Lonesome Street
Chapter 1 Going opposite directions
Smallville HS has graduated its most recent crop of seniors. Commencement is completed and Clark Kent & Lana Lang are walking to the Talon coffee shop to meet friends for an after-graduation get together. They are taking different routes, not walking together. Their friendship during HS years has been hot & cold. Sophomore year was hot, senior year started cold then warmed up and now was tepid – at best. They just couldn't keep a good thing going to save their lives.
The problem as Lana sees it is Clark's lack of trust in her, and his outright lies to her.
The problem as Clark sees it is her insistence that he share with her the totality of who he is and what abilities he has. No more secrets! He insists he does trust her, but that much knowledge will place her in grave danger. Of course, revealing what that danger actually is entails telling her what his dark, distant secret actually is.
So they sit on the horns of a dilemma. Staring (glaring?) at each other. Both wishing that they could move forward together; both knowing that they can't unless one of them makes a giant compromise. A compromise that seems like giving in . . . so, the stubborn teens walk on toward the Talon. On different streets, at different paces. Will the two ever meet?
SUDDENLY
Lana stops in her tracks. She sees a giant shower of electrical sparks, hears the hiss of the electrical storm & the screams of what sounds like a young child. She dashes ahead to see if she can help. As she approaches the site she stops in her tracks; Clark is there and is stepping in to save the child. Of course!
Clark saw & heard the same things as Lana. He super-sped from where he was to the child; he picked up the two ends of the downed power line and held the two ends together until they shorted out and the sparking stopped. He then turned and picked up the young girl, holding her in his arms until she calmed and stopped screaming. He then sat down on the curb, holding her and talking softly.
Lana wanted to go to him and the girl, seeing if she can be of assistance. She wanted to ask how he did what he did! But she knew it would be the same old, same old. He would say she didn't see what she plainly saw. He would lie and obfuscate, further angering her and widening the gulf between them. What was the use? She felt helpless and sad.
Clark asked the girl her name and where she lived. After she was settled, he carried her home, reuniting Angela with her parents. He told them a sanitized (not very true) version of what happened then super-sped home to the farm. He didn't feel like celebrating anymore. He went up to his loft, sat on the couch and held his head in his hands. 'It is a good thing Lana didn't see that!' he thought. Little did he know!
Lana went to the Talon and met with friends and classmates. She had been debating within herself about college; she knew that Clark had decided to attend Central Kansas University (CKU) taking a mix of journalism and agriculture classes. He was hoping to eventually work at The Daily Planet and keep the Kent Farm operating within the family. She was torn because she & Clark had been classmates all the way through school. They had been best friends since age 5 – with the above-mentioned vagaries of their HS friendship. Being separated from him now was . . . what was it? Unthinkable? Necessary? Unavoidable? Time to cut the cord? YES! She was going to go the opposite direction and attend Met U. She needed to spread her wings and fly!
She is going to miss him.
He is going to miss her.
They say that absence makes the heart grow fonder.
Does it, really?