of class, she was obviously attentive, maybe overly so. But what she was attending to was definitely not at the front of the room. If she were a cat, she would have her ears turned back, facing him. Gavin was sure of it.
He could still remember the way she’d looked the last time he’d seen her: scraped knuckles, bloody nose, and an expression of protectiveness so feral it made his stomach twist. He’d never even had a chance to say thank you.
The end-of-period bell rang, and Delilah jumped, looking frantically for the source. Did they not have bells at her fancy private school? Because yes, Gavin knew enough about Delilah to know exactly where she’d been. But why she was back was an entirely different question.
Just as she appeared to spot the bell, perched above the whiteboard, the door flew open and Dhaval Reddy swept into the room, pulling her up and wrapping his arms around her.
My girl is back!
Dhaval sang loudly to no one in particular. As everyone gathered their things, Gavin felt the room settle: Delilah’s return had been approved by the in crowd.
Gavin collected his books and papers and slipped past her, but not before he felt her hand reach out and touch his, or before he saw the tiny drawing on her notebook: a dagger dripping blood.
Chapter Three
Her
Heeding Father John’s advice, Delilah always understood that the best way to keep a secret was simply to not tell anyone. And over the years, she had accumulated hundreds of secrets. Like the time Nonna took her to Saks in Manhattan and Delilah walked in on two people having sex in the bathroom. Or the time she snuck Joshua Barker into her dorm room and kissed him for ten minutes before making him slink back out across the dark, dewy lawn.
Those were secrets she planned to eventually share as currency, in the girlfriend version of I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.
But there were other secrets too—ones she might never share because she knew they made her weird. Secrets like her strange appreciation of gore: depictions of fifteenth-century torture devices, paintings of people dying at the hand of swords or arrows. The idea of reanimation, zombies, exorcism. Books on the Black Plague. It wasn’t that she particularly treasured the idea of dying, or of other people dying; it was the visceral reaction to the creepy, the spectacularly scary, the otherworldliness of horror. Delilah loved the catch of breath when she was afraid, the feel of goose bumps dancing up her arms.
Back at Saint Ben’s, she used to wander the cold stone hallways of the Fine Arts Building at night, barefoot, without a flashlight. With every light extinguished, the halls would be pitch-black, stones heavy and silent. Not even a draft could slip in and ruffle the heavy drapes or rattle a painting on the wall.
Delilah knew every turn by heart. Everything was perfectly still, empty but for the girl slipping between shadows, looking for a sign that things happened in the school after dark. Searching for some long-forgotten history that would come alive only when the students were all safely tucked in their beds.
She’d been caught once, two weeks before she was jerked back home for good. Father John had found her tiptoeing down the hall between Sister Judith’s ceramics classroom and the auditorium. In that small stretch was an old jeweled chest from the eighteenth century, an elaborate work of art and wealth that simply sat, so trusting, in the middle of an ordinary hallway. The chest was big enough to hold a small child or, Delilah preferred, a very patient hellhound.
Hunting for ghosts?
Father John had asked from behind her, making Delilah jump.
Once her heartbeat slowed, she admitted, Yes, sir.
She’d expected a lecture, maybe one of his bits of wisdom. But instead he’d smiled knowingly at her, nodded, and said simply, Back to your room, then.
Her parents had no idea of these fascinations; Delilah had worked hard to keep this side hidden. It hadn’t been that hard, living more than a thousand miles away for the past six years, and also given who her parents were: Her mother had cardigans in every shade of pastel and had worn the same brand of sensible penny loafers for as long as Delilah could remember. Her mother’s books all had bare, muscled chests on the covers, and her hobby was collecting tiny ceramic animals, which were a form of creepy that Delilah had never really appreciated.
Her father, before he lost his job, had been a workaholic, and when he was home he was generally planted in front of the television, where he would be grousing about something or another. To Delilah, he was an inanimate object in a dad suit: Since she’d been home, Delilah had the sense that she wouldn’t have known her father better even if she’d lived at home these past six years.
Though Delilah had longed for a sibling, none had ever appeared, and she’d had to settle for her partner-in-single-childom, Dhaval Reddy, whose parents were as obsessive and attentive as her own were disinterested. But while Dhaval’s rebellion would turn out to be his loud and exuberant manner in a gently spiritual household, Delilah’s quirky obsession would always remain silent: She had hundreds and hundreds of drawings of severed heads, fists curled cruelly around still-beating hearts, and dark, endless tunnels squirreled away beneath the loose floorboard in her closet.
It was the same dark fascination that drew her to Gavin Timothy.
