“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