Charming by Haig Moses (1st Draft)

Chapter Fourteen

END OF THE ROAD

The following day came with heavy gloom.

I had woken up to Tatiana's light knocking on my bedroom door. "Hey sleepy head you ready for tonight?" While I had smiled and expressed, what I could only hoped seemed to be, excitement there was a heaviness in my stomach.

How was I supposed to tell her that since being fired from my job, I didn't couldn't pay my due. Or that I could, but if I did then I wouldn't be able to return to Harvard the next semester unless I took out student loan.

Standing in the mirror, I finished braiding my hair into one french brain that went down my back and adjusted the white loaner dress from Tatiana's closet. Silver Kappa Kappa Theta pin on my collar bone, I tested a smile on my face. Flexing the muscles on my face before letting it go slack. I had just a few more minutes before I would make my arrival along with the other pledge for the third to last round of Kappa recruitment.

A knock sounded against our front door and from the bathroom I watched it perplexed. Tatiana had left just a few minutes ago to help set up for today's event. Surely she would've texted me had she forgotten something. "Who is it?" I called out, the only response I got was another knock on the door.

There was no way somebody outside of my dorm could just walk in which meant it was one of my residents.

Grabbing my things, I shoved the envelope the bank teller had given me with my bank check inside into a small satchel and started out right as the door started knocking again. "I'm coming," I shouted as I twisted the knob and pulled the door open to reveal a neatly dressed Sebastian.

Black slacks and blazer vest, set with a white shirt and shiny loafers. Sebastian looked vastly different from the guy I'd always see around campus. With his hair slicked back, Sebastian's acne-ridden face was on full display. "What do you think?" He questioned.

"Spick and span," I said sliding past him. "You look great for a bell boy."

Sebastian looked down at his clothes before following after me. "Really, you don't think it's more cater waiter."

"Whatever you want it to be," I said. "Why are you dressed like that anyway?"

"I told you, I'm a cater waiter," he said. "Or at least I'm going to be."

Glancing over at him, I saw Sebastian's eyes watching me suggestively and instantly I caught on. "No."

"Harriet."

"I said no."

"But the last time you said that you would help me."

"I was very much intoxicated at the time, so I don't think that counts," I pointed out. "Besides I already told you, if you get caught and they find out that I was helping you—"

"But I won't get caught and they won't find out that you helped," Sebastian pleaded. "Please, the guys down at the Crimson are busting my ass. They treat me like I'm some kind of noob with nothing to offer."

I exhaled. "That's called paying your dues, I'm sure everybody has to do it."

"Last week some of the guys on the team took my entire column and replaced the words with Seb-ass-tian Boreiarity and I got berated by our editor-in-chief in front of everybody. The week before that, they photoshopped photos of me having a three some with Benjamin Franklin and a turkey and replaced every photo in the newspaper with in. Then—"

"Okay I get your point."

"I just need something, anything to give me a break," he pleaded. "Writing this story being the first persons to get an inside scoop on Kappa in about fifty years. I can make history here Harriet, please."