Page 8 of The Golden Boy’s Guide to Bipolar

Since Mami wasn’t sure exactly what time she’d be home, she told me and Yami not to worry about our New Year’s resolution

of making Sunday dinner. I’m not proud of how relieved I was to get that text. After the email from my dad, I don’t know if

I could have spent time making food with Yami without telling her about it.

What would be the point in telling her? Knowing what my dad thinks would just piss her off and make her feel bad. Besides,

if Yami knew he’d emailed me—or worse, that I had emailed him —she’d never let me live it down.

I planned to spend the rest of the evening in my room, but Mami gets home too early for me to pretend to already be asleep.

Since the sun isn’t even down yet, I have no choice but to socialize.

I go out to the living room to find Yami and my mom hugging, which seems to happen a lot more now than when we were growing

up. If I had to pinpoint when Yami and our mom started getting closer, I’d guess it had something to do with Yami coming out

to her last year.

Mami gives my sister a final squeeze before letting go and pulling me in for a hug of my own. “How was your weekend of freedom?”

I know she’s making a joke, but something about it feels off. Does she know I abused that freedom by not taking my meds?

“It was good,” I say, trying my best to sound chill about it. Like I didn’t do anything wrong, I didn’t get an email from

my dad, and I didn’t just decide to burrow myself further in the closet for potentially the rest of my life.

She kisses my head before letting me go and clapping her hands together.

“So, Yamilet, how behind are we from this trip?”

I take that as my perfect chance to check out of the conversation, since they’ll probably be spending the rest of the evening

catching up on their jewelry orders. I slip away to my room and lie in bed with my eyes closed, as if that could possibly

help me sleep.

I don’t get much rest before seven rolls around, and I stare at Jamal’s contact in my phone until practically the last second

before answering. By now, I’ve made up my mind. We can’t get back together.

Still, that doesn’t mean we can’t be friends, right? I really don’t want to lead him on—but I can’t lose him either—but I

can’t date him again—but I want to—but I can’t .

I have to tell him.

“Hey, b—you,” I say, resisting the urge to call him babe. Even with all these months being single, it still feels natural

to call him that. But it was naive of me to think we could go back to it.

“Hey, you.” I can hear the smile in Jamal’s voice, and despite how much I should be dreading talking to him, it immediately

relaxes me. “How are you, Cesar?”

He usually starts out our calls this way, but from him, I know it’s not just small talk. He genuinely wants to hear whatever might be bothering me, how my day really was—unfiltered.

My phone buzzes with a text before I can answer, and I open it to find a stream of texts spread out from New Year’s Eve to

today.

Hunter: Hey man how’ve you been?

Hunter: How’s it going bro?

Hunter: Dude you okay?

Shit. I don’t mean to ignore Hunter, but what am I supposed to say to “How’s it going?” when it’s going bad? I feel like shit,

but I can’t exactly tell him that without having to explain why. And I’m not trying to think about it any more than absolutely

necessary.

“Cesar?” Jamal asks when I take too long to respond to him .

Right. I think about telling Jamal I don’t feel the same way about him anymore, or that I don’t want to get back together,

but “Eh” is all I end up saying, since I’m not the best at lying to Jamal. I know I’ll have to tell him soon, but I just change

the subject like a coward. “You still doing that open mic next Friday?”

“Of course,” Jamal says. “Why? Did something come up?”

Even though I can’t get back together with him, and being around him knowing that will be absolute hell, I can’t bring myself

to let him down. I’m not about to let him come out to a strange crowd without some kind of backup.

“If you’re there, I’m there. You know I’m your biggest fan,” I say, despite my better judgment.

“My one and only.” He laughs with a tiny little snort that shouldn’t be cute but is. “So, question.”

“Yeah?”

“How are you? Like, actually.”

Dammit. I almost thought he’d let me drop the subject.

“Hungry,” I say. Sure, I’ve already eaten, but my stomach has a mind of its own. I decide Jamal doesn’t need to know I’ve

been desperately praying about him—and failing.

He chuckles. “I can bring you some Takis?”

