emily

Clark just laughs. You smile. You’ve loved his laugh since you were little. He looks down at his hands and folds his legs up beneath him. Lets out a sigh and kills the conversation that you get the feeling he didn’t really want to start, anyway. You lean your head on his shoulder and stare out at the big empty field in front of you. 

You don’t want to pry, but you feel an obligation to do it. You knew what was wrong with him. 

He and Lana were in yet another “off” phase of their on-again off-again relationship as of this morning. This one seemed like a major blow, the final nail in that toxic coffin. A major argument just before the graduation ceremony, something that you learned about from the passenger seat of his old pickup when he came to get you for tonight’s party. 

Out of everything he told you—which wasn’t much, since he’s pretty quiet—the one thing you found yourself clinging to like glue was that he didn’t think they could recover from how bad the fight was. It’s selfish, but you were a little excited about it when you heard it.   

Clark picks at his fingernails until they threaten to bleed while you sit in a tense silence together. A bad habit you’ve tried to get him to quit. You reach over and place one palm over his giant hands, gently patting them and whispering, “Cut it out. You’re gonna hurt yourself. Sun’s not here for you to heal if you tear your fingers up right now.” 

Your touch sends a shiver down his spine; one that you can feel when his shoulder tenses and shudders beneath your head. Odd, considering the thick summer heat in the air right now. He sends you a sheepish smile, quietly thanks you, then clears his throat. 

“You alright, Kent?”

“I’m fine. I’m…I don’t know. I guess I’m just in my head because of what happened with Lana.” Clark’s voice is low. Overloaded with pain. He hides his hurt from you more often than not; today, you’re gonna get it out of him. It’s supposed to be a good day, anyway.

“Enlighten me. You still didn’t tell me what the fight was about.” 

He hesitates. His body tenses again. You could have sworn you heard his breathing stall. He obviously doesn’t want to go here, but you’re persistent. You two promised each other that you’d always debrief a bad date, after all. What is Clark and Lana’s relationship if not a fever dream of a bad, never-ending date?

“Talk to me,” you whisper, planting your chin instead of your temple on his shoulder just so you could get a better look at him. He’s so beautiful. Steals the breath right out of your chest. 

His hair is longer than usual because of the busyness of the end of senior year. Graduation rehearsals, college applications, summer job applications and interviews, and working on the farm have him spread too thin. There’s a little stubble on his jaw despite the fact that he shaved this morning. The way the moonlight cascades over his sharp features is gorgeous, but there’s something special about the way it spreads through his eyelashes and brightens the blue of his eyes. His lips are fuller than usual. Probably because he’s been tearing them apart with his teeth in an attempt to avoid talking to anyone in his upset state. 

“Lana, she…” he trails off. Gnaws at the inside of his cheeks. Blinks so much because he’s trying to avoid the tears blatantly pooling in his eyes. You know he’s still in love with Lana, so his heart has to be destroyed since they’re done for good. He pined over that girl for the entirety of his high school career. 

It might be hateful to wish you were the person he was this desperately upset over. The guilt that wracks your soul when you think about that is enough to make you want to vomit, but it’s the truth. At least it’d be clear that he wanted you if he was this upset over you. You wish you were his Lana, just…without all the turbulence, because somewhere between the early childhood sleepovers and the late night drives through the country—you fell in love with your best friend. 

“Hey,” you concernedly mumble, sitting up and shooting him a look of worry when you notice his still glistening eyes and now trembling bottom lip. You reach up and push a few stray curls out of his face and give in to the temptation of running your fingers through his thick hair one time. 

“What’d she do?” 

“She broke up with me. Permanently. We argued for a while, said some things that probably shouldn’t have been said, and that’s it. I expected it, but it—it hurts.” 

“Did she really have to pull that right before graduation?” you grumble to yourself, rolling your eyes and shaking your head as you think aloud. You wipe a tear off of his cheek and frown. It’s killing you to see him like this. This is a lot worse than the last few sadness bouts he had over Lana.

“What kind of shit did she tell you to have you this upset?” 

You sounded much angrier than you wanted to, your volume raised and your voice rough. In your defense, you know Clark too well. It pisses you off when Lana fights with him, because she seemingly doesn’t know that he’ll take it to heart. He’ll dwell on it until he makes himself so upset that he’s almost sick with grief. Like he’s doing right now.

“She just…” He pauses. There are words on the tip of his tongue, words that you know he’s holding back. You let him hold them back because at least he’s telling you something instead of locking it all away in that hard head of his. 

