Thank you, Carol!

From Chapter 31

She shrugged. “You told me once that I could be both – not so argumentative and still not let people walk all over me. Did you mean that? I don't seem too… I don't know. Overbearing now?”

“Not at all,” I told her, trying to let her see how much I liked the new version of Lois. “You seem… real now. Whole. And it's okay to get angry at people once in awhile.”

“I really don't seem… what was the word Mrs. Noris in high school used… confrontational? She said I was too confrontational and hard to be around.”

I groaned. “Lois, the woman had a job as a high school guidance counselor. Didn't you guys make fun of her at your school? Besides, it's okay to confront people sometimes. And I don't find you at all hard to be around.”

Lois smiled at me, her whole face lighting up. “Thanks, Clark,” she whispered, just before she leaned over and kissed me.


Chapter 32

I was confused at first. Not confused enough to stop it or something, but confused. I wondered if Lois was thinking clearly or if this was just a reaction to Paul's hurting her. Then I wondered how I felt about it. Was I really so over Maddie by now that I could kiss someone else? How long did it take to get over someone you loved?

I heard Steve's voice in my head asking me if I was a girl – what did it matter if I was over Maddie, Lois was hot. I almost laughed at that. I never called girls that – it seemed somewhat… demeaning or something, but in Steve's voice, it sounded right. And no matter whose voice it was, it was true. She was hot.

Lois mistook my slight gasp as I fought down the urge to laugh, and instead used it to deepen our kiss. And seconds after that, the voice in my head stopped.

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“You know if you'd just study once in awhile, you wouldn't constantly need me to be telling you how you're going to do in your classes, as you'd know.” Star's voice only vaguely filtered through my brain as the door to Lois' room opened.

“Hey, Lois… Clark?” Star's voice was clearer as Lois pulled away from me. For a moment, neither of us said anything, or even moved, really. Then, taking in the smirk and the knowing look Star shot my way, some semblance of higher brain function came back to me, and I grabbed Lois' blanket and threw it over us.

How had that happened? One minute we were kissing, and I wasn't even sure that was the best idea, and now we were lying in her bed… well, not nearly naked, but still… mostly down to our underwear.

“I guess I'll come back later,” Star said, clearly trying not to giggle.

“No!” Lois and I both said emphatically. I guess like me, Lois was hoping that if she stayed we'd continue to act sane.

“I… I was actually just going,” I stammered.

“Really?” Star asked, eyeing my pants, which were currently falling off the edge of Lois' bed.

“Yes,” I said, keeping my voice as composed as possible considering my heart was beating a mile a minute and a thousand thoughts were running through my head. Lifting the blanket so that Lois was still covered, I got up. I was a little self conscious standing in my underwear in front of Star… Well, actually, I was a little self conscious standing in my underwear in front of Lois, too. Regardless, I knew I needed to leave before we did anything far stupider than what we had almost just done. Considering how far we had gotten without my even thinking about it, I did not want to spend too much time wondering where things would have stopped if Star had returned to their room just a little later.

I pulled my pants on hurriedly and grabbed my shirt from the floor as I walked to the door. “I'll call you later?” I asked Lois, feeling my face flush. In reality, I wasn't sure I wanted to call her later, but somehow I had the sense that it was the right thing to do.

She nodded silently as I turned around.

“See you later, Clark,” Star called cheerily as I opened the door.

“Yeah, um, see you later,” I replied, not bothering to turn back around.

I started back to my room, but then changed my mind. I felt the need to sort out what had just happened, and my roommate was not the person to do that with. My first two choices on campus were clearly also out. Lois would have been the obvious choice, but given that she was involved, this particular problem didn't seem like the best one to go to her with.

And Maddie… well, it wasn't clear I could really talk to Maddie about much of anything personal anymore, but this? I think it was safe to assume this was completely out of the question.

I considered talking to Josh, but somehow didn't feel right about that, either. I knew from our talks over break that he was over Lois now, but I also knew he had had quite a crush on her last semester.

This left me with the person I had always been most likely to go to with any sort of question. Maybe I was a Mama's Boy or something, but the truth was, no one could listen better than my mother.

So, I headed over to the math building and then back to Kansas.

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“Clark?” Mom called from the living room as I opened the door into the kitchen.

“Yeah, it's me,” I called back thinking I went home too often if my parents still thought I was their most likely visitor when I lived half a continent away.

“What's the matter, son?” Dad asked as I came into the entranceway.

I started to ask how he knew something was wrong, but reconsidered. My parents knew me well. Just my being here likely meant I had some good news to share or I needed help, and the tone of my reply to my mother probably helped eliminate the former option.

“I kissed Lois tonight,” I said, sitting down heavily on the couch.

“You what?” Dad asked, surprised, but Mom just smirked.