The thought makes me grin. “That would solve literally every single problem in my life,” I say dramatically, and somehow,

it really feels like it would.

“Give me ten minutes. Then you can tell me what’s really going on.”

He hangs up before I can protest. He’s always so good at catching my deflections.

Sure enough, there’s a knock on the door exactly ten minutes later, and I rush to grab it, trying to beat my mom. I quickly

pass her and Yami on the couch making jewelry.

“Expecting someone?” Mami asks as I hop over some necklaces on the floor.

“Just Jamal,” I say as nonchalantly as possible. Mami always freaks out when Jamal comes over. She might love him even more

than I do—I mean, she definitely does. Because I can’t love Jamal. Not anymore.

I open the door to find him standing up straight with his arms folded behind his back. He’s got on a smooth long-sleeved striped

button-up tucked into his pants. If I didn’t know better, I’d think he got dressed up just to come here, but no, that’s just

how he always looks.

“Jamal! Come in, come in!” Mami’s voice from right behind me makes me jump.

“Wah! ?Me asustaste!” I say with both hands on my chest, trying to calm my heartbeat. I’m not usually so jumpy, but I must still be on edge from the email. Mami just ignores me and tries to pull Jamal inside.

“Actually, Mami, we were gonna go for a ride, right, Jamal?” I give Jamal a please-play-along look. I’d rather eat Takis in

Jamal’s truck than be forced to hang out as a family.

Weirdly enough, when it’s just me and Jamal, I have a chance at pretending it’s not real. That we’re just in our own little

world, and nothing else matters. But when he’s hanging out with me and my mom and Yami, there’s always been this awkward tension

regarding the breakup. Like they’ve both been waiting for us to get back together since the day we split.

“You have to come in for at least a minute! Just to say hi!” Mami coaxes, and Yami comes to the rescue from her spot on the

couch.

“Let them go, Mami. We don’t have slacker money.” She looks back at me and does a dramatic wink, which I pretend I don’t see.

Mami frowns, but agrees and finally lets me out the door with Jamal.

He moves his hand from behind his back to reveal a bag of Takis, handing them to me with a smile.

“You just saved my life, do you know that? Taki withdrawals are no joke.” I pop open the bag and stick my hand in before we

make it out of the entryway.

He just grins and leads the way to his truck. From outside the house, we can hear Dona Violeta’s music playing from her spot

on her porch. The upbeat ranchera blasts throughout the neighborhood while she sits in her chair nodding on beat and people

watching.

She waves when she sees me and Jamal walking outside, and Jamal waves back while I blow her a couple of kisses.

Jamal opens the passenger-side door for me when we get to his truck, which makes me hesitate.

When we were together, he always opened the door for me, and he started doing it again after we kissed on New Year’s Eve.

My dad’s words echo in my head.

What you’re doing is a choice, and you’re making the wrong one.

I quickly get in the truck so Jamal’s not standing there waiting for me, and he walks around to his side.

I try to hype myself up to have the conversation. To tell him we can’t be together again, that we can’t kiss anymore or hold

hands or open doors for each other. But when he sits down in his seat, the words get caught in my throat.

“Want to go to the mall?” I say, instead of anything useful.

“Sure,” Jamal says as he starts the car.

The mall was... a bad idea, to say the least. First of all, I have no money to be buying anything, but more importantly,

it’s a lot of walking around side by side. Jamal knows not to straight-up hold my hand in public since I’m not out, but we

used to “accidentally” brush our hands together whenever we’d walk side by side out in the open. It used to be a reminder

that, even though we couldn’t be “out” in the open, we still had each other.

Now it’s just a reminder of how shitty I’ve been to him. I pull out my phone, making sure to hold it in the hand closest to

Jamal so neither of us are tempted to “accidentally” brush hands.

“Are you single, or are you taken?” Some mall kiosk lady is looking at Jamal, holding out two different perfume bottles.

An unwelcome wave of jealousy flows through me for a split moment before she keeps going.

“This cologne will make your girlfriend feel cozy snuggling up to you,” she says, holding out the bottle to the right. “And this one is guaranteed to attract all the single ladies. What will it be?”

