The Virgin and the Whore

Chapter 26

Chapter 26

Since my grandfather had woken me up with his phone call, and since I was aware that I had very little in my fridge back at my apartment that constituted breakfast, I decided to go for a quick grocery run.

An hour and six bags of grocery later, I was standing in the elevator going up.

I might have a bit overdone it.

But I didn't want Esther to be needing anything that wasn't there.

Now that I was thinking about that though, I frowned alone.

Should I buy her stuff? What did girls need? I didn't have sisters. I barely had a mother. I should probably buy her sanitary pads or tampons, right? Those were expensive and she would need some. But then stacking up the bathrooms with them would make me feel like the NASA that sent a hundred tampons for a week-long trip to space.

She had only been carrying her bag, so did she need clothes? Were there clothes in there?

Did I need to get her underwear?

I definitely couldn't be the one to do that.

Should I ask one of my girl friends to come and check on Esther? Maybe Esther would be more comfortable speaking with a girl, and asking her for stuff she might need.

But at the same time, she trusted me. Not Vanessa or Lexi or Daphnee. Me.

She'd opened up with me. It would be kind of a coward move to just dump her to someone else.

This would probably be so much easier to navigate if I wasn't so socially inept.

But now I was really spiraling. Did she need her school books? Did she need me to go to her grandmother's place and pick up more of her stuff? Pick up all her stuff? Because frankly, I would be a lot more comfortable if she just lived her for now on.

And now that I was on my way up, should I have called before dropping in? Maybe she wasn't okay to see people right now? Maybe she was still sleeping.

Hopefully, she would still be sleeping and I could just drop everything off and run away so I wouldn't have to explain any of this or make her feel uncomfortable.

It was too late for that now, because I was on the top floor.

Unfortunately for me, once I walked in the apartment, I found Esther sitting in the living room, curled up on my couch, reading what appeared to be one of my books—I assumed she wasn't carrying around a copy of Percy Jackson in her bags—wearing one of my hoodies.

"Oh." She kind of jumped, looking like I'd caught her doing something wrong. "Hi! Sorry," she said, waving at me.

She looked really adorable, sitting there, kinda lost in my big hoodie.

I probably shouldn't tell her that though.

"Hi." I replied back and went to drop the grocery bags in the kitchen. "What's wrong?" I asked loud enough for her to hear in the other room.

"Nothing, I just... I'm so sorry. I didn't have any clothes and... I'm sorry," she replied back. I heard her shuffling, and the sound of her feet on the floor.

Oh. The hoodie. Like I cared. If I hadn't brought it with me at my dorms, it wasn't one of my favourite ones anyway.

"Don't be. I should be the one that's sorry. I actually hadn't been thinking about clothes," I called back.

"I'm gonna change, I'm really sorry," she said, ignoring me, and she had to walk by the kitchen to get back to her room, and I saw a glimpse of her as she walked, and her legs.