I am not going to be online much, if at all, from tomorrow until Monday is my guess, so I thought I'd post this early.
Thank you, Carol!
From Chapter 27
Dad watched me across the table warily. He was conflicted, it was clear. His first reaction was that I had done the right thing - I couldn't tell anyone my secret. But then he had seemed to change his mind, saying I couldn't let my secret isolate myself from my friends.
Mom's view was much clearer cut. She thought I was being foolish – that if I wanted to keep being the Boy in Black and I wanted to keep being with Maddie, I needed to tell Maddie about the Boy in Black. If I wouldn't then I needed to realize that Maddie wasn't that important to me.
Maybe she was right – maybe Maddie wasn't that important to me. But it didn't feel that way. It didn't feel that way at all. It felt like my heart was breaking into a thousand pieces. And because I couldn't get the image of her face out of my head, I knew Maddie's was as well. No question about it – I was the world's biggest heel.
Chapter 28
My Thanksgiving break was basically a wash. I was miserable the entire time and by the end of the five days, even Dad was tired of me. I kept hearing Mom's voice in my head telling me that Maddie wasn't important to me, and wanting to scream at it. Mom hadn't actually said that – I could just tell she thought it. Or at least thought that Maddie wasn't as important as I claimed.
I don't think she got it, though. Neither did Dad. I know what she was thinking was that as much as I cared about Maddie, it wasn't like the kind of love they had for each other. That was true – I knew it was. On the other hand, though, it was the most I was ever going to get. I couldn't have anything like what they had. They had what Maddie wanted - a relationship with no secrets, complete openness. Not that I could see either Mom or Dad defining their relationship that way. In the same way Maddie had told me about Dave without stipulating that that was the type of relationship she wanted to have, Mom and Dad were just open with each other as they wanted to be. They didn't want to keep secrets from each other.
How could I ever have that though? I mean, Mom and Dad were great, but sometimes I felt like they missed the big picture. No matter how much I loved someone else, I could never truly be myself with them, could never be completely honest. How could I do that and not scare them off? How could I do that and not risk my parents' safety?
The truth was that I couldn't. I could never give Maddie what she wanted. I could never care for someone in the way I know Mom had thought I cared about Maddie and now was convinced I didn't. I had cared for Maddie as much as I could. I had let her in as much as I could ever let anyone in.
I recognized that she not only wanted, but deserved, more than that, but that didn't change the truth. This was as good as it was going to get for me.
Maybe I was better off dating girls like Lana in the end.
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Lunch the day after the break was painful. I almost wished I hadn't gone. Lois seemed a bit softer towards me, but I barely noticed. It was hard to see past Maddie. Maddie, who looked like she hadn't slept since the last time I had seen her, who only looked up at me once the entire time we were at lunch and then with tears in her eyes.
I could tell that she was hoping something had changed over the break – that I was sorry and was going to come and apologize and make it all right. She expected that of me. The boy she thought she had been dating would have done that.
But I wasn't the boy she thought she was dating. I wasn't even a boy really. I was… well, I still didn't know what I was. But I was something, something Maddie wouldn't want to know about. In the end, she'd be happier thinking I wasn't the boy she thought I was than finding out she had spent the better part of a semester dating an alien or a science experiment gone wrong. Wouldn't she? I mean, how embarrassing would it be to realize that your first love was space trash?
Clearly, I was being kinder to her this way.
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I was surprised when Lois stepped into place beside me after lunch. We hadn't walked to class together in the week before the break, and while I had thought she seemed friendlier during lunch, I hadn't really been paying close enough attention.
“So what's with you and Mrs. Kent?” she asked me as we walked towards the humanities building.
“What?” I asked, confused both about what she was doing beside me and what she was talking about.
“You and Maddie. You guys break up or something?” she asked.
I didn't answer her right away, trying to find the right words. “Yeah, I guess,” I finally said. It bothered me that those were the right words, but it didn't change the fact that they were.
“What happened?” Lois asked, and now the teasing sound was gone from her voice. She sounded sincerely concerned.
I shook my head. “Things just… didn't work out,” I said softly.
“I'm sorry, Clark,” Lois said, her hand on my arm.
“You shouldn't be,” I told her. “It was my fault.”
“What did you do?” she asked, looking for all the world like she couldn't believe I was to blame for a second.
“Why? Did you think it was Maddie's fault?” I asked her.
She said nothing for a second before finally responding, “I guess I didn't see it being anyone's fault. I can't see either you or Maddie screwing up. I can see you moving apart or something, but not this fast.”
“Well, sorry to disappoint you,” I said, “but that's not what happened here. I screwed up, Maddie got upset, and now we're not together anymore,” I said, feeling unreasonably annoyed at Lois.
