James reached out and lightly tapped Esther's head with his hand. "You caught on pretty quickly."
"Alright, | want to go hnow," Esther said, glancing at her clean clothes as she sat up.
A memory of throwing up flashed in her mind. Why were her clothes clean? If she remembered it, it couldn't have been a dream.
Suddenly, a strange smell caught Esther's attention. Sniffing around, she realized her clothes didn't smell like her detergent.
"Did you take off my clothes?" Esther blurted out, feeling awkward even saying it.
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James, feeling stressed but wanting to reassure her, explained patiently, "No, the cleaner did it."
He had to admit he saw something, but he didn't do anything to her. He washed her clothes and dried them.
When the cleaner cthat morning, he asked her to put them on Esther so she wouldn't wake up naked. Esther was in such a deep sleep that she
didn't even wake up when she was dressed.
Esther realized she was a little rude. But just as she was about to apologize, her phone rang.
"Hello, Pearl," she answered, dreading what her friend might say if she found out she didn't go hand stayed the night at James's place.
"Where are you?"
Pearl's voice sounded calm, but Esther sensed trouble. She stuttered nervously, "I... I'm at home, just woke up. What's going on?"
Pearl frowned. "Home?" Esther would usually still be asleep at this hour. How could she be back from James's place so early?
Esther took a deep breath, summoning her best poker face. "Yes, I'm at home. You know I'm not a morning person." She was getting better at lying.
Pearl realized Esther was lying and softened her tone. "You're trying to lie to me? Do you think | don't know you're at James's place?"
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Realizing her mistake, Esther quickly apologized. "I'm sorry, Pearl. | won't do it again."
"He didn't do anything to you, did he?"
Esther looked at James, who smiled reassuringly, and shook her head. "No, nothing happened.”
Before James could say anything, Esther shot him an angry look and turned back to Pearl. "Please, Pearl, don't tell my dad | stayed over here. If he
asks, say | stayed at your place."
Pearl felt a headache coming on. She knew what she had to do and had already spoken to Esther's dad to cover for her. "Okay, just make sure to get
hsoon. I'll be heading to the office so | won't have tto check on you."