- 3. Honesty -

Last night at two I gave up. I threw Nixon's now empty box against a wall in anger, went to bed and tried to get some sleep. Unsuccessfully, of course. Laying in the dark listening to the ticking of my alarm clock was driving me insane, so I decided to get my laptop and at least get something done for the Torch's special edition on the Tornado. Bad idea.

After almost an hour of staring at the blinking cursor, I gave up trying to write the damn editorial and went back to bed, but as soon as I crept underneath the covers I knew I wasn't going to sleep a wink. And I didn't. So when the morning came at last, I couldn't wait to get dressed and drive to town for coffee.

However, when I arrived at the Talon in hopes of having Lana caffeinate me, I found she has turned it into the 'Tornado Relief Center'. Great. Did she really have to resort to this to drag people inside her coffee shop? Okay, I'm being unnecessarily mean. Sorry. That's what caffeine deprivation will do to you.

So here I am, standing in the middle of the Talon like an idiot.

Lana materializes out of nowhere. I manage a lame smile.

"Oh hi, Chloe! It's great you could come."

It is? Oh, wait. She thinks I came to volunteer. Oh but you see, Lana, I didn't come to help. I just came to get some coffee and totally forgot about any natural disasters because, you know, I've been a little preoccupied lately with finding out Clark's an alien and all.

For the first time since I arrived, I look around taking in the hectic activity around me. I'm an awful person. A tornado hit, people are in real trouble and I'm too obsessed with my own personal soap opera to notice. I'm a selfish bitch.

I breathe deeply and ask with my biggest fakest smile "What do you want me to do?"

"Everything is pretty much under control, you wouldn't believe how many people volunteered." She answers, looking around pleased.

She's happy. She's glowing. She's also talking to me right now, but I'm too busy noticing how great her hair looks. She survived a tornado twenty-four hours ago and her hair still looks better than mine ever will. And yet, I honestly can't hate her. Things would be so much easier if she was at least minimally… hateable. But she just isn't and you don't hate nice decent people in my book.

"… coffee?" That gets my attention.

"Hmmm?"

"I said maybe you could help Clark with the coffee?"

I freeze. Why didn't I think of that? Of course Clark would be the first one to volunteer for Lana. I mean, for the tornado.

What do I do now? I could a) run to the door, get in the car and show up at the Planet two weeks early or b) suck it up like a man. Or, you know, woman. Whatever.

Anyway, it seems I don't even have to make a choice because Lana is already steering me towards the coffee machine… and Clark. Great. Why did I get out of bed again?

Clark smiles when he sees us coming, but I'm not sure whether the smile was meant for Lana or me.

"Hey Chloe! You heard about the free coffee, huh?"

"Very funny, Clark." I retort taking the tray from his hands and turning around.

This volunteering thing isn't that bad after all, I guess seeing how almost everyone in town has been affected by the tornado is helping me put my own life in perspective.

Once I'm done serving coffee, I pour myself a cup and sneak to a dark corner under the stairs to drink it in peace. It's also a great spot to watch Clark unnoticed. He looks so happy and fulfilled being useful, helping others… Suddenly, I realize that long before finding out the truth, I was already sure he was meant to do great things in life, way beyond the Kent farm or Smallville, and that one day I would be proud to say I was his friend in the beginning.

Although I must admit that after all that has happened over the last twenty-four hours, I have begun to question the true quality of our friendship. If we were as good friends as we held ourselves for... then what, Chloe? Would you have expected him to tell you?

'How was your English test? Would you like to stop by at the Talon and grab some coffee while I get my daily fix of Lana-drooling? Oh, by the way, did I tell you I'm an alien from another galaxy that landed with my space ship the day of the meteor shower? Oh, I didn't? Must have slipped my mind.'

Yeah, right.

The really ironic part, though, is that I can't be mad. I honestly don't know how to be mad at Clark. Much less stay mad at him. The longest I've managed to do that was for ten interminable minutes.

I guess when you love somebody the way I love him, instant forgiveness no matter how badly he screwed up kind of comes with the territory.

And now that I think about it, there's yet another irony. A couple of months ago, I would've walked on burning coals before admitting my feelings for Clark. But now, I can't seem to stop saying that I love him, or how much I love him, or how madly in love I am with him every two seconds. Weird, huh? Must be years of denial and repressed feelings finally coming to the surface all at once and with a vengeance.

My cup is empty. The choice between the cappuccino machine and my perfect hiding spot is a tough one, but in the end fresh brewed coffee wins, so I reluctantly get up and start making my way towards the counter.

Clark is sitting on a stool pretending to struggle with some forms but I know he's thinking about Lana and her newly acquired availability. Or maybe he's wondering about his home planet. It's hard to understand how someone as complex as Clark, with all his deep dark secrets, his powers and his mysteries can be interested in someone as simple as Lana.

Only Lana is anything but simple. There's much more to our former head cheerleader than meets the eye, even if no one seems to notice. And that includes Clark.

Then, what is it he finds so intriguing if he only sees the dull uninteresting one-dimensional side of her? Okay, so he's a sixteen-year-old red-blooded American boy and… Wait. There are so many things wrong in that sentence I don't even know where to begin. For argument's sake, let's pretend he was all of those things. At least he appears to be, right? Anyway, let's just say that like any other guy in this high school he thinks Lana is "totally hot" and that's it. That's all it takes. No need for deeper virtues.

Still, you would expect Clark to search for other things in a girl, wouldn't you? Granted other guys don't but Clark's so… oh, God, I don't know, perhaps I'm just rationalizing. Maybe I'd like him to search for inner beauty because that's the only way I could remotely start to compete with Lana.

Or maybe he does believe Lana is simple and one-dimensional and that's why he likes her. Maybe that's precisely what he's looking for. Someone who could balance his complicated existence by being the exact opposite. Someone without secrets or dark sides.

As I said, he doesn't know Lana at all.

So Clark doesn't know the real Lana - or Chloe, for that matter. And Lana and Chloe don't know the real Clark. All complete strangers to each other without even realizing it. What a lovely little posse we are. All of us pretending, all of us hiding behind our safe façades. Yeah, what a lovely little posse... it makes me sick to my stomach whenever I think how we all do nothing but lying and pretending.

Like right now. God, how I wish there was a dictionary at hand so I could throw it at his big dumb alien head and yell: 'Honesty, Clark. Look it up!'

"Did you say something, Chloe?"

Oops...

"What? Uh… no, I was just… uh… thinking aloud." Gee, I didn't even have to lie to cover up.

"Okay" he says and smiles a little, then goes back to his forms.

And all my anger is gone. Why doesn't that surprise me?

TBC…