Chapter 6

The landlord grabbed Eliza and yelled at her unrelentingly, "Eliza, I'm telling you, this is theft. I've already called the police. You go and clear it up with them!" Sounds buzzed in her ears, and without a hearing aid, she couldn't hear what people were saying clearly. A handful of old men and women gradually gathered in the room, all pointing fingers and muttering something at her. The community was a teachers' dormitory of a nearby primary school, the buildings dated back to the early 1990s, quite aged now. Therefore, those who could afford it bought houses to live in, and those who stayed here were often retired teachers, and tenants like herself. Soon enough, the police really came and took Eliza to the nearby police station. They called her friend, Zoe. In a short while, Zoe arrived, looking angry and upset. As soon as she saw Eliza, she threw two IOUs in her face. She picked them up to see that they had been written in her name by Jake, one for ten thousand, the other for eight thousand. Along with the over eighty thousand savings from her years of working, Jake had taken away one hundred thousand in total! She stared at the two notes of indebtness. Whatever her friend was saying, she couldn't hear. She could only feel a sharp knife stirring ceaselessly within her, stirring until her chest was a mash of blood and flesh. She couldn't explain what had really happened last night, she didn't even know who that man was. After writing a few lines on the paper, she crossed them out firmly and wrote another line: "Find him, shoot him!" The two policemen looked at each other, shook their heads helplessly. One of them stood up, pointed at the door, and said something. She spent a great deal of energy to concentrate and understand him saying, "You can go now, we will contact you at any time for further understanding of the situation. If you have any information about where Jake is, please contact us immediately." "You are really something. You didn't notice anything when your boyfriend and your good girlfriend had a problem?" Zoe waved the IOUs in front of her and angrily said, "He said that you were having ear surgery the day after tomorrow, Chase and I gave him money for your sake, now what are you going to do?" After a moment of silence, Eliza struggled to speak, "I'll repay it." "It's not that we are forcing you. Anyway, you should ask him for the money. I don't know what kind of ghosts you are playing with. I'm leaving, I'm still at work." Zoe frowned, hailed a car and left in a hurry. Now, Eliza had a total of 327.8 Dollars on her, owed rent to the landlord, and didn't have a hearing aid... She closed her eyes and desolately sat on the steps by the road. Cars came and went, people hurried past, but no one paid her any attention. She was an abandoned baby, left at the hospital as soon as she was born. The matron at the orphanage said she was thin and small when she was taken there, like a little mouse and she reacted slowly, so they thought she was an idiot and no one wanted to adopt her. At the age of six, she had an accident and became deaf in her ears, she completely become a long-term resident of the orphanage. Until she was sixteen years old, she left to study, relying on part-time jobs to support her own life. Until today, exactly five years, three months, and seventeen days. Leaning her cheek on her hand, Eliza looked at the construction site across the road, where the tallest building in Boston was being built and a silver Porsche Cayenne was driving out of it.