Page 45 of The Golden Boy's Guide to Bipolar
Despite how annoying it is, this is probably a good thing. I gotexactly what I wanted, right? Mom, Yami, and Jamal are so mad at me they’ll never want to speak to me again, and they’re all much better off that way. Now they can live their lives without having to babysit my mental health. I’m not going to Slayton anymore, so no one has to worry about me maintaining my scholarship. I don’t have to face Yami at school, either.
And Rover isn’t all bad. Sure, Nick and his minions are there, but it’s a big enough school that I can probably avoid them. Jamal, on the other hand, might be a little trickier to avoid since we’ll probably be in all the same honors classes.
Still, it’ll be fine. Jamal will probably just ignore me like my mom did. I gave him more than enough reason to.
It’s actually a perfect situation. This way no one will have to feel guilty if anything happens to me. Whatever happens to me will be my responsibility and mine alone.
For the first time in a long time, I feel good about the future. A future I hopefully will have no part of, and everyone will be better for it.
18
When You Constantly Feel Like Your Chair Is About to Tip
Anxiety
Mopping while I can smell the quesabirria Abuela is making is torture. I think she’s making the food smell extra good just to tease us.
“Finished!” Moni says, jumping up from her spot on the couch and rushing over to the kitchen.
“Not so fast.” Abuela holds her palm face out to Moni. “No one eats until we all eat. Besides, I need to check your work, and you still have violin practice to do.”
Moni slumps her shoulders and goes back to the coffee table, where she picks up her worksheet and hands it to Abuela, then goes off to the corner to get her violin.
“Bueno. Monica, this looks good,” Abuela says, clapping her hands together just as I’m finishing up the floors. “Let me check your work, Cesar.”
“You have to check mine too?” I ask, suddenly regretting the lackluster job I did.
Not only does Abuela point out every individual spot I missed and make me do the whole thing over again; she then grabs a papertowel and wipes the floor to test if it’s completely pristine. Since the paper towel obviously comes back less than pure white, it’s a fail. After having to re-mop three times over, once with Moni’s help after she’s done practicing, we finally get it clean enough to where she’s satisfied.
“All right, time to eat.”
“Finally,”Moni says, and we both hurry to the kitchen, where we each put together our plates and bring them over to the dinner table.
Something feels slightly off, so I glance down to see the bug-eyed demon spawn staring at me and licking her lips between my legs. I tense up and slowly pick out a tiny piece of meat from my plate. I’m about to toss it under the table far enough away from my crotch so Lareina stops threatening me when Abuela notices.
“Lareina! No begging!” She snaps her fingers, and the dog slowly walks away from the table and sulks on the couch. I let out a relieved breath.
Abuela doesn’t waste any time eating. Instead, she gets straight to business.
“Cesar, you’re new here, so here’s how this is going to go. I’ll answer the question I know you’re thinking first: I don’t know any better than you do how long you’ll be staying here. That will be entirely up to you. We’ll need to enroll you back at Rover, which might take a few days, so until then, you’ll be working in the house with me during the day while Monica goes to school. We eat breakfast and dinner as a family. Our mornings start early with a daily horoverse reading—”
“I still think they missed an opportunity with that app name,” Moni interrupts.
“What is it, like a scary book?” I ask. Why the hell would Abuela have us reading horror novels before school?
“More like Bible astrology,” Moni says. “I personally think they’d have a better chance at reaching their target audience if they called it horoscripture. Or better yet, holyscope. Godstrology, even.” Moni clicks her tongue and shakes her head. “Seriously, it’s like they didn’t even try. And what’s with that logo? I could design a better one using clip art, it’s not even—”
“As I was saying.”Abuela clears her throat, and Moni becomes the embodiment of the grimace emoji. “Every day you’ll get a list of chores to do, and once you finish those and I check to make sure you did them well, you can have the rest of your time to yourselves.”
“It’s not a lot of time. Don’t get your hopes up,” Moni says under her breath.
I nod, taking another bite of my quesabirria taco.
“You’re both essentially grounded while you’re here, so no leaving the house, no phones, no computers—”
“No TV, no video games, no fun,” Moni adds, copying Abuela’s voice with a finger raised like she’s lecturing both of us.
Abuela shoots her the stink eye, but there’s a tiny hint of a smile that cracks for just a split second. “You can have all the fun you want, as long as you get your chores done and follow the rules.”
