I was nineteen in my first year of university, drowning in a depressing amount of unpaid bills.
I wasn't just living in the lower class — if there was a class beneath that, I was beneath it.
I survived on free giveaway meals and leftover doughnuts the kind baker down the street always saved for me.
Electricity was a luxury. I couldn't even remember the last time I had enough to charge my phone — a slightly faulty one I'd found in my school's lost and found before it was trashed.
The changing weather became my biggest enemy.
Summer brought immense heat and terrible sunburns.
Spring brought flowers and allergies.
Fall wasn't that bad, except that it was the season for threatened evictions, mandatory school activities, and wrong fashion choices.
But winter — winter proved to be the worst yet.
Snow I definitely didn't ask for, a living space with no heat control (not that I could afford it anyway), and 24-hour diners that didn't actually expect you to stay 24 hours — especially not on Christmas Eve without ordering anything.
My only escapes were my stories.
Sitting in the library, scribbling away, writing novel after novel — except I never finished any.
I would write the first four or five chapters, then skip straight to the ending and leave the middle blank.
I never really dreamed of being successful. I just wanted to be comfortable.
So when a guy approached me and offered to buy my incomplete stories for twenty dollars each, I jumped at his offer.
We met at the subway.
I was scribbling on my notepad, my earpiece — held together by tape — playing a soft melody. I had just finished the fourth chapter of my latest book and was about to write the ending when he tapped me on the shoulder.
He looked just over twenty-two, with jet-black hair and blue eyes that could only be described as iridescent — almost angelic.
He said he'd been watching me for the past few hours while working his shift at one of those fast-food subway stores. I didn't really know what they were called because I never went to them anyway, so why bother?
He sat next to me and asked why I did that — why I skipped the middle chapters of my stories and jumped to the end — while flipping through my notebook.
And as the proud yet shy "social butterfly" that I thought I was, I said, "I don't know. Maybe it's because I don't want to think about my characters' midlife crises when I'm barely surviving mine. Or maybe it's because I get new story ideas mid-story and don't want to forget them, so I just write them. Or maybe… it's just because."
He looked at me like I was speaking gibberish. Maybe I was — but to me, it made perfect sense.
Then he said the words that changed my life forever:
"Tell you what — I'll buy all your unfinished books. Twenty dollars per book."
I stared at him like he'd just told me the Earth was flat. I had never even held twenty dollars at once before. I honestly thought he was trying to scam me — but then I thought, joke's on him, I had nothing to be scammed for.
Then, without asking, he took my phone, turned it on (it was at five percent and barely clinging to life), scanned something, and handed it back.
On the screen, I saw a Venmo request for four hundred and ten dollars. I just stared.
He chuckled softly before accepting the request himself — and there it was, sitting in my account.
My month's rent and two months' worth of food — just there, like it belonged.
He stood up, my notepad in his hand, waving it like a trophy.
"Guess this one's mine now," he said. "Bring more tomorrow."
And just like that, he was gone.
I sat there, staring at my screen like it had personally betrayed me, until my phone hit one percent.
I left the subway, dazed, and walked straight into the bakery-slash-cyber café where I usually charged my phone. I'd help out for a few minutes while it charged to at least thirty percent.
But this time, I didn't. I walked straight to the cashier and ordered a basic self-charger package that cost fifteen dollars per hour.
The cashier looked surprised but smiled. She handed me the charger with her usual warm eyes — but instead of fifteen, I accidentally sent forty-five.
She noticed instantly and walked back to me with a cup of iced tea.
"On the house," she said softly, placing the bills back on the table.
I gave her a five-dollar tip — small to most, but astronomical to me. That was two days' worth of food. Then I went home.
The next day was a blur — going to the supermarket and buying slightly stale food just in case, paying my rent and debts, and still having about thirty dollars left.
Then I gathered all my stashed notebooks — the ones I'd used as padding for my makeshift bed — and counted them. Seventy stories.
Without thinking too much, I packed them into an old bag and walked straight to the subway. I sat on the same bench and waited.
After a few minutes, someone sat next to me.
This time, he wore a white shirt under a black hoodie and gray sweatpants. No green-and-yellow uniform like the day before.
He looked straight out of one of my romance novels — hair still damp as if he'd just stepped out of the shower, his eyes holding quiet amusement.
"Back already?" he asked, his voice low but calm.
"I said I'd bring more," I replied, hugging the stack of notebooks tighter.
He smiled, leaning slightly closer. "You weren't joking."
"I don't joke about money," I said, half-laughing.
He grabbed my phone again just like he did the day before, handed it back and I could have sworn I saw my soul leave my body cause right on my screen lay a Venmo receipt for fifteen hundred dollars.
" I… Is this even legal?' I asked unsure how to react.
He chuckled, his gaze lingering on me for a second longer than it should have.
Then he said, "You really have no idea who I am, do you?"
I frowned. "Should I?"
He smiled again — this time, a little mysterious.
"Maybe not yet," he said, flipping open the first notebook. "But you will."
And that was how I met Adrian Blake.