Page 31 of The Golden Boy’s Guide to Bipolar
After a long pause of all of us just staring at each other, Yami finally looks back at Mami.
“Well, I guess it’s settled then,” she says.
Suddenly the sadness in her face is completely gone, replaced by a stone and ice.
Her cold tone finally mirrors mine. “I’m staying at Slayton.
Take care of yourself, Cesar, because I’m done.
” Then she rushes past me and into her room, shutting the door surprisingly quietly.
The lack of a slam makes me even more anxious. I can’t tell if she genuinely wants me to take care of myself, or if she just
wants me to know she’s done doing that work for me. Either way, I’m on my own now.
The next morning, I go to the bathroom to brush my teeth earlier than usual, hoping to miss Yami. I open my side of the bathroom
door quietly so as not to wake her up.
I stare at the poem that’s still printed out on the mirror.
In Lak’ech
Tú eres mi otro yo / You are my other me.
Si te hago dano a ti / If I do harm to you,
Me hago dano a mí mismo / I do harm to myself.
Si te amo y respeto / If I love and respect you,
Me amo y respeto yo / I love and respect myself.
As soon as I stick my toothbrush in my mouth, the other door opens and in walks Yami. She must have had the same exact idea
as me.
She catches me staring at the poem for a split second before I look away from it. The look on her face says exactly what she’s
thinking: hypocrite .
I have half a mind to spit in the sink and make a run for it, leaving my dirty toothbrush on the bathroom counter, but Yami beats me to it.
She turns right back around and leaves me with only my own reflection staring back at me in the mirror.
We always were on the same wavelength, and it looks like us avoiding each other is no exception.
But she’s wrong about one thing. I’m not a hypocrite. At least not when it comes to that poem. I know exactly what it means,
and I do still live by it.
Hurting the people around me is the most effective way I know to sabotage myself.
So no, I’m not a hypocrite.
Just a coward.
After I finish up and then pretend to take my meds, Mami tries to guilt me into getting in the car so she can drop me off
at Rover before taking Yami to Slayton.
“We’re going to be late if we don’t leave right now, mijo.”
“Then go,” I say through a mouthful of cereal. She glares at me, so I continue, if only so I don’t get my head smacked. “I’ll
walk. Rover’s close enough. You don’t have to drop me off.”
It’s true that Rover is walking distance. Well, sort of. It’s a less than thirty-minute walk, so if I leave now, I won’t be
late. But if I leave now with Mami and Yami, I’ll be skin-crawlingly early.
“Let him walk,” Yami says as she brushes past me and toward the car. “I’m not about to be late because of him.”
“Fine, but if I hear you ditched school, you can kiss those walking privileges goodbye.”
“?’Kay,” I say, to get her off my back. It wasn’t like I was going to ditch. Being alone with my thoughts is a million times
worse than going to school. At least there I have some kind of routine to keep me busy.
Before I know it, Yami and my mom are out the door, and I have the house to myself, which I also hate. So I scarf down the rest of my cereal, grab my backpack, and head out.
The walk isn’t so bad this time of year. Yeah, it’s a little chilly for March (for Arizona), but it doesn’t bother me too
much. I have my headphones in, so my music is louder than my brain, which helps. But even with the beat thumping in my ears,
moving my feet in step with the rhythm, I hear a honk right next to me.
I almost fall on my ass at the noise, prepared to fight Nick or Avery or whoever else might be trying to mess with me, but
when I whirl to the side, it’s just Bianca. I didn’t even know she could drive now.
“Hey, babe, need a ride?” she asks.
“Uh, sure. Why not?” I say, not able to come up with an excuse to get out of being stuck in a car with someone who is somehow
both a godsend and the devil incarnate in one.
I hop in on the passenger side of her Accord, and she leans over to kiss me. I don’t turn to face her, so she kisses my cheek,
but it still makes me feel like an absolute piece of shit.
“So, where’s Yami?” Bianca asks.
“Uh, what?” Now I turn to look at her, confused.
“I mean, I see you at school all the time, but not Yami. I would have figured you two would stick together, right?”
“I don’t want to talk about Yami,” I say curtly.
“So she’s still at that Catholic school then?” she asks, ignoring my request completely.
“Why do you care? I thought you hated her.” My voice comes out cold, but it doesn’t matter.
She turns a little red at that. “I don’t care,” is all she offers.
“Good, me either,” I lie, and that seems to placate her because she slithers her hand onto my knee and leaves it there the rest of the ride to school.
As soon as we get there, I run off to “class.” Really, I make a beeline for the bathroom. I rush into one of the stalls, lock
it behind me, kneel over the toilet, and empty my guts into it.
I don’t stop when someone opens the door and walks in. I can barely hear them pissing over the sound of my own vomiting. Hopefully
they ignore the awkwardness and just leave when they’re done.
But of course I’m never so lucky.
“Um, you okay?”
Fuck. It had to be him.
“I’m fine,” I say between coughs as I wipe my mouth with toilet paper.
“You don’t sound fine, Cesar.” Shit. I guess I can’t be surprised he recognized my voice when I knew it was Jamal right away.
A plastic water bottle rolls under the stall door.
“I said I’m fine!” I snap this time. I can’t handle Jamal being kind to me right now. I can’t handle it. I kick the water
bottle back under the door, even though my throat is screaming for relief. “Please just leave me alone.”
He hesitates, and for a moment, a small part of me hopes he’ll argue back. That he’ll say no. That he’d never leave me alone
like this. But instead he wordlessly trails out the door without a protest.