#Tennessee Study | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

ajortga · 8 months ago

Text

i bet on losing dogs

pairing: cairo sweet x fem reader

summary: in which cairo's obsession for mr. miller drifts you two further apart, and you can't do anything about it.

word count: 4.2k+

warnings: angsty (not proud of it) toxic cairo, mentions of sex, mentions of teacher/student relationships

based off request!

Hey... Can I have a request?! Cairo Sweet x Fem!Reader

"I'm done waiting for you, Cairo."

Credits to: urfriendlywriter

Cairo was.. Honestly, you didn’t know how to explain to her. That’s just exactly how to describe her. She was indescribable.

One moment in a day would you be like the teenage girl you are, in love. The beat in your heart would race, fluttering in your chest as she bit the eraser on her pencil, looking at you with eyes that made your legs feel like mush.

Then, another day you would feel hopeless. Helpless. Because the beautiful brown-eyed girl would leave you in the dust.

She would sweep you off your feet, but never care enough to really catch you. Maybe that’s why you kept going back. To feel the thrill, to be loved for just a little moment with the girl you’ll love no matter what happens.

But you had no cure, because she was so contagious. Addictive. She was like a drug that you couldn’t get enough of, yet there was no cure to make you stop. Cairo Sweet. It was in her name. Her genes. She was so syrupy sweet, you just couldn’t help it. You were too blinded to think properly.

The amount of times Cairo swept your feet, you grew tired. Tired of her games, of her love that began to come off as a hoax. As much as you’d want to holler it out loud, you couldn’t say you were tired of her. Never.

The countless moments where you were left in the dust, the rain. No seriously, the rain.

“I’ll be there!” Cairo smiles, your grin wide. “I just need to discuss the essay for my final to Mr. Miller real quick. It should only take 8 minutes max.” The girl assures, rubbing your shoulder as you two e spend our lunch together. You lean into it. A part of you now wishes you could’ve changed it. Maybe you’d feel better not feeling the stabbing pain in your stomach.

“Okay,” you respond softly. “I can’t wait to work on that project with you! I think we’ll amaze her with our studies, then after you can spend the night and we can have ice cream!”

She laughs.

You can’t stop looking at her eyes. Syrupy sweet, not a hint of hesitance. She lifts a cigarette to her mouth, a soft smile on her face. Cairo nods, “We’ll outsmart the whole class with someone as smart as you,” she gives your nose a little boop with her finger before the bell rings.

Quickly, she packs her bags, stopping to look at you from time to time as she stuffs papers in it. Your eyes filled with expression, it comforts her to see the happiness that shines through them. It makes her smile too.

The bell had rang, echoing through the hallways as the doors of classrooms slam open. The empty, hollow hallway is now bustling with everyone chattering and speaking to each other, giggling and laughing.

Winnie is by your side, the wavy hair girl walking with your arm linked to hers. “Cairo seems so into her final for Mr. Miller, don’t you think so?” She has the slightest accent, you slowly nod.

“I guess so. She is a writer after all. Not to mention a talented one.” You go through the exits of Tennessee’s high school, stopping at one of the benches right at the exit. “I’m waiting here for Cairo, we’re going to finish our project, adding all the important stuff.” Winnie nods, handing you a lollipop as you take it. “Thanks.”

“See you, Y/N!”

You give her a small wave, watching her leave.

…

It had been ten minutes since the bell rang, the students slowly beginning to die out. You’d call your mom once Cairo would come, you liked having conversations with her anyway. Chatters of students still quietly linger. You stand up, peeking through the gates, they’re closed.

Thirty minutes pass and a sigh escapes your lips, bored. Maybe Cairo is just having more questions to ask, like she always does. You plop the lollipop that Winnie gave you into your mouth, stuffing the wrapper in your jacket.

It had been officially an hour and four minutes. You don’t even know why you waited this long. As if it couldn’t get any worse, rain begins to drizzle down, damping your hair. For the first time, Cairo left you out there, in the rain. You stare at your phone, gripping it so tightly that your knuckles spread to white. You try to wait for a text, anything so Cairo makes it aware that she’d be a little late, but it never comes.

