Highly Illogical Behavior(55)

After she dropped a still-silent Clark off at home, her good-bye never met with a response, she drove back to Solomon’s and parked across the street. She stayed there, watching the dark, quiet house for over an hour. She didn’t do it because he needed her. She did it because she was afraid the farther she got from him, the better off he’d become. And despite spending most of her time thinking about leaving, Lisa wasn’t ready to go just yet.





TWENTY-SEVEN


    SOLOMON REED


He’d been hitting himself like that for years, but it was the first time anyone outside of his family had seen it. Now he would always remember the looks on their faces—right after the first strike.

They’d been so real, Clark and Lisa. It had felt so real that he’d never stopped to question why it was happening—why they’d waste their time on someone like him in the first place.

He lay awake that night, touching the side of his face a few times, remembering what he’d done. It hadn’t happened in a long while, maybe more than a year. It hadn’t happened that day at school, either. But at home, that same day he’d jumped into the fountain, he’d gotten so anxious, pacing around the living room listening to his parents try to calm him, that he suddenly just lost it completely and slapped his face. He immediately started crying, confused and guilty, looking up at his parents like he had no idea how it had happened. And, really, that’s the way it always was with the hitting. It would happen so fast, his body shaking to release the tension built up from all the thoughts swirling through his mind and all the air he was having trouble breathing and all the loud beating of his own heart ringing in his ears. It had to get out and that was the path it chose. Slap. Instant relief.

The next day, Solomon didn’t go outside. It was just like every other day before he’d met them—familiar in a way that made him nostalgic and nauseated. Part of him wished he could go back in time and tear Lisa’s weird ass friendship letter in half. He thought maybe he could pretend them away, like he did so many other things. Out of sight, out of mind.

He looked up the Woodlawn University School of Psychology’s admission guidelines and read all about the Jon T. Vorkheim Scholarship, which was full paid tuition awarded to the candidate with the highest need of assistance and highest likelihood of bringing a new perspective to the field of Psychology based on his/her personal experience with mental illness.

“Shit,” he said aloud to nothing but an empty house.

A week later, he still hadn’t gone outside. And he was still refusing to take calls from Clark or Lisa. He spent most of his time holed up in his bedroom with the door shut and, for the most part, his parents left him alone. They knew Solomon better than anyone and if he needed the time to himself, they weren’t about to take it away.

When Clark showed up to get his van, Solomon couldn’t talk himself into seeing him. So, Clark said a quick hello to Valerie and followed Jason to the garage, where they got the engine started and had him on his way. Afterward, Solomon’s dad knocked lightly on his door before walking in and sitting on the edge of his bed.

“Sort of sucks to see it go,” he said.

“What? The van?”

“Yeah. Got used to having a project. Thing barely runs, but at least it runs.”

“How is he?”

“Sad, Sol. He looked pretty sad.”

“Yeah, well . . .”

“I don’t think he meant any harm,” his dad interrupted. “Guilty by association, I guess. But he’s been a good friend to you.”

“But he knew. How do I know if any of it was real?”

“Because you know. C’mon.”

“I don’t know what I know.”

“You ever going outside again?” his dad asked, looking him right in the eyes.

“Why’s it matter?”

“I can’t answer that,” he said, stepping out into the hallway. “But when you can tell me it doesn’t, I’ll quit asking.”

? ? ?

Later that day, Solomon’s dad was reading a book in the living room when his son walked through, still wearing the pajamas he’d had on for days, a guilty look on his face.

“It emerges,” his dad said. “From the room of eternal stench.”

“Okay, that’s not fair.”

“Have you had a bath this week?”

“Maybe not.”

“Where are you going?”

“Outside, I think.”

“Look, I’m sorry for . . .”

“Dad,” he interrupted. “Don’t be.”

Solomon looked out at the blue water across the yard and then over at his dad, who pretended not to be watching. Then he turned back to slide the door open, this thing he’d done hundreds of times like it was no big deal. Only, as soon as the outside air touched his face, his heart started beating faster and faster and he suddenly couldn’t catch his breath. Everything turned so loud and shaky that suddenly the pool looked farther away, too far to reach. And by the time his dad got over to him, he was sitting on the tile floor with his knees up and his face tucked between them.

When it was over, he looked up at his dad with this hopeless expression on his face. And in that silent moment, just before he walked back to his room and shut the door, he knew they were thinking the same thing—that maybe it would always be this way.