Good Girl, Bad Girl (The Good Girls Don't)
Remix of Good Girl, Bad Girl by Patricia RD.
Half past two A.M, and a shadow interrupts the flow of moonlight over Lana's bed. She smells the faintly acrid scent of Chloe's citrus shampoo. Chloe's choppy blonde hair falls over her, lightly brushing her face. She's that close.
Lana pretends she's asleep: curled loosely on her side, knees together, but not pressing too closely. Hands folded. She doesn't speak or snore, just practices deep, even breathing, imagining peaceful thoughts. She lets Chloe touch her, lightly. Doesn't move, or blink. She just accepts. Smoothes her face into its usual placid smile. She is a calm, still pool.
She doesn't think about the eight-inch shears being held above her head. There's no need, really. Chloe would never hurt her. She just wants a souvenir.
She doesn't even flinch when Chloe lifts her hair and leans down to sniff her neck. Just sighs and squirms a little when Chloe gathers a small lock of her hair. And when the blades scrape together, and she knows Chloe is holding the shorn strands in her hand, she still says nothing.
It's nothing new. Everyone wants something from her. Aunt Nell wants her to be Laura Potter's little princess, and fill her mother's saddle shoes. Clark wants her to look good on his arm, to make him normal; to be the perfect girlfriend for a boy who couldn't admit he didn't like girls. And Chloe, Chloe just wants her.
Really, it's not such a bad thing, to be wanted. Clark and Chloe are safe. Clark won't grab her and throw her against the barn wall if she tells him no. He won't push things. Lana doesn't like to think about why.
Chloe doesn't push things either. She never even asks for what she wants. Sometimes Lana walks into her borrowed room, and finds Chloe there, stretched out on her bed. There's always an excuse. "I was looking for those red sandals." "I needed a change of scenery." "My old yearbooks are in your closet."
Chloe always looks embarrassed, and a little disheveled. She makes a quick escape, but Lana knows. Sometimes later she finds her pale pink silk panties in a different part of the drawer. She never says anything. It's not her place.
No matter how welcome Gabe tries to make her, with his casseroles, and house rules to make her feel like another daughter; no matter how many times Chloe calls her "the sister I never had." Lana knows they aren't sisters.
Chloe would never kiss her sister the way they've kissed. Lana pretends it doesn't mean anything. She pretends she doesn't want it too.
Lana likes nothing more than being wanted, but she hates being stalked. There's an old song she once found on one of her mother's old 45s. "I love how you love me." Lana loves being loved. She likes it better when it's not one of Smallville's meteor maniacs, but even then she thinks it's her due.
Good girls like Lana rebel by quitting the cheerleading squad when they're this close to being voted Head Cheerleader. They rebel by not putting out for the Quarterback, or accepting the tether he wants to tie to them while he's off playing soldier. They rebel by serving over-priced coffee drinks to small town teenagers who want to be cool. They don't kiss girls. They certainly don't encourage their advances.
On the other hand, good girls do what they're told, if they're asked nicely enough. And Chloe has learned how to ask so Lana will acquiesque. How to make it seem innocuous. The kind of thing girls do, once in a while. Soft hands on lotioned skin. Warm lips touching, but just briefly.
Lana knows Chloe would never hurt her, despite her assertion that she's a bad girl. She's only bad in the "break into the police lab and look for wall of weird evidence" way, or the "dye my hair Riot Red and get a fake belly ring" way. Nothing Lana need worry about.
She doesn't fear the scissors as it comes down. She knows Chloe's hands will shake too badly to plunge them into her flesh, if indeed that's her aim.
Lana can't give Chloe everything she wants, but she can give her this: a lock of hair that no one will notice is missing; a few friendly, meaningless kisses while Gabe works late at the plant; and silence, when Chloe tells Lana her dreams in the middle of the night.
Lana's life is not a movie, despite the presence of sunsets, monsters, and boys next door. The blood on the blade will be Chloe's, the result of the tremor even she can feel. She does not reach out to console her friend when she cries.
Later, after Chloe's gone back to her own room, Lana notices the red-brown drops making random patterns on her sheets. She's a good girl, her aunt taught her to take care of messes like this when she was twelve. She gets up to wash them out in the bathroom sink. The cold water numbs her hands, like the rest of her.
Chloe gives her a questioning look as she passes Lana in the bathroom, but doesn't say anything. The sound of the water, or perhaps his own worries, wakes Mr. Sullivan. Lana assures him everything is all right. It's just a restless night. He kisses his daughter on the cheek, and pats Lana on the shoulder, with a, "well, sleep tight then, girls." The eastern sky is light by the time she does.
She says nothing but "pass the cornflakes, please," in the morning.