Lethe

I am perfectly able to picture Jonathan Kent standing in the kitchen delivering a platitude-laden sermon about sex and responsibility and how it's better to wait.

I can see him pacing the length of the room oblivious to his own hypocrisy, blind to Clark's painful blushes and Martha's warm smile and silent laughter as she remembers fumbling in the front seat of his truck when they were young. He'd use Clark's fears about hurting someone with his powers as the icing and I can see in my mind's eye the resolute set of his son's jaw as he reluctantly agrees with his father even though illicit images flit in his head.

I am perfectly able to picture Jonathan Kent's hands calloused and strong tangled with mine against his wife's immaculate counter.

I can feel him hot and hard against me, like the steel that runs in his son's veins as he takes me with an almost brutal swiftness. I know how his hot breath feels against my skin and how his teeth will tear at my throat when I come arching against him. I can hear the unearthly double register of his voice and feel the tightness of his grip as he finds release.

I am perfectly able to picture Jonathan Kent standing at my grave, back straight, his wife's hand in his and the other on his son's shoulder.

These are the things I remember, the images and sensations that remain and define the girl who wasn't. These are the memories that flow from my mind into the river Lethe the soul stains I want to forget and yet can't let go of. These are all that remains of my nightmare. He is all that remains.

I have never been able to picture Jonathan Kent standing in the foyer of my new life, never dreamed of the firm touch of his hand as we are introduced. Old now and gray he still makes my heart pause and my chest constrict. I still see the gold sprinkled sinew of his arms locked against my paler ones.

Recognition wars with shock in his eyes but a sideways glance at his son is enough for him to realize that the boy who can see through walls has become blind as a man. That he has forgotten a lost friend. A silent nod is my answer, like a draught of forgiveness that finally lets me forget, lets the memory float away on the river like the life I left did years ago.

No one remembers Chloe Sullivan except for one old man who has slowly begun to forget everything and the dark haired woman who once gave in to the healing power of the river of dreams and ran from him. He never offered me forever; never offered his love. He gave honestly of himself and in my new life it is something so rare I want to reach for it but instead I let the undertow carry me away.

I am perfectly able to picture Jonathan Kent as I walk away from him, it is a memory I have carried from one life into the next. It is something even lethe cannot make me forget.