The past was immutable, unchangeable, and yet in dreams he relived it repeatedly, old pains recurring nightly. With the sounds of the hospital equipment fading in the background, he found himself drifting backward once again.
**************
“No…Rachel…”
It had become a ritual on their dates; she pushed the boundaries as far as she could, and he found ways to escape. It was exhausting, and he’d come to dread their time together.
Rachel Harris pulled back, her lips swollen, and her eyes heavy. “It’s ok Clark. Nobody has to know.”
As though she’d be able to resist telling her friends the moment she got home. Smallville was a small town; the last thing he needed was for the Sheriff to believe that he’d defiled his daughter. He wasn’t marrying material; he’d spent too many years on the wrong side of the tracks to think that anyone thought that he was worth anything more than a short term fling.
He wondered if he was ever going to have a relationship that wasn’t tainted with shame. Even what he had with Lilah, as special as it was, was something that his parents would have never approved.
Love was complicated. He’d been hurt when Lilah had pushed him into dating. It was the best way to keep the secret, she’d said. No one would suspect them if he was dating girls his own age. But every moment he’d spent away from her felt like a betrayal.
Every moment he spent with her was a betrayal. Every time he looked in the eyes of the man who had in some ways been a mentor to him, something died inside. Lying and deception weren’t something that come naturally to him. They were something that he’d had to learn, piece by piece as his abilities had pushed him further and further away from the rest of humanity.
He wasn’t sure what he was anymore. Was he even human? He had dreams in which he was cut open, and something slimy and green slithered out. He was changing more and more every day. How long was it before one of the changes showed on the outside, and he was forevermore separated from the rest of humanity?
“I’ve got a game tomorrow. There’s going to be a scout from Notre Dame.” He couldn’t keep making excuses, but taking that last step would be a true betrayal. At least this way he could lie to himself, tell himself that this was the casual relationship he had meant it to be.
“You’ve already got a full scholarship to Midwestern. Why do you want to go so far?” Rachel pouted. The real question was, why did he want to go so far from her? If she only knew.
He looked at her for a moment, feeling guiltier by the moment. He never should have let things go as far as they had. He was betraying Rachel too; her feelings for him seemed to be genuine, but his heart had already been given away to another.
Shrugging, he said, “I’ll never be good enough without an education. I might as well go for the best I can get.”
Widely smiling, she leaned forwards for another kiss. “You’ll always be good enough for me.”
Clark found himself pulling back, and suddenly the latch of the door behind him gave way, spilling him to the ground.
He stared up for a moment at the faces staring back down at him; he hadn’t heard them approaching, which was a sure sign of how distracted he’d been.
“Jess…what are you doing here?” As little as he liked his foster brother, he couldn’t help but be grateful for the interruption.
Taller than the others, Jess was the undisputed leader of the group. He already had crude, homemade tattoos on his forearms from his time in juvenile hall in Wichita. He grinned at Clark and reached into his back pocket for a cigarette.
“Me and the boys thought you’d like to come to a little pre-game ritual.” He gestured back to the others; Carl, Bill and John stood casually.
“You aren’t even on the team,” Clark protested.
“Let’s just call it a gathering of brothers, then.”
Jess lit the cigarette, and Clark’s nose twitched. He hated it when people smoked. It overwhelmed his sense of smell, and he didn’t like the scent.
Glancing back at Rachel, Clark sighed. Given a choice, he wouldn’t have gone with either of them. His foster brothers tended to be wild. Their idea of fun was knocking over mailboxes and drinking down by the creek. Still, it was rescue of a sorts from Rachel.
“Fine.” He turned back to Rachel. “I’ll call you tomorrow?”
“I can’t come?”
Carl snorted. “The sheriff’s daughter? Hell no.”
“She’ll be all right,” Clark said. It was a feeble attempt, and he knew his foster brothers well enough to know that they would shoot him down. Nevertheless. He had to make it, if only to not hurt Rachel’s feelings.
He had an uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach that he was going to cause enough harm in the future; he couldn’t bear to hurt her any more than he had to.
“Nah. It’s boys night out.”
Secretly relieved, Clark glanced apologetically at Rachel and shrugged.
She scowled, then pulled the door closed. Clark watched her pulling away for a moment. If she was angry enough to break it off, he’d be relieved. The last thing he wanted to do was hurt her; she deserved more than that. But more and more, he couldn’t see any choices that weren’t going to hurt her.
She had feelings that he couldn’t return, and all it left was a sick sense of shame.
**************
Consciousness was a fleeting thing. Clark opened his eyes and stared sightlessly at the ceiling. The pain he’d felt before was gone; instead, all he felt was a strange, drifting feeling. He stiffened for a moment as he glanced at the wires and tubes sticking out of him. Somehow, he knew that was wrong; the sickly smell of hospitals was something that he’d spent a lifetime avoiding. The nights he’d spent waiting for his parents to live or die had forever imprinted that smell on him.
Before he could struggle or protest, he found himself going under again.
*************
“Where’d you get the car?” Clark asked suspiciously.
“Don’t worry about it,” Jess said. “What are you, the town cop?”
“He might as well be,” Carl shoved Clark slightly. “He may as well change his last name to Harris now.”
