The Devil’s Checkbook

I ran my hands through my hair, releasing a heavy sigh, scattered documents laid before me on my bed.

‘Bill Past Due.’

There is a tenseness in my muscles accompanied with a violent whirl of stress that plagued my brain, the in-organization of my life making chaos in my mind. I had bills to pay up the ass and with my hours at work getting cut back, it was going to be even harder to maintain my subpar lifestyle.

‘If a life is even what you can call it at this point...’

I peeked an eye, craning my head down to look at my tiny living space. The room was uncomfortably small, frail looking twin loft bed and small wooden desk and chair underneath. Placed in the corner was a lone mini fridge with a microwave sitting on top of it. Next to my “kitchen” area was a small container filled with cheap chicken flavored ramen cups and plastic bowls and utensils. In the other corner was a few suitcases holding my clothes and other necessities.

Such was the life of a struggling college student with only a quarter to my name. I’d gone against my fathers wishes and left home years ago to New York to pursue my “far fetched” dreams of being a fashion designer but ended up eighty-thousand dollars in debt on student loans and living off campus in a one room living space with communal bathrooms and a cramped desk job. My life was a nightmare. I desperately wished to wake up from it; even if it meant putting my pride to the side and working with my father in some stuffy old folks home in the middle of nowhere.

The sun's rising rays soon began peeking through my window blinds,another heavy sigh leaving my chest.

‘Another sleepless night,’ an unsatisfied grimace settling on my face. Not only was I unable to come up with a solution to my financial problem but—

A loud growl sound echoed throughout the room, the source, my aching stomach.

I was hungry as hell.

I had to eat sparingly, it was okay though, because soon I’d have work in which I could chow down as much as I wanted at the café for free. I showered and got ready for work. Shuffling hastily through the busy streets of New York, my heels clacked loudly against the gum stained sidewalk.

“Hey!”

“Watch where you’re going?!”

People bellowed as I maneuvered through the thick crowds, offering insincere apologies here and there. I nearly tripped over my own feet down the stairs that led to the subway station, skipping the last four steps as if I were an Olympic jumper. My eyes darted to the train I usually took in the mornings, seeing the doors beginning to close. With the adrenaline of an ostrich, I took off, going to lunge through the doors last second but my body smacked loudly against the shut metal doors.

“No, no, no!” I screeched, others on the platform paying me no mind as if it were a normal occurrence. Spinning on my heels, I raced out of the station and desperately looked for an empty taxi but found none that weren’t already occupied on the road.

“Shit, shit!—“ I cursed and froze at the sound of my ringtone going off. Hesitantly plucking my phone out, I looked at the caller ID, my lips pursing instantly. Tapping the accept icon, I brought the phone to my ear.

“Hello.” I answered meekly.

“Where are you? I didn’t see you on the train, did you catch a cab?” A males voice inquired in concern, a coworker of mine.

“I missed it...” I answered solemnly. “That means...” He trailed off.

Due to the severe cuts my job had been making, they were finding any reason to let someone go. If you were late, it was an automatic termination unless there was an emergency. In New York, people were late to work every day, I wasn’t different enough for them to make an exception. ‘An emergency huh....’ I contemplated throwing my body in traffic for a split second but that would only make my financial problems worse.

“Don’t worry about it, I’ll be fine.” I spoke up, trying my best to keep the moisture that threatened to escape my eyelids at bay.

“I’m sorry to see you go.”

“Me too.” I retorted, leaving us in an awkward silence before he cleared his throat, “I’m at the office now so...Good luck, I guess.” He trailed off once more to which I hummed in response and hung up. I let my unemployment sink in for a few seconds more before a few tears slipped down my cheeks.

“Why do I suck so fucking much?!” I grumbled, completely and utterly defeated. After a few seconds of loathing in my own self pity, I went to turn and make my way back home, thinking of the many other nine to five jobs I could possibly get employed at. As I rounded a corner, my nose collided harshly into a chest. I reeled back into reality, letting out a brief curse. Cradling my nose, the first thing I saw was a pristine suit and tie and I immediately looked up to apologize for my lack of awareness.

