Page 32 of The Golden Boy's Guide to Bipolar
“I just thought, since the open mic I’m throwing is the next day, maybe you can stay the night at my place, or I can at yours, and we can go together?”
“What kind of party—”
“I mean, nottogethertogether. Just, like, at the same time, together. Like, ride in the car, together.”
“It’s okay, I know what you meant.” I laugh a little. “Is it a Rover party?”
“It is, but if you ever missed Rover parties, this is the one to go to. According to Avery, Nick and Bianca are apparently a match made in hell, and they’ll be on a date that night. So we can invite Yami too. And you two could come without running into them. I can pick you both up. If you want to go, I mean.”
“Wait, you talk to Avery?” I feel like my brain just short-circuited hearing that name out of Jamal’s mouth.
“Notreally. We have a class together, so I just asked him if they’d be at the party. He’s kind of a different person without his friends around. It’s weird.”
I know Jamal’s intentions were good here. I’m almost certain I know exactly what went down. Jamal’s probably worried about me since I’ve been weird lately, and inviting me to a party outside his comfort zone is his idea of cheering me up. But he couldn’t invite me to a party Nick and his friends would be at, so he outrightasked Avery if they’d be there. Which, in theory, is nice. But... “You didn’t tell him you were inviting me, did you?”
“I didn’t.”
I finally relax my shoulders. I wouldn’t put it past Avery to lie and say they wouldn’t be there just to get me to show up while they have enough bodies to actually do something.
“Okay, good. As long as Nick won’t be there, we can go. I’ll invite Yami.”
I can hear his relieved sigh blowing into the phone. “Great. I’ll pick you guys up then.”
“Thanks,” I say, hoping he hears the unspoken part. That I appreciate how he looks out for me and wants to cheer me up. Unfortunately, Jamal isn’t an expert in reading between the lines, so I find myself adding one of his go-tos. “I appreciate you.”
Dr. Lee thinks we’re having a staring contest, but no matter how long her eyes bore into mine, she can’t make me regret a single thing.
Clearly my mom told her about our kind-of sort-of fight. Dr. Lee knows my grades have been dropping, and she knows I’ve been irritable with everyone lately. What she doesn’t know about is the email from my dad. She doesn’t know I’ve been off my meds. And she doesn’t need to.
I feel like she’s goading me into apologizing to everyone, but what she doesn’t get is that I can’t. I don’t really know how to explain it. It’s like... someone might not even be that mad at me, and we could just as easily let the incident pass and forget about it. But if I apologize, that brings all the bad things I’ve done right tothe surface for everyone, dangling my bad decisions in our faces like a carrot in front of a Minecraft pig.
I already know I’m a horrible person, but Jamal? Yami? My mom? They’ve never seen me in that way. How am I supposed to live with myself if a simple apology makes them see me the way I see myself?
Yeah, there’s no way I’m apologizing.
“Do you think you might be sending your loved ones mixed messages?” Dr. Lee asks, folding one condescending leg over the other. “It seems like your mom is trying to respond to your cries for help—”
“Aren’t you supposed to make me feelbetter?” I snap. And okay, okay, she’s notwrong, but she has absolutely no right. I don’t tell her my business so she can make me feel like shit about it.
She scribbles something down on her notepad patronizingly. “My job is to help you improve over time. Sometimes that involves exploring things that might feel uncomfortable.”
“What, so I can’t be annoyed at my family now?” I say, attitudinally crossing my legs to mirror hers before continuing. “Am I supposed to behappymy mom’s always on my ass about everything I do and say?”
“Of course not,” she says, eyes flickering up from her notepad. “Maybe this is a sign that it might be worth reexamining those boundaries we talked about before. Do you remember?”
The only boundary I can remember setting for myself is the most recent one about Jamal. I decide to just fuck it and tell her. “Yeah, so I do have a new boundary now. I decided to only date girls from now on. So, me and Jamal aren’t getting back together.”
She does a bad job hiding her concerned micro expression. “What changed?” is all she asks.
I clench my jaw. Nothing’s changed, really. But at the same time, everything has. Every time I think about Jamallike that, I can’t get my sperm donor’s email out of my head. It’s obviously too late to fix my relationship with my dad, but God? God, I do want to get right with.
I find my hand traveling to the cross hanging around my neck and the jaguar necklace behind it. My mom says God accepts me the way I am, but Father John says otherwise, and that guy’s, like, a professional God salesman. Theoretically, I could date a girl and even be happy with one. That is, if I could just bring myself to get over Jamal...
“Nothing’s changed,” I finally say.
“I see.” She pauses and writes something down in her notepad again, then looks back up at me. “I won’t press you to change any boundaries if you’re not comfortable with that, but I want to urge you to examine the reasons why you set this boundary in the first place. Maybe that’s worth taking a look at.”
“I have a good reason, but it’s none of your business,” I say reflexively.
