[ h o w to p a y r e n t ]

Setting down my glass of milk with a loud bang, I felt my eyes brighten into a four-karat diamond. I curled my lips up into an exuberant smile, as I typed down on my laptop the right words Vivianne, my main character, should say.

"I love you. I love you so much . . . that I can walk away. In our dreams, even in just our dreams . . . let's meet again, Lev," I dramatised, with matching heartbreak and tears, acting out Vivianne's character and imagining a 70's setting around me.

I cleared my throat and lowered my pitch. "No, I won't let you. Don't go, Vivianne, my love. Don't go!" I outstretched my hand toward the laptop, as if trying to grab Vivianne from it.

Grinning like a fool, I began to type in the rest of the conversation, saying the words aloud. "But I---I can't live without you. You're not a---"

Three knocks came onto my door, shattering me from my imagination. I felt the two wires in my head, just an inch away from each other, coil back to their position, a hundred miles between them. I grimaced. I was so close to finishing a chapter!

I shook my head. No, no, this wouldn't do. I had to finish this chapter, no matter what.

I tried to go back to the setting around me, picturing Vivianne and Lev, a small distance between them, yet so far away. "But I---I can't live without you. You're not a---"

Another round of, this time, five knocks on the door sounded loud and clear, completely pulling me out of my writing mojo.

Groaning, I had no choice but to save my Word document and put my laptop to hibernation, before nowhere near rushing to the door. With another grimace, I turned the doorknob and pulled open the door, only to suppress a shriek at the sight of my landlord before me, his crinkly eyes angry and tired.

"It's the end of the month. Where's your pay?" he croaked out, his without-any-hair head shiny from oil and his clothes a little rattled. He was tiny for a man. If you were superficial, there was no way you'd think someone who looked like him was the landlord of a whole townhouse.

That was when I began to chew on the inside of my lip, racking my brain for another good excuse as to why I had no money to pay him. "Uh . . . ," I started awkwardly, giving him a nervous smile. "Is it the thirty-first already? I didn't know that."

He merely stared at me, his eyes still . . . crinkly and angry and tired.

"Uh . . ." I laughed nervously. "I . . . didn't know it's the end of the month." I switched to determined/I promise this time mode, knowing it was my last get out of jail card. "I'll pay you tomorrow! I haven't---"

"Pack your bags and go," he fired at me, with a matching scary look to boot. When I just stood there, my eyes wide open, he shouted, "I said pack your bags and go!"

My forehead started to sweat. I felt my knees beginning to wobble all of a sudden, sucking in my energy, leaving me as a deflated balloon with so much space for a lot of things to occupy, but none wanted to. Still, even though no part of it was even remotely funny, I tried to laugh it off, hoping that it was somehow close to convincing. "Ha, that was funny, Mr. Eric. I promise I'll pay you tomorrow, okay? Thank you for being kind!"

I closed the door fast right there and then, my heart thumping loudly against my chest, aware that if I opened it, if I didn't shut it close just at the right moment, I feared I might break and lose all sense.

A nanosecond later, furious, but at the same time, weak, banging sounded on my door, making me rush back to my laptop and attempt not to listen to it.

But fate must be playing a cruel joke on me, because even with my hands taped to my ears, I still heard Mr. Eric's voice slip through the cracks of the door. "If you don't open this door right now, I'm calling the police. Did you hear me, Liah? Open the door now!"

A rush of horror passed through me. I tried to clench my fists in hopes of grasping my fighting spirit back, but they were quivering.

If I lose this home, I don't know where I would go.

"This is your last warning, Liah. Your parents and I were good friends, that's why I let you stay. But you haven't paid me for five months, don't expect me to allow you continuing this habit! Open the door!"

The mention of my parents seemed to have brought me back to reality, waking me up and kicking me from my weak stupor of a state of mind. I realised that if I were to continue living in this world, I had to be strong. I had to. My hands flew from my ears to the table, and I rose to my feet in a determined state. Without pausing, as though not entertaining any seconds worth of hesitation, I hastened towards the door and flicked the lock open, swinging the door wide.

Mr. Eric looked relieved. From what exactly, I had no way of knowing. "Good, thank you for not making me call the police."

Just when I thought perhaps things weren't going that badly, Mr. Eric prevailed speaking, "Liah, I'm sorry to say this, but pack your bags and go. I've received a lot of calls inquiring if there's a lot still available in this townhouse, and I had to say no. I can't let you stay for free anymore, Liah, you have to pay or you're out."

