Page 15 of The Golden Boy’s Guide to Bipolar

She doesn’t wait for me to agree before slowly pushing the door open and creeping into the hallway. I follow because, I mean,

I do want to know what they’re saying about me.

My mom and tío’s voices are coming from the kitchen on the other side of the hall. They’re talking kind of quiet, but it’s

still easy enough to make out.

“I just don’t know what to do with that boy,” I hear my mom say. I clench my jaw, trying not to let Moni see any emotions

on my face. “What am I supposed to do?”

“Have you talked to Mami? She’s been a huge help getting through to Monica—”

“We don’t speak,” my mom responds harshly.

“Don’t be so hard on her. She’s doing a lot better now. She might be able to help.”

They argue in hushed tones for a bit over whether my abuela is worth reaching out to. I don’t even know what happened between my mom and abuela. All I know is they haven’t spoken in years, and every time I overhear my mom talking about her, it’s about how crazy she is and how she can’t be trusted.

Before they say anything too juicy, their voices start moving in our direction, so Moni and I rush back to the room as stealthy

as possible, barely managing to push the door to its almost-closed position before our parents turn the corner. Not long after

that, Moni’s dad knocks on the door saying it’s time for them to go. I give my tío a goodbye hug and Moni another high five,

and they’re gone. Hopefully it won’t be another seven years before I see them again.

I flop face-first down on my bed as soon as I’m alone and stay like that for who knows how long. I try not to let it bother

me too much that my mom was venting about me. That she “doesn’t know what to do” with me. I just cover my ears with my pillow,

like that’ll block out the memory of what she said and what that might mean.

Eventually, seven o’clock hits and Jamal calls.

“Hey, you,” I answer on reflex, even though it’s probably not a good idea to talk to him when I feel like shit.

“Hey, you. How are you doing?” I knew the question was coming, but somehow, I’m never prepared for it. I don’t know how to

lie to him, but I don’t want to be an asshole and hang up on him again or anything either.

I sigh. “Can we not talk about it today?”

“Okay.” He takes a few seconds to say anything else. “Question.”

“Yeah?” I find myself smiling.

“Do you want to go to a party together on Saturday?”

“Why?” I find myself saying. Jamal has never been the party type. He only ever goes when I want to go, so I don’t have to show up by myself.

“I just thought, since the open mic I’m throwing is the next day, maybe you can stay the night at my place, or I can at yours,

and we can go together?”

“What kind of party—”

“I mean, not together together. Just, like, at the same time, together. Like, ride in the car, together.”

“It’s okay, I know what you meant.” I laugh a little. “Is it a Rover party?”

“It is, but if you ever missed Rover parties, this is the one to go to. According to Avery, Nick and Bianca are apparently

a match made in hell, and they’ll be on a date that night. So we can invite Yami too. And you two could come without running

into them. I can pick you both up. If you want to go, I mean.”

“Wait, you talk to Avery?” I feel like my brain just short-circuited hearing that name out of Jamal’s mouth.

“Not really . We have a class together, so I just asked him if they’d be at the party. He’s kind of a different person without his friends

around. It’s weird.”

I know Jamal’s intentions were good here.

I’m almost certain I know exactly what went down.

Jamal’s probably worried about me since I’ve been weird lately, and inviting me to a party outside his comfort zone is his idea of cheering me up.

But he couldn’t invite me to a party Nick and his friends would be at, so he outright asked Avery if they’d be there.

Which, in theory, is nice. But... “You didn’t tell him you were inviting me, did you? ”

“I didn’t.”

I finally relax my shoulders. I wouldn’t put it past Avery to lie and say they wouldn’t be there just to get me to show up

while they have enough bodies to actually do something.

“Okay, good. As long as Nick won’t be there, we can go. I’ll invite Yami.”

I can hear his relieved sigh blowing into the phone. “Great. I’ll pick you guys up then.”

“Thanks,” I say, hoping he hears the unspoken part. That I appreciate how he looks out for me and wants to cheer me up. Unfortunately,

Jamal isn’t an expert in reading between the lines, so I find myself adding one of his go-tos. “I appreciate you.”

