Seph stares dead-eyed at her paper. She's written five pages in three hours—and that's after working in the morning and then going to class. Her energy is spent.

"Hey, Seph. Wow. Long day?" Seph looks up, breathes a sigh of relief. It's her best friend, Jess Thaw, and she has on her customary purple eyeliner and leather jacket, even though it's been raining most of the day. "Longer than a porn star's dick. Could I have a sip of your coffee?"

Jess smirks. "You paint with words. And sure, if you can get it down. It's gross." She sits, kicks her boots up onto the table and folds her hands behind her head. "Starbucks is tough work. I told you so, but you were all, 'How bad could it possibly be?' Bitch, that's how bad. But nooo, you had to be all, 'I'll be fine, Jess, you're wrong, Jess, look at me, Jess.' Nobody ever listens to Jess. See? Now you've got me speaking in third person about myself. This is what happens when people don't listen to Jess."

Seph takes a sip of the coffee. Jess was right: it's terrible. It's strong though, and Seph needs a buzz to keep her awake. "Spare me," she says, starting a new paragraph in her paper, "I know already. But I need to make money somehow, and just working at the RHO isn't cutting it. "

Jess pulls out a candy bar, unwraps it, and starts loudly chewing. "Pffft," she says between bites, "just get a sugar daddy, ho. Or a sugar momma, like Efron did. Nice haircut, by the way. Now you can't complain about people comparing you to Huey from The Boondocks."

"My mom would kill me, resurrect me, and then kill me again. And thanks—I think. " The idea has crossed Seph's mind before, especially when she and her mother were struggling to pay the rent on top of tuition and schoolbooks. She's even looked at a couple of websites—though she would never admit that to anyone, not even Jess. And besides, she doesn't want to be beholden to a man (or a woman) for anything. She saw what happened to her mother; she won't make the same mistake. No, it's better to make her own money, even if the extra work leaves her feeling more exhausted. She's worked two jobs before, though; she can get through this. She has to.

"I'll pass on the sugar daddies. And sugar mommas. Any sugar people."

"Whatevs, Seph. Girls with sugar daddies make bank. I bet sugar mommas give good money, too. I'd get myself one, but trying to weed out the creepy Asian fetishists has proven to be, um, effing impossible, so yeah."

"And you think I'd fair better as a black, Latina woman?"

"You know what?" chew, chew, chew, "Probably not. Never mind, forget I said anything. What are you even working on?"

That stupid philosophy paper for Shinn. "Nietzsche and the Eternal Recurrence."

Jess wrinkles her nose. "Gross."

"It's extra, is what it is." Seph really can't write one more word. She hates philosophy, and out of all the philosophers she's studied in Shinn's class, she hates Nietzsche most of all.

Seph checks her watch: it's 9:20. She has to leave now, or risk being late and worrying her mother into cardiac arrest. She takes one more sip of coffee, puts away her laptop, and swings her backpack over her shoulder.

Jess rolls her eyes. "I really can't believe you have a curfew."

"Shut up, it's not a curfew. My mom gets worried." If she could, Seph would live in a dorm, but housing is expensive. Jess's family lives in the city too, but they're rich and can afford to pay for her dorm housing. Seph longs to have that kind of freedom; for now, though, she has responsibilities towards her mother.

Jess shrugs her shoulders. "Whatevs. That's a curfew. Your mom has you on a curfew. But whatevs: deny, deny, deny. See you tomorrow in Wilson's. And you better tell me who the cute guy is on your phone, too." Crap, she forgot about him. Mr. Tall, Dark, and Awkward. And Handsome, too, she thinks. Seph bites the inside of her cheek to keep from smiling too widely.

"He's just a random guy."

"Mhmm, that's what they all are. Don't worry; your secret's safe with me."

No really, he's just a random guy I saw when I was working at Starbucks. But he's not. If Angie is to be believed—and Seph doesn't see why she would lie—Mr. Underwood comes into the Starbucks every day, or nearly every day. And Seph feels like she's seen him before, maybe on a billboard or a bus stop, dressed in a sharp suit like the big shot lawyer he's supposed to be. Big shot lawyer on top of already being heir to a multibillion-dollar fortune, she reminds herself.

