𝐇𝐈𝐌. (Book 2)

part 11

Sutton bolted through the screen door. Slipping her shoes off at the entrance, she rushed into the kitchen, where her father greeted her. Sutton smiled. She absolutely loved her father! There was no other man alive nearly as great as Jackson. And Sutton could die sure of that.

In her eyes, her father could do no wrong.

He smiled in return and welcomed Sutton's sudden embrace. A warm chuckle rumbled through him. "There's my little monkey!"

Sutton giggled. "Did you get everything?" He asked. Jessica needed some ingredients for dinner, but she didn't want to leave the house or her baby girl's side because of Jaime's slowly declining health.

Sutton nodded widely and lifted the bag filled with sour cream, corn on the cobs, bread, and butter. Jackson shuffled through the contents and froze when something caught his eye. Trying to hold back a grin, he pulled out a red bag of Skittles.

Sutton's eyes widened, and she quickly snatched the candy from her father's hand. Busted...

Jackson tousled Sutton's recently died, inky locks. "Sneaky kid," he teased. "I wonder where you got it from? Can't be me."

Sutton chuckled.

"Why don't you run upstairs and go check up on your little sister? I know being sick for so long has really got her down and all. Maybe you could help cheer her up?" Jackson suggested, and Sutton nodded in agreement. With the candy in hand, Sutton rushed upstairs.

Jaime laid in bed with a cooling patch stuck to her forehead. Either she was asleep or merely lying with her eyes shut, but she wheezed painfully in the quiet roomㅡevery breath a struggle. Sutton could see her sister's small chest rise and fall with each painful breath she took.

Sutton's heart stung in her chest.

She walked around the IV filling Jaime with various medications and slipped beside her underneath the covers. Jaime's hollow eyes opened when she felt weight shifting next to her. When she saw it was only Sutton, she smiled.

"Did you get it?" She asked weakly.

Sutton grinned as she lifted the bag of Skittles. Before she had left with the twenty their parents gave her, Sutton made sure to ask Jaime if she wanted anything quickly. Out of all the snacks and drinks Sutton could have bought her, all Jaime really wanted was an original pack of Skittles.

The two ripped into the pack and began eating under the sleeping skeletons of glow-in-the-dark stars scattered on Jaime's ceiling.

As they ate, Jaime became visibly troubled with something that seemed to occupy her mind.

Sawyer nudged her sister and signed, asking if she were ok. Jaime nodded with a down look. As she rolled a green Skittle in her palm, Jaime said, "moms pregnant."

Sutton froze mid-chew.

Jessica was pregnant again? Then, that means... Sutton desperately tried to fight the ghost of a grin that nearly curled her lips out of guilt. Guilt because Sutton knew her happiness stemmed from only selfish reasons.

Before Jaime was born, the only one around for Jessica to obsessively take care of was Sutton. And for this, Sutton was left born into a world full of closed-door sufferings. She tried to fight back, but she was only a little girl. And it was her mother merely taking care of her for Pete's sake! What could go wrong?