Chapter 15
~§~
Dusk had arrived by the time he once again became aware of his surroundings. After he’d picked himself off the ground, Clark numbly found his way back down into the valley although he couldn’t recall a single minute of the flight.
How dare she not be married!
The bitterness of that fact was like acid washing through him. She had no right to do this to him. He’d moved on. He’d let her go.
God, he hated her.
He hated her for marrying another man. For breaking his heart and exiling him out of his own dreams.
He hated her for being fooled by Luthor. He hated her for being so blind that she couldn’t see what was right in front of her, the evilness in the man she’d chosen to marry and the goodness in the man she’d rejected. She’d been willing to give that beast the benefit of the doubt, never suspecting anything but good intentions from him. Then, in nearly the same breath, she had spared her friend Clark no latitude, instead accusing him of trying to ruin her happiness. Of being jealous.
He hated her for not really seeing him. She had to be totally clueless. Fooled by a pair of glasses, so bedazzled by the powers and the suit that she couldn’t see the man beneath the cape. Or maybe hadn’t wanted to see him. For crying out loud, how could she have not known that he was Superman? His expectation wasn’t rational, he knew it, but it didn’t keep him from feeling the resentment.
Well, if those were the kind of men she wanted, a criminal or a plastic superhero, then more power to her. He wished her a happy life. Free now to break someone else’s heart.
Through the bitterness, he felt a twinge of pity for her, though. Married for such a short time and then widowed. As angry as he was at her, he’d never want her to feel that kind of pain. The pain of losing someone you loved far too much.
No. No. He shook off his compassion, determined not to let it sway him to softening his stance. She’d made her own bed, tying her future to a man no better than pond scum. After all of the pain she’d dished out to Clark, maybe she deserved a bit of her own, he thought bitterly.
What he should do was go back just to say “I told you so”. She owed him an apology if for nothing else but for the fact that he’d tried to warn her and she wouldn’t listen. Served her right, to be taken down a peg or two.
God, he hated her.
That wasn’t true.
He didn’t hate her. Even after everything.
He felt sorry for her. Sad for her.
He hated himself for not hating her.
Not being able to hate Lois, he directed his animosity towards the dead Lex Luthor. Even from the grave that man was destroying Clark’s life. Somehow he’d managed to steal the hard-earned peace that Clark had found, setting unknowns and what-ifs as Herculean obstacles blocking yet again the road to his future.
All of the doors he’d thought were tightly closed and locked had been suddenly thrown open. Dreams he’d struggled to bury and replace now stood before him once more, demanding to be recognized. Maybe even explored if he were willing to go back...
Go back? To what? Lois?
What was he thinking?
Why would he go back? Really, what had changed? Yes, Lois was a widow, free to love and marry once again. But there was no reason to believe that he’d be the one she’d choose the next time. She’d rejected him once. He’d be a fool to face that rejection again.
He knew immediately that he couldn’t see her again. Ever. It had been the hardest six months of his life, and he wasn’t going to go through that again. If he saw her, all of those old feelings would come back to the surface, and then he’d have to go through the hell of losing her all over again. It wasn’t worth it. She just wasn’t worth it, he insisted firmly, silencing the small voice in his head that whispered to him. What if...
What he wanted was to see Lois again and feel nothing. To know that she no longer held any power over him. Gone was her ability to make him weak or to break his heart with a casual dismissal.
He wanted to forget all of the quirks and habits and special things about her that triggered his memories at the most peculiar times. He wanted to be free of any associations that caused a stab of pain through his heart just on the hearing of certain words or phrases.
He wanted to forget what she looked like. That her brown eyes were so dark they seemed almost black. That her hair contained strands of both bronze and ebony when the sunlight hit it at just the right angle. That she smelled like vanilla. That she looked great in short skirts and even better in sweatpants and a sweatshirt.
He wanted to forget that she made him laugh harder than anyone else ever had and she made him madder than he’d ever been in his life. That her competitive streak drove him to near distraction but also to accomplish things he never would have striven to do without her to goad and push him.
The problem was, after six months of trying to forget, the grave he’d dug for his memories had proven far too shallow. With a single phone call, the time passed was erased, her face clear in his mind’s eye, her voice beckoning to him from the deepest part of his mind . If only there was a pill he could take that would just let him forget everything about her. Wipe her completely from his memory.
