"I'll marry him." The words feel like they're being torn out of me, edged with the desperation that they’re entirely born of. "After I finish the program. I'll come home and marry Thaddeus and be whatever kind of wife you want me to be. But please. Please give me these two years."
My father studies me for a long moment, and I can see him calculating, weighing the costs and benefits like he would any business deal. Finally, he nods slowly, and I stare at him, hardly able to believe it actually worked.
"Two years," he says. "You can attend NYU for your master's degree. But the moment you graduate, you come home and marry Thaddeus. No delays, no excuses. And while you're in New York, you'll maintain regular contact with him. He'll visityou. You'll visit him. You'll remember that you're engaged and conduct yourself accordingly."
Relief floods through me so intensely I feel dizzy. "Yes. Of course. Thank you, Daddy, I?—"
"I'm not finished." His voice cuts through my gratitude like a knife. "If you embarrass this family in any way, if you do anything to jeopardize your engagement to Thaddeus, I will pull you out of that program so fast your head will spin. Do you understand me?"
I nod, not trusting my voice.
"And Savannah?" He returns to his desk, picking up his pen as if the conversation is already over. "Don't make me regret this. I'm giving you an opportunity. Don't throw it away on foolish notions of independence."
I left his study feeling like I'd won and lost something at the same time. Two years of freedom in exchange for a lifetime of captivity. It seemed like a fair trade then, standing in that suffocating house with my father's expectations pressing down on me from all sides. Exactly one week after that conversation, I accepted Thaddeus’s proposal in front of family and friends and my father’s business associates, a brilliant smile pasted on my face as he slid the three-carat, yellow gold solitaire with a pave band onto my finger. I told myself as he kissed me chastely and beamed at the crowd that it was worth it. That I would be able to accept my fate so long as I had these two years.
Now, lying in my new bed in my new city, I'm not so sure.
The next morning, Vivian and I walk to campus together for the graduate student orientation. It's a beautiful day, a late summer morning that makes New York feel almost magical—clear bluesky, a breeze that cuts through the humidity, the city alive and buzzing, more so than Charleston ever has been. We stop at a coffee shop on the way, and I order an iced latte that costs more than I've ever paid for coffee in my life. Vivian laughs at my expression when I see the price, which is shocking despite the unlimited credit card that my father sent me with.
"Welcome to New York," she says, clinking her cup against mine. "Everything costs twice what it should, but somehow it's worth it."
The orientation is held in a lecture hall in the Silver Center, and it's packed with graduate students from various programs. I spot a few people who must be in Classical Archaeology based on their conversations about ancient pottery and excavation techniques. Vivian introduces me to some of her friends from the Art History program, and they're all friendly and welcoming.
After the orientation, Vivian has to run to a meeting with her advisor, so I decide to explore campus on my own. I wander through Washington Square Park, watching street performers and chess players and students sprawled on the grass with books. I find the library and spend an hour getting lost in the stacks, running my fingers along the spines of books about ancient Greece and Rome and Egypt. I locate the building where most of my classes will be held, memorizing the route from my apartment.
By the time I head back, the sun is starting to set, painting the sky in shades of orange and pink. I'm exhausted but happy, more content than I've been in months.
My first seminar is on Thursday afternoon—Aegean Archaeology, focusing on Bronze Age civilizations. I arrive fifteen minutes early, too nervous to risk being late, and claim a seat in the third row—close enough to be involved without the focus being directly on me all of the time. The classroom slowlyfills with other students, and I recognize a few faces from the orientation.
The professor, Dr. Helena Kouris, is an intimidating, tiny woman with steel-gray hair and sharp eyes. She launches into the syllabus without preamble, her voice carrying easily through the room as she outlines the semester's topics: Minoan Crete, Mycenaean Greece, and the collapse of the Bronze Age. I'm so absorbed in taking notes that I don't notice the late arrival until Dr. Kouris pauses mid-sentence.
"Nice of you to join us," she says dryly.
I glance up and feel my breath catch.
The man standing in the doorway is tall—over six feet—with dark hair and sharp, angular features that would be almost too severe if not for the slight curl to his hair that softens them. He's wearing dark jeans and a charcoal t-shirt that looks expensive, soft-looking and fitting his lean frame perfectly. But it's his eyes that make my stomach flip. They’re dark, almost black, and so intense that I feel pinned in place when his gaze sweeps across the room and stops on me.
For a moment, everything else fades away. The professor's voice becomes background noise. The other students disappear. There's just him, looking at me with an expression I can't quite read. It turns into a smirk that makes heat crawl up my neck.
Then he looks away, murmuring an apology to Dr. Kouris as he makes his way to an empty seat in the back row. I force myself to look down at my notes, my heart pounding for no good reason.
Get it together,I tell myself firmly.You're engaged. You're here to study, not to get flustered by some random guy in your seminar.
But I can feel his eyes on me for the rest of the class. Every time I glance back, he's watching me with that same intensefocus, like I'm a puzzle he's trying to solve. It should make me uncomfortable. It should make me want to leave.
Instead, it makes something low in my stomach tighten with an awareness I've never felt before.
When class ends, I pack up my things quickly, determined to leave before I do something stupid like try to talk to him. But as I'm heading for the door, I hear Dr. Kouris call out.
"Mr. Ciresa, a word?"
I glance back despite myself and see him standing at the professor's desk, his posture relaxed but edged with a barely coiled tension underneath it. Dr. Kouris is saying something about the reading list, and he's nodding, but his eyes flick to me as I slip out the door.
I don't look back.
That night, I'm in my room trying to focus on the assigned reading when my phone buzzes. I know before I look that it's going to be Thaddeus. My father's text from earlier this week has been hanging over me like a storm cloud, and I've been dreading this moment.
The text is brief and to the point, so typically Thaddeus that I can practically hear his voice:Dinner Friday at 7. I've made reservations at Le Bernardin. Wear that navy dress I like. I'll pick you up at 6:45.
