3. Briar
brIAR
T he world knits itself back together around me in a rush of color and noise, no trace of the portal to be seen.
The cool night air slams into my lungs, crisp and sharp, much cooler than the general year-round warmth in Sanguis.
My boots scuff against pavement that’s slick with a thin sheen of rain, the lingering moisture glittering under the hard, white glare of streetlamps.
Neon bleeds into puddles, fractured into shards of pink, green, and gold on the wet asphalt. Car horns blare somewhere down the block, impatient and unrelenting, and a deep bass from a club across the street vibrates through my feet and up into my ribs.
The air is thick with scents that collide strangely. Car exhausts and roasting chestnuts, fried dough and the faint sweetness of something floral I can’t place. It’s nothing like the lavender scents in all of the castle baths and the musky scent of the stone walls.
People stream past me on either side suddenly, wrapped up in their own conversations. No one even looks twice at me.
For the first time in my life, I’m just another face in the crowd.
For a beat I don’t move. I just stand there and let the city pour through me. The noise, the light, and my newfound anonymity soak into it. The relief is so sharp it’s almost painful.
I did it. I actually left Sanguis.
A laugh slips out, small, yet full of incredulous wonder. I look up and around like I could memorize this exact angle of neon and brick and sky, the way steam drifts from a grate and dissolves into the night sky.
New York.
I say it in my head the way I imagine people say their lovers' names–full of warmth and appreciation.
Movement catches at the edge of my vision. A purple banner tugged around by wind near a stretch of a stone wall a block away. NYU in stark, white letters. The sight knocks the air from my lungs more effectively than the sounds and smell of the city.
My future. It's a simple sign swinging over a campus I have stared at in photos a hundred times and never touched.
My feet start before my brain catches up, clouded with awe. I fall into the current of pedestrians and let it carry me toward the arching trees and wrought-iron fencing. A girl with a nose ring shoulders past me with an easy “sorry.”
“No problem,” I murmur, but she’s already dissolved into the crowd, not giving me a moment more of her time.
A knot inside me loosens further at the feeling of this freedom unfurling within my chest.
I pass a brick building with carved stone steps.
Fliers layer the bulletin boards near the path and I quickly scan them: student film auditions, a poetry slam, a dance crew seeking new members.
The paper edges lift and flap, whispering to me like a quiet promise of new experiences and I can’t push down my growing smile.
The air is different here on campus. The world feels heavier and simpler all at once.
This is what I wanted. The ordinary miracle of it.
I quickly follow signs the way I’d trace on a map with a fingertip.
Admissions → . Each arrow clicks my heart forward.
My boots squeak faintly on damp stone. Somewhere a siren whines and keeps going, red light smearing along the edges of a building like sprayed paint.
I inhale the scent of wet leaves and the faint sweetness of rain on warm pavement.
I quickly imagine walking here every day with ink smudged on my fingers, a sketchbook heavy in my bag, and classes that end with the shock of inspiration bubbling within me.
The Office of Undergraduate Admissions sits at the end of a short path, a dignified rectangle of limestone and glass with a narrow set of steps leading up to double doors.
One light burns inside, a square of yellow braced against the night.
Hope flares as I quickly run up the stairs, ready to start this new life I easily envision now that I’m here.
Yet the door doesn’t budge when I pull. I blink, trying the other handle as if that’s the trick, but metal bites my palm as I continue to pull harder. I try both handles three more times until I finally let myself admit that the building is locked.
“Okay,” I murmur to myself, refusing to feed the rising panic flaring within me. “It’s fine.”
I lean in to read the small placard by the handle.
Hours: Monday–Friday, 9:00 AM–5:00 PM . It’s a clean font, kind and absolute, yet I still struggle to accept that.
The glass is cold under my hands as I peer through, desperate to find any sign of life.
The lobby inside glows faintly from the two soft lights illuminating it, showing off the neat room with chairs angled just so atop a large carpet with the school emblem on it.
There’s a potted plant on a tall desk, with a stack of papers fanned into a flower in the middle of the counter.
