Highly Illogical Behavior

by John Corey Whaley

  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.

  “Straight to voice mail,” she said, still holding the phone up to her ear.

  “Shit shit shit,” Solomon said, rocking back and forth.

  “Dr. Reed, this is Lisa. We have your son. We’re on our way. Please call back if you can.”

  “Great,” Clark said. “Now we’re kidnappers.”

  “She’s gonna die without ever knowing,” Solomon said.

  Solomon tried to focus on breathing. And counting, which he’d never stopped doing in his head that whole time. He would take a slow breath, exhale when he got to five, and then do it again. Over and over until he felt the van stop.

  “We’re here!” Clark said.

  “Don’t open the doors,” Solomon whispered, trying to stay calm.

  “They’re sealed till you say so, pal,” Clark said.

  “What do you want to do, Sol?” Lisa asked.

  “Can you go find them? See if she’s okay? Joan Reed.”

  “Joan. Got it,” she said, standing up. “Don’t turn around.”

  She opened the curtain and squeezed by Clark as he made his way to the back. He sat down beside Solomon, who stared straight ahead and pretended not to be there. So, Clark just looked all around and then back at his friend before letting out a loud sigh and turning his way.

  “What?” Solomon asked.

  “You’re out here, man. Weird, right?”

  “You’re supposed to be distracting me.”

  “Oh . . . umm . . .”

  “Are you and Lisa okay?”

  “To be determined,” Clark said.

  “Thanks,” Solomon said. “For this.”

  “Wesley Crusher, right? Always saves the day.”

  “I can’t get out of the van, Clark.”

  “I know, Sol. But you made it pretty damn far.”

  Then Clark’s phone rang and right when he answered, Solomon grabbed it from him.

  “Mom? Is she okay? What’s going on?”

  “She’s in surgery. She’s pretty beat up and she’s got a few broken bones, but she’s going to be fine. Where are you?”

  “Outside,” he said, choking back tears. “In the parking lot.”

  “By the ER,” Clark whispered.

  “By the ER. Mom? Is Dad okay?”

  “We’re both fine. Lisa just ran up. I can’t believe this.”

  “Me neither,” he said. “You’ll tell her I was here?”

  “As soon as she’s awake. First I’m coming to you. Don’t move.”

  They sat there alone in the dark for a while and after a few minutes, despite still counting in his head and trying to focus on his breathing, Solomon looked all around, smiled a little, and then turned to his friend.

  “We’re okay, Clark,” he said, giving him the best smile he could manage. “We’re good.”

  Suddenly, they heard the front door of the van creak open and then, as soon as he turned around, Solomon saw his mom climbing her way toward him. She asked Clark to give them a minute and once they were alone, she scooted a little closer and looked Solomon right in the eyes.

  “Your grandma’s tough,” she said. “A month from now, she’ll be bragging about her new car and her new hip.”

  He smiled for his mom, but he still couldn’t relax enough to show much emotion. He traced the yellow squares behind her with his eyes until she moved even closer, blocking his view entirely. She didn’t break down crying or tell him she was proud of him or promise him that everything was going to be okay. She just looked right at him the only way she ever had, like he was the only other person in the world. And then she patted him on one leg and said, “Let’s get you home.”

  When Lisa was back, she sat in front of him and went to hold his hand like before. But he quickly drew it away and instead leaned forward and wrapped his arms around her shoulders. It was quiet and brief, but that was all it needed to be. Then he let go, grabbed her hand, and looked her right in the eyes as the engine started and shook the van around them.

  Back at the house, they waited until the garage door was completely shut before letting Solomon out. Then Lisa and Clark followed behind him without saying a word. He walked straight through the laundry room to the living room, opened the sliding glass door, and walked out into the backyard. And by the time Lisa had turned on the outdoor lights, he’d already jumped into the pool with all his clothes on.

  A few seconds later, he shot up from under the water in a big, loud splash. “Did that just happen?” he yelled, wiping water out of his eyes.

  “That just happened,” Clark said.

  Maybe it was the happiest moment of Solomon’s life, but he couldn’t be sure. And if he hadn’t been looking for it, he may have missed it, but just before Lisa and Clark threw their phones into the grass and cannonballed into the water beside him, he saw them quickly hold hands, giving one little squeeze before letting go. He’d left the house. He’d survived it. But damn it felt good to be home, to be in the water, to be with them. He didn’t need to go anywhere else. It was safe here. It was predictable. It was just a tiny little square on the side of the world. He never needed to leave it again.

  But that didn’t mean he never did.

  THIRTY

  LISA PRAYTOR

  MY PERSONAL EXPERIENCE WITH MENTAL ILLNESS

  My name is Lisa Anne Praytor and I am a senior at Upland High School in Upland, California. One morning, when I was in middle school, a boy I didn’t know stripped off his clothes and jumped into the fountain in front of my school. And then he disappeared. For three years, I didn’t hear anything else about him. Not a word. But then, one day last spring, I found him. His name is Solomon Reed, and he is my personal experience with mental illness.