“Well then,” Lois said, her reasonable tone of voice firmly in place, “why not just apologize and move on?”
“When did you become Ann Landers?” I asked her. I knew I was being snippy with her, but I didn't care. “I thought you weren't even talking to me.”
Lois looked slightly hurt, but stood her ground. “I wasn't. But I thought about it over the break and realized that you weren't trying to be mean. You were trying to help. So I decided to forgive you. Sorry to disappoint you, Clark,” she said, sounding annoyed herself now. “I thought I was being a good friend. You looked like you were hurting and I was trying to help.”
“Well don't!” I told her. “I don't need your help. How can you anyway? Have you ever been in a real relationship? How would you have any idea how to fix this?” I was nearly shouting at her now. Some small part of me felt badly. This wasn't Lois' fault. I knew that. But I couldn't help it. Maybe being angry at her was easier than being angry at myself.
“I wouldn't,” Lois said firmly, but there were tears swimming in her eyes. “Sorry. I thought I was being a friend, but clearly I still have a lot to learn about that.” She turned to precede me into the classroom, but at the last minute I turned around and walked back out the door.
Even I, Clark Kent, the student who wouldn't skip classes for anything, couldn't deal with sitting in a classroom today.
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I took a fast flight around the world. Well, okay, I took several fast flights around the world. When I ran out of steam, I landed in the Arctic and sat on the cold ground. It was dark there now – being late enough in the year that it probably never got light. And it was cold. Far colder than a normal human could probably stand without adequate winter gear – which I most certainly did not have.
But that was fine. It was just another reminder of how far from normal I was. Of how I didn't deserve Maddie anyway. Or Lois for that matter. I shouldn't have screamed at her like that. It wasn't her fault I was in a bad mood, and she hadn't really been doing anything wrong. She was being a good friend – I was the idiot who was not.
I sighed. I was quickly becoming my least favorite person, which was not a fun place to be. I mean, I couldn't really limit my time with myself, could I? What could I do?
I looked around as if I thought I might see someone, but even the research outpost based a few miles away had seemed empty when I passed by. I was all alone out here. Maybe this was a better place to be than a crowded college campus. Maybe all this work at trying to pretend to be normal, to pretend to be an average college freshman, was stupid. Maybe I should have followed my instincts.
When I was about thirteen it started to become apparent that I wasn't ever going to be normal. More and more weird things were happening to me and it was starting to seem more like the reality than the exception that I was just not like my classmates. My first instinct had been to run away, to live my life alone. Why bother trying to fit in when I never could?
I was only thirteen, though, and hadn't handled it well. I packed a bag, but announced my plan to my parents before I did it. They had laughed at me. Not meanly, but affectionately. Mom had said that every little boy feels like he doesn't fit in and if I didn't have these weird powers, I'd think I'd never fit in because my eyes were brown or something silly like that. I hadn't really believed her – I mean, who doesn't fit in because they have brown eyes? But I had still decided to stay home.
Maybe that first thought was correct. I mean, I'm sure Mom was right – everyone feels like they don't fit in sometimes. But no one had a reason as good as mine. Right? And maybe by trying to fit in, by trying to have a normal life, I was just hurting myself and others.
If I had just accepted I wasn't normal, I never would have bothered to make friends and then I'd never have dated Maddie, never have been friends with Lois. All three of us would be better off right now.
I'd be lonely, I supposed, but I wasn't sure that wasn't worse than this.
I sighed. What I would be doing for sure, though, was disappointing my parents. They wanted nothing more than a normal life for me. I owed them that. I owed them more than that. They had saved me from starving or whatever in Shuster's Field and supported me when it became clear that their son was anything but a normal boy. They had always taken my differences in stride.
While lots of things in my life seemed pretty awful right about then, the truth was that I never stopped being lucky. Martha and Jonathan Kent were amazing people, and I couldn't have hoped for someone better to find me. So I owed them the effort to try to have a normal life.
Maybe, though, a normal life with limits. Maybe friends were okay, but no romantic relationships. Those were just disasters waiting to happen. I never wanted to feel what I was feeling again. And more than than, I never wanted to see someone else I cared about look the way Maddie did and know I was the cause.
Yes, definitely. Friendships were probably okay (although the one with Lois certainly needed work right now), but nothing more intimate than that.
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“Hey,” Star smiled at me as she answered the door. “Lois is at the Titan staff meeting, but you can come in and wait for her.”
“Thanks,” I gave a small smile, following her in to the dorm room. “How are you?” I asked as I sat on Lois' bed.
