Page 66 of The Golden Boy's Guide to Bipolar
Hunter:Haven’t seen you in a minute. What are you doing next week?
Cesar:I’m grounded, so nothing
Cesar:therapy is my only social life apparently
Hunter:I’ll give you a ride home from therapy then lol
I let out a little laugh. I don’t get why Hunter keeps hitting me up or why he cares to hang out with me. I’m not who he thinks I am, and hopefully he doesn’t figure that out any time soon. But if Hunter driving me home from therapy gives me less time alone with my mom, I’ll take it.
I send Hunter a thumbs-up before I’m pulled out of my thoughts by Bianca. She scoots sort of next to me, sort of halfway on my lap. She kisses my cheek while I eat the nasty school chicken nuggets. I don’t even care that they’re disgusting and probably moldy. Eating helps, if nothing else does.
I just chew silently while Bianca talks shit about her cousin or something. She’s always talking shit, and if I don’t say anything she usually wears herself out eventually.
“She’s so annoying. I’m so glad I’m a single child. If I had to be around someone like her every day I’d jump off a bridge. How do you do it, Cesar?”
“What?” I ask, not prepared to get pulled into the conversation.
“With Yami. How do you put up with being around someone like thatall the time?”
My face twists in disgust, but not because of the chicken nuggets. Yami might think I hate her, but I don’t need Bianca jumping on board. “What do you mean,someone like that?”
“You know how she is,” Bianca says, like she expects me to just start talking shit with her about my sister.
“I told you I don’t want to talk about Yami,” I say firmly. “Talk about literally anyone else.”
She takes that as an invitation to turn the conversation back to her cousin, and I go back to eating and ignoring her. Eventuallythe chicken nuggets disappear, and Bianca puts a hand on my cheek, turning my head to face her. She kisses me in front of everyone, completely ignoring Stefani and Chachi. I can feel Nick’s glare burning a hole through the back of my head from the table behind us.
At first I’m a little confused, because if Bianca likes me enough to ignore her friends, why isn’t she annoyed or mad I’ve been avoiding her?
I push the thought down and savor the kiss, knowing how much of a privilege it is to kiss the person you’re dating in public. What I would have given to be able to kiss Jamal in public when we were together...
The kiss grows deeper, and I turn so one of my legs is on the other side of the lunch bench. She immediately scoots closer to me and kisses me harder. But no matter how hard I kiss Bianca, she doesn’t feel like Jamal. Her lips are smaller, and her breath is mintier, since she’s always chewing gum. When she pulls away, she doesn’t look at me the way Jamal did either. Her look is full of pride, like I’m a trophy she’s showing off. Jamal never looked at me like that.
Jamal always looked at me like I was the world. His world. It didn’t matter if no one else ever knew he had me. We knew, and that was enough for him. He never guilted me for not wanting to wear his promise ring in public. Never made me feel bad for taking a step away when people were watching.
“You should come over sometime,” Bianca says, wrapping her arms around my neck.
“Uh, I’m busy,” I say without a second thought.
Bianca’s smile disappears. “I didn’t even say when yet. How do you know you’re busy?”
“Oh, I meant... I’m grounded.” Okay, that part is actually true.
Bianca gives me a mischievous grin. “Sneak out then. My mom’s in Mexico until next week. We’d have my house to ourselves....” She winks.
Oh.
It’s not that I don’t want to have sex with Bianca. I do. But I hesitate for some reason.
“Come on, I know you want to,” Bianca coaxes.
I swallow the uncertainty. “Okay,” I say, setting my hands on her waist. “Let’s do it.”
In astronomy the next day, Mrs. Velez announces that we’ll be partnering up to do our senior projects. She hands out a piece of paper that has everyone and their partners listed, along with a list of potential projects to do.
I scan the paper for my name, and my heart sinks into my gut when I see I’m paired with none other than Jamal. Mrs. Velez used to partner us together when we were in AP Biology freshman year and AP Chemistry sophomore year, since we got along so well and always wanted to be partners. She’s obviously noticed how distant we’ve been lately, so my guess is that this is her way of trying to get us to make up. She may think she’s doing us some kind of favor, but really, she just made it hard to breathe.
Everyone gets up and switches seats to be next to their partners, and Jamal turns to face me since we already sit by each other.