It didn’t matter, he insisted within his warring heart. Whether he forgot her or not. He’d found someone else who loved him. All of him.
Gillian.
God. Was it just that morning he’d lain in her bed, glorying in the memory of what they’d shared together? Instantly his heart softened, a quieting of his spirit giving him a moment of rest from the confusion. If it weren’t for her, he didn’t know how he would have survived the past six months. She’d given him everything – her heart, her body, her support, her love.
There was joy in his heart when he thought of Gillian, and a phone call didn’t have the power to take that away. Right within his grasp were the things that could make him happy. It had taken six months to figure it out, but he knew it for certain now. He deserved to be happy.
Lois had made her choices. And he’d moved on. Nothing had changed. Nothing.
He would convince Gillian to go home to the states with him. Together they would find a place where she could continue to help people in her way and he would be free to help people in his. She could make him happy. Together, they could have a wonderful life.
~§~
Laying upon his pallet, Clark tried to focus on the words in the book he held. But in two hours, he’d read the same page at least twenty times and still had no idea what it said. In fact, he wasn’t even sure what book he was reading.
Shutting it, he flipped it over to read the cover. In doing so, he removed the obstacle that blocked his view of the door, and in the periphery of his vision he caught a figure standing in it. Startled, he hadn’t even heard her approach.
“Don Quixote,” Gillian remarked from her position leaning against the door frame. “Now there’s a guy who had his priorities straight.”
“Hey,” he said, sitting up immediately and swinging his feet to the floor. “How was Piendamó?”
“Fine,” she said. “A few cuts and bruises. Nothing too serious.”
His eyes darted past her, beyond the open door. Not because he thought she might not be alone but because he was afraid to look her directly in the eye. She’d know immediately that something wasn’t right.
“You might as well stop looking around like that. There’s no place to go,” she remarked without rancor.
He reddened. “I’m not trying to leave.”
“No, more like escape,” she stated softly, not waiting for an invitation to walk into the room. “I missed you last night. And then all day today. You’ve been almost every place I haven’t, I think. I was starting to wonder if you’d just flown off.”
By the time he’d gotten home the night before, it had been too late to go to her house. At lease that’s what he’d told himself. And he’d been working since before dawn that morning on a bridge that had been washed out by another smaller mudslide. This was the first time he’d seen her since they’d made love. Since he’d learned that Lois was now a widow. He’d needed time to come to grips with everything. Still needed time.
“I’ve been trying to get the bridge fixed,” he offered lamely. “And there was a little bit of damage to the school’s north wall...”
Her brows lifted, exasperation mixed with the sharp sting of hurt before she could mask it. “Please, don’t. No mind games. We haven’t played them yet, and I’d rather not start now.”
“Gillian, I’m sorry – ” he started, but she didn’t give him a chance to apologize.
“You know Sam, there are several girls in this village who would have been more than willing to take a roll in the hay with you. Man, Lourdes even.” She fixed him with an unblinking gaze, and although her voice held no accusation, her eyes spoke volumes. “Why’d you have to pick me?”
“You know that’s not it. I didn’t want a roll in the hay. What we did...it meant a lot to me,” he said, standing. “More than you’ll probably ever know.”
“They why have you been skulking around for the last two days?” she asked. “You’ve been avoiding me like some kind of frat guy the morning after he takes off the beer goggles.”
“I haven’t been avoiding you,” he denied, the boldface lie sounding as stupid as it was.
“Uh...look around.” She swung her head around, taking in the small room but lifted her hands to encompass all of San Pablo. “It’s a small town, remember? You have to pretty much actively try to avoid someone, and you’ve been avoiding me. Just admit it.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, trying again. “I have been sort of avoiding you. But it’s not for the reason you think.”
“Oh?” she said. “And just what reason might that be?”
“The frat guy thing.”
“I see. But it is because of what happened the other night. At least I got that part right? Maybe regretting it a bit?”
“No. I don’t have any regrets,” he insisted quickly, that much being the truth at least. He raked a hand through his hair, the weight he’d carried on his shoulders since the morning prior multiplying by a thousand fold until he felt it would crush him. “I’m just not sure if what we did was such a good idea.”
