[Caspian’s POV]
* Eleven years ago *
The restaurant Father chose cost more per entrée than most Columbia students paid for a month of groceries. I knew this because I'd done the math in my head while we waited, a habit I'd developed somewhere between economics lectures and watching Serena Vale dissect corporate inequality with that fire in her grey eyes.
Not that I was thinking about Serena Vale. I was thinking about the appetizers.
Father had flown in for the annual donor appreciation dinner, the kind of event where old money congratulated itself on its generosity while writing checks designed more for tax benefits than genuine philanthropy.
He'd attended the champagne reception, shaken exactly the right hands, and extracted me from the crowd with a grip on my elbow that suggested we had matters to discuss.
We always had matters to discuss.
"Your grades came through yesterday." Father studied the wine list with the intensity of a man evaluating a hostile takeover. "Dean's list. Again."
I waited for the praise that wouldn't come. Instead, he ordered a Château Margaux without glancing at the price and handed the menu back to the sommelier.
"Professor Harrison mentioned you're second in your cohort." Father's voice remained conversational. Anyone watching would see a father having dinner with his son. "Impressive, certainly. Though I wonder what's preventing first."
The answer sat in my throat: Serena Vale. The scholarship girl who treated every assignment like a battle for survival. Who stayed in the library until security kicked her out and returned the moment the doors opened. Who looked at me like I represented everything wrong with inherited wealth.
"There's one other student who's consistently competitive." I kept my voice neutral, matching his. "Academic rival. Keeps things interesting."
"Interesting." Father's eyes sharpened. "Competition is healthy. Sharpens the mind, reveals character. Tell me about this rival."
I signaled the waiter for water, buying myself a moment. Father collected information the way other men collected rare wines: carefully, strategically, always with an eye toward future utility.
"Her name is Serena Vale. Finance major, like me. She's brilliant—probably the smartest person in the program." The admission escaped before I could stop it. "We compete for every top grade, every professor's attention. She's relentless."
"She." Father's inflection was subtle but unmistakable. "Background?"
"Working class, I think. She's here on full scholarship. Academic merit." I shifted in my seat. "Her focus is impressive. Never seen anyone work that hard."
"Scholarship." Father nodded slowly, something calculating behind his eyes. "Family?"
"I don't know the details. She doesn't talk about personal matters." Because she barely talked to me at all, except to argue. Because every conversation we had felt like a debate she was determined to win, and I found myself looking forward to losing almost as much as winning.
"Prospects? What does a girl like that plan to do with her Columbia degree?"
I opened my mouth, then closed it. What did Serena plan? I knew she studied like her life depended on it, knew she had opinions about economic policy that could strip paint from walls, knew the exact way her jaw tightened when she prepared a devastating counterargument. But I didn't know what she wanted.
"I'm not sure," I admitted. "We don't exactly have personal conversations."
Father's smile held no warmth, only assessment. "Then she's not relevant."
The pronouncement landed with the weight of absolute certainty. I watched him dismiss Serena Vale—her brilliance, her drive, her terrifying intelligence—in four words and a lift of his wine glass.
"She's useful for competition," Father continued, swirling the burgundy liquid. "Keeps you sharp. That's valuable. But socially, professionally, she's not someone who matters. Scholarship students rarely are.”
I don’t know why I expected anything different. I didn’t actually expect anything, but it’s disappointing anyway. “They lack the connections, the foundation, the understanding of how the world actually operates. They may excel academically, but they'll never navigate the circles that determine real success."
I nodded. The response was automatic, trained since childhood—agree with Father, absorb his wisdom, file away the lessons.
"How is Victoria?" Father shifted topics smoothly. "She seemed pleasant at the reception."
"She's fine. She's considering graduate programs in theater. Maybe film."
"An actress." Father's tone made the word sound vaguely distasteful. "Appropriate for dating, I suppose. Nothing serious. She's entertaining, pretty, from a decent family. But her career ambitions lack substance. Entertainment."
He shook his head. "There's no future in building something real with someone whose primary skill is pretending to be other people."
The waiter arrived with our first course—something architectural involving foam and microgreens—and Father began critiquing the presentation. I ate mechanically, processing his assessments.
Victoria: attractive but unserious. Acceptable for now, dismissable later. Serena: brilliant but irrelevant. Useful as competition, meaningless as a person. Every individual reduced to categories of utility, sorted into hierarchies of value based on what they could provide.
I'd been receiving these lessons my entire life. Father's world operated on calculation—who could advance your interests, who might threaten your position, who could be safely ignored. People weren't people to him. They were assets or obstacles.
"Your brother called yesterday," Father mentioned. "Sebastian's considering a sabbatical before taking his board seat. Traveling. 'Finding himself."
The disdain was unmistakable. Sebastian, five years older than me, finally cracking under the pressure?
"He's still young. Objectively." I offered the defense automatically. "He'll come around."
"He's soft. Too much of his mother in him. You, at least, understand what's required. You understand that sentiment is a luxury business cannot afford."
I understood. Of course I understood. I'd been understanding since I was old enough to recognize that Father's affection came with conditions—performance metrics, achievement targets, expectations that shifted upward the moment I met them.
"The scholarship girl," Father said, returning to the subject I'd hoped was closed. "What does she look like?"
The question surprised me. "Why does that matter?"
"Humor me."
I thought of Serena in the library, her dark hair escaping whatever twist she'd contained it in, her grey eyes sharp enough to cut through my every argument. The way she wore clothes that were clearly secondhand but carried herself like she owned every room.
"Average, I suppose." The lie tasted strange. "Nothing remarkable."
Father studied me a moment too long. "Good. Pretty scholarship girls are dangerous. They develop aspirations above their station. Believe their intelligence entitles them to things they haven't earned. The average ones are safer—they usually understand their place."
I nodded again. Absorbed. Filed away.
Serena Vale wasn't relevant. She was useful for competition, valuable for keeping me sharp, but not someone who mattered. Not someone worth noticing as anything other than an obstacle to overcome and forget.
I believed him. In that moment, at that table, with his certainty washing over me, I absorbed his judgment as fact.
Years later, I'll remember this dinner—the precise temperature of the wine, the calculated dismissal in Father's voice, the way I accepted his assessment without question. I'll remember the moment he taught me to categorize people by usefulness, and how easily I accepted the lesson.
How easily I believed that a girl who made my heart race every time she challenged me was nobody.
I should have questioned it. Should have pushed back, asked why brilliance and drive weren't enough to merit attention. Should have wondered what it said about me that I measured human worth in connections and pedigrees.
But I was too young and desperate for approval, and my father's worldview was the only one I'd ever known. So I finished my wine, agreed that scholarship students didn't matter, and filed Serena Vale under "irrelevant" in the mental categories Father had taught me to maintain.
The check came. Father signed it without looking at the total.
We walked out into the Manhattan night, and I didn't think about Serena Vale at all.
At least, that's what I told myself.