"Go By"

///chapter three///




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School resumed in the fall.


Clark strode down the crowded hallway, jingling the keys he had kept safe for over three months. He reached the door to his fourth period class and unlocked it, swinging it aside.


The two desks that were usually buried with papers and files were strangely bare.


Lifeless computer monitors sat silently, as if trapped in a slumber over the summer. Clark cleaned off the dust that clung to one of the monitors and sat in one of the swivel chairs, it creaking under his weight.


He was sitting at Chloe’s old desk. Only her tiny replica of the Daily Planet globe, green alien mug and the rest of her usual table top knick-knacks were missing.


Clark sighed, and opened the top drawer, finding it also empty. Empty except for a bright pink post-it note hidden with in. Clark picked it up and smiled.


Keep the Torch burning Clark.



She must have written it the day she left, over three months ago. He folded the little pink paper and slid it into his pocket.


Pete would join him soon, but before then Clark realized he had the responsibility of being the editor.


The guy in charge. The leader.


Clark reclined in the squeaky chair, his mind swirling with apprehension.


Could he do this without Chloe?


He imagined her beside him, preaching the ins and outs of journalism.

C’mon Big Boy, don’t just sit there, there’s a story to chase.


Clark smiled; picturing her perfectly with her hair bobbing side to side while she danced around the file cabinets searching for that one particular folder she would never quite find.


“Hey, Buddy.”


Clark’s thoughts snapped to the present as Pete bounced in, a backpack slung over his shoulder.


“You ready for this?” Pete dropped into the chair next to him and kicked his feet up on the desk.


They both looked around, an absence filling the otherwise empty room.


**


The Torch wasn’t nearly the same without her. All of the zing and ingenuity Chloe pumped into the columns of the school paper quickly deflated once Clark stepped in.


He felt guilty, like he was doing a dishonor to her.


Clark just wasn’t a natural writer like Chloe was. He remembered her clacking away at the keyboard, developing paragraphs like a sculptor’s hands in wet clay.


Instead, Clark’s hands were oversized and clumsy as he tapped every letter individually.


Ideas and leads didn’t come as easily as he thought they should; the way they seemed to spring to her mind.


Clark usually stuck to lunch menus, student council meetings and scorecards, all of which rotated on different days. It wasn’t exciting or fancy, but Clark got the job done; and on a relatively timely schedule. (With Pete’s help of course.)


Yes, he and Pete became a pretty good team together those years they shared at the Torch. Deadlines weren’t as strict, and Clark let columns be volunteer activities. Everyone who was involved enjoyed Clark Kent’s easy going leadership attitude. Clark rarely made any editorial changes.


And no one complained when certain meteor rock related stories were lost in the process. Clark did exercise that much of his editorial power to help keep the meteor infected from public scrutiny, no matter how small the paper circulation.


**


The day came when Pete learned of Clark’s secret.


Pete reassured him that Clark was the same guy he’d known since elementary. But from time to time, Clark spied a side glance at his best friend catching a reserved paranoia in Pete’s demeanor. Clark hoped that one day his friendship with Pete would resume to the buoyant nature it was accustomed to. But once Pete learned of all the uncertainty and danger surrounding Clark’s secret, a big weight settled in.


He not only watched out for his own back, but for his buddy’s too. Whoever knew his secret would always be in the cross hairs of those with the desire to exploit Clark.


He already managed to raise enough suspicions with the heir to the Luthor Industries. He’d saved Lex Luthor’s life years before, something he would never regret, but with his actions came the unrelenting questions from the absorbed billionaire.


Lex became abnormally preoccupied with Clark. He followed every miraculous event, every unexplained police report that underlined the witness name, Clark Kent.


Clark felt every tick mark Lex made after every qualm. The billionaire was compiling a list of peculiarities surrounding the docile farmer’s boy.


It worried Clark how involved Lex became with the excavation of the caves, searching for answers that Clark knew were meant for him. Every move Clark made, Lex was right behind him, looking for crumbs to feed his obsession.


Besides that, Luthor Industries were rumored to be delving deeper and deeper into the experimentation with the same green meteor rocks that weakened Clark. They were his only, potentially fatal debility.


Jonathan Kent warned his son the dangers of befriending a man who explored a man’s vulnerabilities.


In the end, Clark grew tired of the surreptitious investigations and repeated accusations.


So he steered clear of the man with an obsession to unravel the fragile life Clark and his parents had created for him.


Clark no longer visited the Luthor mansion or responded to the many invitations initialed by the golden seal of L.L.


In fact, he hardly heard from Lex at all, only discovering from his mother’s second hand gossip that the Luthor Corp heir had returned to Metropolis after his extended deferment in Smallville.


***


Meteor rock turmoil popped up every now and then, but Clark was there, helping the victims of the infected safely find there way back to their previous, ordinary lives. He knew nothing else to do but surrender those who chose crime as a way to accommodate for their new found abilities. He did this very carefully, guarding his own identity from the local police by never stick around long enough for the red and blue flashing lights to arrive on scene.


The faces of those infected and taken away haunted Clark. They were innocent once.


Clark eventually lost count of how many had been infected. Or rather, he chose to stop counting.


There were times when Clark seriously considered how Smallville could have been different without him or the little green rocks that travelled with his ship. How many lives could have been spared?


Some nights, Clark stayed late in an empty Torch office where he rocked back and forth in the same old swivel chair. He eyed the scrap-booked wall of newspaper clippings Chloe called her “Wall of Weird.” Every piece of the collage was tied to Smallville’s meteor shower. Tied to Clark.


His whole life was tied to every inch marked, “Meteor Freak.”


And with it, a solid mountain of guilt and never ending remorse for what his existence brought upon the innocent lives he had ruined.


It was his fault. All of it.


No matter how many lives he saved it wasn’t enough. It would never be enough. Clark would never be able to do the one thing that would really save them.


He couldn’t cure them.


Clark didn’t have all the answers. He only knew he couldn’t stop trying.


He sat there, reflecting on the weeks spent on the cat and mouse game that had become his life.


Even more plainly, Clark sat there alone, unable to share any of his grief to anybody he thought would ever understand.


Every night Clark struggled with himself; forever in the debt, atoning for his existence.



chapter four