Everything In This World
By Viv
*~*~ Part Two ~*~*
"Chloe." Keeping her attention firmly planted on the latest edition of The Torch in front of her, it took her a moment to register the achingly familiar voice that called out to her from across the school grounds.
She looked up, and was confronted by the smiling blue eyes of Clark Kent.
"Hey Chloe." With one smooth, graceful movement, he sat down on the ground opposite her. "I've been looking for you all morning."
"Oh yeah?" She asked nonchalantly, endeavouring to keep her voice even. Ever since summer, when she had seen Clark and Lana getting visibly closer, she had steeled herself for the unpleasant inevitability of being shunted to the side by Clark like last week's dinner. So what if she had thought that Clark might actually have liked her - as more than just a best friend - last year? He and Lana were clearly bonding, and with Whitney the king jock strap himself gone, everyone in the school was talking about what Chloe had dreaded all summer.
Clark and Lana, sitting in a tree ... K-I-S-S-I-N-G. Or maybe in his case, a barn.
Nearly dying from a giant tornado and abandoning his best friend at the Prom did tend to make people grow a little closer, she reasoned wryly. Why had she even hoped for anything different?
She sighed, quickly dragging her mind to the mundane present - to Clark, who was sitting opposite her, his pearly white teeth gleaming in the sunlight.
He took an apple out of his bag and quickly bit into it, while Chloe idly wondered if he had ever tasted an apple that hadn't been grown on his family farm. Like, from a grocery store like a normal person might. That is, a normal person in a place anywhere besides Smallville.
"Yeah," he continued between bites, "I wanted to ask you whether you were coming to the meet tomorrow?" He smiled impishly. "I'd really like you to be there Chloe."
Chloe restrained a scream in frustration, and the almost irresistible urge to dump the entire contents of her mystery lunch on top of his perfectly floppy hair. The nerve of the guy! After all the time she had spent analysing her friendship with him, her anger and angst about what he may or may not have felt about her during the past year and the endless torture she had endured watching him fawning over Lana in front of her, he had the nerve to demand her presence at a lame swim meet?
The nerve!
Granted, it was the meet that was probably going to put Smallville High into the state championships, and catapult Clark Kent into the pantheons of superstar jockdom. So what? How could he just demand her to be there like that, as if she was some personal lackey he could suck support from whenever he felt like it?
"Isn't Lana going to be there?" She asked acerbically, half hoping he would get a clue into that innocent farm boy brain of his and actually notice her not-so-coolness with the idea of going any place where Clark and Lana were going to stare at each other like two anatomically correct Greek marble statues.
His smiled widened, causing her to wonder whether there was a limit to his incredible denseness about all things Chloe.
"She is. But I'd really like you to be there as well."
He sounded genuine. She felt the rising tide of irrational anger draining away, leaving an incredible tiredness that settled into every sinew of her body. She was tired of this - so tired of fighting her feelings for Clark. So tired of feeling the emotional claustrophobia she had to endure day in, day out, because she had to keep up the pretence that she had forgiven him for walking (well, running) out on her at the Prom, all in the name of their friendship. The friendship that had begun at the dawn of Chloe time, and must continue to the end of Chloe time, or else ...
Or else what? What would happen if they stopped being friends? Or even stopped being best friends? They hadn't really spent all that much time together these past few months, between the awkwardness that now hung in the air almost every single time they spoke, his swimming, her Torch work and his voluntary worship of Lana. Would it be so wrong to admit that they had drifted apart, through no fault of their own?
He was still smiling, looking hopefully up at her from under his long lashes. Did he have to turn on the Kent charm and make her determination to stomp on him like a tiny insignificant insect waver? Did his denseness know no bounds? Here she was contemplating the possible future of their friendship, or more accurately, its possible non-future, and he was sitting there grinning like an idiot, expectant smile and all.
The nerve!
Suddenly Chloe felt that she had had enough. Enough of the angst, enough of thoughts churning around her confused mind and - enough of Clark.
She stared frostily at him, almost daring him to notice her mood. "I don't know Clark, I've got all these summer job applications to write. Maybe you could get Lana to cheer extra loud. That way you'd never notice I wasn't there." She stood up abruptly, spilling her can of Coke all over the ground. She cursed colourfully.
"Chloe." He sounded hurt and injured, the way that a cute puppy dog who had just got smacked in the gut might. Her heart wanted to soften, but her mind remained in harsh, unforgiving control.
She heaved her bag across her shoulders. "What?"
"Why are you being like this?"
Her unforgiving demeanour cracked slightly under the weight of emotion so clearly evident on Clark's face. Oh, that was a loaded question if ever she had heard one. So many possible answers, so many possible outcomes. She opened her mouth, but quickly shut it. She had too much to do right now, between The Torch and her newspaper summer job applications, and really, too little energy to deal with anything as frustrating and soul sucking as Clark Kent.
"You figure it out." She said, sarcasm thickly coating her voice as she stormed off.
Unfortunately, Chloe was neither athletic enough nor tall enough to outrun Clark the superjock. She only succeeded in walking a few steps before she felt his heavy but firm hand on her shoulder, wheeling her around almost against her will.
"Chloe." He protested. "You didn't answer my question."
Chloe looked around uncomfortably, not wanting to meet his imploring eyes. She saw the jocks hanging out at their usual place, tossing footballs and making lame fart jokes, still wearing their Letterman jackets as if it was the only thing they had in their wardrobe. She saw the popular clique, banding together in a dizzying cacophony of glittering nail polish and perfectly coiffed hair, trying to lure said jocks. There were the nerds, and the geeks and the other 'normal' people who were milling about, enjoying the Kansas sunshine. Why couldn't she be like that? Just be Chloe Sullivan, dreaming about a Metropolis internship at the Daily Planet and all the exciting stuff she would be able to do there.
