"Don't talk to me like that please. You know yourself that I'm not entirely inexperienced." She sighed and typed into her cellular phone. With the other hand she dug into her pocket, searching for something in the depths of her baggy, tattered work pants. "Besides, from what I remember, I saved your ass a few times. Didn't I?"
"Shut up will you?" He reached through a hole at the bottom of her pants pocket and pulled out a bottle of prescription pills. He handed the bottle to her and looked away at the seemingly endless setting. Miles upon miles of stone, rock, and soot. Nothing alive, not after that blast.
"Thanks." An expert, she unscrewed the safety lock cap with one hand, placing the lid on her hip, applying just enough pressure, and then the simply, practiced twist. She popped three pills and continued to type with her free hand. Multitasking! How great that was... She pressed send and put both the bottle and the phone in opposite side pockets. Like holsters, ready to be ripped out at a moment's notice.
He leaned back against an ashy stone. His clothes were ruined already, so it didn't much matter. "Are they helping?"
"The pills or the people."
"The pills."
There was a long pause. She squatted down the ground momentarily, examined her sitting area (as if her pants could get dirtier) and sat. "No." She smiled at him, "I like to think the are though, you know?"
She rolled her eyes and let out a wry laugh. "But you don't have to act all concerned for me! That's just stupid, Jillian."
"Don't try to get on my case for caring." He gave her a light kick from where he was standing. "Anyway, as I was saying before, what's your master plan."
"My master plan, will prevent us from having to walk across this shit. We survived the eruption, so we might as well get an easy way home, right?"
"And how are you accomplishing this?"
"Correct coordinates." At that moment, there was the distance chopping and the picking up of wind that was characteristic of only a helicopter. "So yeah... I win."
She was looking better, he told himself. He hoped to himself. But really, he was just being hypocritical. To be so harsh about her naïve plans, and then to think to himself how "perfectly okay" everything would turn out. It was bullshit and he knew it deep down. He grabbed her hand on the helicopter, and she didn't resist.
Of course she didn't resist...
In reality there was always that loneliness in her deep sage eyes. It spoke to him better than her normally very honest words did. They were like little windows into the intricate workings of that brain of hers. She hadn't gotten over his death, and he doubted she ever would. She made it though, didn't she?
So she should be thankful, and she said that she was. But beneath the surface, he knew that it was all lies. The pain that she experienced... sure... it was worse than anyone could imagine. But she never complained. He knew she wanted to scream, all the time.
So he felt like he knew her, in short. But not as well as Victor did. No, he wouldn't compete.
"Why are you so deep in thought, huh?" She laughed. "You'll hurt your head." She let go of his hand, not wanting it to be a distraction in the conversation.
"How often do you think about Victor now? You told me you were trying to forget."
Lies.
"Yeah... Well... I lied to you."
"Hmm?"
"I lied. You know, actually, I try to remember him every chance I get." She smiled something subtle and sweet. (sugar-coated and fake.) "You know, I'll lie in bed at night, and just think about these stupid little things. Like what I could have phrased differently." She laughed.
There was awkward silence.
"Yeah, I know it's dumb." She sighed. "But I guess that's how you get when someone gives themselves for you. Their life. Everything... I'm not worthy of it and I know. So to try and forget everything... well... that would make me a bitch wouldn't it?"
Another one of those silences. He felt like humming, but he didn't. There was nothing to say...
"Good plan, by the way."