NOW I SEE RED
Chloe pushed at the Talon's doors on her way out of the coffee shop. Her short chat with Lana produced no real results. Aside from the fact that Lana Lang was working her shift right then, the girl was definitely keeping mum about what was going on with her and Clark. It was such a shame. Chloe really cared about Clark and she wanted him to get his life together. He was probably acting so weird because of all those feelings he was keeping from anyone else.
She smirked at the thought. Those were feelings Clark believed he was keeping from everyone else. It didn't take too much observation to know how he felt about Lana. Chloe's life work was being observant. Surely he didn't think he could escape her notice. Clark Kent was as transparent as anyone else on the planet. If only Lex could take some of that obviousness that characterized her best friend, then that would be one problem subtracted from her endless list.
She remembered that she was supposed to pick up a few things from the supermarket. With her father so busy at the new LexCorp, he had not had the time to list down all his necessities for her grocery visit last week. Just this morning, she found the hastily scrawled list on the table. Chloe felt around in her bag for her wallet.
'Aha.' She opened the black leather and searched for the slip of paper with her father's handwriting. Chloe rounded the corner where there was a small branch of MiniMart. She walked smack onto the chest of a man and sprawled on the pavement. Her butt was on fire. The force that knocked her off her feet was so great that she was sure the man was in a hurry. She looked up with a biting censure on her tongue.
Lex looked down at his victim. He had been so pissed about his father moving in with him and redecorating his office without his knowledge. He had only just left the Kents after informing them that Clark was at his place. Instead of being thanked for his concern, Jonathan Kent had driven him away with distrust and scorn. The combination of anger and hurt that he tried to tamp down was choking him. He had not even been looking at where he was going when he bumped onto someone around the bend.
"Sorry." He almost cringed in preparation for the expected harsh words. Lex saw the flash of emotions playing on her face. In her eyes he saw the pain turn into anger and then shutter into nothingness. He repeated his apology, this time for something else entirely. "I'm sorry, Chloe," he whispered. Lex extended his hand to help her up.
She placed hers on his, and he shivered inappropriately at the warmth. He had never wanted their first meeting after his disastrous wedding to take place somewhere this public. But rather than allow her to escape and not see her again, he closed his hand over her much smaller one. When she smiled at him, he caught his breath. He never thought that she would forgive him so easily. "It's nothing. We were both not looking at where we were going." When she tried to pull her hand out of his grasp, he saw the barely held panic in her eyes. That was when he realized that she had not forgiven him, and that she would rather push everything to the back of her mind and foster what hurt he caused her.
He stepped closer, leaving only a few inches between their bodies. With the Talon just a few yards around the corner and the MiniMart behind him just two doors ago, they were caught right where a crowd could gather. Lex quickly decided that this was the best place to conduct this talk. She would not be able to protest too much when he began to explain. Chloe would not be able to fight him because she would never want to draw speculation on the two of them, who were barely acquaintances in the eyes of Smallville.
"We both know that it's not nothing, Chloe. I hurt you. And you cannot imagine how sorry I am."
She smiled stiffly. "Well you've just apologized. I accepted. Everything's okay."
"It's not," he insisted.
"If it's not okay with you, Mr Luthor, then that's your problem and not mine. Now if you will please let me go, I have somewhere to be."
That she kept her voice low was an encouragement. She wanted to keep it low, just as he did. But he also wanted her to allow him to open the wound so that he could see just how badly it had festered. "Tell me I hurt you," he whispered. He did not take notice that a woman with a brown paper bag, filled with groceries, walked past them to her car. "You can't pretend that I didn't."
Chloe sighed and closed her eyes, pretending irritation. "Mr Luthor, I said I'm fine. Sure, I have a very sore butt and a bruised ego. You've completely ruined what little poise I have."
"Don't play games with something this important," he admonished quietly. Chloe's jaw tightened. "Chloe, please," he begged, carefully donning on a stoic mask. It would not do for all the people passing to see Lex Luthor openly pleading with a high school girl. They worked too hard for him to blow it now. He leaned close for a brief moment, long enough to whisper in her ear, "If we were in your house, or in mine, I would press my lips on your forehead, and then on each of your eyelids, on your temples, on your cheeks, on your throat. I would kiss you until you forgive me enough to let me kiss your lips."
