Page 3 of The Golden Boy's Guide to Bipolar
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When You’re Ready to Get Back Together but You’re Not Ready to Get Back Together
Trouble Making Decisions
Yami stays the night at Bo’s house, and instead of going home with my mom, I let Jamal give me a ride. If he was anyone else, I’d assume he was offering to take me home as an excuse to hook up within the privacy of his truck. Unfortunately, this is Jamal we’re talking about. Which means he wants to talk.
It’s one thing to make out at the designated kissing time when everyone else (but Hunter) is also doing it, but it’s a wholly different thing to be alone together afterward andtalkabout it. Despite all odds, though, I get in the truck. I’m giving Spartan levels of courage right now. I’m braver than any U.S. Marine. Chuck Norris has nothing on me.
But being brave doesn’t make me smart. It doesn’t mean I have a single idea about what to say. So the first few minutes of the drive go by wordlessly except for his favorite poet, Saul Williams, playing from the old truck’s CD player. Jamal waits for the track to end before stopping the next one from playing. There’s a moment of silence before he says anything.
“I still love you,” he admits.
“I love you, too.” I surprise myself at how quickly I say it back. Like all I needed was to know it wasn’t just me, that it wasn’t just in my head.
He smiles but doesn’t take his eyes off the road. He’s a responsible driver like that, even if it’s inconvenient for me not to be able to search his eyes for a hint of what he might say next.
“Question,” he says, and for once I’m almost certain I know exactly what he’ll ask.
“Hmm,” I mumble in response, trying to give him the go ahead to ask without sounding too anxious.
“Do you want to get back together?”
Somehow, even though I knew the question was coming, I don’t have an answer. I haven’t exactly been mentally “well” since last year, and there is one consistent theme of relationship advice every mentally ill person inevitably gets. It’s either “You can’t love someone else without loving yourself first,”or even worse, “You can’t expect anyone else to love you if you don’t love yourself.”
And while I feel like I’m doing better at the moment, I can’t lie and say I feel any kind oflovetoward myself. Does that mean I shouldn’t be in a relationship? Pretty sure I’ll die alone if loving myself is the prerequisite.
“Didn’t it kind of suck though?” I find myself asking.
“Not at all.” Jamal looks almost hurt. “Did it suck for you?”
“No, I just mean... like, you know how my brain is all...?” I do some weird hand gestures around my head to avoid calling myself crazy. “Like, you could never love me into fixing my brain, you know?”
He’s quiet for a second as he thoughtfully pushes his glasses up his nose. “Is that why you think I want to be with you?”
I just shrug. The whole I-can-fix-him sentiment is pretty common with people who date people like me, isn’t it?
“Well, I don’t want to fix you. I mean, I do want you to feel better, but that’s not the same thing. I’m a lot more selfish than you think. Ilikebeing around you. It makesmefeel better.”
I’m glad it’s dark in the car so Jamal can’t see my cheeks flush. Obviously, he makes me feel better, too. But when we were together before, it was a secret only Yami knew about. And keeping him a secret was like this weird mind game where I had to justify why it was a secret in my head. Like, if we were hiding, we must have been doing something wrong, right? I ended up feeling guilty for keeping the secret, so I told the school’s priest about Jamal at confession and got my answer. Definitely a sin. And to get right with God, my penance was to break up with him.
And I did.
Breaking up with Jamal was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, and if it made God like me any more, I didn’t get the memo. I ended up spiraling so hard I wound up in the mental hospital. I’ve been in therapy and on medication ever since, but honestly, I’m still playing whack-a-mole to keep all The Thoughts buried. The Catholic guilt, internalized prejudice, and mental illness shit keep popping their heads back up, but I’m getting better at whacking them right back down.
As if he’s reading my mind, he goes on before I give my answer. “We wouldn’t have to tell everyone if you’re not ready for that. It can be just between us, for as long as you need... if you want to get back together, I mean.”
Jamal’s hand is resting on the console between us, and I reach for it on instinct. He doesn’t take his eyes off the road but does leta little smile crack at the contact. I think on his words for a second, letting his hand in mine be my tether.
Do I want to be with Jamal again? Of course I do. But I don’t know if I can be with him again if it’s a secret from the rest of the world. Hiding our relationship before mixed all my feelings of shame into our dynamic, and I don’t want to do that to him again.
Jamal lives with his cousin now, who knows he’s gay. And my extremely traditional Catholic mom is all-in on being an ally now that she knows about both me being bi and Yami being lesbian. Even though I’m still technically in the closet, Bo, David, Amber, and Hunter know I’m bi since I impulsively came out to them at anti-prom last year, so I already know my friends are cool with it. Even if we didn’t have to be out toeveryone, it seems like everyone I actually care about is on board with me being bi now. Wecouldtell them and at least be ourselves around some people if we wanted to.
“I don’t know, maybe...” I trail off and start absent-mindedly tracing the lines on Jamal’s palm while I stare out the window.
The only person I haven’t heard from since they found out about me and Yami is my dad, but since he hasn’t lived with us since I was, like, nine, it’s easier to kind of push his existence to the background. Sure, I caved and sent him an email a few months ago, but he never responded, so I sort of just pretend that moment of weakness never happened.
Then there’s Father John. It’s not that he particularly cares about me or me him, but he’s still the closest connection I have to God at the moment. I try to pray and all that, but I’m not one of those lucky people who hears God talking to them or anything. Since Father John is, I guess I do put some stock into what he says.