  But, he shouldn’t be. I had no right to do what I did, but he said it was okay. He said I could write this. Not because finding him was the right thing to do, and maybe not because it helped him, but because even though he hadn’t been part of the world in three years, Solomon Reed had created one of his own—one that saved his life. And I think he wants you to know that.

  The first time I went to
his house, I wanted to cure him. Find him, fix him, and get my scholarship. That was the plan. But he wasn’t a patient and I wasn’t a counselor, so we became friends instead. Then, before I knew it, he was getting better, and it wasn’t because of my natural talent for performing cognitive behavioral therapy on sixteen-year-old agoraphobes with panic disorder, either. It was because now he had a reason to get better. So, I thought I should add another reason: my kind and handsome boyfriend, Clark. What better way to tempt a homosexual recluse out of the house, right?

  I’m not really sure why I ever thought I was qualified to fuck around with someone’s life like I did. I could blame it on age, but that’s too easy. Ambition, maybe? After all, this was about getting into your program (and, hopefully, about being able to pay for it). But, I can’t just blame you, can I?

  I blame all of us.

  I’ll never forget that day at the fountain. The other kids laughed and whispered, even when the principal had gotten him out of the water and wrapped a jacket around him. They just kept laughing and pointing as he walked by, dripping wet and never looking up from the ground. Most everyone I knew heard some ridiculous gossip about him by the end of that day. But then, within weeks, it was like he’d never existed. And that’s when I got the saddest. They never brought him up again. Like we belonged there and he belonged somewhere else. It’s not too hard to disappear when no one’s looking for you.

  That’s what we do sometimes. We let people disappear. We want them to. If everyone just stays quiet and out of the way, then the rest of us can pretend everything’s fine. But everything is not fine. Not as long as people like Solomon have to hide. We have to learn to share the world with them.

  And I know I’m not one to speak. Ethically, professionally, and morally, I did all the wrong things. I’ve been a shitty friend and a shitty girlfriend. And I did it all so my future would look different from my past. I wanted to be part of your program so I could help people. And, in the process, I hurt the two people closest to me.

  But, they’re still here. And Solomon still opens the door every time I come over. We still swim. We still watch movies. We still play games. He isn’t the crazy fountain kid. Crazy people don’t know they’re crazy. And because he knows what makes him lose control, he can learn how to make his world bigger without being buried by it.

  I don’t suspect I’ll be admitted into your program, and I surely won’t be awarded the Jon T. Vorkheim Scholarship. But, I’d like to thank you anyway. Without your essay, Solomon would’ve stayed invisible. And I’d probably still think that getting into your school was the only way to be happy. It’s not. As smart as I am, it took a boy stuck in his house to teach me that sometimes it doesn’t matter where you are at all. It only matters who’s with you.

  It’s like on Star Trek: The Next Generation, really. We’re just floating in space trying to figure out what it means to be human. And clearly I need more time to float. When I’m ready to take a step, though, Sol will be there to help me. And so will Clark. The world is big and scary and unforgiving. But we can survive out here. Solomon Reed did. I held his hands and we counted to ten and it was beautiful. He was an astronaut without a suit, but he was still breathing.

  THE END

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I owe a completely logical amount of gratitude to the many people who had to deal with me as I wrote this book.

  Chief among those is Namrata Tripathi, my editor, who always asks why and never lets me get away with not having an answer. Ever. Nami’s ability to crack open my skull and extract cohesive narratives is astounding and I’m very lucky to work with her.

  Then there’s Stephen Barr, my agent, whose insightfulness and kindness can only be measured in tacos. Stephen is the real deal—an agent who always answers phone calls and never minces words. Again, I’m a lucky guy.

  I’d also like to say a huge THANKS to everyone at Dial Books and Penguin Random House for welcoming me with such open arms.

  And it’s very true that I’d be nowhere without libraries, so I want to say a special thanks to all those librarians out there who spend their days putting books in kids’ hands. And to all those booksellers who take the special time to match the right book to the right reader.

  And finally, a huge thanks to my family and friends. I’m lucky enough to say that there are too many of you to name here, but you know who you are and what you mean to me. I have a very cool job, but it requires lots of inspiration and real-life material. You all give me that. I can’t thank you enough.

  John Corey Whaley grew up in Louisiana and now lives in Southern California. His first novel, Where Things Come Back, was the winner of the 2012 Printz Award and the 2012 Morris Award. His second novel, Noggin, was a 2014 National Book Award finalist.

  Learn more about John Corey Whaley at

  Johncoreywhaley.com

  or follow him on Twitter

  @corey_whaley

  Looking for more?

  Visit Penguin.com for more about this author and a complete list of their books.

  Discover your next great read!