Dhaval was with her when the obsession started. They were nine and had been at the theater watching Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. Delilah had insisted they sneak into Corpse Bride after and had made him sit through two consecutive shows. Her life in the tiny square mile of Morton felt small and easy, oppressively ordinary. The idea that another world like this could exist—one that wasn’t beige or boring or safe—was like a siren song.
The next day at school was the first time Delilah really noticed Gavin. He was tall and hunched, with hair so dark and shaggy it would have covered his entire face if Miss Claremont hadn’t made him at least tuck it behind his ears. His eyes even then were ringed with darkness below and long black lashes above. He had no blush to his cheeks, but bloodred lips and arms so long and skinny they seemed to be made from string.
Gavin had always been her classmate, but she’d never really noticed him before that day. For as much as he looked other—like he’d stepped straight out of the movie from the day before—he’d mastered the ability to vanish in a crowd.
She was sent away right at the strange, obsessive peak of her fascination—after she’d watched him for two years, after she’d decided to ask him to the first girl-boy dance at school. But at recess, instead of finding him reading under a tree like usual, she’d found him limply ricocheting between two bullies on the playground. Delilah had kicked Ethan Pinorelli in the shin, punched James Towne in the jaw, received a reflexive shove to the face, and promptly been expelled.
Horrified, her parents had sent her to live and attend private school near Delilah’s eccentric grandmother. But far from the strict Catholic school Delilah’s parents had hoped for, Saint Ben’s was the key that had unlocked Delilah’s imagination.
The distance might have also muted her crush over the years, but Delilah found she could hardly stop watching Gavin now.
What are you staring at?
Dhaval asked, nudging her shoulder and bringing her out of her thoughts.
She swallowed a bite of apple and lifted her chin toward where now-teenage Gavin sat beneath a tree, reading alone.
Dhaval snorted. You’ve been locked up too long in the school full of girls if you think that’s the best you can do.
Shaking her head, Delilah insisted, "No, look at him."
I’m looking.
"He’s so tall now. . . and long." Gavin had always been that way, long and gangly with joints that seemed to be too big for the parts they connected. Now his skyscraper legs fit his huge feet, and his arms were a perfect match for the torso that kept going and going. Gavin was all grown up, and looking like he had a million secrets: He was Delilah’s form of kryptonite.
Beside her, Dhaval hummed in neutral agreement.
And he’s not that skinny anymore,
she added. He’s actually kind of muscular.
Even Delilah heard the way her voice shaped that word—muscular
—like it was a little dirty.
If you say so.
And. . .
Delilah trailed off. What could she say? I’ve been sort of obsessively fascinated with him since we were nine, and I’m shocked to find out he’s even better than I expected?
Didn’t you slip a note in his locker?
Dhaval asked. Before you were shipped off to Saint Ben’s?
Delilah nodded, laughing. Apparently, her fascination with Gavin Timothy wasn’t as secret as she’d thought.
What did it say again?
he asked.
It said, ‘I don’t want you to hide. I like you.’
Beside her, Dhaval burst into laughter. That’s so cheesy, Dee. Also, it’s still true.
She chewed her fingernail, unable to look away from the shadow of a boy beneath a tree. I wonder if he ever got it.
He did,
Dhaval said through a bite of sandwich. Then someone—I don’t remember who—took it from him and made a big deal out of it.
What do you mean, ‘made a big deal out of it’?
Dhaval waved his hand dismissively. Like, read it in front of a group of kids on the playground, made kissy noises, whatever.
What did Gavin do?
I think he laughed along for a minute and then asked for the note back.
Delilah smiled a little. Gavin wanted the note, at least. Sadly, it might be the most romantic thing that had ever happened to her and she was only hearing about it six years later.
She had a thousand questions about life in Morton since she’d left for boarding school. One day Delilah was a sixth grader at Morton Middle School. The next afternoon she was on a plane to Massachusetts. Coming back for a week here, two weeks there was never enough time for her to get back into the rhythm of the small town. Just when she was catching up, it was time to leave. Other than Dhaval, who would have been her friends? Who would have been her first kiss? Who was dating whom?
But now most of her questions were about Gavin. Did he have a girlfriend? Did he still play the piano? And, of course, had Dhaval ever seen a parent, or any grown-up really, near him? It was the biggest mystery of Delilah’s childhood: Gavin had been the one kid without anyone at Back to School Night, or school plays, or even waiting for him at the curb at the end of the day.
Her fascination had always been a mixture of preteen longing and bearlike protectiveness.
Are you glad to be back?
Dhaval asked, oblivious to her train of thought.
Delilah shrugged. For as nice as it was to see Dhaval and ogle Gavin again, the answer was easily no.