Beyond that, the building is swallowed in darkness, and a sigh slips out of me as I pull back. A cluster of papers is taped to the inside of the other locked door, so I angle my head and squint through reflections until the bold header is legible.
APPLICATION DEADLINES . My gaze drops to the line that matters. Fall Term: June 15 .
June 15.
The words sit there with quiet finality, and for a second, I don’t understand them. The calendar in my head scrambles. A month. I missed it by a month.
The hope that had been blooming in my chest folds in on itself and an ache unfurls low in my ribs.
I press my fingertips to the glass where a phone number for “questions” is listed, as if contact alone could conjure a person who will make an exception because I’m here and want this more than anything.
The city answers with a horn blast and laughter in the distance, reminding me I’m just another person in this world. There won’t be any exceptions for me.
A gust of cool wind bites at my bare arms and I begin to pace the top landing of the steps. Anger and disappointment twine within me as my hands clench.
How did I not think to check this?
I memorized maps and safety routes, studied dorm layouts, planned how I’d keep my head down and still breathe for the first time in my life. Yet I didn’t check the most ordinary of things: business hours, deadlines, and how to apply before arriving.
My parents raised me to anticipate ambushes and betrayals, and somehow I tripped over office hours and applications.
Loneliness edges in, fine as a hairline crack, as my feet still and I look at the looming city. The campus is quiet in the way places get at night, even in a city that insists it never sleeps bustling around it.
Maybe I should go home.
The thought is a whisper as shame crawls up my throat to warm my cheeks.
My gaze drops to the ring on my finger, the red stone a dark ember against my skin.
It would be so easy. One breath, a thought, and I’d be back in the warm, bright halls that smell like cherry blossoms and where doors open because of my family's name.
I swallow the feeling of defeat.
“Next year,” I tell myself softly, a promise that doesn’t quite feel like resolve. “I’ll plan better. I’ll–”
A hinge creaks behind me.
Male voices spill through the night, low and irritated.
“He did it again,” one says, deep with a bite of disbelief. “Suddenly there’s no space left in the program we were already accepted to in May? Funny how that works as soon as we denied Uncle’s requests.”
“Yeah, well,” the other answers, just as deep but rougher around the edges, “he’s been mocking our interests since we were forced to live with him, so are we really surprised he used his connections this way? He’s never cared about our dreams the way Mom and Dad did.”
I don’t mean to eavesdrop, but their words fill the quiet around me, making it impossible to not hear. I turn to chime in about family expectations, but my eyes lock onto the open door behind them.
A thought strikes me as I watch it slowly begin to hiss closed: they were talking to someone in there, so I might still have a chance to plead my case tonight.
My breath catches in my throat as my heart hammers, watching this small window of opportunity disappear just beyond the men who haven’t even noticed me yet. They block the path entirely, standing there conversing, and I don’t have time to politely go around them.
It’s as if fate taunts me, daring me to prove I want this.
The men blocking me are broad shadows in the wash of lobby light behind them, but I don’t give them any further attention as instinct moves me. I dart forward, pushing between them. The space is narrow, and the hard lines of their bodies press against my shoulders and arms. Heat zips along my skin.
The door’s weight tries to pull from my fingertips that attempt desperately to wrap around it, but I catch it in time, my palm closing around the cold metal.
“Oh, thank goodness,” I breathe out in a rush.
A shadow slides in behind me, broad enough to cast his reflection above mine in the door. Heat presses in near my back and I swallow hard, holding his narrowed gaze in the glass.
“You always shove your way into places you don’t belong?” his deep voice asks, cutting through the sudden tension building between us.
My fingers tighten on the handle as I take a few breaths. I turn slowly, keeping my hand tightly on the handle, my pulse stumbling in my throat as I let myself actually take them in for the first time.
They’re both tall enough I have to tilt my head back to look at them this close-up. Their faces are filled with tight expressions that make me feel like I’ve made a grave mistake.
The taller one doesn’t move when I stare at him, he just stands there like a barricade.
Six-three, maybe, with broad shoulders filling the space in a way that makes me feel incredibly small as he looms. He has a broad chest defined under the fitted black t-shirt stretched across it.
Dark brown hair is cut short at the sides but tousled in a longer length on top.