It was mindboggling, really, when she typed his name into the search bar and saw his picture come up next to names like Warren Buffet and Bill Gates. He was rich and even a little famous but his Wikipedia page was a sparse disappointment, stating only the facts that she already knew: a) he was rich; b) he was a lawyer, and unmarried. The article didn't even list a date of birth. Mr. Tall, Dark, Awkward, and Handsome had just turned into Mr. Tall, Dark, Awkward, Handsome, and Mysterious. Frustrated, she put her phone down, unlocked, and started writing her paper.

Jess isn't gonna let this go, Seph thinks as she heads out of the library. But then again, her family is rich; maybe Jess knows something about the guy? Yeah, like all rich people know each other and hang out together. Seph shakes her head; she's spending too much time thinking about a guy who she's only glanced at. I need to be home already.

It takes her longer than she thought it would, but she finally gets home after 30 minutes on the Metro.

"Ma," Seph calls as she opens the door to their old, two-bedroom apartment. She shuffles off her shoes, hangs up her umbrella. "Ma, I'm home."

The bathroom door opens and her mother's head pops out, not unlike a groundhog. She's brushing her teeth, so her mouth is sudsy. "Yesh, babby gurrl, there's froood emm tha kirtchen frountah."

"Uhhh…"

Her mother's head disappears back into the bathroom. Seph hears the distinct sound of spit hitting the porcelain sink, and not long after her mother steps out from the bathroom.

"Sorry, baby girl," she says, walking over to kiss her on the cheek, "I meant to say that that I left you some food on the kitchen counter. How was your day?"

Tiring. I don't think I can work two jobs on top of schoolwork and trying to land an internship.

Her mother's gentle smile turns into a frown. "That bad, huh? You don't have to do this sweetie, you know. You work hard enough already."

That's not true; Seph knows that in her heart. Her mother is the one who works three jobs to help pay for her education and a place to live. Her mother is the one with an aching back from the accident. Sure, Seph may not be able to dance like she used to, but she needs to start contributing more; her mother can't do all the work.

"I'm fine, Mamma," she says, doing her best to look and sound reassuring. "It's not a hard job. I just have to get used to working there, is all. Everything will be okay, trust me."

"Don't worry, baby, I trust you. It's the world that makes me nervous."

"I'm alright, Mamma, I swear."

"Mmm'kay. Well go on, go eat. It's late and I have to work early tomorrow. G'night, sweetie."

"Night, Ma." Her mother gives her another kiss on the cheek before heading back into her bedroom.

Seph sets down her backpack, heads into the kitchen. It smells like Mamma made soup. Seph pours herself a bowl and flips on their small television. Mamma had it on the news.

"…We're here with American University student, Piyusha Patel. Piyusha, could you tell the viewers back home what you saw?"

"It went just like in the video, I swear. That Sebastian dude just started screaming at the guy and then his apostles or whatever started screaming too. Like, I don't even, like, I mean, it's just…I-I don't know. It was raining pretty hard and thundering, but Sebastian's voice just carried over all that. And what he was saying? I don't even know. It all sounded like hella-loud gibberish to me. I pass by Sebastian all the time and he's just the typical "Fire and Brimstone" street preacher, y'know? This was something else, though." Yeah, but is it really newsworthy? Seph wonders.

But as the girl talks more, the video plays. A man with a black lab stands at the edge of the street, while "Saint Sebastian" screams in his face. No, it can't be… Seph sits up to get a better view of what's happening on-screen. At one point, it looks like Sebastian even grabs the man by the coat lapels. Then lighting flashes and the video ends. No way—that wasn't him. No way.

"Thank you, Piyusha. And John, we're just getting word that the man in the video is Mr. Hayden Underwood. No charges have been filed yet against Sebastian Jones. Back to you, John."

Seph almost spits out her soup. "You have got to be kidding me," she says, wiping her mouth with a napkin.

She turns on her phone, looks at the article she'd been reading on him earlier at the library. She gazes at his picture. She didn't notice it when he was at the bookstore, but he has a scar running through his left eyebrow. His nose is also slightly…off, like it's been broken one or two times before. "Who are you, dude?" The news plays the video clip one more time, and it's more than a little unnerving. "I guess I'll have to find out the old-fashioned way." Seph slaps her forehead. As if I'm not busy enough already…