Just Shut Up Already!
Disclaimer: I don't own Cher. I don't own Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I don't own NBC. None of which appear in this story.
Summary: Come on. Even I don't know what this story is about. Would anybody like to fill me in?
A/N: Read, review, and then realize that life is the greatest Christmas gift there is. Wow, that sounded way more religious then I'd hoped. Don't worry, I'm Jewish. And I'm not going to convert you. Thanks to Madonna we already have too many people.
I'm in the principal's office because Miss LeMonte hates women with free individual spirits. And because a certain blonde teenager just doesn't know when to stop talking. That's what I'm trying to explain. It's not my fault that my brain isn't connected to my mouth. But that doesn't matter, apparently. My disease isn't in any medical book and therefore invalid.
So I have trash pickup tomorrow. That's right. Somebody on the Kansas School Board finally got a copy of The Breakfast Club and now Saturday detentions have been deleted from Smallville High's list of punishments. So now I have a detention fit for an inmate.
I don't care. I don't care. I don't care. Okay I care. I really don't want to clean up trash of the kind of people I had to ride the bus with yesterday. I don't want to even think about what kind of trash smelly people have.
I leave the principal's office and run into The Torch office. Nobody's inside. I am completely alone. I sit down in front of my computer. I am completely alone. I don't have anybody. Mom is gone. My friends are duds (although earlier Clark was the friend that I always have sweaty dreams about.) I am filled with work that I really don't want to do. And I may not live to see the next and possibly worse week.
I am so tired. Go ahead, mystery note writer. Kill me. I'm done.
I am completely alone.
The door opens. Great, just great.
"Hi, Lana."
"Chloe," she says. Why is she looking at me like that? Did she that wink before? " Are you crying?"
Am I? I put my hands to my face. Yes. I'm crying. Jeez. I wipe away all of my tears.
"Sorry." I say.
"That's okay. Crying is good. I won't ask why you were crying, because you probably don't want to tell me." Wise woman. "I feel like that all the time. Every year on the anniversary of my parents' death, I break down and cry for hours at a time. I think about how bad life is. How can the parents of a young girl die, leaving her alone? Life is cruel that way…"
"Please just shut up!"
Where did that come from?
"Chloe, you're not yourself."
"How would you know?" I murmur.
"I'm your best friend, Chloe. I know that you would never yell at me."
"My best friend…" I repeat. I put on my brave little toaster face. "Yeah. You're right. I'm sorry."
"Don't worry about it," she says. She wants to say more. She wants to ask me for a favor, but I'm not in the mood. I open the door. I'm ready to run to my best friend, my car, and speed home, eat a tub of chocolate ice cream and cry into my pillow. But instead I hit a girl in the face with the door.
"Oh I'm so sorry!" I say. I help her up. She looks frazzled, but no damage is done. "Are you okay?"
"Fine!" she says, and pushes me off of her. She looks down at her books she dropped. I bend down to help her pick them up. "No, don't."
Why would somebody refuse help with fallen books? Because they're trying to hide something. Everybody has something to hide. This girl has an envelope.
I pick it up, and she tries to grab it from me. "Stop, that's mine!" she says.
"No, it isn't," I respond. "It's clearly addressed to me."
She turns to run. But she can't get away from Chloe Sullivan. Not when she's friends with a big buff football player.
Clark, AKA "Just In Time Guy" , steps in front of her, stopping her from running off. He looks like a giant compared to her short slim body. He grabs her shoulder and pulls her to me.
"Hmmm, an envelope addressed to me. You weren't planning on slipping this under the door, were you? You are clearly new at the threatening murder game, and take it from somebody who has seen many people who's hobbies included 'Kill Chloe', slipping a note under the door isn't the smartest move. You would never have time to get away by the time I opened the door. So next time-"
She interrupts me. "Threaten to kill you?" she manages to squeak out. She looks terrified. "I don't want to kill you."
Oops. I open the envelope. "If you want the secret about your mother to stay a secret, you'll publish this poem in the next addition of The Torch," it reads. Attached is a very long poem. I don't read it, but I'm sure I know what it's about. She loves somebody, her love is just like an enduring flame, without her love her soul is like the abyss. Blah, blah, blah.
"Oh how cute!" I say. "You were trying to blackmail me." I look over the note again. "Oh you even signed it, Jackie." She blushes. "Sure, I'll publish it." I chuckle.
"You will?" she asks. She beams.
"You will?" Clark asks.
"Yeah sure." I answer. "She deserves it. She went through all the trouble of trying to find out something to blackmail me." I turn to her. "Using the crazy mother was a good idea. Myself, I would have gone with the undying love I have for a certain football player, but the mom thing is just as good."
Clark blushes. But then suddenly he's over his embarrassment and onto rage. "How can you blackmail somebody who is obviously sad and confused about the situation with her family?" he asks Jackie. Poor Jackie shrinks another inch. " How would you like it?" She shrinks again as she tells him that she wouldn't. But he isn't satisfied. Now it's my turn to be yelled at. "And how can you be so calm? A guy who tried to kill you is offering to be your friend as if he earned it. Somebody is going to try to kill you on Friday. And now somebody blackmailed you. And you just take it? That's not how the Chloe I know would act. She'd be angry and sad. She'd want answers.
"It seems to me that all you want is it to be all over."
I think long and hard about everything he's just said. The silence between us has made me painfully clear that this has not been a private conversation. Our fellow students stare at us. Lana is standing in the doorway, silent for once.
"Why are Monday Clark and Tuesday Clark so different?" I ask him.
"Stop trying to change the subject."
No way. I'm not in the mood to talk about me. Anyway, it's my turn to have a confrontation.
"Yesterday, you wanted me to help you on your Lionel Luthor salvation mission, even though just the thought of Lionel sends a rush of shivers down my spine that you wouldn't even believe. Even this morning, you were happy that he helped me out with the car. But now…"
I can't say it aloud. He's not the same that's for sure. I want to say that something worth the old wall of weird is going on, but I can't. Something happened to Clark in the time that he told me that he hadn't finished his article and the time that I gave him the note.
He's right. The Chloe he knows would want answers. And now I do. What happened to Clark in those two hours to make him go from insensitive jerk to the best friend that I always hoped and dreamed for?
"Chloe, life is too short," is all he says in response. I smile. Life is too short.
He's right. Life is too short to have most of your most intimate conversations with your car. Life is too short to have unanswered questions stay unanswered. Life is too short to not say everything on your mind.
I turn to Lana and hand her the poem. "Type this up, please. Put it under the fold. I'll also need you to finish formatting the rest of the paper for me. You know how to do it. Thanks."
I don't give her time to respond. She doesn't look too happy. "What will you be doing?"
"Whatever the hell I feel like doing."
Life is too short. In my case, it might be shorter then usual if I don't find answers soon. From now on, I'm not doing anything I don't want to do. Somebody else can pick up the trash.