The dining room table looked like a war room.
Brochures from Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford lay spread out, thick glossy paper with embossed seals. Victor sat at the head, sleeves rolled up, flipping through the Harvard packet the way he reviewed quarterly reports.
This is the one, he said. Legacy admission. Your grandfather went there. I went there. It's the path.
Elena sat opposite him, pen resting on the application form. Business major. Finance concentration. The company needed an heir and she was it. She nodded once because nodding was easier than arguing.
Inside her bag the sketchpad stayed hidden. Pages of city streets she'd never walked, kids her age carrying grocery bags instead of designer purses, families squeezed into apartments that looked warm even when they were cold. She drew them in secret, late at night when the house was quiet.
Caroline stood in the doorway holding a cup of tea she hadn't touched. Make sure it's what you want sweetheart.
Victor glanced up. It's what's best. The world doesn't make it easy for girls in business. She needs every advantage.
Elena felt the sentence land heavy. Girls. Not sons. Not the son they kept talking around, the one they never named but whose absence filled every room.
She had started noticing the pattern years ago. The way Victor's voice changed when he talked about the company's future, the way he said a boy would understand the weight of it all. The way Caroline's eyes went soft and sad on her birthday, like she was remembering someone else's.
Elena never asked outright. She didn't want to hear the answer. But she felt it every time Victor corrected her posture during mock interviews, every time he said she had to be twice as sharp, twice as tough. Like she was trying to fill a space that was shaped for someone else.
By eighteen the pressure had teeth. Mock interviews with tutors who charged more per hour than most people earned in a week. Essays she wrote in the perfect voice, confident polished empty. Caroline chose her outfits for the campus tours, laid them out like armor. Victor drilled her on leadership questions, his tone clipped, like he was preparing her for a boardroom she hadn't asked to enter.
You're our everything, Caroline said one night, brushing Elena's hair the way she used to when she was little. Her fingers trembled slightly. We just want you safe. Successful.
Elena met her mother's eyes in the mirror. What if I want something else? Like art?
Caroline's hand stilled. Art is a hobby baby. The company… your father needs you to take it on.
Elena closed her eyes for a second. She knew what they really wanted. A son. Someone who would walk into boardrooms without having to prove he belonged. Someone who wouldn't make them explain why the heir was a girl.
She was the one they got instead.
The applications went out. Legacy pulled strings.
But late at night when the house was silent Elena opened her sketchpad and drew until her hand cramped. Hooded streets. Kids hustling. Families crowded around small tables. Lives that looked hard but honest.
She didn't know why those drawings felt more real than anything else.
She only knew she wanted to live in them.
One day.
Mmaybe.