An Opened Door

Chapter 1- Hot Coffee and Cold Cities

(AN: Hey guys! This is my first hamilton fanfic so commentary is appreciated because I know it's not the best! Just some notes though, I know that NYU dorms don't have bathrooms for each dorm/suite, but it's kind of essential to the plot, and the only college campus I've been to was set up the way I'm describing their setup, so just an FYI.)

The first thing that I noticed about New York was that it was abnormally cold.

Well, about as abnormal as something can be to me, but, then again, the normality of the climate came from the reference point of an island south of the Tropic of Cancer.

I'm reminded of my first thoughts of the mainland as I sit in a half-empty coffee shop, sipping a decaf latte. Usually, I wouldn't be drinking such a pointless drink—the only upside of coffee is that it wakes me up, but decaf has none of those perks—but my old roommate insisted that regular coffee contributed to my issue with being up at 2 A.M every morning.

Most of those late nights—early mornings, whatever—were spent applying for colleges. Even with such a top-notch brain as mine, college applications are hard. I'd figured that it wouldn't be too difficult, as I'd graduated at the top of my class and I'm three grades ahead, but the logistics of everything can get messy.

I'd come to the mainland (no, not to America, as technically St. Kitts is part of America—it's a U.S. Virgin Island) with the help of my community, which was basically a push in the right direction without any actual plan on how to live.

The money they'd raised for me covered plane fare from my home to New York City, where they'd all expected me to thrive just because I was brainy. It didn't quite work that way. For the first two weeks, I survived off of 200 dollars. I used most of it for food and ended up sleeping on bus rides during the day and exploring the city at night.

One of those nights, I'd met a guy who seemed older than me by a few years, who introduced himself as Hercules Mulligan. Apparently, he was somewhat of a big shot here in the city—he has his own fashion line, brand, and store (H. By Hercules, sounds expensive and I'd never heard of it). We talked for a while and began to hang out. After a week, he began to pick up that, when I'd leave his apartment, I'd just go to a coffee shop and sit for a while. He confronted me about it, and, when I'd revealed my situation, he invited me to stay with him. I was 18 then, now it's been a year and, after many, many college applications, I got accepted to NYU on a full ride, some academic-merit based diversity scholarship, and, well, now my coffee's cold.

I realize I've been staring off into space and snap back into reality, checking my phone for the time. 2:03.

Shit, I'm supposed to get my rooming assignments at 2:15.

I grab all of my stuff—a backpack filled with clothes, shoes, a toothbrush, and facewash (Hercules suggested that I had to take care of my skin whilst at college) and my laptop—and leave a tip on the desk. Rushing out the door, I half-run down the street, my stuff nearly falling out of my arms. I see a second too late that my coffee is tipping out of my hand, and it lands on the floor, its contents spilling onto the pavement. I roll my eyes and bend to get down when someone walks by me, clearly also in a rush. He laughs and slows down a bit.

"Shit, man, bad day?" he asks, a suitcase being pulled behind him. I laugh audibly and pick up my cup, discarding it in a nearby trash can.

"Yeah. Hectic, is all. I don't even have that many things, it's just, I don't know. I can't get my shit together."

We begin to walk side by side, and I take out my phone to look at the GPS walking path to NYU. I'd only ever taken the subway there before, when I had my interview. According to Google Maps, I'm 10 minutes away. Great, so I should get there early, and beat my roommate to the dorm.

"Conversation's been great, but I have to go! Good luck with whatever you're doing, bon voyage and all that!" I exclaim, referring to his stuffed suitcase, already multiple feet ahead of him. I turn back only for a second before running off.