Stunned at the situation before me, I merely watched him when he entered the loft and went straight to where my key was placed: the wall near my laptop. Oh god, I hope he doesn't see my laptop, I hope he doesn't see my laptop. I hope---

"You have a laptop?" he demanded, incredulity laced around his tone. Slowly, he faced me. "You bought a laptop, Liah? Is that why you can't pay me?"

"I---I don't . . ." I began to say, but I couldn't seem to find the right words.

He shook his head. "And here I thought you couldn't pay because your abilities were lacking. Liah, for the last time, pack your bags and go."

He breezed past me and out the door. With one last disapproving look, he barked coldly, "I'm giving you an hour. Once an hour's gone, the guards from downstairs will knock on your door, and depending on what you've done in the time I've given you, they'll either haul you out relentlessly or escort you gently out the townhouse."

With that, he himself closed the door on me, and I was left staring after the door in shame and anxiety. Oh no, this couldn't be happening. Mr. Eric looked dead serious, and if he says I only have one hour, then God forbid I only have one hour.

Without knowing what else to do, I transported into a frenzy mode, rushing back and forth to pack the most I could pack, but my belongings didn't seem to be much: a luggage containing heaps of simple clothing, gadgets

i.e. my laptop, a recorder, and my cellphone which didn't work anymore

, preserved foods, insufficient money, and personal records.

I didn't keep track of time, but when I was sat on the living room couch, breathing heavily due to all the packing I'd made, knocking---which was slowly becoming infamous---resonated through my door.

Filled with dread, I muttered to myself, "This must be it," inhaled the most air my lungs could manage to take in, and took my flight bag with me as I opened the door.

Before me were two bodyguards, their guns intact their uniform, their faces devoid of any expression. The bigger one of them said, "We're here to escort you downstairs, Ms. Hayami. Are you ready?"

Physically, what with all the packing I'd done, yes, I was.

But emotionally? When all of this just came crashing down all over me, while in fact I woke up drinking a glass of milk and typing like a madwoman to finish up another chapter just like another ordinary girl? Well, that was another story.

So, was I ready?

No.

This was scaring the living daylights out of me.

But for the sake of becoming strong, I held my breath and boldly said, "I think . . . I think I'm okay to go."

The bodyguards knodded, and gestured me out the door. With my head hung low, I clutched my luggage firmly and dragged it with me as I finally stepped out of the apartment loft. I took one last look of it---the couch, the television, the coffee table otherwise known as my writing site, and empty frames hanging on the designed wall---before the guards took my luggage for me and led me through the plight of stairs and down the ground floor.

In the exit of the townhouse, I saw Mr. Eric standing, watching us as we stumbled out of the townhouse. Once I was out on the streets and the morning breeze hit my beanie, the sun having already set up, a cab whizzed past us, bringing the wind with it, and came back again.

The window rolled down, and the driver of the cab was looking at me expectantly.

"I was going to give you a day to pay me back, but after seeing that you managed to buy a laptop all this time you weren't paying your rent, I couldn't be considerate anymore," Mr. Eric told me, making me look at him, and witness how his eyes were brimming with sincerity. "You have to understand that I have to gain money as well, and a lot of families have been asking me for a room. I have to give them the one which housed a customer who wasn't paying."

The bodyguards beside me placed my luggage in the compartment of the cab, before returning to their position at the townhouse's entrance.

"So you leave, and live well, Liah. I've given you a shelter for a year since your parents were gone, and even though I wanted to help you, everything has an end. Goodbye, Liah."

With that, Mr. Eric offered me a smile, one that was not happy, but sad, before he turned his back on me and returned to the townhouse without looking back once. I averted my gaze and flicked it towards the bodyguards, who turned out to be staring off space, not sparing me one last glance.

I heaved a sigh. This was it. This was really it. There was no turning back now, and as I stomped my feet in one last crazy attempt hoping they'd hear my frustration and bring me back in, I realised there was no other endgame. Finally I gave up, and simply stood still, but only for a moment. When I rode the cab and shut the door, I looked wistfully at the beautiful color-filled townhouse, before the cab whizzed by and the place where I used to live was now a small block of Tetris.

I craned ny neck and faced forward, fidgeting with my hands, the bundle of nerves otherwise known as my whole self quivering with the unknown.

That was when I realised the current situation I was called upon: I left the home I'd been living in for a couple of years now, all my belongings were in a compartment of a cab, and I was being shipped off by said vehicle to Cebu City traffic.

Which raised one very specific, one very relevant, one very life-changing question.

Now what?