“S-sorry, that was my-“ but my words got stuck on my tongue “fault...” My eyes widened at probably the most handsome man I had ever seen in my 20 years of living. He had the kind of face that stopped you in your tracks, the kind that made you fumble over your words like a preschooler reciting the alphabet.

“It’s alright.” His voice had a unique husky drawl as if he were the star of his own movie and I was nothing more than an extra that had a minute's worth of screen time. My eyes were puffy from my internal meltdown and I looked like I was about to sit down and do his fucking taxes.

“Oh, um...thank you.”

‘Real smooth.’

Instead of giving me an off put look, he merely offered me a smile that nearly put me in a daze as he passed by, “don’t mention it.”

With that, the mystery man was off without another word. My eyes followed his fleeting form curiously but I shook my head and focused back on my troubles. However, before I could continue forth, my eyes caught the sight of something on the ground. My brows furrowed in confusion before my collision with the man flashed in my mind.

‘Did he drop this?’

Reaching down to pick up the small black book, I spun around in hopes of the man still being in view but he was nowhere to be seen. “That’s odd he was just walking down the...'' I whispered to myself, looking from the book and back in the direction I had seen the man walk off into. Switching my attention back to the book, I took a second to admire its design. The pitch black book had a hard cover, rounded corners with an elastic closure that sealed it shut. Shrugging, I finally made it home with no more disturbances and plopped at my desk with the umpteenth sigh of the day.

“Got no sleep, missed the train, unemployed, bumped into a hot stranger, picked up said hot stranger's diary.” I went over everything that had happened. It was more eventful than any other day I had experienced, that much I can say. As for the book, a part of me wanted to throw it in the nearest trash can but another part of me was curious.

‘Maybe there’s a name or number or something I could return this to...?’ I mentally tried to justify my snooping. Opening the notebook, I flipped it open hoping to see the diary entries of a runway model but deflated in disappointment.

“A checkbook...” I mumbled in confusion. There was a date, number, description, withdrawal, deposit, and balance labeled on the page. He seemed to be using the notebook as a checkbook register that was filled to the brim with names and crazy amounts of money withdrawn and deposited. The balance amount for some strange reason was always left blank. Flipping through the pages, I finally settled on an empty page where the deposit amount of money was $20,000.

“He gots money,” I drawled.

‘That’s enough to hold me for half a year...’ I thought bitterly.

“I wonder who he was depositing the money to?” The Description part of the page was void of name unlike the other pages. A couple of moments passed before I found myself writing my own name down on the page. Staring at the page for another few seconds, I let out a dry laugh before ripping the paper out, crumbling it up and tossing it over my shoulder.

“Imagine.”

Pushing myself up, I dropped the book in the disposal bin and climbed the ladder to my bed, applying to new jobs. It wasn’t until my eyes opened groggily and dried drool stained my chin.

“I fell asleep...so early...” I yawned with a slightly baffled look. ‘Well I didn’t get any sleep last night, makes sense why I passed out.’ The sun had yet to rise causing me to feel around for my phone before pulling it out to check the time. I squinted my eyes at the brightness before frowning at the time.

‘3:36 am...’

“So late...” I whispered with a raspy tone. I descended my bed and snatched a water bottle from the fridge, exploring the meager notifications I had received on my phone. Taking a swig of the bottle, I tapped on my bank app upon noticing an alert. I choked on my water into a coughing fit, pounding my chest lightly. With wide eyes, I stared in disbelief at the extra digits in my checking account.

“Twenty thousand, nine hundred and seventy six dollars and sixty two cents....” I sounded out each word slowly. “H-how—“ I internally began to panic, wondering if I had unconsciously robbed a bank in my sleep or my eyes were just playing tricks on me. Closing the app, I reopened it and the number hadn’t changed. A flash of what I had done last night made me launch myself at my disposal bin where I pulled out the little black notebook and the crumbled page.

“There’s no way? It's just a notebook. Did I sign up for a contest or something?” The craziness of the situation made me begin to start second guessing my own sanity and recollection of the day before. A part of me wanted to jump for joy but the logical part wanted an explanation. I’ve long learned that nothing in life is free, there’s always some sort of catch.

A catch that would earn me a one way ticket to hell.