In 1988 when Dylan Montgomery moves to Beverly Hills after her mother remarries, she must navigate the challenges of fitting into a glamorous but daunting upper-class life. Living across from the charmingly cocky Nicholas and his introspective broth...
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UPPER CLASS | cherriasian
september '89
It was just past seven and the sun was melting into Princeton's horizon, casting long gold shadows across the dormitory walls. The kind of slow, cinematic dusk that made everything look nostalgic even while it was still happening.
But Dylan didn't feel golden. Or cinematic. Or even remotely like herself.
She sat on the windowsill of her dorm, legs tucked under her oversized Bruins sweatshirt, staring out at the ivy-laced brick buildings like they might tell her what to do. A soft breeze blew in through the cracked window, rustling the taped-up poster of Can't Buy Me Love on the wall behind her. Crystal's Madonna cassette played low from her boom box on the floor, the faint echo of "Crazy for You" competing with the usual muffled hallway sounds of footsteps, laughter, the distant slam of doors.
It was nights like this when she missed Beverly Hills the most.
Not the designer homes or the lawns. Not even the luxury. But the routine of it all. Nights under Tom's roof where her biggest anxiety was whether or not her friends would save her a seat at lunch the next day. The late-night phone calls with Katie—half gossip, half soul-baring—curled up in bed, twirling the cord of her pink rotary phone. Even the quiet, almost psychic awareness of the Chavez brothers across the street—knowing they were close, but not this close. Not living-on-top-of-each-other close. Not sharing a campus, dorm floors, or a secret that felt heavier by the day.
Now, Katie was three thousand miles away, and Dylan was rooming with Crystal—whose energy could light up a stadium, but whose version of "deep conversation" was whether or not white tights made her look like a schoolgirl or a psychopath.
And Nicholas and Eric weren't across the street anymore. Nicholas was two floors down. And that should've made things easier.
But it didn't.
She pulled her legs in tighter, chin resting on her knees, her gaze sweeping the campus lit by glowing streetlamps and fading daylight.
It was all so different.
At Princeton, everything felt like it was happening all at once—so fast, so loud, so much—and yet, somehow, she still felt alone in it.
The sound of her door creaked open slightly.
"Dylan?" Crystal's voice came from through the crack. "Are you getting ready? It's almost eight! We're pregaming at Elliot and Eric's. You're not backing out now."
Dylan didn't answer right away. She looked back out the window one last time. She missed the hills. She missed the air. She missed being unknown.
But more than anything, she missed knowing who she was in the middle of it all.