“She told me she doesn’t wanna be with me anymore,” Clark finishes. His voice is so low that you had to lean closer to him to hear it. The hesitancy in his words is confirming that he gave you a half-truth. The whole truth must be something you don’t wanna hear. Maybe he’ll tell it to you later.

You grab his hands again and give them a squeeze. A sweet gesture to counteract your prying and thank him for his response to it. 

“That’s it?”

Tears start slipping down his cheeks faster than you can wipe them off. You’re not sure if he’s crying over how bad the break up was or something else. Something deeper. 

“That’s it.” 

“Are you sure, Clark? You’re way more upset than you usually get over her.” 

He takes a deep breath, lets it out as a shaky sigh, and a tiny sob bursts from his chest as he struggles to say, “She just doesn’t want me.”

The wavering tone in his voice when he said that makes you so upset that you find yourself fighting back tears. For the first time tonight, he’s the one reaching for you. His dam is broken. He turns to his side and wraps an arm around your waist just so he can pull you closer to him. It doesn’t even take you by surprise. Clark’s never been afraid to hug you when he needs you.

You do your part in escalating it, though, because you climb into his lap. A gentle push of your hand against the back of his head has him burying his face in your neck. You give him as tight of a hug as you can manage, slowly swaying side to side as you try your very best to comfort him. His arms slide around your waist and he cages you against his chest, pulling you into him like you were made to be pulled into him.

It feels good to sit in his lap like this. To be held by the person you love. 

You relish in it because you know this won’t last forever. You know it’s a rarity to have him hold you like this, hold you so intimately as if you mean more to him than the reality of what you are. Something you won’t feel again for days, weeks, maybe even months. So when he tightens his arms around your waist and rests his chin on your shoulder, you hug him even harder. 

His shoulders shudder with each sob that wracks his huge body. You pull back to try and look at him, but he hides his face from you by nuzzling against your neck even further. It’s hard for you to focus when his lips brush against your skin. 

“It’s okay. You’re okay. I’ve got you,” you coo while you thread your right hand through his jet-black curls. Your left is on the broad expanse of his back, slowly rubbing up and down so you can calm this raging storm of emotions coming from him while you commit each thick rope of his muscles to memory. 

Clark is incredibly easy-going; a lot of bullshit just bounces right off of him. It takes so much for him to get upset to the point of tears. It takes Lana for him to get upset to the point of tears. She was the reason he was like this the last time he cried this hard, too. 

The first time they broke up was rough and had him sobbing and hiccuping in your bedroom at two in the morning. The second time, not as brutal—all it took was a phone call to talk him down. The third time didn’t even phase him. For some reason, this fourth one is killing him. This might be even worse than the first time.

You sit there on top of him, cradling this soft-hearted giant until he’s not actively sobbing anymore, your heart aching, knees digging into the grass and keeping you grounded as you straddle him. You’re not sure how anyone could do something like this to someone like him. You know you never would. You know you’d treat him better than anyone else ever dreamed they could. 

But you value him far too much to ruin everything with a dramatic confession of your feelings, so you shove it down and try to just be a friend instead of a love interest. That starts with avoiding your thoughts about how big and strong he is and how he’s holding you just right. 

Clark lifts his head out of your neck and you send him a weak, pitiful smile. You cradle his face, his perfect, chiseled face, in your palms. He’s so damn big that your hands look minuscule against his cheeks. You run your thumbs back and forth over his cheek bones and you gaze into his big blue eyes so lovingly that you can’t believe he hasn’t figured you out yet. Maybe he just tells himself that your longing gazes mean nothing. It’d be the most spectacular case of gaslighting on the planet.

“There’s someone out there for you, Clark,” you softly murmur while you wipe away his lingering tears. The ones that are still silently falling down his face. He leans into your touch, almost as if he’s loving the way your skin feels against his. The last time you touched his face was months ago when he had some ink from a pen smudged on his jaw and you licked your thumb before you rubbed it off of him. You’ve been aching to touch his face again ever since.

“It’s not Lana. It never was.”  

Because it’s always been me, you think to yourself while he stares into your eyes. It’s not like you’d work up the courage to say it, though.

“But the right one, she’s—she’s out there, and you’ll find her. You’re gonna be alright. I promise.”

There’s a beat of silence between you. He doesn’t respond to what you said, because he’s too busy staring at your mouth. You notice it, but you tell yourself it’s nothing. He’s looking at your mouth to read your lips when you talk just in case he can’t hear you. Total bullshit, by the way; he’s had super-hearing for the last year and a half. You’re so worried about cleaning the mess he’s made on his face that you don’t meet his eyes for a while. 

