Page 11 of The Golden Boy's Guide to Bipolar
5
When You Figured Out How to Avoid Going to Hell
Bargaining
I spend the car ride home from therapy writing out a poem for Jamal in my notes app, vaguely aware of my mom talking to me. Something about a pop-up market in Sedona.
“Are you sure you’ll be all right this weekend?”
“Yeah, mhmm,” I respond on autopilot.
“I’ll only be a couple hours away, so if you need anything, just call me, okay?”
“Okay, yeah,” I say, still typing away. I want to show Jamal this little piece of me I’ve been keeping from the rest of the world. He deserves a straight answer from me, for once, but I don’t want to send it over text.
So, as soon as I get home, I write the poem out in the Jamal section of my notebook, so I can give it to him in person. Once it’s done, I tear out the page and read it over one last time. Not to make sure it’s good enough, because that never mattered with him. He’s the only one who doesn’t expect me to be perfect. It’s almost better that this particular poem is straight from brain to paper—or brain to notes app to paper. He’d like it best that way, I’m sure.
Thefirst time I fell, I accidentally found that the
Answerto all the questions burning in my head were the same.
Isit possible to be seen completely and still loved? Does he really want me, out
Ofall the people in the world? When we’re old and gray, and our lives have run their
Course, will he still want me? Will I want him?
Yes, obviously.
I’ve barely had time to read the full poem before Jamal calls me at our usual time. I have to resist the urge to ask him to be my boyfriend right then and there. No, I want to do things right this time. I should ask him in person.
“What are you doing this weekend?” I say as soon as I pick up the phone. I’m already googling movie times for something he might be into.
“Probably whatever you’re about to invite me to.” His words have a certain lightness to them that makes me think he’s smiling.
“Wanna go to the movies?” I say, trying not to sound as eager as I am. “They’re playingBattlestar Galacticaat the dollar theater on Saturday.” I don’t know much about the franchise other than that Jamal used to watch it on repeat as a kid.
“Really?” he asks, his voice a little higher pitched than usual.
“Yeah,” I say with a little laugh. With my microscopic attention span, I’ve never been big on watching movies, but Jamal loves them. I don’t know, it seems like a nice gesture. “Is there anything I need to know going in?” I ask, knowing Jamal is probably itching to tell me all about it.
That question is all he needs to unleash a massive info dump of all his hidden Battlestar knowledge. It’s times like these I can putmy audiographic memory to use. I quietly file away the unfamiliar terms and names in my brain while Jamal gets progressively more and more excited.Battlestar Galacticaisn’t particularly up my alley, but I could listen to Jamal get this hyped up over something for literally any amount of time, any day.
Or all night, apparently. I’m not sure who fell asleep first, but the call is still going when I wake up a few hours later, Jamal’s rhythmic breath just heavy enough to tell me he’s been passed out for a while.
“Good night,” I whisper before hanging up and falling back asleep.
I spend the rest of the week brushing up on Battlestar knowledge and playing out different scenarios of how I might ask Jamal out in my head. In Mr. Franco’s class on Friday, I’d rather daydream than fall asleep for once. I’m not even catastrophizing this time.
In fact, I’m imagining all the ways this could possibly goright. If he says yes. If we could be even better together now than we were before. Maybe it can last this time. I’m in the middle of running through all the ways I can phrase the big question when David and three other guys walk in.
Mr. Franco claps his hands together and stops droning on long enough to introduce them. “All right, everyone can wake up now, the main office told me we had some free entertainment coming our way, courtesy of the drama class. What’s your skit about today?”
“It’s an anti-drug PSA from Father John,” David says.
“A heavy topic, huh?” Mr. Franco presses his lips together like he wants to say more, but just gestures to the guys up front. “The stage is yours.”
David takes the cue and goes to one side of the room while the other three go to the other. Then David starts walking past them.