“You’re just jealous because you can’t get a date.” Jess grinned. “Now if I had me a girl like that, I’d be…”
“I don’t really care what you’d be doing.” Clark said quickly. Jess could be crude, and Clark couldn’t stand for him to talk about Rachel. “You’re getting off the subject, anyway. Where’d you get the car?”
Carl had the grace to look uncomfortable. “Jess did a little creative borrowing. We’ll have it back before morning.”
“You don’t think whoever it is won’t notice? What if you have an accident? Hell, what if we get pulled over? I’m sure sheriff Harris would love to throw the lot of us in jail, and I don’t think Ed would bother to pull us out.”
Ed was their foster father. He hadn’t been the same since his wife left him.
“Ed can’t even pull himself out of a bottle. He doesn’t give a damn about what we do, as long as the checks keep coming in.” Jess pulled out a cigarette. He offered one to Clark, who curtly shook his head. “Hell, Harris couldn’t find his butt with a flashlight and a bloodhound.”
“Put it back.” Clark said. “You can do better than this. I know you all have a little money put together. Why don’t you go and buy the old Irig car? I hear Wayne is offering it cheap.”
“How do you expect us to pay the insurance?” Jess shook his head. “When are you ever going to learn, Kent? The only way you’ll ever get what you want is to take it.”
“I’ve got too much going for me to waste it joyriding.” Clark glanced at the others. The only one who seemed uncertain was Carl. “You guys know better.”
“Fine. Have it your way.” Jess flicked the cigarette into the bushes. “You all coming?”
Carl shook his head. “I’m going to stick around and try to talk some sense into Clark here.”
The others laughed. “You’re wasting your time. Kent’s kissing up to the Sheriff’s daughter and bucking for a big fat college scholarship. He thinks he’s too good for us. Well, just see what a proud papa old man Harris is going to be when a piece of white trash asks to marry his daughter?”
Clark blinked.
“You think we didn’t know? It’s all Rachel can talk about- you wanting to wait until you get married. You’re just sucking up to the old man. If you think it’s actually going to happen, you’re a fool. She’ll end up pregnant, or she’ll dump you from someone with a good family.”
Jess grinned. “And when it happens, I’ll be there to say I told you so.”
He made an obscene gesture, and it was all Clark could do to stare as he slipped behind the driver’s seat and drove off.
Rachel thought they were getting married? His heart sank into his stomach.
********************
The beeping of the machines was steady, and the sounds of his breathing were heavy in his ear when he woke again. This time he was aware of a presence in the room. Lois. She was sitting, watching him, and it was all he could do not to cry out. He’d lost track of her, and there were so many things he wanted to tell her. She deserved to know his mistakes before someone else told her. There was no way he was going to be able to keep it from her.
Her expression was guarded. He’d never seen her with such a blank stare. He frowned and tried to speak.
“Wha…?”
His memory was a fuzzy thing, and it was hard to think. He blinked, and noticed that Lois had moved closer to him.
“We need to talk.” Her voice was flat, and he found himself fading again.
**********************
“We need to talk,” Clark said.
Lilah glanced at him with an upraised eyebrow.
He hesitated. Love wasn’t something he could control; even after all these months what he had with Lilah was still fresh and new, . It filled a void he hadn’t even known he had, one that had open up on the night he’d learned of his parents death. It was powerful, in a way that he’d never expected.
He hadn’t wanted it; she’d pursued him. But once he’d made the fatal step, sullied himself in a way that was irreversible, he hadn‘t been able to stop himself. It was heady, being wanted. Being accepted was like water to his parched soul.
Why was the right thing always so hard?
“I don’t think I can do this anymore.” Clark hated the tentative sound of his voice. He’d meant to be more authoritative, more certain. He cleared his throat. “This isn’t right for either of us.”
Lilah smiled and finally rose to her feet. She glided toward him, just as she had on the first night they’d been alone. He felt frozen, unable to move.
She touched his face, and he fought not to turn in to that touch. He was weak; if he hadn’t been, he never would have been in this situation in the first place.
A situation where every time he touched the woman he cared for, a little piece of his soul died.
“You are a pretty boy, Clark.” She kissed him, and he froze. “Don’t worry about it.”
He cleared his throat. “I mean it. Rachel thinks we’re getting married. I shouldn’t have…”
Lilah put her finger to his lips. “We’ve talked about this before. Give them something to talk about, and they won’t look at what’s under their noses.”
“I can’t do this.” Clark insisted. “We’re hurting too many people.”
Her hand touched him on the chest, and she said “Nobody has to get hurt. Nobody even has to know.”
“I’ll know. Every time I look at him, it’s all I can think about. How long do you think you can keep fooling him?” Clark stiffened as he heard the sound of keys in the door. “he’s here now.”
Clark stepped away from her and went back to his books. Rachel stepped away.
The door opened, and he walked in. Clark glanced up at him, smiled weakly and said “Hey coach.”
Coach Holder entered the room and moved quickly to kiss his wife. “I hope the tutoring has been going well. You won’t get in to Notre Dame if you slack off.”
“I expect that I’m learning more than I ever wanted to know, coach.” Clark sighed.
He wondered whether he would ever know love that didn’t have the bitter taste of betrayal.
