"Cairo?" The short-haired girl in front of me had her freezing palms placed on either side of my face as I quickly shot open my eyes in response to the stinging cold.
"WHAAT!?" I asked, exaggeratedly as I stared defiantly into her blue iris'.
"I'm trying to have a moment here, you mind?" I said, beckoning to the black headphones that she had just pushed off to the ground with her overbearing actions. "I was on the verge of a million-dollar business idea! Do you have any idea the business figures I was projecting!?"
In my head, of course.
"Yeah I heard alll about it~" She responded sarcastically. "You were mumbling to yourself. Do you really still need to talk to yourself when I'm right in front of you?"
"Hey, I'd talk to other people about it but sometimes I need a professional opinion." I joked, and she rolled her eyes at my words, turning away from me to face the snowy field that was laid out in front of us in an exaggerated reaction.
Pulling myself up from my seat against the base of a tree, I picked up my headphones and wrapped them back around my neck. The left side slowly came loose from the month-old duct tape that barely held it together. Falling out, it dangled from the single wire that connected it to the rest of the glorified noise-blocker.
"Goddamnit." I cursed aloud as I attempted to push the fractured piece back into the hollow cube of duct tape.
"You should really just get a new one." The girl spoke slightly muffled words through the purple scarf that was wrapped around her shoulders.
"No... ugh. I can't just get a new one..." I responded while still struggling to get the piece back in. "Ach, whatever." I pulled off the headphones in frustration before stuffing them back into my bag.
"So, are we going?" She asked.
"Going? Oh, uh, yeah. Let's go..." I said as I began to walk alongside her through the empty field.
"So... money problems?" She quizzed after a few seconds of silence.
I was a bit perplexed by her sudden question until I thought back to the broken headphones I'd just shoved into my bag a few moments prior.
"Eh, I'll live." I responded curtly, thinking of all the cup ramen I still had left in the back storage of my house. Should worse come to worst.
"You can always talk to cps, you know? I-If not them then one of the teachers. It's not right for them to leave you here like this." She said with worry evident in her face as she spoke.
"Cps?" I exclaimed. "I don't know... between living in a three story house all by myself with enough money for food and water, and being forced out of my childhood home, moved to a shittier school, and sleeping on a shared bed in an orphanage with a bunch of glue-sniffers. Hmmmm, what a difficult choice this is..." I feigned being in deep thought as I held caressed my chin.
"Ugh." She punched my shoulder as she groaned. "I'm just worried about you, you know? And someone is going to find out eventually."
"With their collective level of intelligence? They'd have to figure out that Daniel Todd doesn't actually have a dentist appointment every other week first before I have any reason to be worried." I retorted.
"Yeah, I guess... But still, going off to a whole nother continent while leaving their kid behind, that's just immoral." She persisted in her mission to complain.
"Eh." I shrugged as I thought of my archaeology-obsessed parents that left me home alone when I was only around thirteen. "And they named even named me Cairo." I chuckled as I said it out loud. "I've never even left this town, and they gave me the name of some foreign city thousands of miles away. What a joke."
The girl's face contorted in a sullen expression at my words, her eyes darting around as if thinking of something to say to console me. "Well, maybe it's because they just love Cairo so much." She started as I inwardly rolled my eyes. "So, they wanted to have their own Cairo thousands of miles away from Cairo." She added. "I think it's sweet."
"Yes, very verry sweet." I answered sarcastically. "Oh! Except for the fact that, oh yeah, this Cairo is the one that they're thousands of miles away from." I said, slowly realizing the emotion I carried in my words before I clicked my tongue in disgust.
--Gross--
I chuckled out loud quickly to cover up my strange outburst. "S'cuuse me, haha, I think I got a little carried aw-"
"I'd choose you." The girl interrupted.
'...'
I continued to walk onwards, pretending I didn't just hear the words that came out of her mouth. It seemed she wasn't too happy with that response, however, as she soon came to a stop beside me.
"W-whatsup...?" I asked sheepishly as I slowed down my walk ahead of her.
"You really still haven't changed." I felt a strange ache envelop my heart at her words as I slowly realized that there was nothing but white fog beyond the caged fence and small patch of dirt beside it that we had been walking on.
"What..."
Turning around to face the girl I saw that there was white void where her face should have been.
"You... J-Jillian?" As I slowly came to my senses, I began to understand the significance of who I saw in front of me.
"I'll see you later, Cairo." The figure quickly turned around at my words, walking out into the white unknown.
"W-WAIT!" I fumbled my words as I began to run towards her. However, no matter how fast I ran I never came any closer to her fleeting figure.
"JILLIAN!" I screamed as the last bits of her disappeared into the white void I could never reach.