Dr. Lee thinks we’re having a staring contest, but no matter how long her eyes bore into mine, she can’t make me regret a

single thing.

Clearly my mom told her about our kind-of sort-of fight. Dr. Lee knows my grades have been dropping, and she knows I’ve been

irritable with everyone lately. What she doesn’t know about is the email from my dad. She doesn’t know I’ve been off my meds.

And she doesn’t need to.

I feel like she’s goading me into apologizing to everyone, but what she doesn’t get is that I can’t.

I don’t really know how to explain it. It’s like.

.. someone might not even be that mad at me, and we could just as easily let the incident pass and forget about it.

But if I apologize, that brings all the bad things I’ve done right to the surface for everyone, dangling my bad decisions in our faces like a carrot in front of a Minecraft pig.

I already know I’m a horrible person, but Jamal? Yami? My mom? They’ve never seen me in that way. How am I supposed to live

with myself if a simple apology makes them see me the way I see myself?

Yeah, there’s no way I’m apologizing.

“Do you think you might be sending your loved ones mixed messages?” Dr. Lee asks, folding one condescending leg over the other.

“It seems like your mom is trying to respond to your cries for help—”

“Aren’t you supposed to make me feel better ?” I snap. And okay, okay, she’s not wrong , but she has absolutely no right. I don’t tell her my business so she can make me feel like shit about it.

She scribbles something down on her notepad patronizingly. “My job is to help you improve over time. Sometimes that involves

exploring things that might feel uncomfortable.”

“What, so I can’t be annoyed at my family now?” I say, attitudinally crossing my legs to mirror hers before continuing. “Am

I supposed to be happy my mom’s always on my ass about everything I do and say?”

“Of course not,” she says, eyes flickering up from her notepad. “Maybe this is a sign that it might be worth reexamining those

boundaries we talked about before. Do you remember?”

The only boundary I can remember setting for myself is the most recent one about Jamal. I decide to just fuck it and tell

her. “Yeah, so I do have a new boundary now. I decided to only date girls from now on. So, me and Jamal aren’t getting back

together.”

She does a bad job hiding her concerned micro expression. “What changed?” is all she asks.

I clench my jaw. Nothing’s changed, really. But at the same time, everything has. Every time I think about Jamal like that , I can’t get my sperm donor’s email out of my head. It’s obviously too late to fix my relationship with my dad, but God?

God, I do want to get right with.

I find my hand traveling to the cross hanging around my neck and the jaguar necklace behind it. My mom says God accepts me

the way I am, but Father John says otherwise, and that guy’s, like, a professional God salesman. Theoretically, I could date

a girl and even be happy with one. That is, if I could just bring myself to get over Jamal...

“Nothing’s changed,” I finally say.

“I see.” She pauses and writes something down in her notepad again, then looks back up at me. “I won’t press you to change

any boundaries if you’re not comfortable with that, but I want to urge you to examine the reasons why you set this boundary

in the first place. Maybe that’s worth taking a look at.”

“I have a good reason, but it’s none of your business,” I say reflexively.

“I believe you,” she says, without pressing the issue further. “Now, back to our earlier conversation. Would you consider

your sister, your mom, and Jamal to be your main support system?” Dr. Lee asks, which kind of throws me off.

“Um, yeah, I guess so,” I mumble.

“It seems like the three people who are there for you the most are the people you get the most frustrated with. Why do you think it is that you feel negatively about your support system, well...” She stops writing in her notepad for a moment to look up at me. “Trying to show you support?”

There’s that feeling again. That twinge in my chest.

“Guilt,” I find myself saying truthfully.

She writes something down again. “You don’t feel like you deserve their support?”

I just shake my head, since I can’t bring myself to say the words. I don’t deserve their support. They spend all their time trying to make sure I’m okay while I’m just... me . There’s no reason they should be spending so much of their energy on my mental health. It doesn’t make any sense.

“Now we’re making progress,” she says, giving me a reassuring smile.

And maybe that’s true. Maybe I’m not the type of person who can just apologize whenever I fuck up, but I can do something.

Maybe I don’t deserve their support right now, but somehow, I need to find a way to fix that.