“…and here are your keys.” Hunter slid the two sets across the desk. They jingled merrily when Trina and I scooped them up. “Your new apartment will be cleaned and ready for you to move in tomorrow.”

Ok, so it wasn’t the one-day turnaround I’d wanted, but as expected, daddy’s money had done the trick. I looked at my new keys in satisfaction and dropped them in my purse.

“It was a pleasure doing business with you Hunter,” I told him.

“Likewise, Ms. Ross.”

Trina was looking at me funny when we left the office a few minutes later, but we now had a place to live. I hadn’t realized quite how much not having a place to live had been weighing on me. I felt so much better knowing that I had an address again.

“Well that was fun,” I said, stretching. I’d gotten stiff sitting there motionless for so long while we negotiated. “Want to get some lunch?”

Trina nodded blankly. “Rosie, you know you’re kind of scary sometimes, right?” she said eventually.

I frowned. “Scary?”

Trina nodded cautiously. “It’s only sometimes,” she told me. “But when you get in the right mood, you sure do know how to boss people around.”

I blinked at her in confusion. “And that’s scary?” She was always telling me to be more assertive around guys. Hadn’t I just been assertive in my negotiations over the apartment? I was trying to decide whether to feel hurt by what she was saying.

Trina bit her lip and looked at me nervously. Maybe she didn’t want to make me angry and provoke my scary side. I struggled to keep an open mind.

“Never mind,” she said.

“No way,” I protested. “You have to tell me now!”

Trina looked down at the ground. “You’re not monster-scary or anything,” she said. Her tone was hesitant. “It’s more like it’s just a side of you that I’m not used to seeing. You become this other version of Rosie who knows she can throw money around and get whatever she wants from whoever she wants. You wrapped that Hunter guy around your little finger like it was no big deal. It’s just kind of intimidating.” She paused. “Seriously… Never mind. I sound crazy. Forget I said anything.”

I couldn’t. Trina just described an asshole. I didn’t want to be an asshole.

“I just wanted to make sure we had somewhere to live,” I said weakly. “I didn’t mean to be rude to anybody.” I hung my head and wondered if I should go apologize to Hunter.

Trina’s eyes went wide when she saw my reaction. “You weren’t rude!” She lowered her voice before continuing. “I’m really bad at explaining this. You really weren’t rude. It was just like you became somebody different while we were in there. Sometimes—especially when you’re dealing with money or negotiating for something you want or need—you get this ruthlessness to you that I’m just not used to. You looked at him and it was like you were looking through him. He was in your way and you were going to get what you wanted no matter what. You did it just now with Hunter. And you did it that time we played Monopoly. Do you remember that?”

I nodded. I did remember. Monopoly was my all-time favorite board game. We’d played at a party freshman year, and I’d absolutely obliterated the other players. Trina had cried when I tricked her into bankrupting herself in spectacular fashion. I hadn’t done it to be mean. I’d only wanted to win.

I knew exactly what the behavior Trina was describing sounded like, and it was terrifying to me. My blood ran cold through my veins. My father and mother both behaved like life was one big game where only their feelings mattered. The thought that I would behave like that, and not even know that I was doing it, made me feel ill. Was I becoming like them? I never wanted to become like them.

But I’d felt terrible when Trina had cried. I wasn’t like my parents. My dad wouldn’t have cared at all if his friend cried (which was probably why he had no friends). My mom would have thought it was manipulative. She would have assumed that Trina was trying to make her do something by crying and resented it. But I didn’t do that. I apologized. I saw her being sad, and it made me sad. That had to mean something, right?

I hugged Trina, wrapping my arms around her and sending her staggering back a couple of steps. “Thank you for telling me,” I told her shocked face. “Please always tell me if I’m doing that. It’s the last thing I want. I’m so sorry if I freaked you out.”

She gave a little relieved, strangled laugh. “There’s the Rosie I know.” Trina shook her head. “Come on, let’s go get lunch.”

We ended up getting ourselves a couple of smoothies and looking at vintage clothes at the boutique next door. Trina insisted that I needed to new dress for my gig Friday night, and considering that I was re-wearing yesterday’s outfit, I couldn’t very well disagree. I needed way more than one new dress.

The entire time we shopped, I was thinking about what Trina had said. The last thing I wanted was to become like my parents. They were both lonely, miserable people.

My dad was hard to take and controlling, but in her own way, my mom might actually be worse. She approached every interaction like it was a battle for supremacy. If she didn’t feel like she could get something out of someone, they weren’t worth her time. She was smart, and hardworking, but that approach to other people had always made it hard for her to keep jobs. Or friends. Or for me to keep friends…

My childhood had not been easy. My mom dragged us around every crappy town in Rhode Island, and we never stayed anywhere long enough to feel like we were really home. It sucked always being the new kid in the class.

But growing up, my mom never turned her ugly side on me. Never. She was a wonderful mom. A bit strict, sure, but no more strict than usual. The only thing that ever came between us was my dad, and only because he took me away from her.

It wasn’t until I hit adolescence and started having thoughts and feeling of my own that we began to butt heads. What started as a fight now and then became a daily battle of wills. It seemed like the more I asserted my independence, the more it angered her. She didn’t want me to be a real person at all.

Part of me wondered if she understood my perspective—or anyone else’s perspective for that matter. An increasingly large part of me wondered if she even could. Maybe the reason that she’d been such an excellent mother was because when I was little girl, I was an extension of her. A little mini me who did whatever she was told. Now that I was an adult—a distinct and independent person—she really had no use for me at all.

Thinking about my parents made me wonder if I had any chance at being a normal person. My genetics might have just doomed me to slowly develop their bad behavior like some people developed their parent’s physical maladies. Now that I’d met Ryan, I could only pray that I had had a shot at avoiding their fate.

Ryan had the complete opposite of the sort of deceitful and controlling personality type that I feared might be destiny. He’d been nothing but kind, generous, and honest with me. And that was just in bed. I wasn’t planning our wedding yet, but I was totally smitten. I may have just found Ryan, but I definitely didn’t want to lose him.