Page 17 of The Golden Boy's Guide to Bipolar
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’sreallygoing 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, tryingto 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 Doña 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 thepassenger-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 doingisa 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.
