Geometry book? Check. Music theory book? Check. Overpriced calculator that was objectively worse than my phone but somehow still required in the twenty-first freakin’ century? Check. Using my dad’s credit card and tacitly agreeing to him monitoring and controlling every move I make again? Check, check, check.

Probably it was a result of growing up in a world where money was something that was always in dangerously short supply, but the luxury of suddenly having a credit card and the instruction to ‘get whatever I needed or wanted’ had been potent and intoxicating when I first reconnected with my father. Extremely so. But I certainly hadn’t realized that taking that money from my dad, who was almost a stranger to me on my eighteenth birthday, meant giving him total insight into what I wore, ate, read, studied, and watched at the movies. Now, I knew better.

It wasn’t long before I received a text from my dad, letting me know that he’d seen me buying books for class.

I ground my teeth. The used ones were totally fine. No one would judge me either way (except my dad). Buying new books was just giving money to the evil publishing companies that were in bed with the university anyway. Plus, it was wasteful and bad for the environment. But I wasn’t in the mood to fight at the moment—I desperately needed my books. Plus, my dad was genuinely just trying to make sure I had what I needed for class, even if his methods were a bit… oppressive.

Ok, that was a little bit of a white lie. I might be undeclared on paper, but I was ninety percent sure I wanted to pursue a dual major of BA in Education and BFA in Music. That way if I couldn’t hack it as a musician, at least I could teach guitar or something. Even if I hated teaching.

Actually, if I was really, truly honest with myself, what I wanted was to drop out and focus on building my audience. To find a couple of bars that would let me play and just start trying to make it. But I wasn’t brave enough to admit it, let alone do it.

My grade point average was totally fine. I had a three-point-seven-nine-five GPA. It might be terrible by Korean immigrant parent standards (ok, it was definitely dumb by Korean immigrant parent standards), but it was perfectly respectable otherwise.

I’m good at school. I might not enjoy it, but I’m good at it. I was raised by a classic Korean tiger mom, after all. We may not have had a lot of money, but if I was pulling A minuses in any subject, she always found space in the budget for tutoring. Math tutoring, Korean language classes, and music lessons were my mom’s trifecta of perfect parenting.

“What did he do?” Trina asked, coming up alongside me as we walked back to our ruined apartment.

“Who?”

“Your dad. You’re wearing the look. The one you always wear when he says something that really bothers you.”

I shook my head. “It’s nothing.”

Trina frowned. “You know, when you first told me your dad was controlling and weird, I thought you were just being dramatic.” She rolled her blue eyes. “But then you told me about the whole guitar string thing and I realized he was an actual psycho. I’m sorry you feel like you’re back in his web again.”

The ‘guitar string thing’ was the first sign that me and my dad were on a collision course. I’d broken the A string on my acoustic guitar and ordered a replacement set on Amazon. It never arrived. I ordered another. Cancelled. Then it happened a third time. It took me some digging, but I soon realized that my dad was monitoring my online orders. All of them. And my emails. And my personal bank account. He was monitoring everything, and he was extremely detail-oriented. Even something as innocuous as a twelve-dollar set of replacement strings for my guitar caught his attention. The kicker? They were paid for with the money I’d earned myself at a part-time office job I had that semester.

It was one thing if my dad wanted to control what I purchased with his money. It was, after all, his money. He’d earned it, and I had no problem with him telling me how to use it.

But trying to control purchases made with my money? Using his sneaky lawyer skills to get access to my Amazon account and email? It was an invasion of my privacy, and violation of my trust that went far deeper than I’d realized. What followed was an arms race of me trying to assert some independence and him attempting to guilt me into letting him know everything I was up to. I’d won the battle of the guitar strings, but I lost the war. And then we’d both lost when I finally got so fed up that I cut off contact with him and got myself some student loans instead.

“I think he’s making an effort not to be as judgmental this time around,” I told her. I felt like I needed to defend him because he was my father, but also because it was true. It really seemed like he was attempting to reign himself in.

Trina frowned. “I hope so, Rosie.” Then, what she was really thinking slipped out, as usual. “Or maybe he’s trying to introduce by stealth the same sort of bullshit that drove you to cut him off last time.”

Technically we cut each other off, but whatever. Our last conversation had been a real, honest-to-goodness screaming match. The fact that we were now talking—well texting—in a civil manner was an improvement.

“Maybe. But I’m in no position to turn him down at the moment.”

“We’ll find a new apartment,” Trina promised. “Tomorrow we’ll call around, ok?”

I nodded. “I’ve already maxed out my loans for the semester. I have exactly twelve hundred dollars in my account and it needs to last for the next two months.”

“We’ll figure it out.” She smiled. “Don’t worry, ok? I’m not going anywhere.”

The amount that I depended on Trina made me feel guilty sometimes. She was such a good friend to me. I had no idea what I’d done to deserve her.

“I know you want to move in with Chris,” I told her. “Now’s your chance. I can find something. Maybe they’ll let me move back into the dorms…”

Last year we’d lived in the Honors Program dorms together. They’d sucked royally. But it was a place to live and the ceilings never rained.

“No way Rosie.” Trina laughed at me. “I’d flunk out in two seconds if I lived with Chris. He’s too distracting.” She winked. “I need you to keep me on track.”

There was that. Trina depended on me to help her with her homework. She was on the electrical engineering track and the math in that program was no joke. I might not be able to contribute fifty percent toward the rent, but I did attempt to contribute equally to our dysfunctional little household by tutoring Trina, doing more than my share of the housework, and cooking.

“Let’s focus on the positives. You kissed Ryan, and I assume that means he’ll be joining us tonight. Did you think at all about what you want to do for your birthday?” Trina asked as we turned the corner and took in the massive law enforcement presence that had engulfed out little apartment complex. They were everywhere.

All of a sudden, focusing on the positive seemed extremely important.

“Yeah,” I replied distantly, watching a man wearing what looked like a clean suit carrying out a bunch of potted pot plants. Then someone else walked by carrying my bedroom lamp in an evidence bag. Not a grow lamp. My lamp! I liked my lamp. We watched the spectacle with matching expressions of dismay. I saw Ryan standing next to his car, waving us over. My heart gave a little excited flip-flop. “How do you feel about bowling?”