You call your mom, sniffling as you press your ear to the phone, kicking your feet across a puddle. You wipe your eyes,

By the time your mom honks, waving you with a smile on your face, you weakly give one back, walking up to her. Wet clothes stuck to your figure, drenched and shaking. The look on her face gives it all, your mother sees through you no matter what.

“Hi, honey. Where’s Cairo? Didn’t you say that she was going to come to ours today?”

You stiffen, throwing your soaked backpack in the backseat. Cairo didn’t even live that far. She always walks to school. “She’s busy,” you reply, turning away from her. You look out the window, sinking into your seat. “Like always.”

“But didn’t you two have that project, it’s due tomorrow, no?”

“Well she can’t make it, okay?” You mumble.

“Oh, well maybe she can come over some other time,” she leaves it at that.

The more you think about Cairo, the more you feel sick, the lollipop disintegrated in your mouth.

You can’t help but feel the sweetness of the lollipop leave a new awful taste in your mouth. Your mouth fills with saliva, how it always does whenever you are upset. You swallow it down.

You did almost the whole project by yourself, you were up till 2AM.

So when school arrives the next day, you’re barely awake, turning it in and tired eyes completely avoiding Cairo’s gaze.

“8 minutes my ass,” you mutter while slamming the project into the turn-in basket.

From that day on, it just kept happening.

Like always, you somehow always manage to come back to Cairo. You can’t help it. To turn away those doe-like eyes makes you feel like you just murdered an innocent creature.

Cairo Sweet.

Sourness coats your tongue when her name rolls off of it.

After countless stand-ups and sobbing in bed, even when you forgive her, you can sense that you two are drifting further apart. She’s been snapping at you a little more often, ignoring you sometimes, it makes you feel unloved. You don’t like it. You really don’t like it, yet you can’t stop it.

“It’s that stupid final she’s doing, Winnie. Ever since Mr. Fucking Miller assigned to her, it’s like she hasn’t had time for anything. She only has the time when it comes to him, “ you rant, wiping your mascara stained eyes with your fingers.

Winnie looks thoughtfully at you, a small frown tugging at her lips. She sighs, patting her thighs, “Come here, sweetheart.”

When you crawl in between her and her comforter, she cuddles you. “Sometimes people are like that. They abandon things when they find a new thing to obsess over. Even when the things are the most important to them. It’s like they forget about what the thing did to make them feel so special and go running off to a new one because it makes them feel good.”

She strokes your hair as you sniffle into her neck. From her eyes, you looked so vulnerable. Like how you did when you first got into arguments with your parents. “I’m sure once that final is over, you two will be back into two peas in a pod. Three, including me at times,” she cracks a smile at you.

You don’t respond, looking away, before mumbling, “Winnie, I don’t think it’s that final.”

“Yeah?”

“Cairo was writing about a prompt to answer what love was,” you look up at her, trying to make her understand. “I read some of it, and it was straight up smut, Winnie.”

You couldn’t believe it when you first read it. The way your eyebrows contorted, lips pursing into a tight line. You memorized one of the lines she wrote as you recited it out loud. “His fingers, long and ribbed, glistened with the arousal that gushed out of Alice’s heat like a riverbed-”

“Okay fuck that shit, who’s “he” exactly?”

“That’s the problem. It’s about a student-teacher relationship Winnie. The final isn’t the issue. She’s trying to convince herself that there's some connection between her and Mr. Miller.”

“That man is at least 80 years old-”

“50.”

“Whatever, but if Cairo is trying to experiment how far she can go with her charms. I’m going to be proud to take the trophy for who has the most reasonable crushes.”

“You cannot be talking right now Winnie.”

“Boris is a different story! But like, for anyone else, I’m an equal opportunist. I’d fuck you.”

“I know.”

“See, reasonable crushes.”

You roll your eyes, it doesn’t really make you feel better.

Winnie thinks for a moment, it’s silent, until you almost see a lightbulb flash above her head. “Cairo loves lantern festivals. She wouldn’t miss one for the world, what about this?..”

Your knee bounces up and down, waiting in your usual spot after school for Cairo. It’s the first bench under the tree. As you see her, you’re about to wave, until you see him.

