Consciousness was a gift. Reliving the past was something Clark had actively avoided; he couldn’t change anything he’d done. All he could do was to try to live a better life in the present.
He was warned first by the hiss of the machines; the steady beeping that matched the rhythm of his heart and the same sickly smell that reminded him of hospitals everywhere. Breathing hurt, and the sound of his own respirations drowned everything else out.
He hesitated for a moment. He had no way of knowing just how much the doctors had seen, or how quickly they’d be able to get the information to the military. All he knew was that he wouldn’t be able to stay like this much longer.
Opening his eyes, he realized that the lethargy from earlier was gone.
In it’s place was startlement. Lois sat at the foot of his bed watching him intently.
“How long have I been out?”
“Six hours.” Her voice was flat.
She looked exhausted. She had dark circles under her eyes and her face was expressionless.
“I’ve been doing a little reading,” Lois said. She reached down to the floor beside her and picked up a manila folder. “Old issues of the Smallville Post. The writing really isn’t as bad as I thought it would be. They really seem to get to the meat of the matter.”
She tossed the folder at him, the incriminating headlines spilling across the bed. “When were you going to tell me?”
Clark closed his eyes for a moment. “I didn’t do any of it.”
“So the whole thing about you and the teacher was a big lie?” Lois stood, and her voice began to rise. “Clark, this is major. Don’t you think someone might want to know that they’re sitting across from Lizzie Borden’s twin brother?”
“What I had with Lilah….that was a mistake. What came after…I didn’t have anything to do with. If I knew who’d done it, I’d have been the first to beat my way to the Sheriff’s door. I cared for her.”
“Why should I believe you? Why should anyone?” Lois leaned over to pick the folder up, gathering the clippings. “From what I’ve read, you didn’t exactly help the investigation any. Why would an innocent man refuse to give a little blood if it would help to bring a murderer to justice.”
“I was across town at the time.” Clark said quietly. “At least three other people saw me. I shouldn’t have to…”
“You couldn’t have made yourself look more guilty, Clark. The people who vouched for you aren’t the most creditable witnesses. There are questions about the timeline you gave police; there’s no way you’d have been able to get from one place to the other in the time you were allotted.”
Without explaining his abilities, which were currently nonexistent, Clark couldn’t explain that. He’d lied the first time around and the police hadn’t believed him. Lois was undoubtedly just as perceptive.
“You cheated on Rachel Harris? Her father lost the election because he refused to arrest you. People thought he was soft on you because you were dating his daughter.”
“Sheriff Harris hated me with a passion,” Clark said quietly. “The only reason he didn’t arrest me was because there wasn’t any evidence that I was guilty, and there was a lot of evidence that I wasn’t. Not everything reached the papers, and that’s the way he liked it.”
“So you’re suggesting that here was this massive police conspiracy to discredit you in the eyes of the community?” Cynically, Lois shook her head. “Who do you think you’re fooling, Clark?”
Clark shifted uneasily in bed. “Small towns have secrets, Lois. People go to great lengths to keep some of them quiet.”
Lois would have said something else, but she visibly composed herself as the door swung open, and a middle aged man walked into the room.
He smiled congenially, though there was something in his expression that made Clark uneasy. “Mr. Kent? I’m doctor Sanderson.”
“When do I get out?” Clark was blunt.
“We’d like to hold you for testing. Normally, when someone comes in with cracked ribs, we’re able to get them out in a few hours. You’ve been unconscious without any sign of head trauma, and we still haven’t been able to determine the reason. We performed the standard blood count to see if there was any internal bleeding, and there were some severe abnormalities in both your red and white blood cells.”
Clark shook his head. “I’ve got my own physician back in Metropolis. I have an inherited condition that ‘s caused some changes in my blood. It’s still being researched.” Clark was thankful that he’d come up with this story in college. He’d done enough research to seem to know what he was talking bout.
“What disease?” the doctor asked.
“Epsilon Thalassemia.”
Frowning, Doctor Sanderson said, “I was only aware of alpha and beta types of that disease.”
“This is the first case that my doctor has seen either. It’s related, but different enough that he felt he could name it.” Clark shook his head, “He wanted to name it Kent’s anemia Who wants that to be his claim to fame?”