Star shrugged. “Good. I aced my econ midterm.”
“That's great!” I said, remembering how she had stressed about that.
“What about you? What did you decide about that course?” she asked me.
“What course?” I asked her.
“I told you – you were going to consider a course for next semester but not be sure if you should take it. What did you decide?”
I flushed. I hadn't decided on my courses for next semester yet. I had until the end of the week and with all the things going on right now, I hadn't even opened the course catalog since the day Star had last mentioned it to me. “I… um… haven't decided yet.”
Star shook her head. “I thought that was the case, but thought I might be wrong. You don't seem like a procrastinator.”
“I'm not usually,” I said, “but things have been busy lately.”
Star nodded her head. “When do you have to put your picks in by?”
I grimaced. “Can I guess that the fact that you don't know means that you've already done it?”
Star laughed. “Yes. Your chances of getting your first pick is better if you submit early.”
“I know,” I admitted, “but we have until the end of the week. I'm planning on making decisions tomorrow afternoon.” That wasn't strictly true – I had had no plans at all before now, but now that Star had reminded me I realized that it was something I really did need to do something about. Provided I wasn't still planning on dropping out of school and living on a glacier, anyway.
Lois walked in just then and seemed surprised to see me. The surprise just flickered across her face though and was gone almost before I could comprehend it.
“Hi,” I said to her softly.
“Hi,” she said and even if her face was unreadable, her tone was unmistakably guarded.
“Do you have a minute?” I asked her. “Can I treat you to a cup of coffee or something?”
“I'm not sure,” she said.
“I'm really sorry,” I interrupted her. “I was way out of line earlier.”
She nodded. “I guess so.”
“Thanks,” I said as I got up. “See you later, Star.”
“Later, Clark,” Star said before burying her head in a book.
“I meant it,” I told Lois as we left her dorm and walked towards the union. “I'm really sorry. I was in a bad mood and I shouldn't have taken it out on you. You were being a good friend – I wasn't.”
Lois nodded. “I guess I can understand that. Are you feeling better now?”
I shrugged. “I guess. I mean, I'm still not okay about the whole breaking up with Maddie thing, but I'm not angry about it. I know it was my fault and I know there's nothing I can do to fix it. I just wish I hadn't hurt her.”
“So what did you do?” Lois asked me gently.
I shrugged. “I don't really want to talk about it,” I said. Lois could be like a dog with a bone. The last thing I wanted to do was tell her I had kept something from Maddie – she wouldn't rest until she knew what it was.
“Why don't you just apologize and work through it if you know it's your fault?” Lois asked in what had to be a superhuman effort not to push me to explain what I had done wrong.
“It's not that simple,” I said quietly as I opened the door for the union.
“What isn't?” Lois asked, sincerely confused.
We paused as we came to the counter and Lois ordered a hot chocolate and I ordered a tea. We waited in silence a minute or so as the guy behind the counter made our drinks and I paid for them. We carried them out to the big area in the center of the union filled with couches.
“So?” Lois prodded as we sat next to each other.
“This isn't like that. I can't just apologize. I need to… I really don't want to talk about it,” I said again as I realized I couldn't really explain without saying too much.
Lois looked at me quizzically for a moment before asking, “Do you still love her?”
I nodded although I knew what was coming.
“Well, then, why wouldn't you do anything you could to fix things?”
I smiled. “Really? That's advice from Lois Lane? I can't imagine you following that advice.”
“You'd be surprised what I'd agree to if I were in love with someone,” she muttered so softly I wasn't sure I was supposed to hear her. Louder, she said, “Sometimes you need to make sacrifices.”
“Are they always worth it?” I asked her.
She shrugged. “Don't ask me. I'm the one with no experience. Remember?”
I sighed. “It doesn't matter. Maybe my mom is right. Maybe I don't love her as much as I think I do. I just can't do what I need to do to make this right,” I said, feeling frustrated.
“I don't get it,” Lois said, but then rushed on. “You know if you told me what was wrong, maybe I could help.”
“Maybe,” I said, not that I had any intention of telling Lois what was going on. “I think it's just over, though, Lois. Maddie deserves better anyway.”
Lois snorted. “Where is she going to find that?” she asked me.
“What?”
“Better than you,” Lois replied deadpan. I gave her an incredulous look and she clarified, “You are always telling me that if Paul doesn't notice me, that's his fault. Well, the same is true here. Maddie isn't going to do better than you, Clark.”
I gave her a shallow smile. “You'd be surprised how easy that would be,” I told her knowing that any doofus on campus would be better than me. Well, maybe not any doofus, but most. I mean, how hard could it be to be better than the weirdo who could fly?