Mr. Miller walking Cairo out of his classroom, patting her shoulder before making eye contact with you briefly. You narrow your eyes as he gives a disgustingly sweet smile to her before turning away. You flip him off, like a fire burning behind your pupils.

Tell your baby that I'm your baby.

“Y/N!” she shouts, grinning as she walks up to you. “Hey!”

“Hi, Cairo.” you greet, offering to take her books, which she thanks.

“I’m almost done with my final essay for Mr. Miller. I think he’ll be able to write my letter of rec for college in the future. Probably going have to meet with him after school on some days.”

“Sounds fine,” you plainly respond, holding her books. “By the way, I was thinking that next Saturday we could spend some time together. Maybe Winnie can come too.”

The writer hums in contentment as you keep going, “I’ve never gone to a lantern festival before, and they’re holding one next week. It’s like 2 hours away and I really wanted to go with you.”

A flutter in your chest erupts as you see your favorite brown eyes shimmer. “Yeah,” she says, “Yes, I’d love to go with you!”

After the slow ticks of the clock and marks on the calendar, getting closer to the countdown, Saturday finally comes.

You hate the way it feels so long when you’re in school, waiting for the weekend, but it dashes by when summer break arrives. You especially hate it when you’re waiting for an event, it makes the time go by even slower.

Winnie kept patting your shoulder and teasing you about it. “Probably because you’re looking a bit too forward with spending time with Cairo.” She’d say. “I mean, I love lantern festivals! But you seem so much more excited than I am.”

An oversized tee gets draped over your figure, pairing it with blue jeans as you try to look decent before dashing out the house.

Your mom drives you, in which you're happily hoping to spend the night in Cairo’s bigger car. She told you she brought blankets and stuffies and everything. When you think about it, you grin through the refreshing breeze that blows in your hair.

“You seem extra happy, Sunshine,” your mom notices, smiling at you. “Just how I love you, always so bright.”

The afternoon sun illuminates through the city as minutes and hours pass, changing into a grassy meadow. You stick your head through the window, feeling alive every time the wind hits your hair. Everytime you close your eyes, you see the picture of endless floating lanterns lighting up the night sky.

Like a scene out of Tangled.

You have to actually turn on the radio and sing your feelings out.

“Now she's here, shining in the starlight, Now she's here, suddenly I know. If she's here, it's crystal clear, I'm where I'm meant to go”

Two hours pass by, and you hop out of your mother’s car. “I’ll stay nearby, okay? Your aunt's house is only 25 minutes away.”

You nod, kissing her cheek goodbye as the clock hits 5:45. The grassy meadow surrounds you, slightly swaying from the breeze and glowing from the setting sun. You see people setting up their tents, so you lay down a towel and send Cairo a text.

y/n: hey! i’m here, i got us a seat. can’t wait to spend the night in your car!

Birds chirp along with the chatter of people around you. It soothes your body a little as you lean back and take a nap, your mind only on the excitement that you get to spend this moment with Cairo Sweet.

You wake up from the sound of fire crackling, your eyes adjusting to the lanterns that people are preparing to let go in about an hour and thirty, when the sun will completely set. The weather is cool, breezy, sunny, and the light blue sky plastered with fluffy clouds. You head to get some floating lanterns, noticing that Cairo isn’t here yet. Maybe it’s traffic.

A nagging feeling tugs in your gut as you hear the giggles of couples decorating the lanterns together.

As you head back with three large lanterns in your hand, you check your phone. No new messages, your shoulders fall to their sides, sighing.

“Y/N!”

You immediately perk up from the call of your name, turning around and seeing Winnie, a bright smile on her face. You wave her over.

“Hi,” you say, looking at her hair that’s put down.

“Hey, cutie, what’s with the sour face?”

The silence is really all she needs as she goes, “Oh. She’s still not here? I thought I was really late.” That made you feel a little worse.

Cairo wouldn’t abandon you, sure she has canceled plans last minute thousands of times, or made you wait longer than usual, but not in the dark. Not in the dark knowing how much you looked forward to this. Your heart tugs again, your breath getting stuck in your throat.