“Thalassemia can be a serious disease. It can cause damage to your spleen, liver and heart.”
Clark frowned and said, “I’ve heard this all before. I’m fine.”
“Do you have any idea why you’ve been unconscious all this time?”
“I had an allergic reaction to something last night. It was a shock to my system. I’ve got medications, but they didn’t have much time to kick in before I was ambushed.” Clark hesitated. “How soon can I leave, doctor?”
“I’d still prefer that you stay. The previous blood sample has already been disposed of, and the x-rays were all partially occluded. We have a technician examining the machine right now, but I’d like to get a good look at your ribs before I let you go.”
Clark shook his head. “I feel fine, doctor. I’d really like to put all of this behind me. It’s not something that I like to talk about in front of people.”
“We can have you out as soon as you finish talking to Sheriff Harris,” the doctor said. “I’d suggest though that you see your primary physician as soon as possible. There may be secondary effects from either the beating or this allergic reaction that haven’t shown up yet.”
“The sheriff?” Clark asked, wincing.
“She’s waiting right outside.”
Shaking his head, the doctor said, “The nurse will go over the appropriate aftercare. As far as we can tell, you have three cracked ribs, contusions on the left side of your torso and lower back. You could have a damaged kidney; without further testing, we can’t be sure. Your blood cell count was relatively normal, though the cells themselves weren’t, so I doubt that there is any internal bleeding.”
The doctor made a note on his clipboard, then looked up again. “Let’s be a little more careful in the future, Mr. Kent.” With that, he left the room.
“Thalassemia?” Lois asked. “That’s a little different than malaria.”
Clark looked away from her. “I don’t like to talk about it. It makes me feel like a freak.”
“So that’s why you didn’t want any blood tests?”
Clark nodded slowly. “That, and I didn’t want anything that would jeopardize my chances of going to college.”
“That’s a little cold, Clark.”
“I was seventeen,” Clark said. “I’d been in a relationship with Lilah since I was sixteen, and by the time I realized just how wrong it was, how badly I was hurting everyone, including myself, it was too late.”
***********************
“I can’t see you any more. I’ve told you that already.” Clark leaned forward on the couch, unable to look at her. He held his hands clenched tightly in his lap so she couldn’t see them trembling.
“You do this every time,” Lilah said. “You keep trying to leave. One of these days, I’m not going to take you back.”
“Part of me doesn’t want to leave,” Clark admitted. “There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t wish that everything wasn’t different.”
“So stay,” she said, placing her hand on his arm. “You make me feel again. My husband hasn’t done that in a long time.”
Turning, Clark said, “I shouldn’t be hearing this. If you and the coach have problems, they should be between you and him.” He shifted uncomfortably as she stroked his arm.
“Who’s going to care for you if we aren’t together? Rachel? Do you really think that she really loves you?”
“I think that the longer we keep doing this, the more people are going to get hurt.” Pulling away from her, Clark said, “It’s not fair. It’s not fair to Rachel, it’s not fair to the coach…it’s not fair to you or to me either. This isn’t good for either one of us.”
“It’s been good enough for you for the last several months.” Rachel ran a finger down the side of his arm. “This has been good enough for you.”
Clark closed his eyes. Despite his initial lack of attraction, it had felt good to have someone care about him. He’d been numb when he first met her, the ever-present loneliness unnoticeable against a background of emotional pain. Being with her had fed a need he hadn’t even known he’d had. Now that he knew what it was like to feel again, it was going to be a hundred times harder to forget. She’d pulled his walls down brick by brick, and he wasn’t sure that he’d ever find a way to put them back up again. Slipping into the physical side of the relationship hadn’t been something that he wanted, but she’d insisted. Their relationship had never been the same since. “I’m sorry. I knew better.”
Despite his feelings for Lilah, feelings that were overwhelming and new, he’d never lost that part of himself that was part of the Kents. He’d been ashamed of himself for a long time. He wasn’t even sure exactly when the line had been crossed. It had simply seemed to happen the first time.”
Lilah said, “What do you think would happen if I told the coach that you’d made a pass at me?”
Clark felt an instant of pure panic. “You wouldn’t!”