She took a deep breath. He looked down into her eyes. Again, that trembling smile. "But we're not, Lex. It makes no sense to wish that things were different." With determination, Chloe pulled her hand away from his and walked to the grocery store.
Lex took a deep breath and turned around to see her vanish into the MiniMart. He walked behind her and pushed through the revolving doors, aware the moment he stepped in of the numerous curious glances thrown his way. He had never been inside the store before. He ignored those looking at him and followed Chloe to the aisle where she was pushing her cart. Fortunately, she was in a section that was deserted. Lex walked briskly over to her. He knew the moment she realized that he was there when her back stiffened. "Tell me what's wrong so I can make it better."
She reached for a jar of mayonnaise and read the nutrition value at the back. Chloe didn't use to need to browse through those things. It was no longer negligible now. Her father was getting older, and it looked like she was going to spend the rest of her life with just him. She should be more careful from now on. She placed the jar in the cart and moved on.
"Chloe," Lex repeated, getting frustrated. They went to the next aisle. The presence of other people silenced him. A young mother browsed through the cereal boxes while her son teetered on the child seat of the cart. Lex quickly reached for the boy and replaced him on the seat. When the woman saw Lex, she snatched the cart from him. Chloe saw the hurt look on Lex's face when the woman pushed quickly away from him.
Chloe left the cart on the side and reached for some cornflakes. "You meant well. Don't mind that woman. She has no clue what kind of person you are." She placed the box in the cart and looked around for some more healthy snacks.
Lex shrugged off her comment, although inside his heart warmed at the knowledge that she still believed the best in him while others would continue to judge him whether or not he committed a crime against them. Chloe, he had maligned. Yet here she was still caring enough to soothe him. "I hate this," he told her. "I hate that I created this distance between us. And I hate that I cannot get you to talk about it so we can fix it."
"I've forgiven you. I, of all people, have to. I'm the one who researched on your wife," she said the word so bitterly, "and found out that she's a meteor freak. You had no control over the matter, Lex."
He ran his hands through his scalp and gritted his teeth. "You can't dismiss it that way, Chloe. Affected or not, I did something that must have hurt you very much. So get it out of your system so we can put this behind us!" Chloe closed her fingers on the cart and pushed away from the aisle. Lex followed closely behind her. When she stopped to pick up some potato chips, he stayed behind her and said into her ear, "Or are you so afraid of your emotions, Chloe?"
Lex knew he had hit a sore point when Chloe gently placed the foil pack on the shelf and slowly turned around. She met his gaze with an unwavering stare of her own. "What did you just say?" she asked casually.
A Luthor never backed down. He repeated his words, "I asked you, Chloe, are you so afraid of your emotions that you can't face me with them?"
It was the longest pause between them. The only sound was the piped in music and their breathing. Finally, she said, "How dare you."
"I dare," he retorted. "Because you're a coward, Chloe, to run away like this."
She drew back her arm and slammed her fist into his stomach. Lex bent low, clutching the injured area and coughing. "How dare you say that to me! I'm not the one who's afraid, Lex." At another moment, she would have fawned over Lex hurting as much as he was. Right now, all she saw was a red haze and the bastard accusing her of things he himself was guilty of. "Tell me why it was so easy for Desiree to control you. Tell me why you left yourself so open to her. Tell me how she found you, Lex, and then tell me that I'm a coward who can't accept her emotions."
Despite the sharp pain in his gut, Lex managed to look up at Chloe who was glaring down at him angrily. It showed so starkly in her face now. She knew exactly how it happened. He did not question how she could have possibly found out. He never underestimated her skills for the profession she had chosen for herself.
"Everything was happening so fast between us, Chloe," he gasped harshly. Grasping the shelf, he pulled himself up. "I'm not used to feeling this way."
She nodded. "So you decided that while you had the chance, and you're on a trip, in a city where I would never see you, you would try one more time."
"I needed to see just how firm your hold on me was. And I was wrong for doing it, Chloe. I didn't need another woman to waltz into my life to know that I won't fall for anyone else, not when you're mine."
Her face wet with tears, Chloe stared at him. Hearing it from his lips made the betrayal hurt even more. "So you went to pick up a woman, placing yourself out there with a sign on your forehead announcing that you're available."
"The moment I walked in and saw all those women I knew that I would never go home with any of them. You've ruined me for anyone else, Chloe," he confessed.
"Am I supposed to be happy about that?"
"I sat on the bar, needing only one drink before I could go back to the hotel, call you and tell you how much I already missed you."
Her research only told her that Lex had gone to the singles bar, and she had glued together the events her way. After telling her that he loved her and that when they returned to Smallville, they would inform her father and friends about their relationship, Lex had gone to pick up women the first second he was away on a business trip. She wondered if knowing his version of the story helped at all.
"I downed the drink in one swallow," he narrated. "I turned around to leave, because I couldn't wait to hear your voice."
"And then you saw Desiree," she finished for him.
"Yes. She came up to me and breathed these words right on my face. I can't remember what she said. Everything's a haze after that."
Chloe blinked rapidly, droplets of tears still raining down her cheeks. She searched inside her bag for her tissues. Before she could draw one out, he had handed her his handkerchief. She hastily dried the tears and pushed the cart to the next aisle. "Why did you need to find out in the first place, Lex? Didn't you trust in us?"
"I've never felt this way about anyone before, Chloe. I've lost control of the situation."
She turned to him in confusion. "Love isn't about control."
"Control has everything to do with love," he informed her. "When you love someone you protect her. That's why I didn't pursue our relationship earlier. You kept getting hurt in the mansion. And then when you were kidnapped, I couldn't do anything to help you. Clark saved you. I thought you would be better off with him so I pushed you to be with him."
"What?" she asked in disbelief. "You can't decide for the two of us, Lex. It doesn't work that way."
"I know that now."
"You have to leave."
So despite completely opening himself up and telling her exactly what he was afraid of and what drove the events that have almost completely curtailed their relationship, Chloe still didn't want to be with him. Lex tried to hide the disappointment and regret in his face when he turned around. Chloe caught his elbow and forced him to look at her.
"You're going to go when you just thought that I never wanted to see you again. And you just decided not to show me how that made you feel," she stated. "You have to be open and tell me what's going on in your head. Lex, I asked you to leave because I didn't want people to see us. We're lucky we had that conversation without anyone spying on us. I just don't want people to see my red eyes and think that you had something to do with it."
His relief was almost palpable and the sudden lightness in his heart that accompanied it hurt his chest. "Well I did have something to do with it."
"Yes. You're a regular bully." Chloe smiled. "I'll see you later."
"What will you tell anyone who asks why you were crying in the grocery?"
"Clark and Lana went on a date last night," she informed him. "Believe me, people won't ask why I'm crying." She waved him away. "Now go. I have more shopping to do." Instead of leaving at once like he asked her, Lex leaned down and kissed her cheek. "You said earlier that you would kiss me on the lips when I've forgiven you enough."
"Have you?"
Chloe grasped the back of his head and pushed him down to take his lips with her searching ones. She rose on the tip of her toes and wrapped her other arm around his neck to press her body closer to him. His heartbeat was fast and pouncing heavily against her own breast. His lips were so soft against hers that she couldn't help but nibble on them when they released each other to take a breath. "I'll start being open right now."
She smiled as she snuggled against his chest. "Okay."
He pushed her away gently so that he could look into her questioning eyes. "I'll tell you what I'm thinking right at this moment."
"What is it?"
"Wait. I have to show you some evidence first. I am nothing if not thorough." Lex picked up her hand and placed her palm over his rapidly beating heart. "Feel that?" She nodded. "That, Chloe, is just one of the proofs. I will never feel about any other woman the way I feel about you."
Her eyes grew moist, but she successfully kept herself from crying. "And how is that?"
"There are no words that can tell you exactly how that is. 'I love you' is a poor substitute."
Chloe smiled brightly. She would send him away after a minute. Right now she needed another kiss. "That will do."
Chloe pushed at the Talon's doors on her way out of the coffee shop. Her short chat with Lana produced no real results. Aside from the fact that Lana Lang was working her shift right then, the girl was definitely keeping mum about what was going on with her and Clark. It was such a shame. Chloe really cared about Clark and she wanted him to get his life together. He was probably acting so weird because of all those feelings he was keeping from anyone else.
She smirked at the thought. Those were feelings Clark believed he was keeping from everyone else. It didn't take too much observation to know how he felt about Lana. Chloe's life work was being observant. Surely he didn't think he could escape her notice. Clark Kent was as transparent as anyone else on the planet. If only Lex could take some of that obviousness that characterized her best friend, then that would be one problem subtracted from her endless list.
She remembered that she was supposed to pick up a few things from the supermarket. With her father so busy at the new LexCorp, he had not had the time to list down all his necessities for her grocery visit last week. Just this morning, she found the hastily scrawled list on the table. Chloe felt around in her bag for her wallet.
'Aha.' She opened the black leather and searched for the slip of paper with her father's handwriting. Chloe rounded the corner where there was a small branch of MiniMart. She walked smack onto the chest of a man and sprawled on the pavement. Her butt was on fire. The force that knocked her off her feet was so great that she was sure the man was in a hurry. She looked up with a biting censure on her tongue.
Lex looked down at his victim. He had been so pissed about his father moving in with him and redecorating his office without his knowledge. He had only just left the Kents after informing them that Clark was at his place. Instead of being thanked for his concern, Jonathan Kent had driven him away with distrust and scorn. The combination of anger and hurt that he tried to tamp down was choking him. He had not even been looking at where he was going when he bumped onto someone around the bend.
"Sorry." He almost cringed in preparation for the expected harsh words. Lex saw the flash of emotions playing on her face. In her eyes he saw the pain turn into anger and then shutter into nothingness. He repeated his apology, this time for something else entirely. "I'm sorry, Chloe," he whispered. Lex extended his hand to help her up.
She placed hers on his, and he shivered inappropriately at the warmth. He had never wanted their first meeting after his disastrous wedding to take place somewhere this public. But rather than allow her to escape and not see her again, he closed his hand over her much smaller one. When she smiled at him, he caught his breath. He never thought that she would forgive him so easily. "It's nothing. We were both not looking at where we were going." When she tried to pull her hand out of his grasp, he saw the barely held panic in her eyes. That was when he realized that she had not forgiven him, and that she would rather push everything to the back of her mind and foster what hurt he caused her.
He stepped closer, leaving only a few inches between their bodies. With the Talon just a few yards around the corner and the MiniMart behind him just two doors ago, they were caught right where a crowd could gather. Lex quickly decided that this was the best place to conduct this talk. She would not be able to protest too much when he began to explain. Chloe would not be able to fight him because she would never want to draw speculation on the two of them, who were barely acquaintances in the eyes of Smallville.
"We both know that it's not nothing, Chloe. I hurt you. And you cannot imagine how sorry I am."
She smiled stiffly. "Well you've just apologized. I accepted. Everything's okay."
"It's not," he insisted.
"If it's not okay with you, Mr Luthor, then that's your problem and not mine. Now if you will please let me go, I have somewhere to be."
That she kept her voice low was an encouragement. She wanted to keep it low, just as he did. But he also wanted her to allow him to open the wound so that he could see just how badly it had festered. "Tell me I hurt you," he whispered. He did not take notice that a woman with a brown paper bag, filled with groceries, walked past them to her car. "You can't pretend that I didn't."
Chloe sighed and closed her eyes, pretending irritation. "Mr Luthor, I said I'm fine. Sure, I have a very sore butt and a bruised ego. You've completely ruined what little poise I have."
"Don't play games with something this important," he admonished quietly. Chloe's jaw tightened. "Chloe, please," he begged, carefully donning on a stoic mask. It would not do for all the people passing to see Lex Luthor openly pleading with a high school girl. They worked too hard for him to blow it now. He leaned close for a brief moment, long enough to whisper in her ear, "If we were in your house, or in mine, I would press my lips on your forehead, and then on each of your eyelids, on your temples, on your cheeks, on your throat. I would kiss you until you forgive me enough to let me kiss your lips."
She took a deep breath. He looked down into her eyes. Again, that trembling smile. "But we're not, Lex. It makes no sense to wish that things were different." With determination, Chloe pulled her hand away from his and walked to the grocery store.
Lex took a deep breath and turned around to see her vanish into the MiniMart. He walked behind her and pushed through the revolving doors, aware the moment he stepped in of the numerous curious glances thrown his way. He had never been inside the store before. He ignored those looking at him and followed Chloe to the aisle where she was pushing her cart. Fortunately, she was in a section that was deserted. Lex walked briskly over to her. He knew the moment she realized that he was there when her back stiffened. "Tell me what's wrong so I can make it better."
She reached for a jar of mayonnaise and read the nutrition value at the back. Chloe didn't use to need to browse through those things. It was no longer negligible now. Her father was getting older, and it looked like she was going to spend the rest of her life with just him. She should be more careful from now on. She placed the jar in the cart and moved on.
"Chloe," Lex repeated, getting frustrated. They went to the next aisle. The presence of other people silenced him. A young mother browsed through the cereal boxes while her son teetered on the child seat of the cart. Lex quickly reached for the boy and replaced him on the seat. When the woman saw Lex, she snatched the cart from him. Chloe saw the hurt look on Lex's face when the woman pushed quickly away from him.
Chloe left the cart on the side and reached for some cornflakes. "You meant well. Don't mind that woman. She has no clue what kind of person you are." She placed the box in the cart and looked around for some more healthy snacks.
Lex shrugged off her comment, although inside his heart warmed at the knowledge that she still believed the best in him while others would continue to judge him whether or not he committed a crime against them. Chloe, he had maligned. Yet here she was still caring enough to soothe him. "I hate this," he told her. "I hate that I created this distance between us. And I hate that I cannot get you to talk about it so we can fix it."
"I've forgiven you. I, of all people, have to. I'm the one who researched on your wife," she said the word so bitterly, "and found out that she's a meteor freak. You had no control over the matter, Lex."
He ran his hands through his scalp and gritted his teeth. "You can't dismiss it that way, Chloe. Affected or not, I did something that must have hurt you very much. So get it out of your system so we can put this behind us!" Chloe closed her fingers on the cart and pushed away from the aisle. Lex followed closely behind her. When she stopped to pick up some potato chips, he stayed behind her and said into her ear, "Or are you so afraid of your emotions, Chloe?"
Lex knew he had hit a sore point when Chloe gently placed the foil pack on the shelf and slowly turned around. She met his gaze with an unwavering stare of her own. "What did you just say?" she asked casually.
A Luthor never backed down. He repeated his words, "I asked you, Chloe, are you so afraid of your emotions that you can't face me with them?"
It was the longest pause between them. The only sound was the piped in music and their breathing. Finally, she said, "How dare you."
"I dare," he retorted. "Because you're a coward, Chloe, to run away like this."
She drew back her arm and slammed her fist into his stomach. Lex bent low, clutching the injured area and coughing. "How dare you say that to me! I'm not the one who's afraid, Lex." At another moment, she would have fawned over Lex hurting as much as he was. Right now, all she saw was a red haze and the bastard accusing her of things he himself was guilty of. "Tell me why it was so easy for Desiree to control you. Tell me why you left yourself so open to her. Tell me how she found you, Lex, and then tell me that I'm a coward who can't accept her emotions."
Despite the sharp pain in his gut, Lex managed to look up at Chloe who was glaring down at him angrily. It showed so starkly in her face now. She knew exactly how it happened. He did not question how she could have possibly found out. He never underestimated her skills for the profession she had chosen for herself.
"Everything was happening so fast between us, Chloe," he gasped harshly. Grasping the shelf, he pulled himself up. "I'm not used to feeling this way."
She nodded. "So you decided that while you had the chance, and you're on a trip, in a city where I would never see you, you would try one more time."
"I needed to see just how firm your hold on me was. And I was wrong for doing it, Chloe. I didn't need another woman to waltz into my life to know that I won't fall for anyone else, not when you're mine."
Her face wet with tears, Chloe stared at him. Hearing it from his lips made the betrayal hurt even more. "So you went to pick up a woman, placing yourself out there with a sign on your forehead announcing that you're available."
"The moment I walked in and saw all those women I knew that I would never go home with any of them. You've ruined me for anyone else, Chloe," he confessed.
"Am I supposed to be happy about that?"
"I sat on the bar, needing only one drink before I could go back to the hotel, call you and tell you how much I already missed you."
Her research only told her that Lex had gone to the singles bar, and she had glued together the events her way. After telling her that he loved her and that when they returned to Smallville, they would inform her father and friends about their relationship, Lex had gone to pick up women the first second he was away on a business trip. She wondered if knowing his version of the story helped at all.
"I downed the drink in one swallow," he narrated. "I turned around to leave, because I couldn't wait to hear your voice."
"And then you saw Desiree," she finished for him.
"Yes. She came up to me and breathed these words right on my face. I can't remember what she said. Everything's a haze after that."
Chloe blinked rapidly, droplets of tears still raining down her cheeks. She searched inside her bag for her tissues. Before she could draw one out, he had handed her his handkerchief. She hastily dried the tears and pushed the cart to the next aisle. "Why did you need to find out in the first place, Lex? Didn't you trust in us?"
"I've never felt this way about anyone before, Chloe. I've lost control of the situation."
She turned to him in confusion. "Love isn't about control."
"Control has everything to do with love," he informed her. "When you love someone you protect her. That's why I didn't pursue our relationship earlier. You kept getting hurt in the mansion. And then when you were kidnapped, I couldn't do anything to help you. Clark saved you. I thought you would be better off with him so I pushed you to be with him."
"What?" she asked in disbelief. "You can't decide for the two of us, Lex. It doesn't work that way."
"I know that now."
"You have to leave."
So despite completely opening himself up and telling her exactly what he was afraid of and what drove the events that have almost completely curtailed their relationship, Chloe still didn't want to be with him. Lex tried to hide the disappointment and regret in his face when he turned around. Chloe caught his elbow and forced him to look at her.
"You're going to go when you just thought that I never wanted to see you again. And you just decided not to show me how that made you feel," she stated. "You have to be open and tell me what's going on in your head. Lex, I asked you to leave because I didn't want people to see us. We're lucky we had that conversation without anyone spying on us. I just don't want people to see my red eyes and think that you had something to do with it."
His relief was almost palpable and the sudden lightness in his heart that accompanied it hurt his chest. "Well I did have something to do with it."
"Yes. You're a regular bully." Chloe smiled. "I'll see you later."
"What will you tell anyone who asks why you were crying in the grocery?"
"Clark and Lana went on a date last night," she informed him. "Believe me, people won't ask why I'm crying." She waved him away. "Now go. I have more shopping to do." Instead of leaving at once like he asked her, Lex leaned down and kissed her cheek. "You said earlier that you would kiss me on the lips when I've forgiven you enough."
"Have you?"
Chloe grasped the back of his head and pushed him down to take his lips with her searching ones. She rose on the tip of her toes and wrapped her other arm around his neck to press her body closer to him. His heartbeat was fast and pouncing heavily against her own breast. His lips were so soft against hers that she couldn't help but nibble on them when they released each other to take a breath. "I'll start being open right now."
She smiled as she snuggled against his chest. "Okay."
He pushed her away gently so that he could look into her questioning eyes. "I'll tell you what I'm thinking right at this moment."
"What is it?"
"Wait. I have to show you some evidence first. I am nothing if not thorough." Lex picked up her hand and placed her palm over his rapidly beating heart. "Feel that?" She nodded. "That, Chloe, is just one of the proofs. I will never feel about any other woman the way I feel about you."
Her eyes grew moist, but she successfully kept herself from crying. "And how is that?"
"There are no words that can tell you exactly how that is. 'I love you' is a poor substitute."
Chloe smiled brightly. She would send him away after a minute. Right now she needed another kiss. "That will do."