Instead she was astutely avoiding the hurt and bewildered gaze of Clark Kent. Looking into his big, wide eyes, she found herself wanting to hug him and slap him at the same time. She was frustrated and conflicted and a thousand other different adjectives that her normally facile mind couldn't come up with at the moment.
"What do you want me to say Clark?" She asked, her voice softening noticeably.
He sighed. "I don't know." He mumbled, in that patented Clark-way of his. "I don't understand why you're being like this."
Chloe blinked, trying to dislodge the disbelief rising like bile in her mind. He didn't know? All these months that she had thought they had spent dancing around each other had in actuality just consisted of her doing the dancing, alone as always, with him being the clueless drone? She felt hurt. And betrayed. And beyond frustrated.
"Exactly what has gotten you so confused Clark?" She asked him, reeling from the hurt and anger boiling up to the surface of her emotions. Enough was enough. Gorgeous and adorable as he was, he was still a person, and right now Chloe found him the most repugnant person on the face of the Earth. Maybe even the universe.
How had things gotten so out bad between them?
"Chloe." He called after her as she rushed across the lawn, catching up to her without visible strain. "I just ... I thought we were good."
"We were good?" She asked, exasperated. "Which part of 'I'll never forgive you for this' confused you?"
"But ..." Clark frowned in confusion. "We talked about it. Lana was in danger, and ... you forgave me." He finished, uncertainty tingeing his voice.
"No Clark." She said, deathly quiet. "I didn't forgive you. I just forgot about it for a while."
Clark stood there, stunned, and if Chloe hadn't felt this bad she would have laughed. He was so achingly transparent at times.
"I'm sorry, Chloe. How many times do you want me to say it?" He asked her imploringly, but she remained resolutely silent. "Please Chloe," he begged, "please talk to me."
His puppy dog gentleness grated at the edges of her psyche. Did he have to be that way all the time? Display that Kent charm like some potent, all conquering weapon and expect her to just cave in?
"Talk to you about it?" She asked, already feeling the anger surging through her like some untameable electrical energy. "Talk - to you - about it?" She smiled without warmth, her voice rising hysterically along with her unleashing anger. People turned around and began staring at her, but she didn't care.
Enough was enough after all.
"What do you want to talk about Clark?" She asked him, feeling the heat emanating from her increasingly flushed face. "Maybe we should talk about the way you DITCHED ME AT THE PROM. Or maybe the way you've been DITCHING me at the first blip on your Lana-radar. Or maybe the way you've basically ignored me for the past few months living your wonderful new life as a super jockstrap, permanently lojacked to Miss 'Prettiest girl in town - ever'. Didn't you notice anything wrong, Clark?"
"Why didn't you say anything?" He cried half-indignantly. "I didn't know." That was rich. He was indignant? Was it her fault he was a complete dumb ass?
"You didn't know?! Gosh darn, what a surprise. I could never have imagined that Clark Kent could be so DENSE. Maybe in that twisted convoluted turmoil in your head that you call a brain, you'd like to think about a few things - like the fact that, contrary to popular belief, you aren't the centre of the universe!"
Chloe couldn't believe it. She couldn't believe she had just said all those things to her friend. She could already see the hurt and pain rising in those big blue orbs. Oh shit, she thought. What have I done?
Clark was just staring at her, clearly flabbergasted, his blue eyes saucer-like in shock. He opened and closed his mouth several times. Around them people continued to stare.
"Chloe, I didn't know." He said forlornly, as silence permeated the heat around them. "I'm ... you should have told me."
She stared at him, indecision making her waver. "I did tell you Clark." She said quietly. "In every way except in words."
He sighed in turn. "I just didn't notice."
The soft forgiving words that had been half forming in her brain shattered as she heard those words, and she felt her anger returning with renewed energy, now coupled with the pain of unrequited feelings for him, feelings perhaps he would never return.
He hadn't noticed, she screamed to herself. Of course ... that would always be the way, wouldn't it? Because she was 'just Chloe', in the way Pete was 'just Pete' while Lana was ... Lana.
She couldn't take it, all that hurt and anger and goddamn angst just boiling inside of her, making her be this vindictive, nasty creature that didn't in any way resemble her normal bubbly self. Going to the Prom with her, had that just been a whim on his part? Had he just turned to her because Lana had remained resolutely unattainable? Her feelings were building up, a maelstrom
of anger and torment, and clichéd or not, she was almost bursting with it. So she did the only thing she could do.
She punched him, square across the face.
"Shit." She swore under her breath, clutching her already aching fist as she saw Clark reel, as much from shock as from actual force of impact. He stumbled, while audible gasps filtered through to her from the onlooking student body.
"Ow." His hands flew to his jaw, stunned disbelief naked across his face. But she wasn't finished. Like the bursting of a very pent up dam, she found that once unleashed, the force of her anger knew no bounds.
"You didn't notice?" She screamed at him half questioningly. "Of course you didn't notice. You were too busy focusing on anything besides me. You hurt me Clark. You hurt me in a way no one has ever done before. I want to cry because of you, and I haven't cried since god knows when, but you've made me want to cry most days and I'm just sick of it! I'm sick of feeling this way, and if you know what's good for you, you'll stay away from me." She took a deep breath, her voice lowering as she met his gaze determinedly. Her eyes were like blue sapphires, shining but hard. "I mean it Clark. You and I - we're not friends."
With that she breathlessly spun around, running away as fast as her legs could take her.
And this time, Clark didn't follow her.
(c) July 2002