The Sound of Him

before + after

In my fourteenth year of life, I realized a very hard truth: not everyone has good intentions. I know it seems like common sense, but I had always been exposed to what Vanderbilt Middle School wanted me to see. When I actually entered into high school, I realized that fact that I mentioned earlier.

Vanderbilt Prep is prestigious, to say the least. Not only is it prestigious, but it's messy. Messy as hell. The girls all try to sleep their way up to the top for their perfect future husband. Everyone knows that this is where you find your future husband. The boys here are loaded, and most, if not all, of them probably suffer from affluenza.

Having a well off future husband that you could trick into marrying you is the normal thing at Vanderbilt Prep.

However, naturally being at the top of the social ladder, I struggle to see the appeal of relying on a man for everything. Now, I'm not some crazy feminist. I just don't want to end up divorcing my well off husband and having absolutely nothing to fall back on.

Someone who shared the same values as me happened to cross my path on my fifteenth birthday. Their name? Julie Sinclair.

At the time being, I liked to believe she was one of the most extraordinary human beings I had ever met. Her stunningly beautiful blue eyes and dark hair instantly made her stand out from the girls at Vanderbilt Prep. Every guy wanted her and every single girl wanted to push her off a cliff. That's the kind of attention that's considered good here.

As I'm home for the holidays during my senior year of college from Princeton University, I realize how distant I am from my family.

My older sister, Lucy, is apparently getting married, while my mother is apparently already dating ever since her split from my step father. My younger brother, Liam, is already a junior in high school and loving every single second that Vanderbilt Prep has to offer for boys who have as much money as we do.

It's not a surprise that he's an absolute stud at his school. Honestly, Lucy and I probably played a role in his popularity, as well as Mom. The fact that our mother and our ex-step father are both legacies there, as well as their parents, definitely gives him the special benefits.

As he drowns on and on about how he's finally the quarterback of the football team, he finishes and turns his attention back to me. "So what was your experience at Vandy like?"

Did he just call Vanderbilt Vandy? Is that what they have turned my old school into? Vandy?

"It was wild," I say, taking a sip of my moscato.

"How wild?" he asks, his eyes widening. "I would ask Lucy but she went there a century ago."

Lucy stares him down and gives him the finger. She's twenty-six, and yet, she still acts like a child. "Fuck you, Liam. I'm twenty-three."

"You're not fooling anyone," he grins at her. "We all know you're twenty-six, Sis. Anyway, tell me about it, Daisy."

"Why do you want to know so badly?" I ask.

"I'm just curious," he responds. "I hear people talk about you all the time. Since we have different last names, no one really knows I'm your brother."

Ah, yes. How could I forget that our ex-step father, Jesse Taylor, legally adopted Liam as his own child when he was seven. "I'll tell you all about it. Another day, though."

I know my brother isn't one to let things slide. It's something I noticed when I turned seventeen. He always likes getting what he wants.

"Come on," he urges, his blue eyes meeting my gaze. "Please."

"I can't do it around Mom," I tell him. I can tell him the story around Mom, actually. It's just that I didn't want to tell the story around her. She already knows about everything because we all got in trouble. I know it's a memory she tries to forget about.

"Come on," he says. "We can go outside." He gets ups, eagerly grabbing my hand and pulling me to the front porch. "Now tell me everything, Daisy."