My instinct is to ignore her and keep walking, but Jamal is stuck in place. He eyes both colognes like this decision is going

to make or break world peace. His eyes catch mine for a split second before he turns back to the cologne.

“Taken?” the lady asks, looking back and forth from Jamal to me. “It also works for boyfriends.” She winks.

That’s when I panic and snatch the “single” cologne from her hand, taking in a deep whiff.

“This one smells better,” I lie. It makes me cough. The “taken” cologne isn’t as overbearing, but I guess if I’m gonna stay

single I should get used to the smell.

Jamal’s shoulders slump ever so slightly. At least compared to his natural perfect posture. He only lets it show for a moment

before straightening up and politely asking the lady for two of the “single” colognes.

She happily bends over to grab a couple bottles of the stuff, then bags it up and hands it to Jamal. We turn away from her

and start walking out to the car.

Back at the truck, Jamal holds the door open for me again, which kills me. He looks at me just a second too long when we get

in, then he reaches in the bag with the two bottles of cologne.

“For you.” He hands me one of the bottles.

“Are you saying I smell bad?” I try to sound playful, taking the cologne and shoving it in my pocket.

I laugh to hide the sting because hygiene is actually a sore subject for me.

When I go through my depressive episodes, as Dr. Lee calls them, taking care of myself kind of goes out the window, and showering is one of the harder tasks to accomplish.

I try not to go around smelling. The most I can usually manage is to scrub my crevices with a washcloth every couple of days and wear deodorant and dry shampoo, but. .. yeah, I’m not proud of it.

“Of course not.” Jamal doesn’t laugh back, or even smile. He knows this is a problem for me, so I know this is his way of

helping. It just makes me feel that much shittier for stringing him along.

“We can’t get back together,” I blurt out.

He’s quiet for a moment, his ever-intense eyes searching mine for an answer I can’t give. I never told him why I broke up

with him in the first place. I couldn’t. Can’t.

“I understand,” he finally says. He sounds sad but not angry. He’s never angry with me, even when he should be. Anyone in

their right mind would have dropped me a long time ago.

“You do?” I ask, tentatively reaching for another Taki from the bag he gave me earlier. “Is that all you have to say?”

He doesn’t say anything for a bit, but I’m used to Jamal’s long pauses by now. I used to think he wasn’t listening, but now

I know he’s just super intentional about what he does say. He takes his time to choose his words. I love—uh, have noticed

that about him.

“I’m sorry,” he says, shaking his head, which throws me off. “I shouldn’t have kissed you. I crossed a boundary.” I can hear

the pain in his voice. He really thinks this is his fault.

“Shit, Jamal,” I say, not knowing what else to say. It wasn’t like Jamal kissed me all on his own. I was every bit as into it as he was. I can’t have Jamal feeling guilty

on top of everything else. “I crossed my own boundary,” I finally add, hoping he really gets it.

Another long pause. “Why?”

I don’t know how to answer that. Because I wanted to? Because I missed him? Because I love—

“Because I wasn’t thinking,” I say, and Jamal adjusts his glasses, which he usually does when he’s trying to figure something

out.

“I understand,” he says again.

My head hurts. How can he understand?

You should apologize.

“Shit, Jamal... ,” I say again, letting the “sorry” be implied. “Why do you put up with me?” I ask, feeling heat rise in

my chest.

Jamal just looks at me with those intense eyes like the answer is obvious. “You know why, Cesar.” His voice is soft. Too soft.

An unexpected wave of anger bubbles inside as I realize what’s really going on here.

“Do you feel sorry for me or something? Because of what happened last year?” I ask defensively.

“What? No, that’s not—” Jamal starts, but I don’t let him finish.

“I can take care of myself.” I start laughing. “Just because I got sent to the land of the sticky socks one time doesn’t mean I’m some fragile little child.”

“That’s not what I meant.” Jamal doesn’t take his eyes off mine.

“What did you mean, then?”

“I mean I love—ugh!” He runs a hand down his face. “I’m sorry... I... I care about you, okay? Is it so hard to accept

that some people just... genuinely care about you?”

I shrug and eat another Taki.

It really is.