Inhale... exhale.

“Again?” she said to herself. “This is happening to me again?!” this time she didn’t say it to herself. Her right hand glides across the page as she writes the words, questioning herself why. Why is this happening again? This time the responsibility is greater. She has four months left in her lease with her now ex-boyfriend, who left her by herself to deal with what they built together. Kira looks up from writing and blankly stares at his desk that she disassembled a few days ago. Shaking her head she continues to write, “Bakit ako nagpadala sa kanya?” which translates to “Why did I let him get to me?” or “Why did I let him fool me?” in Tagalog. “Oh so we’re writing in Tagalog now, huh?” she thought to herself and laughed. Those short moments of laughing at herself has helped her for the past two months in between the crying, blanking out and/or remembering old memories.

Kira, a 30-year-old advertising professional, had moved to Los Angeles from Seattle to be with her now ex-boyfriend, a 32-year-old software engineer. They met in Seattle at a tech event and a year after meeting they went on their first date. They seemed like a good match… to her. They laughed a lot together and conversations were easy with him. They shared similar values and always had so much fun together. However, she never noticed how much he was in and out of their relationship. Her friends noticed it, especially Ness. Ness was the only person who knew when Kira's ex-boyfriend is out of the picture and when he's back in the picture... like clockwork. But hey, nobody really notices that type of stuff when they’re in love, right?

“Now what?” she thought to herself. Sitting at her work desk, she looked around, her eyes searching. She looked back down at her little black book, looked across the living room, then back down to her book. Kira has been through some unpredictable times, but they were times that only involved her. She never had anyone to go through anything with so this is all new to her. Her apartment in Seattle? That was her responsibility. She has never shared any responsibilities with anyone in her life before so she does what she knows best. Write shit down. “What to do” Kira writes. “I don’t fucking know” she writes underneath as she laughs at herself again. The rent for the place that she got with her ex-boyfriend is a whopping $3500 per month. Which is a lot of money for a single woman who isn’t famous or earn enough money in advertising to be paying that high of a rent. Who did she think she is agreeing to pay that high of a rent, splitting with another person or not?

After speaking with her landlady, an elderly woman who clearly thinks $3500 per month for a one bedroom and one bath is justified because there’s palm trees outside; Kira knew she needed to either a) find someone who can take over the rest of her lease; or b) ruin her rental history by not fulfilling the lease agreement. Fourteen thousand dollars for four more months of being in an apartment that she clearly can barely afford and reminds her of him. “No, I am not paying for this place on top of finding my own place” she wrote, “That is not going to happen. Nope. And I am not staying here for another four months.” All of a sudden, she notices her eyes getting watery. Not again. Flooded by the thought of her ex-boyfriend leaving her to “work on himself” then finding out he is now with another woman only a month after the break-up. Only a month after leaving their apartment. It’s not the part of being with another woman that was disappointing, it was the excuse of “working on himself” that felt disrespectful. There are plenty of people who are actually working on themselves, there’s no need to use their journey as an excuse for his actions.

“Okay, get it together, Kira. You got this. Life is like a movie, plots change at the flip of a switch. This is nothing, there’s people who have been through worse. Be grateful” she says to herself. She did got it, she’s always found her way through problems. Especially when she writes them down, there’s always a solution that's written next to the problems. But she was still thinking, so she writes her thoughts, not solutions.

“I wish there was a fairy that pops up out of nowhere and hands me the money I need to get through this” Kira writes. Seconds after she marks the sentence with a period, her phone lights up. An email from Wells Fargo, her bank. Somebody had deposited $20,000 into her account. “Umm, what?” she said out loud in her empty one bedroom apartment with the show This is Us playing in the background. Geez, she really needs to stop watching dramas when she’s sad. “What the fuck?” she said out loud again. It didn’t say where the money was deposited from. Her first thought was that she was dreaming so she walks around the apartment trying to wrap her head around where this money could be coming from. Her job? Twenty-thousand dollars for a quarterly bonus seems excessive. A family inheritance? She would have received a text from her mother if that was the case. And she doesn’t recall filing for a lawsuit about anything.

“No, ma’am, it wasn’t a mistake. The transaction doesn’t show any signs of fraud and it was authorized twice by the sender” says the Wells Fargo banker over the phone. “Are you sure? Does it give you a name of who the sender is?” Kira asks. “Yes, I’m sure. Unfortunately, it doesn’t give me a name of who made the transaction, just a company called F and Associates” Jen, the banker, replies. Who the hell is F and Associates? “Okay, thank you” Kira hangs up.

She takes a hit of her blunt. She inhales… exhales. Smoke blows from her mouth to her laptop screen that shows her current balance on her checking account: $21,453.56. She had enough to solve all her problems in order to get her back on her feet. She couldn’t believe it, it feels as if she’s still dreaming. But she’s not. She is wide awake at one in the morning in her L.A. apartment that she will soon be leaving. Kira picks up her little black book, opens it and writes, “Well damn, I guess fairies are real… granting wishes and all.” She laughs and takes another hit. Inhale… exhale.