Dad told me he had noticed how every conversation I described with Priya eventually circled back to money—our house, vacations, cars, what my parents did for work. He and Mom weren’t trying to embarrass me. They wanted to know whether the girl I would be living with treated people differently when she believed they had nothing to offer her. “We could have warned you,” Dad said, “but you would’ve thought we were judging her. We wanted you to see it yourself.”

I hated admitting that he was right. Before my parents arrived, Priya had been warm and excited about everything we might do together. Within an hour of seeing the old minivan and garbage bags, she barely acknowledged me. That evening, she even asked housing whether switching rooms was still possible. I didn’t confront her. I simply stopped trying to impress her and paid attention.
Two days later, Dad returned because I had forgotten a box in the van. This time he came straight from work, wearing his normal clothes and driving his usual car. Priya saw him through the dorm window.

Her attitude changed almost instantly.

Suddenly she wanted to know about our businesses again. Suddenly she suggested dinner and shopping together.

That was when Dad’s ridiculous ripped jeans stopped embarrassing me.

He hadn’t been testing whether Priya was wealthy.

He had been testing whether kindness disappeared when she thought we weren’t.