“That sounds like regrets.” She pulled a chair out from underneath the table and sank down into it, crossing her arms as if readying herself for his list. “Let me guess, it was a moment of weakness. We were both feeling a little shaken after the quake...no pun there, of course. Or maybe it’s just that it’s been a while and the urge was getting kind of strong – ”
“No, it’s not any of that. I mean, yeah, the urge was there, but not because it’s been a long time or because I was running on adrenaline. You have to know, I wouldn’t just do that unless...” He stopped, not knowing the answer to that supposition.
He wouldn’t have slept with her unless what? Unless he cared for her? Expected to have a future with her? Loved her? The questions tore through him. Forty-eight hours ago, the answers would have come so much easier.
“Unless what?” she asked, pulling him away from his own churning confusion.
“Gillian, what we shared...it was incredible. Beyond incredible.” He sighed, not sure if telling her he’d been a virgin would hurt or help the situation. But since theirs had been a relationship based on knowing each other from the inside out, he’d rather she know everything. He couldn’t stand it if she believed herself to be simply just another woman to him. “I’d never...that was the first time I’ve ever gotten that...close to someone.”
For a minute, she stared at him, absorbing what he’d said. “You mean you’d never slept with anyone before?”
“No. I won’t go into the reasons because a lot of them wouldn’t make sense.” At least not to anyone who’d never lived their entire life hiding so much about themselves from everyone. “Mostly its because no one’s ever known me enough that I could let go like that. But with you...well, you were the first on both accounts.”
His admission seemed to stun her, for she didn’t say anything for a long time. He was about to ask her if she was all right when she finally spoke. “It was sort of my first time, too.”
Her first time, too? But she’d never said anything, and she hadn’t acted afraid or nervous. Then again, neither had he. Everything had just flowed so easily, so naturally, he’d just assumed she’d had some experience. But if she’d been a virgin, too...
His heart began to pound. He wasn’t sure if it was from added guilt or a bizarre sense of pleasure that he might have been her first as well. “I kind of thought you and Garrett probably...”
“We did.” She laughed, a dry sound without any real amusement. “I think that’s one of the reasons he suddenly became so interested in me. He knew how much I liked him and that I’d probably be willing to...well, anyway, it didn’t happen right away, but pretty soon after we started hanging out together. Actually, I don’t even remember the first time because I was so out of it.”
Clark’s burst of inexplicable joy was replaced by a hot spark of fury towards Garrett. By many definitions, the kid had actually committed rape, taking advantage of her when she hadn’t the power to make a clear decision. Yes, they’d been kids, and yes, she’d taken the drugs willingly. Still, he’d intentionally put her in that position and had used his hold over her for his own selfish purposes. Even knowing that, in the end, Garrett had paid the ultimate price, wasn’t enough to ease Clark’s anger.
But he held it in check, realizing that there was nothing to be gained by expressing his outrage. Garrett was dead and the damage done not to be undone. Besides, if he had to guess, he was sure that somewhere near the top of her list of regrets was the loss of her virginity in such a crass, unmemorable way. Who was he to fuel that regret?
“Once I stopped seeing Garrett,” she went on to explain, “I swore off sex in general. In college, I dated, but I never let things get serious enough for anything to happen. I guess I was afraid of being used and ...” she struggled a minute to find the words, looking down at the hands she twisted in her lap. “I was afraid that without something to help me, no guy would think I was any good. He’d be disappointed afterwards...”
She lifted her face, and he winced at the vulnerability he saw in her gray eyes. “Sam, I’d never had sex without being affected by some drug or another. This was the first time it was just me, experiencing everything as it’s supposed to be. The first time I actually made love. In a way, I was a virgin, too.”
He went to kneel down beside her, grasping her clutched hands between his own. “Gillian, I will never regret what we did. It was making love, and it was beautiful. For as long as I live, I’ll always remember it.”
She smiled appreciatively, but her brows came down in confusion. “Remember it? That sounds like you don’t think it’s ever going to happen again.”
“I don’t know what’s going to happen. I don’t know what the future has in store for us,” he said, standing up and moving away from her. “Maybe letting ourselves get carried away like that was a little reckless. I’m just so afraid one of us is going to get hurt...”
“Future? What are you talking about?” she protested softly. “I don’t expect a lifetime commitment. Just someone who wants to see me the next day at least.”
