Chapter Eight

Cassie launched her self from the cab feeling tears burning the backs of her eyes. That was all she needed right now was to burst into tears.

"Cassie! Cassie, come on!" She could hear Clark's muffled yells from inside of the cab. He was struggling to get the fifty out of his wallet for the driver and get out at the same time.

Cassie ran to the door of her building and went to walk through it but when she pushed it didn't open and she ended up walking smack into it. She felt tears well in her eyes.

'No, no, you have to control yourself, it won't do anyone any good if you break down on the side walk.' She started to look through her clutch purse, and she had thought it was tiny; well her keys were doing a fabulous job hiding.

She heard the cab door slam behind her and take off. She looked into the pane of glass in the door and could see Clark standing on the curb looking at her confused.

"Cassie," He said quietly. She turned on her heel to stare at him and everything she had felt that whole dreadful evening rushed back to her.

It had been the night of the dinner party with Richard and Lois, everything had been going fairly well until they actually sat down. In which Clark and Lois had taken over the entire conversation. Clark had stared at Lois as if she was the only other person in the universe and Cassie was positive she could feel her heart break sitting there at that overly polished dinning table.

She stared at him, the tears in her eyes were overpowering her line of sight. She turned away and took a few deep breaths and blinked furiously. How was she going to explain how useless she had felt without sounding self-centred? He would never understand.

"Cassie," She turned to see Clark had closed the gap between them considerably. "Come, on, what's wrong?"

She stared at him the hurt clearly visible in her eyes. "If you don't know why should I tell you?"

He seemed affronted by the answer, "I don't know what's the matter, the evening was fine, dinner was a little bland but other then that everything was…nice." Cassie, while Clark had been talking walked a few feet away from him but turned back when he was done speaking.

"Nice? Nice?"

He just stared at her and shrugged his shoulders.

"Clark, was I even needed at that dinner?" She asked choking back the tears now. He stared at her for a few moments confusion clouding his face.

"What…what do you mean?"

Cassie let out a watery laugh, "Clark, you didn't look at me once during dinner, I wasn't asked one question, I felt like an inanimate object sitting there, like an idiot."

He walked over to her, "Cassie I am sorry, I didn't mean-

"Of course you didn't." She said rather snappily. She turned away from him a tidal wave of emotion taking over her. She opened her purse again in hopes of finding her keys. She finally found them and took them out of her purse. Clark was standing silently behind her. She turned and faced him, looked at the ground swallowed and then looked back at him. "Clark, look I… I really, really care about you, but, oh I don't know, maybe I am over thinking this or maybe I am blowing everything way out of proportion but you need to choose,"

"Choose," He said utterly confused by the comment.

Cassie wanted to stop, to forget what she was saying to run over to him and through her self in his arm but something stopped her. "Yes, just because Lois doesn't see it doesn't mean I don't, you need to choose, between me and her,"

"Cassie!" Burst Clark shocked by the statement she had just said.

"Clark!" He stopped at Cassie's tone, "I am tired and I just want to go to bed, … call me in the morning." With that she turned and unlocked her door and went into the building leaving Clark standing on the sidewalk his mind going a million miles a second.

Cassie slammed her door. Why had she done that? Why? She had just single handed-ly(sp?) ruined the best thing in her life. She sunk on to the floor of her apartment and the tears broke the barrier she had been fighting for her life to keep up.

She briskly wiped the tears away from her face. She hadn't blown things out of proportion and Clark had been staring at Lois like someone madly in love.

She had felt like a fool and an idiot, Richard didn't look much happier, of course Lois hadn't even realised anything was amiss and by the looks of things Clark was unaware of anything other then Lois's brown eyes.

Cassie choked back a sob as her phone rang. "Hello?" She whimpered praying it wasn't Clark.

"Cassie…Cassandra Maria Kenton what on earth is the matter with you?"

"Oh mum…"

With that Cassie went into a long-winded explanation of the night and made sure she understood everything that had happened that night.

"Well sounds to me like you did the perfectly sensible thing, just because this Lois girl isn't smart enough to see what is right in front of her eyes doesn't mean you should ignore it."

"Yeah, but mum what if I have blown it with him, I really, really like Clark, I might even…."

"Don't say it, don't even think it, you will only jinx yourself."

"I think I already have mum."

"Look dear, if this Clark Kent has a brain in his head then he will forget about a lost cause and comecrawling back to you on his hands and knees begging for forgiveness."

Cassie sighed, it didn't get her very far but it made her feel a little better. "Do you really think he will come back?" She asked quietly, "I mean do you think he won't think 'ohthe hell withher."

"No dear, he sounds like a very intelligent young man, he will know how wonderful you are, anyone can see that. And hey if he does think that then he isn't worth the worry."

"Thanks mum,"

"My pleasure as always Baby-Doll."