Chapter 35

Esther and I walked back to my apartment together to get to my car.

I once again had to channel all of my self control to not slip my hand in hers, interlacing our fingers together.

I wondered if she had cold or warm hands.

I wondered how she felt about public displays of affection.

I wondered if I would ever be able to find any of this out.

"So, Sonic," Esther started to say and I barked a short laugh.

"Wrong." It was fun, to play the game again.

"Unicorn?" she tried, looking at me sideways.

I gave her a look. "Unicorn?"

"Yeah, like, you-nik-horn."

I chuckled. It would really be a shame when she would eventually figure it out. "Better never tell my friends that, they're going to start calling me Unicorn."

"Panicked?"

I grinned, but shook my head. "I do panic often, but it's not my name."

"I panic too," Esther said in a small voice, looking down.

I become serious again, giving her a once over. She looked smaller now, than when she was joking around about my name, like she was folding on herself. It broke my heart. "Worried about going to your grandma's place?" I asked softly.

"I just... I don't like leaving her alone. I don't like feeling that I'm abandoning her," Esther explained, still not looking in my direction.

"But she hasn't cut off your mother from her life?" I asked, remembering an earlier conversation.

"No."

"So, this is for your own security. She has to understand it," I reminded her.

Esther sighed, playing with the sleeves of her cardigan. "My grandmother is very much a turn the other cheek kind of person. Unwavering forgiveness and what not. Second, third, fourth chances."

"Some things have to be unforgivable if your God set up a hell," I pointed out.

I hadn't guessed I was going to start talking theology today, definitely not on my bingo card, but this was something I was curious about, Esther's faith.

Having shitty things happen to you made it hard to believe in some benevolent figure, at least for me. I didn't have faith.

But Esther did. Regardless of what happened to her, she believed in a god. It just did not make sense to me.

I didn't judge it, I just didn't understand it.

"Not to my grandmother. For my grandmother, if you want forgiveness, you deserve it. Even if you don't want it, you deserve it. I don't like to keep anger in my heart either, but..."

"Some things you shouldn't forgive," I finished for her.

"Yeah..."

"I feel like it's even worst to set up a system where you just need to say, oops, sorry I feel bad about the awful thing I did, to be allowed a clean slate. It takes away any responsibility."

"I guess my grandmother is just a better person than us," Esther said, a little sardonically.

I didn't point out how much I enjoyed that there was an us. "

"It's fine, as long as we both feel bad for being resentful, we'll be forgiven," I said, trying to lighten up the mood.

It did earn me a half smile, so I felt good about myself.

When we reached my apartment complex, we headed to the underground parking and got to my car.

I tried not to imagine that this was a completely different set up and that Esther was sitting beside me because I was driving her to our date.

I followed her directions to her grandmother's house. She seemed tensed beside me.

I wanted to put some music on to lift the mood, but I realized I didn't know what kind of music she liked. There were so many things I didn't know about her.

It would be kind of funny if she was a fan of death metal.

This was probably not the best of times to play twenty questions, but at the same time, Esther seemed so tense beside me, that maybe getting her to talk would distract her a bit.

"I was going to put on the radio. Any special demands? Any favourites?"

"You know..." Esther looked ahead at the road, pensive. "I never really stopped to think about that."

"You don't have a favourite song? Or artist?" I asked, a little surprised. But at the same time, it fitted with what I knew of her. She felt very self effacing. She never allowed herself to have a favourite.

"My grandmother always plays Motown on her radio. I guess I like that," she said.

"I don't know if there's a Motown specific channel on the radio."

I caught her small smile from the corner of my eye. "It's fine Nik."

"You should really have a favourite song though," I continued.

It all came down to putting herself first more.

"You're probably going to make fun of me, because it's going to be super stereotypical for someone like me, but I always like when people sing Amazing Grace. I feel like it's the kind of song I could always cry to," she admitted.

I chuckled. "So, your favourite song needs to make you cry?"

She shrugged. "I guess it just needs to make me feel something."

"How about happiness? Cheerfulness? We should find you a song that makes you happy."

She shook her head at me. "It's not sad tears."

"Still tears."

She chuckled again. "Crying is not a bad thing."

"I don't like crying."

"Because you're a man?"

"I was going to say no, but probably."

I turned my head for a second, looking at her, and we smiled at each other.