“I do want to see you the next day. And the day after that. And then the day after that. But what happens in a month? Or two? Or next year? Where do we go then?” he asked.
“I don’t know. Popayán for the festival?” she joked, and when he didn’t laugh, tried another approach. “What ever happened to aquí y ahora? Here and now? Living without regards to past or future?”
“Stop it, Gillian. Just stop,” he said. The frustration and confusion he’d been feeling converged into anger. “You said it yourself. Not worrying about the future doesn’t mean it’s not going to happen. And I can’t ignore it any more.”
She took a deep breath and adopted a stiff smile. “So, let’s talk about the future.”
“What is there to talk about?” Although he knew it was unfair, he latched on to the one obstacle between them that he didn’t wholly own. “You’ve made it pretty clear that you’re not interested in going back to the states any time soon. And I can’t stay here forever.”
“Why not? Why can’t you stay here forever?”
“Because I never wanted to be a farmer,” he snapped. “Because Superman has practically disappeared off the face of the earth. Other people need me. I had a life, responsibilities. There were people who I cared about and who care about me that I haven’t seen in months.
“That never seemed to be a problem – ”
“Yeah, well maybe it is now. Maybe I’m starting to miss them.”
“Them?”
“My...parents. Friends.”
She blinked. “I didn’t know you had...parents.”
“I do. Hell, I haven’t even talked to them in ages,” he said, much harsher than he’d intended. He hated this. The frustration he was taking out on her. But he couldn’t stop himself. And her continued calm was making it worse.
“I see...it’s not the future that’s got your knickers in a twist, is it? It’s your past.”
“My past is irrelevant.”
“Is it? You came here...or, you stayed here to escape your old life. Your past. So what’s the problem now? Why the sudden restlessness?” she asked.
“It’s not sudden. I’ve been thinking about this for a while now,” he said, acknowledging the stirrings that had bothered him since the completion of the clinic. “You know that I’ve been trying to convince you to leave Colombia.”
Her eyebrows lifted in surprise. “So that was all an effort to make sure that we could have some kind of future together?”
“No...yes.” He wanted to scream. “No, I mean, I’m worried about you. I want you to be safe.”
“Come on, Sam. I’m just not buying all of this.” She held his gaze, unflinching. “Just tell me. The truth. You owe me at least that much...”
God, he owed her everything. Loyalty. Love. His future. Something. Anything. But instead, he was giving her nothing.
Sitting down, he leaned his elbows on the table and covered his face with his hands, rubbing fiercely as if he could wash away his confusion. Letting his fingers thread upward into his hair, he held his head in hands as he stared down at the scared wood, unable to meet her eyes while he gave her the one thing he couldn’t deny her. The truth.
“She isn’t married anymore.”
“Who?”
He swallowed hard. “The woman I...was...in love with.”
She didn’t speak for a long time, and he allowed her silence. Hell, he’d been trying to absorb the information for two days. She deserved at least a couple of minutes.
“Ah. So that’s it,” she said at last. Her tone was so matter-of-fact that they could have been discussing the reason Luke always ate all of the leftover chicken and never the rice she tried to feed him.
Looking directly at her, he explained. “I spoke with a...mutual friend. It sounds like she was widowed soon after her wedding. I don’t really know very much. Our connection was broken before I could find out any details. I tried to call back and couldn’t get through, then figured there was really no reason – ”
“That’s tragic,” she said, interrupting him woodenly. “Just say it, Sam.”
“What?” He’d told her the worst of it. What more could there be?
“Say what you’re really feeling.” When he continued to stare at her, she leaned toward him. “Not was. Are. The woman you are in love with isn’t married anymore.”
He leaned against the back of the chair, shaking his head. “No. I’m not in love with her. I don’t know what I feel for her. Pity, maybe. It’s been so long. A lot has happened.”
“If you didn’t know what you feel for her – didn’t still love her – I don’t think you’d be having this much trouble talking to me about the future we supposedly don’t have but need to discuss because it’s in jeopardy.”
“Our future has nothing to do with her.”
“Yes, Sam, it does. It has everything to do with her.” She insisted with a hiss, and he finally saw the flash of anger in her eyes. “Tell me, when did you find out? Was it before or after the other night?”
