Page 93 of The Golden Boy's Guide to Bipolar
“Dammit, Cesar, I just woke you up in a puddle of your own blood! You’re not fine! You need a hospital, we’re calling 911,” Jamal says, more firmly than I’ve ever heard him speak.
“We can’t afford that,” I protest weakly as Jamal scrambles to fish his phone out of his pocket.
“That doesn’t matter right now!”
“Avery will get in trouble... ,” I protest again. He broke probation fighting because of me.
“Don’t worry about me,” Avery says.
“Call my abuela instead, okay?” I insist. “She’ll take me to the hospital. Please?”
There’s a moment of hesitation before Jamal answers. “Fine. What’s her number?”
My answer must not be coherent, because Jamal just digs right into my pocket and pulls out my phone, saying something I can’t make out before I close my eyes again.
The next thing I know, I find myself lying soaking wet in the back of Abuela’s car with my head in Jamal’s lap and Avery looking back at me all concerned from the front seat. I look up at Jamal drowsily and notice for the first time that he’s all bruised up, too. His lip is fat, and his eye is swollen with a cut splitting his brow.
This is not what I wanted. This could not possibly be what God wanted. Not only did I fail at ending things, but I pulled Jamal and Avery into it. This can’t be right. Did I misunderstand the signal? Nothing makes sense....
“I’m sorry,” I croak. “I’m really sorry....”
Then the world fades to black.
Someone wakes me up every thirty minutes or so in the hospital to make sure I’m okay since I apparently have a concussion. I don’t know how long I’m lying on the cot before I finally wake up on my own. I don’t open my eyes just yet.
Mami and Abuela are actually in the same room. And they’re... talking?
“I’ll come home with him. I can take care of him this week while you work, mija,” Abuela says.
“That won’t be necessary.” Mami’s voice.
“Why? Do you have another mother who can take care of him for you?”
“As a matter of fact, I do,” Mami says coldly. She must be talking about Doña Violeta.
Okay, maybe them talking isn’t the best thing right now. I open my eyes and groan, which gets their attention off each other.
“He’s awake,” Abuela says quietly.
Within seconds, Yami, my mom, Jamal, Avery, and my abuela are all surrounding the hospital bed.
“What happened?” I ask, trying to sit up, but Yami puts a hand on my chest and softly pushes me back down. I’m too weak to protest. I barely remember how I got here. All I remember is water filling my lungs.
“Your friends here filed a police report,” Abuela says. “Those boys have already been arrested. They won’t be hurting you anymore.”
“What about Avery?”
“Worry about yourself,” Avery says. He sounds on edge, but course corrects pretty quick. “I didn’t get arrested or anything, and I still have that lawyer helping me. I’ll be fine.”
“You need to telluswhat happened, mijo. What is going on with you? Are you self-harming?” Mami’s voice quivers, and tears fill my eyes.
No one ever stopped caring about me, no matter what I did. I hurt all of them. But most of all, she’s right. I hurt myself.
I nod, unable to deny it or admit it out loud.
I might not have been self-harming in the traditional sense, but everything I’ve done this year has been purposely self-destructive. I tried to get myself killed less than an hour ago.
I look at the worried faces around me, and the reality hits harder than any gut punch from Nick. If I died, they would all blame themselves. None of them would recover.