“I kissed Lois. Or…well, she kissed me, but I didn't stop her. And in fact, I don't know… things got out of hand,” I finally said.

The smirk was gone from Mom's face. “How out of hand?”

“Not that out of hand!” I rushed to reassure her. “But bad enough.”

“Bad enough for what?” Dad asked, and now he seemed to be on the verge of laughter.

“There was… clothing removed,” I mumbled.

“And?” Mom prodded me on.

“That's it. But I mean… how could I have let that happen? I wasn't intending to…and she was all worked up about Paul and I'm not sure I'm over Maddie and…”

“Take a deep breath,” Dad instructed me.

I followed his advice although I resented the chuckle I could hear in his voice.

“So you kissed a girl,” Mom said. “You're eighteen. That's really okay.”

“But…” I started, although I wasn't sure what to say. How could I explain what I wanted – how I was always so careful to be in control and then somehow lost that tonight. How could that happen? How could I just completely stop thinking? I never did that. Mom and Dad had ingrained it in me that I couldn't do that.

“It's okay, Clark,” Mom repeated more firmly. “I mean, I would suggest you spend some effort trying to keep a little more in control of your hormones so you don't get carried away, but overall it's okay to kiss someone.”

“But how could I not even realize how far we'd gotten?” I asked her. How could she not understand how serious this was?

“Did you really not realize it?” Dad asked, “Or was it more that you didn't care?”

I stopped to consider the question, but I already knew the answer. It wasn't like I blacked out or something. I had been fully aware of Lois' fingers on my chest as she removed my shirt. And I had been more than fully aware of the feel of her skin under my fingers as I removed hers. “I guess that I didn't care. But it wasn't really like that. It was more like I just wasn't thinking at all.”

Mom laughed.

“This is funny?” I asked her.

“A little. Yes,” she said between giggles. “You're an eighteen year old, Clark. All you did was act like it. It's really okay not to act like a forty year old all of the time. Particularly considering you are no where near forty.”

“I don't act like I'm forty,” I mumbled.

“Really?” Dad asked. “How many of your friends do you think call home to tell their parents that they feel guilty for not helping other people more?”

“That's not fair,” I said. “They can't help out the way I can.”

“Still,” Mom said, “the point still holds. So,” she said, standing up and sitting back down with her leg underneath her. I took in her posture with trepidation. She sat like that when she thought our discussion would be more like juicy gossip than her providing real advice. I never enjoyed those talks as she always seemed on the verge of laughter throughout them. “Tell us what happened.”

“I told you what happened,” I said.

“Well, in that you kissed Lois,” Mom said, “but I thought Lois had a crush on that guy from the paper you didn't like. And I thought you didn't know you were interested in her.”

“She did have a crush on Paul,” I said, amazed she could keep all these details straight. “But he was a jerk to her when we got back, and she seems sort of over it now. And…wait a second. What do you mean I didn't know I was interested in her?”

Now it was Dad's turn to laugh. “I think your mother means that you've been interested in Lois for awhile. We were just waiting for you to realize it.”

“No, I wasn't,” I said. “I'm in love… or was in love with Maddie.”

“That doesn't mean you can't find anyone else attractive,” Mom pointed out.

“Maybe,” I said, mainly to placate her. “But doesn't it mean I can't… I don't know. But… I don't know how to say what I want,” I finally mumbled. As I suspected, this conversation was not going the way I wanted.

“I think it makes it hard for you – and by you, I mean specifically you, to act on your interest in someone else,” Dad said. “You feel too guilty. But given that you and Maddie have been broken up for two months, maybe you're over that.”

“Especially enough to not stop Lois when she kisses you, even if you wouldn't kiss her,” Mom added.

“You're not being helpful,” I told her.

Mom laughed again, and Dad smirked. Typical.

I sighed. “I'm looking for some advice here,” I told them. “What do I do now?”

“Have you tried talking to Lois?” Dad asked.

“About what? You think I should ask her why she kissed me? I can't do that.”

“Why not?” Mom asked.

“It would be too embarrassing,” I explained.

“You kissed Lois today, and it sounds like some pretty heavy duty kissing, but you're too embarrassed to ask her why she kissed you?” Mom asked, her eyebrows raised.

I understood her point, but it didn't change the facts. I got up. “I think I'm going back to campus,” I told them.

This time Dad laughed, too. “Good luck with Lois, son,” I said.

“Gee, thanks,” I said, making no effort to hide my sarcasm. Not that it mattered – I could hear them still laughing as I closed the door behind me.

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I considered going back to Lois' room when I got back to campus, but while I knew my parents were right and I should talk to her – if for no other reason than that she would know I wasn't ignoring her – I decided to go to my room instead. I just didn't feel up to talking to Lois. Not at least without some more guidance on how I felt about our kiss. I just couldn't break apart the mix of emotions – the… guilt? Maybe, Dad was right and I did feel guilty for kissing Lois when I wasn't sure I was over Maddie. But it was more than that. There was also the confusion since Lois had been interested in Paul up until yesterday.