It warned my heart to think I'd distracted her enough to make her less stressed about going to her grandmother's house.

After that, Esther gave me a couple more directions. We were getting into a shadier part of town.

A few minutes later, Esther said in a small voice, pointing to a trailer house, "we're here."

The house itself didn't look too shabby, but it did look like an old person who couldn't do as much maintenance lived there.

There was an old Chevrolet parked beside it.

I assumed, since Esther didn't seem too worried, that this was her grandmother's car.

I was kind of checking all around for threats.

"Do you want me to come inside with you? To help carry things back?" I asked, while she unbuckled her seatbelt.

She shook her head at me, while I checked her face to make sur she was actually okay.

She seemed fine, but I could be wrong. Maybe she was really good at hiding distress.

"No, it's fine, you can wait here."

"Alright," I nodded. I didn't want to argue with her. I was already happy she'd let me take her here. "Just wave at me if you need anything."

"Okay..." she replied, and her voice was so small and defenseless that it broke my heart.

I watched her all the way to the front door, as she stepped inside.

While I was waiting, I started to play around with the radio stations, to find one that played Motown.

About fifteen minutes in, a car slipped past mine and parked right beside the house.

A man and a woman walked out.

I did not like the look of this.

I was out of the car before I had the good sense to not overreact.

They were already inside.

I could hear the arguing beside I was even at the front door.

"What were you thinking? WHAT WERE YOU THINKING? Going to the police and to a lawyer behind our backs like this? Where did you even get money for a lawyer? Huh?"

Normally, I would have knocked on the front door to be polite, but this was not normal circumstances.

"Don't argue, we need to settle our differences," someone replied as I stepped inside the house.

I did a very quick once over of the situation as soon as I was inside.

There was an old lady standing on one side of the room, who I assume was Esther's grandmother, and the other lady, who I assume was Esther's mother was standing opposite to her, grabbing on to Esther's arm, her boyfriend standing beside her, lurking like the fucking creep he was.

"Esther," I said.

Everyone turned to me. I absolutely did not feel welcome.

Esther's grandmother was a frail looking woman. She seemed mighty uncomfortable.

Her mother on the other hand looked like a shrew. Her boyfriend looked like a rat.

I felt a kind of rage I did not know I could feel.

"Who's this?" Esther's grandmother asked, looking between me and her granddaughter.

I ignored everyone and any sense of propriety I had and grabbed Esthr's mother arm, making her let go of Esther.

Esther was silently crying. "Esther, go back in the car," I told her softly.

I needed to shake these people and I couldn't have her standing beside me to do that.

I didn't want to freak her out.

But Esther was shaking. She couldn't even answer me.

I was going to burn this house down.

Ignoring the protest around us, I put a hand on her elbow, leading her out of this shit show. "Come on."

"Where do you think you're going?" the boyfriend yelled after me.

I walked Esther back to my car, while her mother and her boyfriend kept screaming at us, and her grandmother tried to calm them down.

Esther looked in shock. She was probably in shock.

"I'll be right back," I told her, after sitting her down, and buckling her seatbelt. I also made sure to lock the doors while I ran back inside the house.

"Who do you think you are?" Esther's mother said to me.

I ignored her, zeroing on the boyfriend. "You Carson?"

He frowned. "Yes."

I walked up to him and punched the ever-living shit out of him.

He fell to the ground, his nose bleeding while the two women screamed in shock and protest, "Go cry to your cop friends now. I have the same lawyer as hers," I just told him, and ran back out.

All of this took less than a minute.

I went back to the car. Esther was still crying.

I drove for a couple of miles to put distance between us, and then parked on the side of the road.

Esther was now shaking and silently crying, clutching her backpack, while I was almost shaking with rage.

How dare they do this to Esther?

Had her grandmother planned this? She probably had. She'd probably orchestrated this thinking Esther could forgive her mother. This was probably why Esther had been so stressed out. She had assumed this would happen.

I wanted to hug her, but I didn't know if this would be triggering, so instead I tried to just pat her arm, taking my sweet time to get to it so she would have time to flinch away from me if she didn't want the contact.

She didn't flinch. She actually grabbed the sleeve of my shirt, keeping me close.

Well... fuck it.

I leaned over to her side, slowly again, and wrapped my arms around her.

She didn't push me away.

"It's okay, it's okay, you're okay," I repeated over and over again, patting her back while she cried in my arms.