Despite all the perfection that Messie has built for her upcoming future, she still tries so hard to fit in among the society—well, classify that as the social majority. And living in a waking dream is the biggest challenge for her to achieve.

Whatever glamorous glimpse she pictures on her mind, life is just be like Que Sera, Sera in the end. She knows, sooner or later she needs a reality check. Where reality hurts, knocking at her front door every once a month.

The bills.

That one thing nobody knows about Messie’s most ugly truth. It is such a poor circumstance that she can’t even tell her parents, or anyone else’s, except Libby, which is the most person she ever tells a lot about her complicated life.

All the perfect pictures she shows in public; all those fancy clothes most premium fabric, those best food and drinks she sometimes posted on her Instagram account, and all the stuff she only lives as a waking dream, everything is just for a showoff, and for the sake of God knows what.

This one is the ugly truth she wants to escape. Messie is too embarrassed about this burden that not even her parents know about her having huge debts.

However long it takes, Messie still tries to live her days in the big city.

She lives in the apartment complex, where each number of buildings establishes as a neighborhood. Therefore, every time her bills arrive, they’re all delivered right into her mailbox. Sometimes, there’s the worst case scenario when the creditor himself knocks on her apartment’s front porch to assertively collect a debt, which can be about a credit card bill, or any type of bill she has been spending over the superficial years in her life. This frequently happens whenever the due date has passed, meaning; she’s definitely late to pay her bills.

Four days later; on Friday, 6th May 2016.

That day, at eight in the morning, a new face of a male creditor comes knocking at her front door.

“Excuse me, Miss. Are you Messie Denver who lives in this Apartment Complex, number 305?”

He almost looks like a dwarf as a man, assumes he may be around 160 centimeters of height. He has a black hair, pale white face, a typical geeky looking person, and sometimes he snorts slovenly.

Messie rubs her eyes, definitely still half-asleep as she yawns shamelessly in front of this stranger.

“Yes, I am. Who are you?”

“Let me introduce myself, Miss. My honor though—” he seems nervous, but also over confidence, which makes the strange combination of geeky behavior. “My name’s Dan Jacob,” he thrusts his hand to her for a friendly handshake.

Messie finally gets to open her eyes widely when his strong grip crushes her tiny soft hand. Differs from his look, his strength is like a horse.

“I’m sent here by my authorities to collect the debt of this apartment rent, as I’m sure you realize that you’ve been in arrears of this rent for about, uh… two months.”

“Oh… yeah,” Messie blinks in confusion, realizing this nightmare arrives again at her door. “That makes you; the new creditor?”

He smiles so widely, as if he waits for Messie to discover the rest of his identity. It seems he doesn’t want to surprise her early in the morning, but since he’s just doing his job, he has to tell her.

“Actually, Miss Denver… I am the Repo man.”

She blinks again, in disbelief this time. “What did you say?”

Surely, she doesn’t realize the obvious uniform he wears since he first stepping into this porch, she’s too sleepy to notice. He does not wear a business suit like the last creditor. His clothes look plain bright blue, the kind of jumpsuit uniform that usually wears by a construction worker.

“As I follow up with your payment report from the administration, you haven’t paid for this month. So, makes that the third times,” he informs, calmly.

“But, don’t you think it’s still too early to rush me?” Messie argues. “The creditor always comes in the end of month, duh—” she mumbles as her anger explodes. “And for a fact, I will pay my debt without you coming today, okay?”

He shakes his head peevishly, knowing this argument will happen anyway.

“I know, I know—” he talks in a whimsical way, which sums up everything about the first impression anyone who ever knows him in person—he may be a joker. “I’m here, just following orders from my authorities, Miss.”

“Who cares?” Messie barks again in his face. “Whatever happens, you will not crossing my doorstep. Do ya hear me, kiddo?”

Their first encounter is not smooth, but also strange that the repo man does not put further effort to do anything he should do. According to the statement letter he brings to Messie, he’s supposed to take away any valuable furniture, television, or even expansive glass vases available in her apartment, and surely, he should’ve done it forcefully as a professional repo man, or could it be that he’s not in the mood to pick a fight, especially with a girl?

Sure, especially after Messie just calls him a kiddo, his face immediately snaps in a bewildered look. However, because Messie is not fully awake when she’s angry at him, she doesn’t observe that he actually looks a bit older than her. Perhaps, three or four years older, makes him still in his mid-twenties however.

Two weeks later, he visits again. This time on Saturday morning, he wears a nice brown suit made with British tweed fabric, making him look more noticeable, and mature. However, that doesn’t change the way he moves like a geek.

“Hey, Miss Denver. Remember me?” He smiles, extremely confident, although his eyes speak oppositely.

Messie narrows her blue eyes at him, recalling the time whether she ever met this man before. Once she cringes, he loses his confidence, and he behaves awkwardly.

“Pardon, but…” Messie pauses for a second before she talks again. Seemingly, she just remembers, “Oh, yeah. You dress up differently from the last time we met. I almost didn’t recognize you.”

He smiles again, wider, and all the sweat almost runs down on his forehead.

“I will pay the rent, but not today,” she says firmly.

“Oh, good,” he curves his lips. “I assume you have read the statement letter. So, I wouldn’t be worried.”

Messie chuckles, “Why would you be worried?”

He shrugs his shoulders deliberately. “There’s the law to take care of, I assume you understand.”

Messie finally opens the front door widely, staring boldly at him as she leans at the doorstep.

“Don’t ya hear me?” She raises her tone. “This month I’ll make sure I pay before the due date, so you don’t have to visit me—again,” and then her eyes get distracted by the look of his outfit from head to toe, she recognizes the fine line of his tweed blazer that looks expensive. “By the way, do all repo men wear something like that?”