Plus, she was Lois. She was my friend – perhaps even my best friend on campus. I didn't think it was such a good idea to kiss your friends. Not that I had had enough experience doing that to be sure. The only real female friend I had had in high school was Rachel. Rachel was nice and she was pretty enough, but at the time, noticing Rachel as a girl would have required my looking past Lana Lang, and I wasn't really capable of that.

Lastly, and most annoying to me, was how far we had gotten. I might have been able to brush off my kissing Lois as a one time slip up, but I always tried to be much more in control of my actions than I had been with Lois tonight. Even with Maddie, where things had felt easier than they ever had with Lana, it was more that I wasn't over thinking things. I still felt in control of what I was doing. Losing control could cause a problem. Who knew what I could do when I did, and what the potential consequences would be for the person I was with?

I thought once more of the conversation in Smallville. Why did my parents insist on considering this a normal eighteen year old thing? I wasn't a normal eighteen year old. How in denial could they be? I sighed. I knew they knew that, and I knew that they thought I exaggerated my differences in my head as much as I thought they minimized them. This was basically not a new issue, but it was still one I found frustrating. I wasn't normal and thus I couldn't act normal. I needed to be more careful than that.

With a sigh, I headed back out. It might be a good night for a flight around the world.

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After a fitful night's sleep, I headed over to Lois'. Thanks to our conversation the first day of the semester, I knew her first class today was at noon. I was also pretty sure I was remembering correctly that while Lois was an early riser, she also liked to kind of lounge around in the mornings. At least twice during the break, I'd called her in the afternoon and she had mentioned she was still in her pajamas. So, I figured it was a safe bet that on days she didn't have class until noon, she would still be in her room at ten.

I knocked, feeling terribly insecure. It wasn't like I had come to any further understanding of how I felt or how Lois felt or whatever. I just knew I couldn't put off talking to her any longer.

“Hi, Clark,” Star said as she opened the door. Something about the tone of her voice bothered me. She sounded a bit like the cat that ate the canary.

“Hi, Star,” I said cautiously.

“So,” she said, looking at me appraisingly as she leaned against the door frame. “Aren't you going to apologize?”

“Apologize?” What was she talking about?

“For doubting me and my psychic abilities,” she clarified.

I tried not to roll my eyes. Of course I doubted her psychic abilities. I mean, they were… just weird. Who could do that? And what proof could she give that she really had them.

Although, to be fair, she was right more often than I would expect. And while I wanted to brush them away as not real as they were improbable… well, how many people would say that to me if I told them I could fly?

Still, what would make me change my mind now? “I'm sure you think you have psychic abilities,” I said to Star. “But that doesn't mean you do.”

“So you don't believe me even when I make predictions you think are wholly unbelievable and they turn out to be true?” she asked.

“Like what?”

She smiled again. “Don't you remember the frat party last semester?” she asked.

“Of course I do,” I told her, remembering again how that was the night Maddie and I had first kissed.

“But you don't remember our conversation?” Star prompted me.

I did vaguely remember bumping into Star on the stairs. I had been… looking for Lois at the time, I thought. But what had we talked about?

I could feel myself flush as I suddenly remembered.

“I have this image. Maybe it's also not this year, maybe Lois and I will continue to room together. But at some point, I'm going to walk in on you barely dressed with my roommate,” she said with a smile.

I could feel myself flush from the neck up, but tried to keep my voice calm. “Sorry to disappoint you, Star, but that seems pretty unlikely to me.”

She laughed again. “Okay,” she said, before she turned away.

“You were right,” I said softly.

“I know I was,” Star said with a smile.

I couldn't help myself. Despite the knots in my stomach over my impending talk with Lois, I laughed. “So… you were right. Maybe you are a little psychic.”

“A little?” Star asked, but I could hear the teasing glint in her voice.

“Well, it'll take more than once to convince me,” I told her. The truth was that my teasing her about this was part of our relationship. It just didn't feel right to completely give in.

“I'm sure it will,” Star said, smiling at me broadly. “Anyway, my roommate is out.”

“She is?” I said, somewhat disappointed. I had worked up the nerve to talk to Lois this morning. I didn't want to have to do it again.

Star nodded. “Yeah, she said something about having to work on her paper for journalism.”

I groaned. I needed to do that, too. Not that I felt at all up to it this morning.

“Want to go to breakfast?” I asked Star.

“Sure,” Star said, leaning behind her to grab her jacket. “Just don't think this means you can shove your tongue down my throat. Save that for my roommate.”

I stared at her in horror for a moment before she burst out laughing, and despite myself, I smiled.