“After. Just yesterday morning. When you and Jeff were in Piendamó, I went to Silvia to call home.” It had been one of his reasons for not telling her, his finding out coming so close on the heels of their night spent together. In his mind, the two events had nothing to do with each other whatsoever, and never did he want her to believe that they did.
“And instead of coming to me so we could have a laugh together about her bad luck in not only giving up a terrific guy but losing the schmuck as well, you avoided me like the plague.” She chuckled ruefully. “That kind of tells me you still have some pretty strong feelings there.”
“But I don’t want to have strong feelings,” he said, the bitterness rising in his throat. “I don’t want to love her anymore.”
“Too bad,” she retorted, offering him no quarter. “You can’t just stop loving someone because they’re not in your life anymore. Not if you really loved them in the first place. I didn’t just stop loving my brother because he died.”
“She didn’t die,” he threw back, not willing to give Lois the same courtesy as the noble Christopher Brooks. “She told me flat out that she didn’t love me. At least not in the same way I loved her. So that’s the end of it. I just need a few days to get the shock out of my system, that’s all.”
“God, I wish it was that easy,” she groaned. “If it was, I would have saved myself a whole lot of pain by not thinking I gave two hoots about Garrett.”
“Well, I have that chance,” he insisted. “I can save myself that pain. Before anything else...tragic happens.”
“And how far away exactly do you think you’re going to have to go to avoid your feelings for her? How many tons of adobe are you going to have to move?” she asked. “You can’t forget them or hide from them, Sam. No matter how many other women you sleep with.”
He shook his head violently. “No. No, I didn’t sleep with you so that I could forget her. If I thought you believed that – ”
“Didn’t you? Isn’t that what all of this is about?” When he continued to shake his head, refusing her claim, she clarified more gently. “I’m not saying that you deliberately made love with me trying to replace her. But in your way, you were moving on. That’s the first step towards letting go.”
“So I’ve let go. I’ve moved on,” he said. “Just because she’s not married, that doesn’t affect me anymore.”
“Well, you know what they say. Sometimes it’s one step forward and two steps back,” she joked without real humor.
“Gillian, why would it matter if she isn’t married?” He stood, his frustration mounting again, but this time he directed it inward, voicing the questions that had run through his mind like an endless loop for two days. “Why does it matter if I’ve found something...someone else?”
“Because love is not a faucet,” she said heatedly. “You can’t just turn it off because no one is there to catch it.”
In her strange way, she’d hit it exactly. In the six months since his departure, he’d been trying to stop feeling love. But perhaps, since his body was indestructible, his heart contained the same inextinguishable quality. Once an emotion had developed within it, it couldn’t simply be purged. At best, what he could hope for in a situation like this was for this particular love to recede, move to the back as other more pertinent feelings came to the forefront.
“What I feel aside, she doesn’t love me,” he said pointedly as he started to pace. That much was irrefutable. And her changed marital status didn’t mean a change in her heart.
“You said she did love part of you.”
“Not the way that I need her to love me. I can’t go back to that life. Secrets and half truths.” He sighed. “If nothing else, the last six months have shown me how good it can be, being myself without hiding.”
Far too clear for his comfort given the time passed, he could recall Lois’s words as she sat on that park bench and told him she loved him only as a friend. And perhaps even more painful, her ridiculous declaration that she would love him if he were just an ordinary man. Then, he would have given anything to have believed her. To hear her offer her love to Clark Kent.
But now he saw that that was no longer the case. He was a different man than the one who had sat next to her on that park bench and confessed his love. And such a declaration from her to Clark Kent would have been no better than the one she had offered to Superman. It would have been made to half a man.
Never would he settle for less than love given to the entire person he was. Superman and Clark Kent, not two halves mutually exclusive but rather mutually dependent, neither one able to exist without the other.
Gillian was one step ahead of him. “Then stop hiding,” she said. “Be who you are. Who you were always meant to be.”
He felt as if he stood at the edge of an abyss and there was no way to avoid falling into it. Everything he’d built, or rather rebuilt, started to crumble, like that very first adobe wall. In his mind, the noise built, an avalanche of choking dust, smothering all of the light and shooting him back into the darkness of the undefined.
“Sam, she didn’t even know you,” Gillian went on. “For crying out loud, you kept some pretty serious stuff from her. As much as I hate her right now, I see that it wasn’t really fair to her.”