It’s the same feeling your tiny self felt when your childhood best friend moved away, or a thousand times worse than realizing that the tooth fairy wasn’t real.

y/n: where r u? the festival is going to start soon.

Really hoping you’re not going to stand me up again, like the plenty of other times you did. You really wished you could have added that phrase.

6:30 and still no sign of her. You know you’ve cried like a little child because of her, you’ve tried to avoid her in every way possible. Yet no matter what, it always seems that the sweet girl you’ve known comes back to you moments later.

She’s just running late. The tiny voice in your head says, to somehow calm your nerves down. Winnie squeezes your hand, urging you to decorate your lanterns together. So you force the growing lump in your throat with a painful swallow, nodding and beginning to draw flowers that somehow are Cairo’s favorite ones. “It’s going to be okay,” she softly coaxes, and you feel like crying into her arms.

You really thought she wouldn’t do it this time. You really started to believe that she was good at heart for you. Maybe she could be. But you didn’t want to give her the chance anymore, you were officially drained.

The sunset envelopes you and Winnie in its eternal color of the sunshine, though the warm feeling is rather cold. Cold and ugly. You would’ve been used to it, but you drove 2 hours for her. You knew you could count on Winnie, but you traveled so far for Cairo to be able to spend time with her. Now it just seems like she’ll throw you away whenever Mr. Miller is around.

She’ll talk about him almost anytime she can, it makes you feel insecure. Sometimes, you wish you could just shake her brain and tell her, “I’m right here.” You were there all along. You would be there when she needed it, but she was never there when you needed her. A moth to a flame.

Even when your heart cracks more and more, to love is to sacrifice, your broken hand is still holding on. Cairo is the only thing you’d ever know about love.

Even when you tell yourself to get over it, to ignore her, you can’t help the way your heart turns into goo when she smiles at you. I won’t let go yet. You promise to yourself as she crashes her lips to yours, alcohol coating her tongue as you have the need for more.

Take me, your heart sings as Cairo, drunk and wanting, tears the bottom of your blouse, the room filling with your breathy moans.

You need to let go, Your brain pounds against your forehead as you’re left in the dark of the movie theater, an empty seat next to you. A seat that was meant for your hand to hold hers.

Why do you manage to always forgive her? Believe that she’ll be “okay” this time? Why did you always let her in knowing that she would do the same thing once again?

7:30, the lanterns begin to lift off, your eyes half-lidded with unshed tears as you hold onto your floating lantern. Winnie turns to look at you, but you don’t look back, the small ember glistening against your glossy eyes.

She was just late. She’d come. Your heart grows a little heavy.

“Hey,” she says softly, putting a reassuring hand on your shoulder, “It’s going to be okay. Cairo is just stupid, she’s been stupid ever since Miller. But I don’t want to talk about her right now, okay? Let’s spend the night together and we’ll see what to do when it’s over.”

You still avoid eye contact, can you really just feel okay if someone tells you? That’s never worked for you.

A floating lantern symbolizes the hope of the moments ahead and being able to move on. To mark the start of a new beginning. Your eyes flicker to all the children with their family, smiling happily, the couples who are cuddling together as they prepare to let go of their lanterns. Every time you saw something like that, you thought of Cairo. You wondered if she ever thought of you.

I guess fate brought me here, you tell yourself. When your favorite person turns into a memory of a lesson. Gosh, you hated when you saw quotes like that, even worse now that you understood it with each tear that poured out of your eyes.

You cling onto the lantern like it’s the most important thing of your life as you shut your eyes. You think about Cairo, your best friend, someone that you always told yourself loved you. You hope she still did. Winnie feels your head placed on your shoulder as you finally let it go. Finally let her go as it flies away with the specks of others, lighting up the night sky. It was like a reminder that she was slipping away.

Tonight, you thought it would’ve ended differently as you watch it mix in with the glow of other lanterns, other wishes, other endings.

All those times you look into these eyes, even the ones that aren’t hers, you remember that her eyes that once admired you are gone. You’re watching her watching him.

You’re standing here, waiting for something that you knew for a long time might never come. Love’s a game of heartbreak. The latest you could do is slump down to the blanket and toss your body into Winnie’s, closing your eyelids and letting yourself relax. It was cold, yet you didn't bother to ask for a blanket.

