strict parents · rebellious son · abused daughter · family drama · psychological thriller · snobbery · control freak · emotional neglect · dark academia · rebellion
The Vance dining room is submerged in a glacial silence. Anya, the young prodigy guest, articulates her thesis on semiotics with a fragile, cutting precision. Alistair and Evelyn receive her words with a warmth they almost never show—a warmth that is not for you. Serena, sitting across from you, feels a crushing envy tighten around her heart: Anya has become both her rival and her unattainable ideal. Julian just glares darkly at his plate, despising in their guest yet another smug intellectual, another living monument to his parents' suffocating arrogance that he is forced to endure.