Summary: Sometimes the hardest times to be a mom…are also the best.
Author’s Note: Happy Ficlet Friday 
Much thanks to the incredibly genius KSaraSara, who planted this idea in my head and helped with…all the things, really! Happy reading, and hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!Destined: EmpathyBy Bek
“Sometimes the world is too much, Mom. Sometimes everything is too much. It almost hurts.”
“I know, dear, I know.”
Martha Kent embraced her son. He was a young man now, but she wrapped her arms around him like she had when he was just a little boy…when hugs were all he needed to make everything right again. He seemed to melt into her, his head bent down to rest against her shoulder, his body trembling, his breath coming in short, rapid gasps.
He felt a lot, all the time. He worried a lot, all the time. And he cared so much, all the time.
And so, she also worried about him. All the time.
He was different. She and Jonathan had known he was different from the moment they’d met him—just a perfect, tiny baby wrapped in a dark blue blanket, his bright eyes wide and intelligent.
As he’d grown up, he’d seemed to have realized it too. And in the last couple years—just since starting high school, really—he’d begun to isolate himself more. He didn’t go out with friends, he didn’t ask to participate in sports, he didn’t join any study groups at school. He worked hard; he had big dreams—big goals that he talked about all the time. He wanted to go to college and study journalism. He wanted to travel and see the world. And he wanted to write.
Most of the time, he seemed happy.
But she was observant, and she saw his fears and reservations and doubts when they would creep in ever so often. She felt his anxiety and knew when the ‘happy’ was an act…when the smile wasn’t quite real.
Today, however, he didn’t even try to pretend. Today, he allowed himself to feel it all. Because today had been too much.
“He just… They started pushing him around just because he’s different, Mom. I…I had to try to help. It’s not right. There’s so much that’s just…not right.”
She nodded into him and kissed the top of his head, just like she had when he was a little boy. Absently, she wondered whether his biological mother had done the same before she’d let him go forever. They would never know. He would never know.
But he
would know a mother’s love. Always. Because she loved him more than anything else in the world, and she never wanted him to doubt that. Ever.
“You did the right thing, Clark,” she murmured, tightening her arms around him. “You did the right thing. And I’m proud of you for it.”
“Principal Watkins doesn’t agree with you,” Clark said, his voice muffled into her shoulder. “He wanted to suspend me. I didn’t even… I didn’t even throw a single punch, Mom. It was all Billy Johnson and Caleb Burdock—they attacked Max. And he… They said he has a concussion and… All because he’s different. Just because he’s gay. It’s not right.”
Clark suddenly straightened up. He was taller than her now—he had been for a couple years already—and she had to tilt her head slightly to look up at him. The uncertainty she’d seen in his eyes had faded, replaced by an expression of quiet determination and purpose.
“I’m going to write an op-ed for the school paper. Mr. Jameson will let me print it, I know he will.”
“I think that sounds like a fantastic idea, Clark.”
He smiled at her then, even as he wiped a tear from his cheek. And it was a real smile, filled with hope.
“Thanks, Mom.”
She blinked back her own tears and nodded quietly, and her heart swelled with love and pride and a million other emotions as she embraced him again. He would be okay. She just knew it. And his strength and kindness and compassion would guide him to someday change the world.
One way or another.
The End.
