I held up a hand. “No, no, it’s not like that.” When her eyebrows lifted skeptically, I rushed to reassure her. “I swear, I’m not having those kinds of problems. He broke up with me in high school, and I took it hard. I did block him everywhere, because I was really angry and hurt. But when I talked to him recently, I learned that my parents manipulated him to do that, and now I’m hurt and angry with them too.”
Andrea crossed her arms and leaned on the table toward me. “Are you sure your parents are at fault here?”
“Yeah, after talking to him it made a lot of sense. They were worried he’d distract me from school, as if my boyfriend was the only thing that mattered to me. I’ve got all this anger inside, and I’m trying to get a hold on it before I talk to them.”
“Maybe if they did something shitty, you should be angry at them.”
“But we’re really close. My family is big on education, and I appreciate that.”
“They support you being here.”
“With money and encouragement, yes. They’re paying for everything my TA money doesn’t cover.”
“Helicopter parents?”
“Not really. See, when they were going to university, they got pregnant with my sister Nora. Their families freaked out, didn’t want them keeping the baby, but they dropped out and raised her and me. They worked long hours to make sure we had an education fund, could take extra classes if we wanted. They didn’t hover, and didn’t micromanage what we did, but gave us a really good support system.”
“So what’s the but? Since you’re pissed now.”
“Nora and I didn’t get jobs while we were in high school, just did some tutoring, so we could focus on school. I started to tutor this one guy.”
“The ex?”
“Exactly. And that led to dating and falling in love.”
“The parents didn’t approve?”
“His mom didn’t, but she was a single mom and kind of jealous of anyone. But she didn’t do anything beyond making comments when Josh wasn’t around. I thought my parents were okay—they said as long as I kept up my grades, that was fine.”
“Obviously it wasn’t.”
“My senior year, Nora, who was in pre-med, got pregnant and dropped out.”
Andrea’s eyebrows rose. “I’m guessing they weren’t very happy about history repeating itself.”
“They were really upset. I’ve never seen them like that before.” I stared over Andrea’s shoulder, not really aware of the rest of the sandwich shop behind her. “I’m not sure why, but it wasn’t Arlo who insisted she stay home while he finished his degree. Nora said that was what she wanted.”
“This is when your parents started manipulating your future?”
I focused back on her. “Exactly. They convinced my ex that it would be better if we split up. I was getting acceptances from universities, and they thought I’d give up school to follow him or try to pick a school near him. So he sent me a text that it was better for me if we broke up.”
“A text?”
“Dick move. I know. But when I ran into him again, he said if he talked to me in person, he might not have been able to go through with it. And that my parents told him they were going to explain it to me, but they didn’t.”
Andrea held up her palm. “Why couldn’t he have followed you instead? Where did he want to go to school?”
I paused. Was I sure about sharing this? “He wasn’t going to school. He played hockey, and he was good. Everyone said he’d be drafted. Obviously, he didn’t know where.”
Andrea blinked for a minute. “Oh. You knew all that, right?” I nodded. “So what had you planned to do?”
“We hadn’t talked about it. But Josh knew the schools I applied to, and he didn’t try to sell me on places that had hockey teams. He wanted me to accept the best school I could go to. We kind of ignored what would happen after graduation.”
“You didn’t think about it at all?”
“Of course I did. I went through all the options in my head, but we hadn’t talked about it together. I think I’d have suggested we try long-distance, but it would have depended on where he was going. If he’d gone to the West Coast, and I couldn’t see him for months at a time? That wasn’t going to be feasible.” And how could I expect him to do long-distance with me when there’d be so many women available to him?
“So, your mom and dad didn’t think you’d make the right decision and went behind your back and manipulated your boyfriend to make things work out the way they wanted.”