Then, it happens. 

You’re in the middle of cleaning a tear track off his right cheek, wiping his tears off of his jaw and neck, when he leans forward and kisses you. Clark, your best friend of 14 years and your reason for living and breathing, is kissing you. 

You stumble a bit, unsure of what to do since you’ve never kissed anyone before, but Clark takes the lead and you fall into a slow, delicate rhythm. Your lips slot with his, your eyes flutter shut, and you wrap your arms around his neck. He nuzzles your noses together and cradles your face. It’s not until his tongue is dragging along your bottom lip that you whimper and pull back, squeezing your eyes shut even tighter as you push your hands against his chest and shake your head. 

As much as you want this, and you really, really want this, you can’t let it happen. Not like this. He’s in an abysmal emotional state, one that’ll end up making him regret this tomorrow when he’s in his right mind. At least that’s what you tell yourself; that’s your excuse for shattering all of your hopes and dreams by breaking that kiss.

“Clark,” you frantically pant when you finally open your eyes again, “this is—you’re just upset. You don’t want this.”  

He whines, trying to close the gap between your faces again, but you don’t let him. You press your hand against his mouth and try to ignore the searing need between your thighs and the tingling sensation on your lips that reminds you he was just there. 

“I do! I do want this! I want you,” he protests from behind your palm, eyes wide and frantic and pleading for something more from you. Your thoughts are racing, struggling to stick because of how dizzy you are from that kiss. 

It’s a cruel joke that he just said he wants you, isn’t it? He would never say that to you. Never on a normal day. You’re sure he’s said it to Lana, but you know he’d never tell you that. He’s had so many chances to do it. Why now? Why when he’s only trying to bounce back and find a body to use after Lana’s thrown him away?

“No, you don’t. You think you do, but you don’t,” you whisper. He looks at you like you just punched him right in the face, like you kicked him while he was down. He whispers your name when you pull your hand away from his face, and it sounds like a prayer on his full, pouty lips.

Now you’re the one with tears burning in your lash line and a trembling bottom lip. If this was ever gonna happen, this wasn’t how you wanted it to go, and now you probably ruined any chance at it happening again in the future. You spend what feels like an eternity just looking into each other’s eyes. The emotions flowing between you are almost as high as Clark’s desperation to prove he’s in his right mind and that he actually wants you. 

You shatter his dreams, though. Devastation hits him for the second time today when you finally end your shared silence through a broken whisper.

“I love you, Clark. So much. You know I love you. But…this isn’t what you want.” 

He says nothing. The pathetic little whine he lets out says enough. He buries his face in your neck again and just hugs you again. Pulls you closer. 

What you said will make him think you don’t want him. It’ll shatter his heart into a thousand pieces. He’ll think he misread the situation and accidentally took advantage of you and your kindness. Misread your signals. Destroyed a boundary just to get shut out and shut down.

You join him in his heartbroken state. Rock bottom is a little more comfortable when there’s someone there to keep you company.

A week and a half passes before you feel better. Better enough to be alone with him again, at least. 

The air between you is thick, enveloped in the heat of summer and the awkward tenseness you’ve been desperate to break down. Both of you lean against the hood of his pickup, staring out at the lake he parked at because you told him you wanted to get some air. 

There’s much more distance between you than there usually is. Separated by two feet instead of six inches. Thick silence instead of constant, comfortable conversation.

Clark finally caves after five painful minutes of quiet.

“I’m sorry that I kissed you. I don’t really know what I was thinking.” His voice is soft. Hesitant in a way that tells you he’s riddled with guilt. You suck in a deep breath and it leaves you as an awkward, stilted giggle. You can’t even look at him when you pull your response out of your ass.

“It’s okay, Clark. I understand. You weren’t really in a good headspace, and I was comforting you. Sometimes the wires just…get crossed.” 

“Yeah,” he breathes, eyes locked on you like he’d die if he looked away. “I guess.” 

You want to tell him you’re in love with him, but you don’t. You want to ask him out, but you don’t. You keep your own eyes on the lake in front of you both. Your fingers brush over the empty space of his hood between you, searching for his hand so that you can give it a sympathetic squeeze. 

He accepts your touch, but only for a moment. Only for that brief little squeeze. Seconds later, he takes his hand out of yours. An uncertain move on his part, one that leaves your skin aching to be pressed against his once more and makes you feel like he had something else to say. His burning gaze on your face hurts more than it should. 

You’re not sure if one of his powers is telepathy. You repeat two sentences in your mind just in case, though:

Tell me you love me. Tell me you want me and mean it.

Clark stays silent.