Carys replied, “When I told my mom that I didn’t want to see her anymore, she told me I was ungrateful. That she’d put her whole life on hold to raise me. That everything she should have been got messed up because of me. And now I had the audacity to not even want her in my life.” Carys shook her head. “I knew how she was by then. She would blame the sky for raining if it meant avoiding responsibility. I told her it was her choice to have me. She could have had an abortion. She could have given me up for adoption. Hell, she could’ve left me at a fire station. But she chose to have me and raise me. And now I was a person, which meant I got to make my own choices. She started sobbing and screaming about how I wanted to punish her and hurt her.”

“Damn,” Greta said. “That’s…that’s so horrible. I can’t even imagine.”

“It was all about her. It wasn’t about me or about my choice to cut her out of my life at that time. Now, my mom’s a covert narcissist, and I’m not saying that your family is. My point is that sometimes you have to hear an exaggeration of something to realize when it’s happening a little bit.”

Greta let that sink in.

Wasn’t she describing something very similar? If she moved here, it would be about her. Her choice. Her desire. Her life. And if her family made it all about them…maybe that wasn’t her problem?

Her heart leapt, but her traitorous mind rebelled. Making decisions all for yourself that hurt other people is the definition of selfishness. Don’t you think Mom and Dad have done things for you that they didn’t want to do? Of course they have! That’s just part of being an adult.

“Do you think,” Greta began slowly, “do you think it’s selfish to make a choice you know will hurt someone?”

Carys cupped her cheeks. “No.”

“Even if you know it will?”

“No. You don’t hurt people by choosing yourself over them. They hurt themselves with what they think about it. It’s not your job to fold yourself up so small that your edges never bump into anyone else, babe. What kind of life is that?”

Greta thought about those words the rest of the day. As they made eggs and toast and ate in the back garden with Teacup. As they caught the streetcar to the Garden District. As they wandered along Canal Street, trying on ridiculous outfits in the secondhand stores and choosing their dream furniture from outrageously priced antiques.

She couldn’t remember a time when she hadn’t folded herself as small as she could. Couldn’t remember a time she didn’t consider choosing what she wanted over what someone else wanted selfish.