He slightly shuts his eyes, and curving his lips in annoyance. But in the end, he simply says; “It’s just the preference of style, as you see.”

She nods, although she stares in wonderment at him.

“Anyway, I did read half of the statement letter,” as she says that, his eyes bulges out, wondering if she notices something. “You’re Dan Jacob, right? The repo man who should’ve taken an action on grabbing my stuff, steal it away, or whatever. But, hey dude—”

She gives him a sarcastic look then. Meanwhile, he looks nervous, gulping down his own saliva.

“What was stopping you?” She asks.

“It’s the professional business, Miss Denver. The previous creditor—Mr. Bear asked me to visit you, on his behalf. The day before we met, I surveyed the location of where you live,” he sounds firm at first, but then his voice starts breaking. “So I did. And you there. I saw you…”

Messie narrows her eyes at him in constant bewilderment. She can’t possibly understand his reason behind all that awkward approach.

“In your apartment’s porch, you were looking… as I’d like to put it together—” he licks his lips, although it doesn’t look dry, he’s too nervous to say it, but all of a sudden, he becomes impulsive, “smoking hot, babe.”

All the mix emotion comes abruptly in her stomach. At first, she’s frozen, standing still, looking taller ten centimeters against him. Messie slowly cringes in disbelief before she bursts to laugh out loud.

“You’re funny. I’d never thought that before,” she says, almost speechless, but then she snaps sarcastically, “Now I know why you look strange in some kind of way.”

In the split of a second, his confidence level raises up. He keeps smiling, trying to look cool in front of her.

Messie shouts again, “So, Mister Repo man, tell me why you’re taking people’s property by force? And yet, you’re not here to do that anyway.”

“I’m just a reminder of your complete embodiment of the pay bill,” he talks in a whimsical way, also flirty. “Surely, we’ll meet again, and again, babe.”

“Uh, I’m scared. Is that how you do for a living?” Messie mocks him, right in his face. Nonetheless, he doesn’t bother, and still stands boldly.

“I’m the Repo man, darling. That’s what I do.”

The situation turns into the uncomfortable silence, until the second he takes a few small yellow papers out from his blazer’s pocket.

“Here you go, sweet darling—” Dan thrusts those papers to her as he explains, “these are the discount coupons you can only use through the backdoor. If you show this to Mister Administrator, he will decrease your bill at 45% rate.”

Messie agapes to receive such kindness, which is possibly weird enough to make sense, especially coming from someone who’s supposed to be a repo man.

“Is this real?” She wonders.

“As I do you a favor, you should thank me later with a dinner date,” he makes it sounds bold, and ridiculously flirty.

“What a total joke!” She snaps, almost laughing her stomach out.

However, the timing is just perfect when Libby arrives at her apartment. Libby bewilders to see the unfamiliar guy standing in the way, and she surely hasn’t heard anything from Messie about him before.

“Knock, knock. Do I bother?” She greets them.

“Oh, hey. Great!” Messie smiles, feeling relieves to see her best friend walks toward the porch. “It’s the perfect timing to have the next guest. So, Mister Repo man, have a nice day!”

“Not so fast, young lady—” He stops her from making a farewell. “I do you a favor, you receive it. Don’t you think it’ll be nice if you agree to my offer now.”

Libby sees him bulging out his brown eyes, looking like some kind of a psycho maniac.

“Like right now?” Messie bewilders for a second. “Dude, my friend’s just here, and there’s a lot I have to catch up today. See you later?”

“Ah, sure—” he glances at Libby, who carries a mini backpack bag. He assumes they may already have a plan. “The ring bells of our late dinner date can wait.”

“Yeah, count that in your dreams,” Messie adds, almost bursting to laugh.

“My true dream; is you, sweet darling. I’ll count the days even before I go to sleep.”

“That’s super dork,” Libby shouts over since she feels as if her stomach gets tickled to hear him sweet talking “—and cheesy, if I may add.”

He shakes his head in annoyance at her, for interrupting his important momentum.

“Sweet Mona Lisa, you won’t be attending the Louvre museum with that attitude,” he says, looking dead serious.

“Gosh, chill out, dude,” it gives her the creeps every time his eyes bulge out on purpose. “You know you’re strange, right?”

“Well, you’re not the first one who said that. I said it before,” Messie mutters.

He stares back at her, shutting his eyes slightly before mumbling again.

“Listen, women. You know why men are from mars, aye?” He asks rhetorically. “Because every woman needs a man, and to sing her a lullaby at night, a force of kiss—”

Libby shakes her head, feeling ridiculous with his strange behavior. Then she glances at Messie, showing her a secret gesture of asking; who the heck that guy is.

Messie shrugs her shoulders, feeling bedazzled all by herself since the beginning.

“Mister Repo man—” Messie shouts out while he’s still mumbling alone, and Libby also just looks surprised to finally know his identity. “Don’t you have anywhere to attend today?”

“No, as you see,” he says.

It’s hard to make a farewell with this person, like Messie has to cut the knot first before they can land into another space.

“Just call me when you miss me,” he adds, looking extremely confident again.

The girls chuckle at the same time, once he says that.

Messie waves a goodbye, without even looking at him for the second time.

Libby follows to walk toward the door. He stares at her, but instead of waiting for the proper farewell, he shouts, “She wants me.”

She shakes her head. This time she feels assured that he is a complete maniac, and a hopeless romantic.

As Libby steals a glance at him before closing the front door, she mutters peevishly, “What an idiot.”