===

Wednesday 31st August

Jordan Terrell's last memory was of being curled up in Aisle 10, lost in a swirl of deep thoughts as a candle with a familiar scent burnt nearby. Although she couldn't remember how she'd ended up in a darkened room that looked suspiciously like a hospital, she was sure she could hazard a good guess. Jordan could feel an aching sensation in her right fore arm and when she brushed against it with her left hand, she realised that it was wrapped tight gauze.

"Kaden?" she said in a hoarse voice as she sat up in the bed. "Kaden?" she repeated as he looked around the room that was only hazily lit by the few lonely shards of sunlight that had managed to break through the barrier created by the window's floral curtains.

Her was sister curled up in an arm chair to the right of her bed, a familiar looking blanket draped across her sleeping frame. On her left was a bedside table with vase of flowers sat on them. Jordan wrinkled her lightly freckled nose; she'd always hated the smell of flowers. There was also a machine that seemed to be monitoring her bodily functions but she quickly looked away from it. Machines that monitored life always found a way to remind her of death.

"You're awake." a quiet voice said. Jordan gasped slightly as she looked back over to Kaden as she stretched out her long limbs.

"Yeah." Jordan mumbled as she glanced down at the gauze on her arm.

"Second degree burn." Kaden informed her as she got up from the chair with a yawn, ignoring the intense throbbing in her head. "Does it hurt?"

Jordan shrugged, her eyes glued to her fingers which were in a tangled mess on her lap.

"At least it wasn't your face." Kaden said flatly as she focused her gaze on her little sister. She noticed that her eyes no longer held the sparkle that had been there of late. Jordan hummed quietly in response, unbothered by her sister's weak attempt at humour. She could feel her gaze on her, it was a sort of lingering sensation that made her squirm.

"You're not wearing shoes." Jordan observed as she stared at her sister's bare feet.

"Yeah I think I left them with Dominic last night." she mumbled with a frown.

"Dominic's here?" Jordan asked with a hint of surprise, her gaze still lowered.

"I think he went home at around three." Kaden mused as she wrapped her arms around herself. "He was pretty angry."

"At me?

"No."

"Oh."

"Yeah."

The two sisters were quiet for a while, neither of them wanting to reach out. Jordan had curled herself into a foetal position on the bed, her thick brown hair hanging in a mess of kinks and curls around her shoulders whilst Kaden hovered beside the bed, only dressed in a rose gold slip dress that ended mid thigh, her dark brown limbs dusted in goosebumps.

"Aunt Tanya's on her way." she said out of the blue. "S-she packed up most our stuff from the attic and took it back to her place."

"So we're moving back in with her now?" Jordan asked quietly. Kaden began to chew nervously on her lip, her arms tightening around her slender frame.

"I don't know." Kaden admitted with a sigh.

"What?" Jordan said, her eyes snapping up to meet Kaden's.

"I don't know." Kaden repeated.

"What do you mean you don't know?" Jordan asked in a louder tone, her heart rate increasing at the thought of living anywhere other than Stonehall.

"Stop shouting, I have a headache." Kaden grumbled.

"I'm not shouting!" Jordan shouted, her voice shaky. Kaden rolled her eyes, trying to block out the incessant beeps of the machine monitoring Jordan's heart rate. "Sorry." Jordan mumbled.

"I have an emergency meeting with your social worker today. She wants to discuss your, uh, living arrangements." Kaden said slowly, studying her sister's expression. Jordan tried to keep a blank face but her heart monitor betrayed her. "But don't worry, I'll fix it. All of it." Kaden said as she clambered onto the bed. Jordan looked away from her, her eyebrows furred. "Danny, I'm going to fix it okay?" she went on, clasping Jordan's pointed chin between her thumb and forefinger and angling it towards herself. "It's going to be fine."

"I'm sorry." Jordan said again, tears welling in her light brown eyes.

"Shit happens." Kaden sighed as she let her hand drop into her lap. "It's not the end of the world."

"I'm sorry." Jordan whispered as a few tears trailed down her cheeks "I don't even know what I was doing--"

"Danny, it's fine. Stop crying." Kaden murmured as she brushed away her sister's tears. "There's nothing to cry over."

"But--"

"No more tears. I shed enough for the both of us last night." Kaden interrupted with a slight laugh. Jordan stared at Kaden, noticing the exhausted look in her eyes and the slouch in her posture. She opened her mouth to say something but was then beaten to it. "If you say sorry one more time I might have to dash you out the window." she said with a rueful smile.

Jordan replied by wrapping her arms around Kaden and buying her head in the crook of her neck.

"I'm sorry." she mumbled.

"I fucking hate you." Kaden replied as she wrapped her own arms around Jordan.

In that moment, Jordan thought that maybe things could be okay. She for a moment she believed that Kaden could clean up the mess she'd created, get rid of social services and their aunt, maybe even get rid of the depression that lingered over her.

But alas, in the real world, wishful beliefs hardly became any more than just that.

___

a/n: soooooo, I can kind of feel this book drawing to a close... What was your favourite moment so far?

Don't forget to vote if you liked it (: