It was late afternoon time down at the Kent farm as Martha sat down at the kitchen table in the yellow house, her arms resting on the wood and her face staring blankly at the wall in front of her while silence flowed around in the air and echoed in her ears. It was late afternoon time now, the hectic morning she had suffered from now over and evening era soon to come with the clock telling them it was around four pm. For everyone in the house, which included her son's friend and her husband, the day was dragging on like never before as they waited for the boy lying on the couch in the living room to wake up from unconsciousness and be all right.
So much had happened in the past seven hours. The mother had just woken up and was sitting down at the same exact table she was in now when suddenly the man she married came bursting through the door yelling for her to go inside their barn. When she did, she found her own son on the ground bleeding to death and dying quickly. From there, they took the bullet out of his body and brought him inside where they waited for him to wake up. And to this very second, they were still waiting.
Never in her whole life had Martha been this worried about someone. Any moment her son could rapidly die and they couldn't do a thing about it. All they could do was remain waiting for him to awaken and then pray that everything would be all right from there. But they didn't know what was going to happen after that. Right now all they wanted was for him to wake up. A sign was all they needed to know that he wasn't dead or fallen into a loss of consciousness that he would never wake up from. Honestly, that's what scared the mother more then ever. Her son hadn't woken up in the past six hours and the thought of him being in some kind of coma terrified her. She tried not to think about it, but the thought was something that entered her mind against her will.
Yawning some, Martha closed her eyes tightly and sniffed loudly, rubbing her face tiredly as she tried to focus on something else besides something that hadn't even happened yet. She didn't know what was going to happen so there was no reason to fret over something that there was a possible chance wouldn't even occur. So as she leaned back in the hard chair she sat it, she listened to the peaceful noise of silence roam around the kitchen until a sudden voice caught her off guard and made her snap her head behind her where she saw a darker colored boy standing by the stair case clutching onto the banister firmly.
"Mrs. Kent?" Pete asked timidly, his face full of misery and wretchedness as he licked his lips and shifted his feet nervously, trying not to run back up the stairs and hide in the bathroom again like he had been doing for the past hours. He didn't know what brought him down into the kitchen and he didn't know what gave him the guts to even move his feet down each stair, but the point was he was here, and turning back would be stupid. He needed to come clean. He needed to talk to someone about what he was feeling.
"Hi sweetie." Martha kindly greeted, tilting her head to the side while he took a few steps up to her, attempting to walk up slowly and not look at her face however each becoming impossible. He wanted to get everything out of his system fast or just run away.
"I, um, I-I called my mom, told her I was going to stay here for a while." Pete informed her, knowing that he in point of fact called his mom over six hours ago. Time didn't matter though. Really, time meant nothing to him anymore right now. The world around him seemed like a dream or something instead of a day that they were all living. And he knew that it was going to seem like a dream for a while too. Watching Martha nod her head, Pete cleared his throat nervously while he stuffed his hands deep inside his pockets, swiftly glancing over at the living room and getting a quick glimpse of a dirty blonde haired man sitting down by the couch in a chair, which made him look back over at the mother and bite his lip.
"Um, how's Clark?" He inquired, hitting the wrong spot when he saw the mother lower her head sadly and sigh forlornly, shrugging a little as she looked up at him with depressed eyes that would make anyone feel cheerless and gloomy.
"He hasn't woken up any." Martha told him, hearing a simple and mere 'oh' escape his lips as he rolled his shoulders some to ease the stress on his back. Looking away from the older woman, the teen stared at the clock on the wall to get his mind off the tension that was in the room, watching the hand move with each second that went by until the words the mother spoke filled his ears and caused him to look back over at her despondently.
"Everything okay honey? You holding up?" Martha questioned, looking deep in his face and seeing right away that he didn't need to answer what she had asked. It was obvious that something was bothering him. Since the moment they had placed her son down on the couch and were informed all they could do was wait she could see something was wrong with him. Not knowing what it was though, she watched him walk up to her and suck in his lips, hesitating to talk but eventually doing so when he pulled out a chair and sat down in it so he was right next to her.
"Not…not really. I was actually wondering if I could talk to you." Pete said, feeling a hand gently placed on his shoulder as he looked up at the mother and saw her staring at him with kind and thoughtful eyes and an caring expression on her face.
"Absolutely, I'm all ears." The mother compassionately advised him, hoping to get a small smile out of him but instead hearing a loud sigh that caused her to lean back in her chair and listen to every word he spoke since she knew straight away it was something important.
"I…I, um, I kind of got into this fight with Clark last night. And…" Trailing off into stillness, Pete locked his eyes down on the kitchen table and rubbed the back of his neck tensely and forlornly as he finished what he had started to say.
"And I kind of said some pretty mean things to him." He confessed, looking up at the woman and seeing her sad and a little confused at what she was hearing. It wasn't that he was puzzling her, it was because last night her son had came home depressed and miserable and know she knew why but didn't know what words the teen could have said to him to make him that way. She understood that he was going to keep that to himself though when he went on with his statement.
"I don't know, with him getting shot and now not waking up--I'm just worried that I won't get a chance to say sorry for what happened." Pete informed her, sighing as the mother was saddened and brought him into a embrace right away.
"Oh Pete, I'm sure everything is going to be all right. Clark will wake up soon, I promise. And I'm sure he'll understand that you were upset last night. Sometimes in the heat of anger we say things that we truly don't mean, you know?" Martha said, being the one to pull away and see him shrug a little at her words.
"Yeah, I guess so." He mumbled, placing both his elbows on the table and looking straight ahead at the wall while glancing at the clock which told him the time was six thirty in the evening. He wasn't surprised either. From the moment they walked into the house during late morning era he had hid upstairs either in the bathroom or in his friend's room watching the time change simply by looking outside. Hearing Martha exhale some before a hand was placed back on his shoulder, Pete looked over at the caring mother and listened to what she had to say to break the silence that had come.
"If you want someone who really understands what you going through though Pete then I suggest you should go talk to Jonathan." She recommended, seeing him dart his eyebrows down and sit up in his chair straight when he heard those words.
"Mr. Kent got in a fight with Clark?" Pete queried, tilting his head to the side as Martha sighed heavily once again and leaned back into the hard chair she sat in, nodding her head and placing her arms to her chest while she spoke.
"I assume. I overheard him talking to Clark when we were in the living room. He sounded just as guilty as you." She told him, water forming in her eyes and a lump staying her in throat at the memory of her husband sitting over their unconscious son nearly in tears while apologizing to the boy for something he had obviously said. Looking back over at the darker colored boy, she found him staring down at the table wretchedly before glancing up at her with a sad and heartbreaking expression on his face.
"I guess you're the lucky one in all this Mrs. Kent. You won't have anything to regret if Clark does die." Pete didn't want to think about what would happen if his friend did kick the bucket, but the words he spoke proved that his mind was thinking it either way, and Martha saw that it was true that if her son did die she would have nothing to regret.
No words, no fights they didn't make up for, no anger that she lashed out on him to regret. He didn't know that if Clark did die then she would be repentant for more things then they would ever feel sorry for. Not waiting for him to come home from school anymore, not giving him that last piece of pie in the fridge, not being the mother that she should have been all those years. Listening to a chair screech against the floor, the woman was snapped away from her thoughts as she watched the teen get up from his seat and push it back into the table while sighing for the millionth time.
"Thanks Mrs. Kent, you've been a big help." Pete smiled wearily, getting a grin back from her as she nodded her head and placed her arms down on the table. "Any time sweetie." Martha simple said, watching him turn around and slowly stroll out of the kitchen while she looked back down at the table and thought about what the boy had told her.
Walking gradually into the living room where he leaned against the side post of the entrance, Pete sighed heavily as he saw Jonathan sitting down in a hard, brown chair next to the couch, his elbows placed on his knees and his chin in his hands despondently while he watched over the boy on the sofa. The boy in fact was non other then Clark. Even from the distances Pete could see how awful he truly looked lying down on the divan deep in oblivion with his head resting on a light blue pilling looking up at the ceiling and his right hand relaxing on his stomach that was covered in a thin blanket. If seeing him from a gap was so bad the teen didn't want to experience what he felt when he was really near him.
For some reason though, his feet moved against his will and walked across the living room carpet closer to the cheerless father. He was able to stop in the middle of the space however when he heard a loud exhale from him and his actions were simply to stuff his hands deep in his pockets and gulp loudly while speak words that he didn't even think came out of his mouth. "Mr. Kent?" Pete barely spoke, his voice soft and incoherently but obviously loud enough for the man to hear when he snapped his head around and guzzled saliva down his dry throat before forcing a smile on his face.
"Hey Pete. Where have you been?" Jonathan asked gently, feeling the grin that he had strained on his lips slowly fade away uncontrollably soon enough when he watched the teen walk closer to him and gulp loudly, rubbing the back of his neck nervously and looking down at his feet so before he knew it he was right by the older man and slowly taking a seat in the rocking chair to the right of him.
"U-Upstairs, just--doing some thinking." Pete informed him, seeing the father nod his head in understanding since he had been doing the same thing too. Sighing, the boy licked his lips and teeth inside his mouth, placing his hands in his lap and closing his eyes to keep them from glancing over at his unconscious friend on the couch, however, having no luck at all when his eyelids popped back open and caught the sight that he winced at seeing. There laid Clark, his face as white as a ghost and his brown hair the only thing making him not look like a sheet as his chest moved up and down slightly, showing them that he was still alive and breathing. Hardly anyways.
Bringing his head up and turning it over the dirty blonde haired man, the teen cleared his throat and heaved another sigh as he spoke up through the silence between them. "I-…I know this might not be the best time and all, but I was wondering if I could ask you something Mr. Kent." Pete queried, gulping loudly as he waited for Jonathan's reply, which didn't take long when he turned his head over and forced another grin on his cheeks.
"Sure Pete, go right ahead." He said, leaning back in the hard chair he sat in as the boy bit his lower lip for a second before he inhaled and mentally told himself that it was now or never to speak.
"Did you get in a fight with Clark before all this happened?" Pete inquired, bringing his eyes up and seeing that he had dropped a bomb on the father when he gazed at the floor in surprise to the question. Closing his eyes gently and nodding his head, the man sighed heavily and lowered his neck down so he was looking down at the ground while he listened to the sound of quietness flow into his ears.
"Yeah. Yeah, I did." Jonathan admitted, sucking in his lips and leaning forward in the seat as he heard the quick responds of Pete's words fly into his hearing.
"What happened?" He asked, wincing that the fact that he was asking to many questions but seeing it didn't bother the father at all when he brought his head up and looked straight at his eyes while he spoke. It showed that he was opening up to him and telling the truth, which made Pete feel nervous and edgy about. What was happening was obviously getting to the man and his actions proved it.
"I said some pretty stupid things to him." Jonathan told him, knowing that he wasn't proud at the things he had spoken to Clark. He was regretting everyone one of them right now as he stared at Pete's guilty face. "You too, huh?" The boy asked, lowering his head for a second before it hit him that the father didn't know what he was talking about, which caused him to snap his head up and see his confused and worried face. Sighing for what seemed like the millionth time, he shrugged and rested his back on the rocking chair, feeling it move back and then forth as he blew air through his dark cheeks.
"Last night. He came over and I…I don't know what the hell came over me. It was like the words came out of my mouth but I wasn't saying them." Pete confessed, looking over at him when he was done to see him understanding once again what he was saying. Only with Jonathan, the words he spoke to the boy was in ardor of fury. He didn't mean anything he said to his son. And just on cue, almost ironically, Pete asked what he was thinking the whole time during the stillness that had entered the area.
"Are we going to get the chance to say sorry to Clark Mr. Kent?" He questioned in worry, not wanting to think of what would happen if his best friend had died before he even got the chance to apologize to him. The thought was a pure nightmare that he didn't want to enter his willful. Shaking his head, the father shrugged and leaned forward in his chair, placing his elbows back on his knees and gazed at his son who was immobile on the sofa.
"I don't know Pete." He said, sighing loudly as he closed his eyes gently and allowed sheer silence to enter his ears and rush through his mind. "I honestly don't know." Jonathan informed him as he opened his eyes and stared at his son who was deep in unconsciousness. During that moment, Jonathan felt like he knew nothing anymore. His wise mind was officially taken over by fate's event, and he knew that he was as helpless as Clark now when it came to knowing what was going to happen next.
To be Continued…