Payoff Chapter 13 Early Novels & Stories

After another few minutes, I dig up the phone number for my loan company and pretend to be reading my email with the training instructions as I wait on hold for a customer service person. A woman answers and I give her my account information and wait nervously as she digs through my information. The wait makes me want to scream and reach my hands through the phone to shake her. I've paid religiously for months. I can't afford to have a late payment on my account this soon out of the gate. I have the next twenty-five years of my life to look forward to paying these bitches back, and I refuse to start off badly. "Hello, Ms. Marshal, thank you for holding. I'm happy to report your loans have be

“I did some quick math.” I lean forward excitedly again. “I used easy numbers, knowing you don’t know how much you can repay each month. It doesn’t matter to me if it’s a thousand dollars or ten thousand dollars. Obviously the more you can afford, the faster you can pay off the debt. I went with a split of five thousand a month. Based on the current return of investment in the plan where I intend to put your money, if you provided five thousand dollars a month, your first quarter’s dividend would be this. Fifty percent of that comes back to me, and the rest reinvests,” he says, showing me the numbers.

“It’s… a little much, sure. But I’m sure I can work it-” “You are mistaken,” Retchet interrupted. “This is what he borrowed. For this month.” He took out another slip of paper and handed it to her. “This is for last month.” Rebecca took a look, and was even more baffled by the amount. “He has been borrowing approximately this amount every month for the past ten years. And he was able to pay back the money in the first four years, and then paid back the amount in installments in the three years after that. Barely making the cut in the latter two of the three years. And up to today, he had been behind in his payments. Now, with the monthly late fee, this is how much he owes.”

Hence, he refused to believe anything and had convinced his parents not to do anything just yet in case they were being scammed. He had no idea where they had gotten this information from. However, his parents returned several hours later with 400 grand. Chris was still struck in disbelief when he went to the bank to repay his loans. His 30-year mortgage was paid off in an instant, and he even had tens of thousands left. “Mom, the bank has approved my early loan settlement application, and the money has been deducted from my accounts. I won’t need to pay the mortgage every month anymore.”

The cost that came before the financial cost and had made the financial cost possible, the specific and long-standing cost of a man who had believed, in the particular and catastrophic way of a person who needed to believe something in order to keep moving, that the thing he had traded everything for was worth what he had paid. It was not. It was filing for Chapter 11 on a Wednesday morning in March and the people who had known this was coming had known it for months and the people who had not known were learning it now, on their phones, in the specific and impersonal way of a story that had nothing to do with them except that for some of them it had everything to do with them and the story

“I’m not marrying you. Return the car I bought you and every cent you’ve spent over the years, every single one!” His friends immediately handed him a pre-prepared statement. “The car cost 230,000 dollars. Over the past year, living expenses, gifts, and club spending have added up to 800,000 dollars. You must pay it back in full today!” Everyone’s eyes were on me like I was already done for. They assumed that a young woman who had only been working for a year could never come up with that kind of money and that today would end in my ultimate humiliation. I looked at Jenson's unfamiliar face, and the last flicker of warmth in my heart finally died out.

"Sorry, sweetheart. It was the only agreement he would take. Both of us work to pay off the advance. Move here where all living expenses are covered, so that any work we do comes straight off the debt." "How long?" "With both of us, we should have it paid by the beginning of the school year, next year." Not happy but understanding a little more, I don't say anything more, finish my pizza and then head up to my room to unpack a little more before crawling into bed and allowing the peacefulness of sleep to surround me.

To my great relief, he's willing to meet with me even though it's a Saturday morning. Our meeting is very brief and silent, and I don't miss how he avoids looking me in the eye as he takes the check. Maybe he feels guilty for how harsh and inconsiderate they've all been this past week. He forces a brief smile as he starts to write out my receipt. "That's a good chunk of the debt,” he says. “Sixty percent. We won't harass you anymore. For now, at least." "Thanks." "But you have to keep up with the payments for your own good. You need to control the interest and keep the boss' attention away from you. You know the order to send you that letter was from the top right?"

And I've quite my jobs and my appartement already. Most importantly I've used to first pay check to clear my debts, I can't back off now. Way, way too deep.

He flipped a page, continuing his speech in the bland manner. “Also, you previously defaulted on paying the last two loans of a combined fifty thousand interest by the deadline. It took two more months before you began paying that one off according to your records.” “But I paid them off.” She argued. “I paid off the interest too in the end. I can’t believe you would say I’m not eligible for a loan. Can you check again?”