He almost couldn’t bear it, her compassion for Lois far more generous than his would have been if the situation was reversed. In fact, she was far more forgiving of Lois’s rejection than he himself had been.
He shook his head, not wanting to see the rightness in what she was saying even as he knew he couldn’t argue it away. He hadn’t been fair to Lois by keeping his secret from her. And he hadn’t been fair to himself. In his way, he’d been as guilty as Lois in pushing them apart, not allowing her to get close enough to see him for who and what he was. One man.
“I wouldn’t even know where to start. To explain,” he said. And as the words left his mouth, a new emotion added to the cacophony in his chest. Fear. Was he actually considering this? Seeing Lois again? Telling her everything?
“Well, if she doesn’t know that you’re Superman, I guess that’s kind of a big thing,” Gillian offered dispassionately. “I’d start there.”
“How do you tell someone something like that? ‘Oh, by the way, I’m Superman,’” he mocked, imagining the stunned look on Lois’s face.
“Yeah, exactly that way,” she said with a nod. “You go back and you just tell her. You just say the words and give her some time to digest them.”
Gillian stood then, walking to the window where she pulled absently at the torn screen he’d never gotten around to fixing. “Besides, maybe there’s something she didn’t tell you. And now she’s just hoping that you’ll come back so she can.”
His confusion increased, her reaction so unexpected that doubt and guilt battled within his chest. She should be screaming at him, telling him what a bastard he was for letting himself get involved with her when he still held such strong feelings for another woman. Garrett had used her in so many ways, and now it seemed that maybe, Clark had used her as well. Granted, his intention had never been to hurt her, but here he was, doing it all the same.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” he whispered, almost implored. Somehow, he wanted Gillian to keep him from hurting her. To insist that he stay and take the decision away from him.
But she didn’t let him off the hook. One again, it was up to him, the superhero, to save her. Or not.
“I don’t want you sticking around here just because you don’t want to hurt me. If you did that, you would always wonder if you should have gone back. If you might have made it work with her.” She came to stand in front of him, leaving more space between them than two lovers normally would. “Don’t you think that would hurt me worse than anything you could do or say now? To know that you settled for me but dreamed of her?”
She was right, of course. Since the second Perry had told him in his broken way that Lois was no longer married, Clark had known that he would have to go back and face her. To find out if he still loved her and to deal with that fact once and for all.
“But what if I don’t...” He’d been about to say what if I don’t love her any more? But deep inside he knew the question was moot. He’d never stop loving Lois. He could only hope to live in peace with it.
“I’m not going anywhere,” she said, knowing what he was thinking. With a forced laugh, she tried to joke away the pain. “Unless maybe it’s to Bogotá for another case of that Chilean wine.”
“I’ll come back,” he said. “In a few days. Maybe a week – ”
“No,” she protested vehemently. “Please. Don’t. Don’t make promises or plans because I don’t want to wake up every day wondering if it’s the one when you’ll come walking down the road. If...when you come back, it’ll be when you’re ready. Besides, I live aquí y ahora, remember?”
When her voice broke on her last words, he reached across the space between them and pulled her into a tight embrace. She didn’t make a sound, but he could feel the sobs as they shook her slender form. Tears pooled in his own eyes and he squeezed them tightly closed, placing his cheek against the top of her honey covered head. This was the last thing he wanted to do. To cause her more pain. She’d given him so much.
“Gillian...I...” he started, not sure what he could say. Nothing would make this any easier.
“You said you came here to find something you lost,” she murmured against his chest. “Have you found it, Sam?”
“I think so,” he said. But inside, he shook, fearing that as soon as he left the safety of her arms, he’d lose it again.
Her palms pressed against his chest, firmly pushing him away as she broke from the circle of his arms. She took a shuddering breath and turned to leave. Clark remained rooted to the floor, wanting to follow after her but knowing that he couldn’t. Couldn’t do that to either of them because if he touched her again, he’d make love to her again. If he did that, he’d never have the strength to leave her. And eventually, he would come to regret that decision and her along with it.
When she reached the door, she turned to give him a small smile. “Go home, Sam.” Her voice was steady, but wet streaks glistened on her cheeks. “It’s time. Just...go home.”
And then she was gone.
To be continued...
