Page 26 of The Golden Boy's Guide to Bipolar
“It was an accident.” Nick sizes me up, chin raised. Like he’s challenging me. He wants me to be the one to pick the fight, and I’m not giving him the satisfaction.
“Not now, bro, you’re drunk,” Avery mutters, looking fully exhausted. I’d be exhausted too if I had to keep Nick’s ass from causing a scene every time I turned a corner. Avery’s always been Nick’s right hand, and the only brain cell among basically their entire group. At least he’s smart enough to know when they’re the ones outnumbered.
Nick holds my stare for a few more seconds before finally smirking, as if he’s somehow won this encounter. He walks off, making sure to shoulder check me on his way out.
“Assholes,” Sasha mumbles. “Thank God they left.”
“You know those guys?” Hunter asks, still wiping the table with napkins. He’s about to start dabbing at my lap, but I stop him.
“I got it,” I say as I grab the napkins from him and wipe myself off.
“They go to Rover.” Jamal answers the question for me. I’m glad he doesn’t give them any more information than that. They don’t need to know that they bullied me so bad my mom switched me and Yami to Catholic school.
After that, I pretend to focus on the poet on stage, so no one thinks too much about what just happened. But this girl’s poems are nowhere near on Jamal’s level. And yeah, yeah, I know this is an open mic and not a competition, but Jamal is about to crush these fools.
After a few more performances, Jamal gets introduced. He hesitates before standing up. I wish I could rub his shoulders or back or squeeze his hand. Anything to tell him I’m here for him and not to be nervous. But the truth is, I don’t know this crowd, and I don’t want them making any assumptions about me and Jamal. Nick might be gone, but I don’t know who else might be just like him here.
Once he’s on stage, Jamal closes his eyes for a moment, clears his throat, and steps to the mic.
“This one isn’t really a poem, actually. I don’t really know what it is,” he starts, then takes a deep breath and reads from his paper.“A letter from the closet to the queer.”He pauses, and I find myself mesmerized already. He looks at me nervously, and I give him a reassuring smile and a thumbs-up before he continues.“You said you didn’t need me anymore. You said you felt trapped, but I know you better than that. Between bitter breaths, you released a sigh of relief because you’ve always been safe with me. And no matter how scary it is beingout, you know I’ll always be your safe place.
“But... you wanted to see the world. To go to Pride. To love someone out loud. To love a boy.”He glances at me at that part, but quickly looks away. Jamal’s never been able to do that part with me. Not out loud, at least.“When you pick out your clothes every morning and look into my eyes, you make the same choice. Every day you wear the armor I provide you, and you leave me so you can see the world. You look into my eyes, my gentle reminder of safety, and you turn it down.
“But I’ll always be here. I was here when you came back after your first time venturing outside.”I happen to know the “first time” he’s talking about is when he told me he loved me. When we shared our first kiss. My chest gets tight.
“I remember the next time you came back. You stood in front of me, beaten and bloody with tears tracking down swollen cheeks. No matter what garments I offered to soak the salt water from your face, you cried still. You cried because, while you love the outside, it didn’t love you back.”This time I know he’s talking about when he got kicked out of his mom and stepdad’s house after coming out to them.
I’ll never be as brave as Jamal. Every time I came out of the closet was a mistake, besides that fluke during anti-prom when I came out to Yami’s friends and Hunter. Even if I can be out to Jamal, and Yami, and my mom, I could never just talk about my queerness plainly in front of a crowd. Especially one like this.
This crowd isn’t outright heckling or anything, but most of them aren’t snapping in support like they did every other line of the first girl’s poem. And when his piece is done, they give polite, unenthusiastic claps.
But I’m still breathless by the time Jamal walks off stage and back to our table. Not because his piece was good—I know nothing about poetry, or what makes it good—but because of how real it was. How real it could be for me, if I ever wanted it to be.
But I don’t. Not now. Maybe not ever.
On the car ride home, Jamal can’t stop smiling.
“I’m proud of you,” I say, his smile contagiously rubbing off on me.
“Me too,” he admits. “It probably could have gone better, though.”
“What do you mean? You were perfect.”
“I mean, it was kind of weird, you know? The crowd didn’t really seem like they were feeling it. Who knows, maybe they were homophobic or something. Maybe my letter sucked. Maybe Nick just threw off the vibes.”
“Okay, no, your letter did not suck. It was probably just the crowd. I think the only queer people there were at our table.”
“Yeah, maybe... I wish there were more open mics around here.” Jamal slumps his shoulders. “I don’t even know if I want to go back to that one.”
“Why don’t you start your own?” I ask. “You can make it explicitly queer friendly if you want.”
Jamal lets out a small breath through his nose. “We’re in Arizona. Is there even a market for that kind of thing?”
“There has to be,” I say with more confidence than I expected. “Especially here, people are probably starving for that shit.”
Jamal pushes his glasses up his nose like he’s considering my words. “You know, that could actually be an option.”
“Why not?” I shrug. “You can do whatever you put your mind to.”
