3.Life Thru a Lens
The Metropolis Journal has gone into liquidation. Hostile takeover from the LNN group. Total scorched earth. Good.
Christmas on my own. First one ever, and it's hard. I know who I am, now. What I want. And that I may have lost it forever.
Pictures in front of me. My photographs. Travelling back through time.
Pete and Lana's wedding! How weird was that? Clark and I talking to each other. Clark was best man. I was there on my own, and it felt very strange - first event in a long time without a partner, even one that had to keep diving off with his cell-phone. Once you work for yourself, you never really stop working. And if several thousand people depend on you for their jobs, you can't just blow them off.
New York. Interning at a paper there. My backroom boys at the paper, messing with their gizmos and gadgets, uplink cables and e-sat feeds. Dave, Mitch and Peter. That was an interesting time.
Gotham. Scary place. Everyone I met there seemed to be a basket-case. Which was why I decided to take up the internship in the Big Apple instead.
Met. U. - that was a time. My flatmate, looking a bit stunned still - she's just been introduced to 'Alex', found out who my 'rich boyfriend back home' really is. Difficult to go out anywhere together, just as it had always been. More work, more meetings, with the company starting to take off. The odd weekend back out of the city. Pictures of me hanging out with my course buddies, being Chloe, instead of the weird chick from the paper, the one dating the local Prince of Darkness. Me looking like Annie Hall on roller-blades, flailing through a park. Really stupid picture from a costume party - Catwoman and Darth Maul. Graduation. Me and Clark.
Back further now, and we're back into hometown days. Prom. Clark, grinning at the camera, proud of his new tux and oblivious to the fact that the straight-faced millionaire beside him has put two fingers behind his head. Borrowing the limo. Pete and Lana. The 'three amigos' arm in arm. And - I'd forgotten this one, don't know who took it. We're standing together, slow-dancing on the steps, not laughing but staring into each other's eyes. Nobody else in the world existed. He'd come tearing back at midnight from some meeting, because he had promised me the last dance. And I'd waited for him, because I knew that he would come. So sure of each other, then.
Sharp jab of memory. I need to go home.
***
~picture13# at the airport, looking up at the departures board.~
~picture 14# looking back over her shoulder, and waving, grinning at no-one in particular.~
***
My face reflected in the window, against the night. Do I look different now? Has a year changed me? I got and held down a job, paid my own rent, made some friends, all as myself. And now I'm going back. Will there be something to go back to?
Face up to it, Sullivan. This is not a man you will ever get over.
***
I drive back through the quiet little town where I grew up. The place that became home. Up a road at once familiar and unknown.
Still the same old gothic pile - same code on the gate - same light burning in a window, because -normal- people might need to sleep, but... Know that he knows I'm here, walk under the eye of the hidden cameras, but I know about these - flashback to a long time past and a shudder - push open the door.
He's sitting at the desk, doing an excellent job of nonchalance.
"You are the most possessive boyfriend in the world." I say. And realise that I've given myself away, even more than just being here. I'm not mad - I thought I would be. Instead I just feel safe, home.
He gets up, comes round the desk, stands in front of me, silent, with a question in his eyes. Slowly, I put out my hand, slip inside his shirt. The old private gesture. Close my fingers on the chain, pull the ring into the half-light.
"I thought you might have outgrown...it."
"No."
He fumbles the catch, lets the chain fall to the floor. I hold out my left hand, fingers spread, and he slips the ring onto my finger. Back where it belongs.
***
Tomorrow we can talk, catch up, decide where we go from here. For now, I prop on an elbow, watch over him sleeping.
It's the least I can do.
***
Next Up -
Smallville Ledger
Mr. Gabriel Sullivan is pleased to announce the engagement of his daughter Chloe to Alexander Joseph Luthor, son of Lionel Luthor.
The wedding will take place at Luthor Hall.
The Metropolis Journal has gone into liquidation. Hostile takeover from the LNN group. Total scorched earth. Good.
Christmas on my own. First one ever, and it's hard. I know who I am, now. What I want. And that I may have lost it forever.
Pictures in front of me. My photographs. Travelling back through time.
Pete and Lana's wedding! How weird was that? Clark and I talking to each other. Clark was best man. I was there on my own, and it felt very strange - first event in a long time without a partner, even one that had to keep diving off with his cell-phone. Once you work for yourself, you never really stop working. And if several thousand people depend on you for their jobs, you can't just blow them off.
New York. Interning at a paper there. My backroom boys at the paper, messing with their gizmos and gadgets, uplink cables and e-sat feeds. Dave, Mitch and Peter. That was an interesting time.
Gotham. Scary place. Everyone I met there seemed to be a basket-case. Which was why I decided to take up the internship in the Big Apple instead.
Met. U. - that was a time. My flatmate, looking a bit stunned still - she's just been introduced to 'Alex', found out who my 'rich boyfriend back home' really is. Difficult to go out anywhere together, just as it had always been. More work, more meetings, with the company starting to take off. The odd weekend back out of the city. Pictures of me hanging out with my course buddies, being Chloe, instead of the weird chick from the paper, the one dating the local Prince of Darkness. Me looking like Annie Hall on roller-blades, flailing through a park. Really stupid picture from a costume party - Catwoman and Darth Maul. Graduation. Me and Clark.
Back further now, and we're back into hometown days. Prom. Clark, grinning at the camera, proud of his new tux and oblivious to the fact that the straight-faced millionaire beside him has put two fingers behind his head. Borrowing the limo. Pete and Lana. The 'three amigos' arm in arm. And - I'd forgotten this one, don't know who took it. We're standing together, slow-dancing on the steps, not laughing but staring into each other's eyes. Nobody else in the world existed. He'd come tearing back at midnight from some meeting, because he had promised me the last dance. And I'd waited for him, because I knew that he would come. So sure of each other, then.
Sharp jab of memory. I need to go home.
***
~picture13# at the airport, looking up at the departures board.~
~picture 14# looking back over her shoulder, and waving, grinning at no-one in particular.~
***
My face reflected in the window, against the night. Do I look different now? Has a year changed me? I got and held down a job, paid my own rent, made some friends, all as myself. And now I'm going back. Will there be something to go back to?
Face up to it, Sullivan. This is not a man you will ever get over.
***
I drive back through the quiet little town where I grew up. The place that became home. Up a road at once familiar and unknown.
Still the same old gothic pile - same code on the gate - same light burning in a window, because -normal- people might need to sleep, but... Know that he knows I'm here, walk under the eye of the hidden cameras, but I know about these - flashback to a long time past and a shudder - push open the door.
He's sitting at the desk, doing an excellent job of nonchalance.
"You are the most possessive boyfriend in the world." I say. And realise that I've given myself away, even more than just being here. I'm not mad - I thought I would be. Instead I just feel safe, home.
He gets up, comes round the desk, stands in front of me, silent, with a question in his eyes. Slowly, I put out my hand, slip inside his shirt. The old private gesture. Close my fingers on the chain, pull the ring into the half-light.
"I thought you might have outgrown...it."
"No."
He fumbles the catch, lets the chain fall to the floor. I hold out my left hand, fingers spread, and he slips the ring onto my finger. Back where it belongs.
***
Tomorrow we can talk, catch up, decide where we go from here. For now, I prop on an elbow, watch over him sleeping.
It's the least I can do.
***
Next Up -
Smallville Ledger
Mr. Gabriel Sullivan is pleased to announce the engagement of his daughter Chloe to Alexander Joseph Luthor, son of Lionel Luthor.
The wedding will take place at Luthor Hall.