An angry 18-year-old Fallon O’Neil meets her father, once famous television actor Donovan O’Neil, for lunch to tell him that she’s moving to New York to pursue an acting career on Broadway. This day happens to be the anniversary of a house fire that happened two years ago at Donovan’s house, but he doesn’t acknowledge it. Fallon can’t help but remember because the fire left her with scars on the left half of her body. She blames her father for the scars as he didn’t tell the firemen that she was in the house because he forgot she was there. Her relationship with her father is tense, and his response to her move underscores this fact. Rather than support Fallon’s decision, he tells her that she’s making a mistake. He says she’ll never get her acting career back now that she’s scarred and that she should focus on something else, like going to college. As Fallon argues with him, a young man with “intense, curious eyes” (9) slips into the seat beside her, claiming to be her boyfriend. The young man argues with Donovan until he leaves.