Highly Illogical Behavior(61)

“Perfect,” he said.

He climbed inside, ducking his head down until he was in the center and then taking a seat. He looked all around and then over to where they stood, watching him from just outside.

“How’re you feeling?” Clark asked him.

“My heart’s racing,” he said. “And it smells like paint back here.”

“Sorry.”

“We need to hurry up,” Solomon said. “I can do this, right?”

“Want me to ride with you?” Lisa asked.

He nodded his head and patted the cold, black floor beside him. He could forget who she was today. He could forget what she’d done just long enough to get through this. It was something he had to do. He needed her. He was better the second she showed up at his front door and if there was anyone who could help him do this, it was her.

So she climbed in and they sat side by side, facing the back doors. When Clark closed them, all they could see were yellow boxes filled with solid black nothingness. Lisa let one hand rest in between them and as soon as Clark turned the ignition, Solomon’s hand fell down onto hers.

“It’s okay,” she said calmly. “We’re going to just breathe and pretend we’re back home.”

“And what about when we get there?”

“You guys ready?” Clark shouted from the front seat.

“One second,” Lisa answered. “Look, maybe adrenaline will just kick in and you’ll be fine. You’ve heard those stories, right? About the women who lift cars off their kids and stuff? Maybe it’ll be like that.”

“It won’t be,” he said.

“Well, let’s just get there and see,” she said. “We’re ready!”

At first, when he felt the van kick into gear, Solomon closed his eyes. It’d been so long since he’d been in a vehicle, feeling it move under and around him. The driveway was slanted, so he could tell when Clark had pulled out and onto the street. That’s when he opened his eyes and gripped Lisa’s hand a little tighter, staring ahead at the familiar pattern, but knowing full well where he was—out in the world like the rest of them.

“Oh no,” he said over the sound of his own heavy breathing. “What am I doing? What am I doing?”

“Let’s count to ten, Sol,” Lisa said.

“No!” he shouted. “Sorry, I mean . . . I can’t . . . maybe we should turn around.”

“Clark, slow down.” Lisa scooted over in front of Solomon to look him straight in the face, her nose inches from his, the whites of her eyes nearly glowing in the darkness. “Listen to me,” she whispered. “You can do this. You already are doing this. Take my other hand.”

He took her hand and now they were sitting there, on the hard floor of the loud, clunky van, holding hands like they were about to have a séance or something and with every bump, Solomon felt his body tense up. This was no séance. It was torture. And it was getting harder for him to breathe, like he’d been leashed to his house and the collar was choking him the farther away he got.

“Sol,” Lisa said calmly. “We’re here. I’m here. You’re here. We’re here and we’re moving. Nothing bad will happen. Clark’s a good driver. Aren’t you, Clark?”

“A great driver!” he shouted back.

“And we’re going to get you to your grandma, okay? But you have to do me a favor.”

“What?” he said between loud breaths.

“You have to count with me. Let’s go. One . . .”

He mumbled the numbers through his frantic breathing, but without her having to say so, he started taking slower, deeper inhalations. “Good,” she said. “Where are we?”

“We’re in Clark’s van.”

“No. We’re in the garage.” She moved back beside him, letting go of one hand but keeping a firm grasp on the other. “And in here, we can relax.”

“Lisa . . . I . . .”

“In here, we can be wherever we want to be. You want to be at home? Make it so.”

“I want to be in the backyard,” he said, his voice shaky with a sense of impending doom hanging all around it.

“It’s a great backyard . . .”

“Swimming,” he interrupted. Then he closed his eyes again. “Underwater. You know when you try to keep yourself at the very bottom and look all around. How it’s so quiet?”

“Yeah,” she said. “I love that.”

“Me too. I love how you can only move so fast in water, you know? As long as it’s all around you, you’re kind of safe from everything.”

“Air can be like that,” she said. “It’s particles. It’s more like water than it is like nothing.”

His eyes opened and he turned to her. He smiled, but just for a second, and then he thought about the air between them—how he could see right through it and how she was seeing him, too. He could certainly smell it, wondering for a brief second if maybe the paint fumes were really what was keeping him sedated, and not Lisa’s distraction therapy.

“How much longer?” he asked.

“Ten minutes, tops.”

Lisa took her phone out and found Valerie Reed’s number. As she waited for an answer, she kept a tight grip of Solomon’s hand and made sure he was still breathing right.