She’d been unceremoniously shipped away to Saint Benedict’s, but it had become her home far more than the square two-bedroom cookie-cutter stucco house on Sycamore Street ever had. Delilah missed her old school, her friends, and her increasingly senile grandmother, in whose home she spent most of the past several years, as her parents had started to assume that Delilah would rather stay in Massachusetts than come home for a week over spring break, or a week around Thanksgiving or, eventually, for the entire summer. But Nonna was in a nursing home now, entirely lost to dementia, and without Nonna, Delilah’s parents couldn’t afford to keep her in school fifteen hundred miles away.
Okay, don’t answer that,
Dhaval said, after she had been silent for way too long. "I’m happy to have you back. We need some quirk around here, Dee."
I’m happy to see you, too,
she said, leaning into her oldest friend. And I’m happy to see Gavin all grown up.
I bet you are. You little demon.
Delilah gave Dhaval a wicked grin. But then the bell rang loudly, startling her and signaling the end of the lunch break. When Delilah looked back to the tree, Gavin was already gone. She packed up the remnants of her lunch and followed Dhaval back inside.
By the end of the day, with only tiny glimpses of Gavin after lunch, Delilah’s curiosity got the better of her. What does he do after school? Does he meet up with friends? Does he have a job? The questions grew into a maddening itch inside her mind, and it reminded her of how it felt to lie in bed at Saint Ben’s, trying—but failing—to resist sneaking into the Fine Arts Building.
She followed at a safe distance as he walked away from school, paying the necessary amount of attention to the gardens, her phone, anything to look absorbed in her stroll and definitely not like a stalker, following a boy seventeen blocks home.
It wasn’t that weird, was it? How many times had her girlfriends snuck off grounds to walk past the dorms of the boys at Saint Joseph’s or had Nonna told her about walking past Grandpa’s house when they were kids, just to get a peek inside his living room? It had sounded so innocent when Nonna said it; couldn’t this be the same?
She didn’t even have to follow Gavin, really. She suspected he still lived in the same house, the one they all called the Patchwork House for how it seemed like every part of it came together in a different color and style and shape.
It was on a generous lot, nestled between rows of identical houses but encircled by a tall fence obscuring most of it from view and long since covered in exuberant, violet morning glory that bloomed every day of the year. From the glimpses she’d caught from the sidewalk while trick-or-treating—the only time she’d been allowed to get that close, and the only time the iron gates out front remained open—she knew the front room was all modern glass, the side parlor lined with wood shingles and a cozy bay window. There was a turret on the third floor and a portion with Victorian paint and elaborate embellishments carved out of wood.
Kids used to say the house was haunted, but it never looked that way to Delilah. It was stunning, thriving, like something out of an old story, or an ancient black-and-white movie. Teenagers had always bragged about egging the house on Halloween, but to her knowledge, no one had ever really done it. The house—like most strange things in Morton, including Gavin—was just different enough to make the town residents want to pretend it wasn’t there at all.
He turned a corner in the distance, and Delilah hung back, stepping behind the trunk of a large elm to watch. She waited for him to approach the fence, and she told herself that as soon as he reached for the latch at the gate, she would turn and walk home.
But it never happened.
Gavin crossed from one side of the street to the other, and the iron gate began to move, creaking open without being touched. The doors swung apart just far enough for him to slip through before closing again with a clang. She never saw him turn, never even saw him touch the gate at all.
Delilah didn’t know what to make of this and stood stock-still, frozen in place behind the old tree. Why would anyone need an automatic gate that wasn’t for a driveway? Had there been some sort of remote in his pocket? But Gavin’s hands hadn’t been in his pockets. His thumbs had been causally tucked beneath the straps of his backpack. If there was a remote, he hadn’t used it.
She crossed the road and stood next to the imposing fence that surrounded the Patchwork House. Peeking through the thick vine there, she saw the same thing happen with the front door: It swung open long before Gavin reached it. And here, too, there wasn’t another person on the other side, just empty darkness to greet him.
She’d planned on going home, but now, walking away from what she’d seen felt impossible. Without giving herself time to think on it, she reached out with the toe of her shoe to check the footing, summoning every bit of courage she had before scrambling up the sturdy vines, lifting her body over the edge, and falling hard onto the lawn on the other side.
After she caught her breath, she took in the view. And what a view it was.
The house looming in front of her bore little resemblance to the house in her memories. In fact, it looked as if someone had taken that house and tacked on two or three others, all of varying styles and from different eras. It was all different colors—deep burgundy, goldenrod, forest green, and cornflower blue—and looked as if it had never borne the brunt of any windstorm, rain, or dust. Upstairs, two