“What do you think would happen to that scholarship of yours if people found out what’s been going on.”
“It’d hurt you more than it hurt me,” Clark said quickly. “You know how people talk…”
Lilah shrugged. “People will believe anything of football players. All I have to do is tell them that you came in, pushed me up against a wall…”
For a moment, it felt as though the entire world was closing in on him. Clark gaped at Lilah. Accusations like this were so foreign that he wasn’t entirely sure what to say.
She continued. “What do you think your little Rachel would do if she found out what you did to me? Do you think she’s still want to marry you? What about her father? How long do you think it would take for him to find an excuse to send you to prison?”
There was an ugly note in Lilah‘s voice that Clark had never heard before. “People don’t expect anything more from a kid like you. They figure that you’ll either go on welfare while your girlfriend pops out little brats to abuse the system, or you’ll end up in jail or dead.”
Clark felt frozen in place, unable to move. It took him a moment to speak, and when he did, it felt as though his throat had closed up. He swallowed. “Why would you go to all this trouble for a relationship that shouldn’t have started in the first place?”
Lilah sighed, closed her eyes for a moment, then shook her head. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what made me say that…. It just makes me a little crazy to hear you talking like this.”
“What we have is special, Clark.” Lilah sighed, then smiled tremulously, and Clark thought for a moment that she was going to cry. “
“What we have is a lie.” Clark forced himself to straighten. “This has always been wrong. It was wrong the first time, and it’s no less wrong now. We’ve talked about this before. I have to leave, while there’s still a shred of decency left. I’ve told you no, and that should be the end of it.”
“You told me no the first time, too. It didn’t last long.“ Lilah touched his knee and began to make slow, sensuous circles. She leaned forward, and Clark had to look away quickly to avoid a glimpse down her shirt. “What we have together is too powerful. You can tell me no all you want, but there’s always part of you that’s going to want to say yes.”
“I’ve known what I have to do for a long time, and I haven’t followed through with it. Who I’ve been, what this has made me...I’m ashamed of myself. This lessens the both of us, and this isn’t who my parents would have wanted me to be. I can’t change what I’ve done. All I can do is try to be a better man.” Clark felt nauseous, and he stood up. “This time is different. You’ll see.”
He walked blindly out of the room and through the hall to the door outside. He walked quickly, hoping to get far enough out of sight that he could take off. Flight was the one joy that was still pure in his world.”
He was so upset that the sound from behind the oak tree at the edge of the coach’s property caught him by surprise.
“So you’re this year’s favorite.” Jess stepped out from behind a tree. Clark could smell the odor of tobacco on his clothes, though he couldn’t see any cigarettes.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You’re Mrs. Holder’s flavor of the moment.” Jess’s grin didn’t reach his eyes. “I didn’t think you had it in you, Clark. Porking Rachel and Mrs. Sanderson at the same time? You dog…”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Clark said stiffly. “Lilah’s just helping me with my scholarship applications.”
“She’s been doing that every few nights for a good long while. You think I don’t know what goes on in this town?”
“You’re way off base,” Clark said. “I don’t know where you get these crazy ideas, but…”
“You think you’re the first, don’t you? Lilah likes her meat young, Veal, sweet and tender. You get a little too old for her and…hell, all you have to do is look around town. There’s a half a dozen guys who’ve been in your shoes.”
Clark gaped. Too many revelations, too fast. He’d believed Lilah when she’d said they had something special. He’d wanted to believe it.
Disillusionment was a bitter pill. He fought to keep his expression neutral. Jess was undoubtedly looking for signs of pain so he could revel in it.
“So she’s doing all this and everybody knows about it. Nobody talks?”
He knew nobody talked. With his hearing, he knew every rumor in town.
“The adults don‘t know, and neither do most of the kids. She threatens everybody that she’ll scream rape. She’d do it too.”
Clark felt nauseous all over again. It had never occurred to him to wonder just how he’d fell into the relationship with Lilah. Looking back, it occurred to him that there had been incidences that seemed almost orchestrated.
“Even if I believed you, how would you know unless someone talked?”
Jess spread his hands. “Meet last year's model.”
His smile was ugly.
*********************************
