The conversation at the breakfast table starts to pass me by. I hear bits and pieces of Neda explaining to my parents why The Feminine Mystique still applies to the plight of the twenty-first-century woman, but as she regurgitates yesterday’s women studies lecture, my mind wanders to the morning after my parents caught me and Gabs getting drunk. My dad put a plate of runny eggs, bacon, and barbari bread in front of me and said it would help make me feel normal again. And it did, until my mom poured me a cup of coffee and told me I should consider spending less time with Gabriela.

“You’re borderline codependent,” my dad agreed.

I don’t know if it was the side effects of the alcohol and the edible or the judgment in their tone, but I had to run to the bathroom to throw up. Telling me to spend less time with Gabs was the equivalent of telling Serena Williams she could use a little distance from her tennis racket. But I’d always gotten the sense that my mom and dad were perplexed by our bond. They once described Gabriela as aloof and impolite, but she’s neither. She’s just not the kind of person who goes out of her way to put people at ease.

“Why should making someone else feel comfortable be my responsibility?” she always says.

Meanwhile, I’m the polar opposite. I always try to be accommodating. I’m Persian. It’s in my blood to be hospitable to the point of being a total pushover. For example, all my teachers, including Mr. Dennery, pronounce my name wrong. They think it’s Parisa-rhymes-with-Marisa. I never correct them because I worry too much that I’ll embarrass them in the process. Instead, I’ve gone years responding politely to the wrong name. For the record, it’s pronounced Par-ees-ah. Short a, long e, long a.

Neda’s diatribe on the history of French versus American feminism snaps me back to the present. I don’t want to hear her ramble anymore, so I decide to interrupt and change the subject.

“Why do you hate her so much?” I blurt.

“Simone de Beauvoir?” my mom asks, confused.

“No. Gabriela. Why do you hate her so much?”

My stomach churns as my parents explain that they don’t hate her at all, but they think there’s a difference between being close and forming an unhealthy attachment. They’re worried I’ll be one of those kids who won’t be able to handle college on my own and begs to come home after a week. My sister is thriving at Yale, they say, because she’s more independent than me. It is, without a doubt, the meanest thing they have ever said to me—and my mom once suggested I try to lose ten pounds.