“Y/N, baby. We gotta get going.” A voice, soft and sweet coaxes you awake. You're no longer on Winnie’s shoulder, but a lap that you know all too well. You scramble off of Cairo with your eyes wide, blinking, adjusting, before letting yourself cry.

Cairo hasn’t seen you cry in almost ages. Well you’ve never cried in front of her, but knowing that she stood you up again, arriving almost 3 hours later, it tells her a lot of how much you did when she wasn’t there.

Her eyes look at yours that are closed, sniffle, “Hey, don’t cry. Why are you crying? I’m so sorry I missed this-”

“You’re never sorry!” You hiccup, forcing your shut eyes open, “If you were in all the times past, you wouldn’t have left me here again! I had my mom drive me 2 hours just so I could picture myself wishing you were beside me!”

“I-”

When was the last time she made you feel like she actually loved you?

“It seems like you don’t need me anymore, Cairo. You find something else to obsess over and run away when I need you.”

“I do need you,” she argues, looking at you in disbelief. Yet you can see that a part of her knows that you’re right.

“Only when Mr. Miller isn’t here to make you feel good.”

“T-that’s not true!” She stammers, “You aren’t understanding what you’re saying-”

“I always want you when I'm finally fine, Cairo! That’s the problem with you! I can’t stop crawling my way back to you because my heart can’t beat without your reassurance, even if it’s just a sweet glance. But every time I’m standing here, you’re turning me away. And the only way for me to stop loving you is when I’m here, telling you how I’ve felt every single time you’ve left me in the dark for the attention of a 50 year old man that I’ve given you since the start! I’m not some toy that you need at moments- I-I needed you too.” You murmur, looking down, ashamed with the hot tears leaking out of your eyes.

It takes Cairo a moment to pull you back onto her, “I’m sorry,” she tries, her hand around your cheek. “I just.. I didn’t… He failed me on that final and I just needed to know why and I guess-”

“It’s okay,” you say, finally looking into her eyes while you put your hand away from your face. “I tried thinking that maybe it was that final for Miller, that you needed time to write something amazing for your final, like I knew you’d always do. But instead, you made your assignment obsessing over him.”

Gosh you felt so stupid looking back at your naive self. “To see him in the hallways and talking to him while I stood there waiting for you, forgetting that I was even here in the first place.”

Cairo’s silent, eyes pleading as she tries reaching out for your hand, but you pull away. “I’m done waiting for you Cairo. Maybe you can pursue focusing on him more and don’t have to worry about focusing on me.” You bite back a shiver, your body shaking slightly.

She watches you turn away as Winnie wraps you in a blanket. Disappointment flickers in her best friend’s eyes as she helps you walk away. Cairo wishes, oh so terribly that you would turn back, to look at one more time, but you don’t.

Where I'll be looking in their eyes when they're down.

You stop for a brief moment, about to hop into Winnie’s car, before turning to her, looking down at her shoes. “I’m sorry I wasn’t enough, Cairo. I love you.”

“I love you too.”

“I’m sorry it ended like this, I never met to hurt you.” She wants to say, but bites her tongue as your body slips away from sight, Winnie starting the engine. It was too late now.

Cairo made you wait, made you see a flicker of hope in her candle and she blew it. She made you wait in the cold.

She really wrote her story on your heart. But was it ever a good one? Maybe there were some that lingered freely in your heart, but her story would’ve never lasted like you wanted.

It was rare, she almost never saw you sitting on the same first bench. There were days where she immediately ran out of Mr. Miller’s classroom to push through the students just to go to that bench, to be reminded that you weren’t there to wait anymore. There was no one to wait for her anymore. The spot was always empty.

You’ll always want her when you are finally fine, even when you’d feel like your heart healed, it never would. Because you always needed her. You can’t heal without her.

Now every time your eyes meet in the hallways, you’re the first one to tear your gaze. Maybe it was just for the best. Tear your eyes away from her pretty ones before she tears your heart apart.

You wish that one day, when you meet her when you two are older, she’ll be the person you once knew. Your Cairo Sweet. The one that didn’t leave the sickening taste on your tongue.

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