Highly Illogical Behavior(43)

“Lisa, hear me out. If you write that essay, I’m telling him,” he said, never looking her way as he got out of the car.

When they stepped into the backyard, there he was, wearing a pair of sunglasses and lying back on a lounge chair, his arms up over his head. Lisa hadn’t seen Solomon without a shirt on before and she could definitely tell he hadn’t lied about all those crunches. Clark ran across the yard and started lifting Solomon up off the chair to give him a hug.

“Look what this guy’s been hiding!” he yelled to Lisa, pointing at Solomon’s pale, bare torso.

“You’re going to be a lobster,” she said. “Do you have sunscreen on?”

“I do. I swear,” Solomon answered.

Clark lifted up one of Solomon’s arms and smelled it.

“He’s lying,” he said. “Here, we brought some.”

“Thanks.” Solomon rubbed the sunscreen on his arms and then Lisa walked over to help him get his back.

“If you die of skin cancer, we won’t have anywhere to swim,” she said.

They sat outside watching the pool slowly fill with water. Solomon didn’t seem to be tired of the sun yet, so they figured they’d stay out there for as long as he wanted. And every time he got up and walked to a new part of the yard, Lisa watched him like he was an astronaut walking around on some distant planet, his every step further proof that anything is possible.

“How much longer?” Solomon asked them, nearly shouting from the other side of the yard. It looked like he’d been inspecting the flowers under his parents’ window, but Lisa wasn’t sure.

“Well,” Clark said loudly, “with a hose that size, about five-eighths of an inch in diameter, you’re delivering seventeen gallons of water per minute, which is one thousand twenty gallons an hour, so . . . with a five-thousand-gallon pool, it should take about five more hours.”

“What the hell?” Solomon asked, walking up to them.

“He read it off his phone,” Lisa said.

Clark held up his phone and gave Solomon a big smile. Then he hopped up onto his feet and told them to pose for a picture.

“We have to document this important day in history,” he said.

Solomon bent down and put one arm around Lisa’s shoulders. This was the most he’d ever touched her and she couldn’t help but flinch a little out of shock.

“Sorry,” he said, pulling away.

“No.” She grabbed his arm to keep it in place.

Clark had been taking pictures of the three of them for weeks, but he usually tried to keep it as subtle as possible, quickly snapping a shot of Lisa and Solomon as they looked down at their cards or watched TV. Lisa noticed every time, though, and now she wondered what she’d find on his phone from all the days she’d spent away. Surely he wouldn’t have taken photos of Solomon all by himself. That would be strange, wouldn’t it? But, even if he did, then so what? Friends take pictures of their friends all the time. It was perfectly normal. She didn’t need to check his phone. That wouldn’t help anything. It was all so stupid. Janis had really gotten to her, and she was starting to find it a bit more aggravating than it was amusing.

“Hey,” she said. “Let’s go in and eat something, huh? Sol, can you sacrifice a few minutes of daylight. Don’t want to get too tired of it on day one.”

“I guess,” he said, faking disappointment. “I’m starving anyway.”

“I want peanut butter and jelly,” Clark said. “All of it. All of it that’s in the world.”

“My mom buys extra for him,” Solomon told Lisa.

Then Clark froze just outside of the door and turned to face them.

“You’re not going to be stuck again if we go inside are you?”

“Dude,” Solomon said, stepping past him and through the doorway. “I’ve been doing this all day. Relax.”

Once inside, they made their way to the kitchen, where she listened to the two of them banter back and forth about how to make the perfect pb&j. They both had it all wrong. You’ve got to stir the peanut butter and jelly together before applying it to the bread. Then they sort of ventured off into their own little world and left Lisa sitting there to watch, unable to get a word in edgewise.

Maybe that was her fault, for all the time she’d spent quietly observing them and studying Solomon’s tics and triggers. It was like they spoke a language she’d only just forgotten. She could pick up on some of their references, but mostly found herself completely lost in their jargon.

So, Lisa eventually stopped trying to understand them and let her mind drift back to her conversation with Clark. She knew he’d probably never forgive her if she wrote that essay. But, she also knew she had to. It was a surefire way to save herself and she was too close to give up now. Just as Solomon needed to leave the house, Lisa needed to leave Upland. He was better. She did that. She deserved to get out, too.





TWENTY-ONE


    SOLOMON REED


For Solomon, swimming was the opposite of a panic attack. Fluid and calm and quiet. The world was muffled just enough when he went under, and the way the wind felt on his wet skin when he came up for air made him forget he was closer to all the things that scared him so much and had for so long.