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Thursday 18th August

Dominic Richards had done a lot of thinking over the last two days. He wondered if there was a way to remedy his tumultuous relationship with Jordan. It seemed to him that whenever they would become a little closer, she would fall back into a dark pit of her mind, a place that triggered intense emotions in her, a place that has no room for friends.

Kaden, Dominic thought, seemed to be used to her sister's moods, unfazed even. She had been in and out of Aisle 10 for the last two days, the same tired look plastered across her face. Today, she looked especially exhausted as she left Aisle 10.

"Kaden." Dominic said as she was just about to pass him.

"Yes?" she sighed, retracing a few of her steps, her eyebrows raised in annoyance.

"Do you have parents?" Dominic blurted out, frowning slightly.

"Do you have parents?" she fired back, crossing her arms over her chest.

"I used to." Dominic replied casually. "Ex care kid." he added with a shrug.

"Oh." Kaden murmured, her eyes widening slightly. "I... I guess we have more in common than I thought."

"What... What happened to yours?" Dominic asked hesitantly, staring into Kaden's dark brown eyes.

"Drugs happened. Why else do you think we both have boy's names?" she said with a bitter laugh, brushing away the few memories she held of her crazed parents.

"Oh." he said. "So you're eighteen, right?"

"Yeah, got out of that stupid care home and took Jordan with me." Kaden muttered.

"You guys stay on your own?"

"Yeah, our aunt pays for most of our stuff. Something about feeling guilty." she replied. "Why?"

"Just wondering." Dominic said, his electric blue eyes drifting over to Aisle 10. Kaden followed his gaze, her expression softening slightly.

"Sorry about the other day, I was being a bit... Pessimistic." she apologised. "It's just that... With everything that's happened, it's hard to be positive." Kaden went on, fiddling with her slender fingers.

"Yeah." Dominic said with a nervous chuckle, remembering a time that that very feeling used to hang over his life like a dark cloud.

"And the stuff I said at the party..." she went on, turning to Dominic, "I'm sorry about that too." she sighed, her gaze dropping to floor. "I should really stay away from alcohol, you know, with my parents being drug addicts at and all."

She let out that all too familiar bitter laugh, her whole body buckling slightly. In that moment, her head bowed to the floor slightly and her fingers tangled, she no longer looked like the older bitchy sister she seemed to be. She just looked like a scared teen who was living but not really alive.

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a/n: sorry for the length and the fact that this chapter was somewhat a filler... I felt that I needed to develop Kaden's character a little more (:

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