Page 55 of The Golden Boy's Guide to Bipolar
I pull away and look at myself in the mirror to find tile marks from the bathroom floor on my cheeks. Shit. How long have I been in here?
“No, I didn’t fall. Unless you count falling asleep, I guess.”
Abuela’s eyebrows furrow together, but she doesn’t comment on it all concerned like Mami would have. At least, like Mami would have before she disowned me.
“What are you going to do then? Do you need to go to sleep for the night?” Abuela asks, and I’m surprised she’s actually giving me a choice.
“I’ll... go get started on my homework?” I say, both because I don’t want to make the wrong choice, and because going to bed now would be the most boring move. I just sawGod. I’m not about to waste any time sleeping.
And even though I haven’t slept properly in days, I still have enough energy to speed through my homework without a hitch. Rover homework is so much easier than Slayton’s, even if I’m taking the same classes.
I spend the entire time looking for some kind of sign that the conversation I had with God was real, and not just a dream, but so far there’s nothing.
Once Moni and I are finished with our homework and chores, and we’ve all had dinner, Abuela pulls out a game of Scrabble.
“Game night?” Moni squeals.
“Game night.” Abuela grins.
I feel like I’m both hypervigilant and extra out of it at the same time somehow. Like, things are happening around me, and I’m responding on autopilot, barely taking in what’s going on. But at the same time, I’m noticing all the things I normally wouldn’t catch. There’s gotta be a sign somewhere. I find myself hyper-focusing on all the words everyone spells, thinking one of them might mean something.
I spend most of the game only finding small words with not a lot of points. I’m losing pretty bad, but I do my best to ignore Moni’s trash talk. She gets a triple-letter score with her next word, which makes her laugh all evil. “HAhahaha! You both might as well just give up now! I basically already won.”
Not if God has anything to do with it,I think to myself, fully confident He’ll help me out.
“What are you talking about?” Moni raises an eyebrow.
Did I say that out loud? Whatever, it’s the truth. Now it’s my turn to laugh. “Don’t be jealous. Just watch.”
“Happily.” She laughs back. She probably thinks I’m joking, but she’ll see.
Abuela, on the other hand, isn’t laughing, not that she ever does. She just looks at me like she’s solving a puzzle, butI’mthe one who’s going to solve this shit.
I put my hands together and close my eyes, shooting a small prayer up to the heavens before I cross myself and pick up a new letter.
God, help me now if you really meant what you said earlier.
And, holy shit, He does.
And, the word. That word is a sign if I’ve ever seen one. I spell out WEEKEND on the board on a space that gives me three times the points for the entire word.
Weekend.
Sunday is on the weekend.
Church is on Sunday.
Sunday is the Lord’s day.
God is definitely sending me a message right now. He chose me. I feel like the world is opening up to me to reveal heaven itself. That’s where I’m headed. I can’t wait for God to call me there.
I mean, Icanwait. I can be patient. But it better not take too long....
Just then, the doorbell rings. Moni’s dad must be here to take her home for the weekend. I’m expecting her to jump for joy and run to the door, but she frowns.
“Do Ihaveto go?” she whines. Why the hell wouldn’t she want to leave? All we’ve been doing here is homework and chores. “You guys are so much more fun than my dad.”
“At least your dad still wants to see you,” I mumble, but Moni doesn’t seem to hear me.
