4. The Debt

ELAINE

Do you ever feel like you can't escape the shadows? 

Like, no matter how fast you run, something is out to get you, and it will get you. 

Right now, the shadow felt like poverty. 

I had spent almost all my adult years scraping by since my mother got sick. At 21, I had cared for my mother while she slipped away when my father died. My parent had the kind of love story that felt too intense. Loving someone in ways that felt like when they left you couldn't live or breathe, and your entire axis was tilted upside down. 

Just when it felt like my mom was finally accepting my father's passing, she got sick with cancer. There is no sickness I hate more than this one. Like every other terminal illness, it was the sickness where you hoped against hope. 

During the times she was sick, we scraped and scraped, sold some of our properties to get her into some clinical trials, and even moved to New York when we heard a promising one was happening. 

My mom's passing made me an orphan with lots of debts I barely paid back, now this?

I stared at Elias, feeling my entire body tremble as I watched the Criss Cross purplish marks on his ribs of bruises healing and others on his back and arms. 

“Did they do this to you?” I asked, solemnly trying to sound calm, even though my voice sounded like a broken whisper. 

One minute Elias and I were standing beside my car in front of the restaurant next minute a playful jab to his chest would have him wincing and gasping for pain. 

After much coercion, he finally told me the truth. He owed some people money. They were Chinese, and he borrowed some money from some shady investors to invest in a new business and when the business crashed, they started harassing him. And then they presented him with an opportunity to have his debt forgiven. 

“Do you know how much what you stole from this company is worth?” I asked again, feeling the shadows creep up on me. 

“I don't know, Ellie,” he called me fondly as he did when we were children, his eyes betraying the fear he felt. In that moment, I remembered that he was still 21 year old, though also forced to grow up and mature early like I did.

Whoever these people were, they could take his life in a heartbeat. 

“Help me, Ellie! Any amount you have, so I can pay them back and return what I stole.” 

“How much?” I don't know what gave me the audacity to ask as if I had some money stashed somewhere. 

But if I had to sell the car, I would. This is my only living family member left. I'll do anything to keep him alive. I wouldn't lose another family member. Then I would be alone, all alone in this world. 

“The initial debt was 350 thousand dollars. But they tricked me into taking pictures and a sample of a prototype at the new job where I got an internship.” 

"350 THOUSAND DOLLARS!" I screamed, my eyes bulging like saucers.

God, Elias has killed me. 

I'm dead. finished. obliterated.

"What the hell did you use it for? And where are we supposed to get that kind of money from?"

"I....I was thinking of us asking granddd"

"Are you crazy?"

The measly 200dollars I had scraped together wouldn't even scratch the surface of this mess. 

But I would have to figure out a way to help him. If I had to beg, crawl, or cry, I'd do it in a heartbeat because of my mom. I will do anything, except go back to that man's house.

*********

New York was usually very cold in the winter. Since moving here for my mom's clinical trial, the ever-bustling city had grown on me. 

I pulled my pink Parka close to my body to shield against the biting cold as it whipped around my ears and pushed hair around my face, reminding me that I forgot my cap and earmuffs. 

The walk down to the train station had me in my feelings. In my short life, I've been at the mercy of different people to beg for one thing or the other, all having money and survival as the main core. 

The trip was rather long, my mouth was dry and I kept swiping out my tongue to wet my lips and I paused to rummage the black shoulder strap I had on for my gloss and got rammed into by a stranger the entire content of my purse spilling to the floor and the loud crack sound of my iPhone XR, which I have had for six years causing my eyes to water. 

‘Shit. Shit. Shit.’ I muttered under my breath. 

I can't afford the expense of fixing my phone, not with everything going on right now. 

I spun around quickly on my heels, ready to lay it into the man who ran into me, but a woman had suddenly appeared beside him, wiping dry the coffee he spilled on himself as a result of the collision. 

He had a permanent scowl tattooed on his face, and he didn't cut off communication, continuing to rapidly fire out instructions and a string of curses in Spanish and Greek. I knew the later because towards the end of my mom's life, she spoke a lot in Greek to us. 

I didn't have a chance to lay into the stranger as his long strides took him farther away from me. No apology, no nothing. He didn't even stop for any form of interaction whatsoever. 

Just dismissed me like a fly that perched on his arrogant shoulders. 

Another deep sigh made its way from my mouth as I gathered my belongings, scraping together the coins I had changed earlier from the vending machine, my eyes misty with tears before joining everyone to get on the train. 

Two rides, one bus, and a 20-minute walk

This felt like Deja vu, the feeling that you've already experienced something that's happening now. 

Sitting here in this chair in front of the receptionist who kept looking at me up and down like I was a measly fly begging for attention. 

Not long ago, I was at my mother's father's house begging him for attention and help. Calling him my grandfather felt personal, like I know him. He was my mother's father, and that's all he will ever be. 

I get up again, walking towards the receptionist to ask about her boss, but the shrill ring of the telephone cut off whatever I had to say. 

I stood there shuffling from one foot to another, chewing on my bottom lip, a bad habit I had which my mom hated, but was my go-to whenever I was sad or anxious. 

Everything about this skyrise building and its employees had me on edge. Elias sat in the corner, more tame than his usual bubbly self; he had fresh bruises that weren't there the last time he showed up at the restaurant. 

Whoever he works for or owns this establishment has gone to great lengths to make him understand that his debt will be paid. 

“Once again, you need to schedule an appointment to see Mr Stavros, waiting endlessly isn't going to magically get you inside that door.” Miss I don't have a hair out of place, and I'm stuck up receptionist answered me. 

Like a stroke of luck just before I could mutter a response to her, the door opened and before she could stop me I made a beeline for it with he distraught receptionist pursuing closely at my heels. 

“My name is Eliane Daniels and I'll like to pay my brother's debt”.