To Keep You

Chapter Five: Belonging-

A/N: gif of Jaime laughing on the side :')

      Jaime Aiken was a strange boy.

      I don't mean strange as in weird; he was strange in the way that he was far too comfortable getting used to having a new foster-brother. Far too comfortable sharing his parents with someone else. Far too comfortable with letting someone in.

      Maybe I was the strange one.

     I guess it was beginning to feel like I belonged next to Jaime. He forced me out of my comfort zone, made me want to open up. To have fun. I tried not to notice the guilt that bubbled inside my stomach. I tried to keep the heat low, so that it wouldn't boil over.

     With Jaime, it felt like we were brothers all along. It was an instant friendship and it made me wonder if I could ever have lived with another foster family, that wasn't the Aiken's. I found it hard to imagine.

     He was late home from school that evening I returned from my evaluation with Kerry. Arthur had dropped me off and headed straight back to his workplace. I had to wait alone in this huge mansion of a house for Jaime to come back.

      I found that my most favourite place in the entire house was the little living room with the open fireplace, the one we'd all sat together in and watched a movie during the first weekend I spent with the family. My family? I wasn't sure I was comfortable saying that yet.

      Eventually he came home, told me about why he was late. Apparently the bus driver had fallen asleep at the station. He was amused by the story. I laughed when he laughed, still a little distracted by the memory of Parker sitting in the waiting room, refusing to follow me out or disappear.

      I wondered if he was still there.

     We sat together in the lounge. Jaime retrieved a box of chocolate cereal from the kitchen before we settled down on the small two-seater sofa, staring up at the sixty-inch television mounted on the wall, above the fireplace.

     "So, how'd the eval go?" he asked with a mouthful of cereal getting in the way of his words.

     "It was okay. Your dad seems to think I'm panicking about school in September."

     "Are you?"

     "Not really. I mean, the early mornings are going to suck but I'll get used to it." I said lightly, trying to avoid serious conversations as best as I could.

     "Well, you'll have me there anyway. I'll look out for you, take you under my wing and all that." He grinned enthusiastically, offering me the box of cereal that he was clutching in his left hand. I took a handful and shoved as much of it in my mouth as I could.

     "Bloody hell." Jaime laughed. "Those poor Shreddies." He said, referring to the square pieces of chocolate cereal currently being churned around my mouth, jabbing at my cheeks with their corners.

     "I'm bloody starved." I confessed after having held my tongue all evening while we waited for Amy and Arthur to come home, so we could have dinner together as was routine. It still didn't really feel like my house even after being here a few months, now.

     "Why didn't you say so?" Jaime rolled his eyes in amusement. "Honestly, you'd let yourself starve half to death before you asked anyone for anything in this house."

     I smiled, trying to hide the guilt as I followed Jaime into the kitchen after being dragged up by the wrist. Jaime had dumped the cereal on the sofa without caring if it spilled all over the place.