Lesson 1. Exterior VS Interior

Lana was still perfect.

At least to all outward appearances.

She still got the highest grades and took the most demanding classes that college allowed to a sophomore. She smiled when people talked to her and gave meaningful friend advice when asked. She wore the most stylish clothes and her lip gloss was always just sparkly enough. She was perfect.

Except Chloe knew better.

Lesson 2. Interior VS Exterior

Chloe was still eccentric.

Everyone knew her through the college underground paper she ran and thought she was pretty cool. She was still on the fringes of popularity, with just enough connections to claim non-geek status. She always smiled and laughed at all the right times. People usually referred to her as ‘bouncy’ or sometimes ‘bubbly’. She still talked too fast and mentioned obscure references. She was dying on the inside.

Lana didn’t notice.

Lesson 3. Availability is always relative.

Chloe didn’t see Lana very often. The campus was huge and they lived in separate dorms. Lana was busy studying for her major and Chloe was always preoccupied with something. Usually the paper or following the movements of the rare cited Metropolis Good Samaritan who the regular newspapers were all abuzz about.
They talked sometimes, usually just a quick chat when passing by each other. They certainly weren’t as close as they’d been last year.

Lesson 4. There is no such thing as a ‘fresh start’.

Their first year of college they were roommates. Well, more specifically the first *half* year of college they were roommates. Chloe can still recall the smell of those dusty boxes that had littered her side of the room the first week after move in. Lana had her things tucked away and in order by the day school started, so like her. But Chloe, ever the slacker, let her stuff go. She had been focused on other things and college had been kicking her ass.

Then, one humid afternoon when the sky was nowhere near cloudy enough to prevent sunburn, she’d walked in and everything was *neat*. The boxes had been magically whisked away and the contents had been placed where she’d meant to put them.
Lana had looked up, smiled a little and said “I hope you don’t mind? I know you said you were going to put everything up but I thought since you’re so busy that I’d save you all the trouble. I think I got everything right…” She’d trailed off while she stood up to tinker with the pencil fish on Chloe’s desk.

Chloe was still on mild shock and Lana suddenly got that look. The one where she’d thought she’d fucked up something and wanted to fix it, even if she didn’t know what it was. “I got it wrong didn’t I? I thought I had everything-“

“Lana.” Better response that time.

“Huh?”

“Lana, it’s *great*! Thank you.” She really did mean it and with the hug reaffirmation, she hoped Lana thought she did too.

“Oh, sorry. Silly of me to start babbling then?”

“Definitely. Come on, I think Miss Fix-It needs some compensation. You been to that ice cream shop on campus?”

 

***

Lesson 5. Past mistakes will be your downfall.

“Remind me why I signed up for Art History again?” Lana was stretched out on her bed while Chloe was absently typing up her Psychology paper.

“Because you like learning about big stuffy British guys slaving over flying buttresses?”

“Ha. And I’m sure your Psych paper is just flying by.” Lana stretched and preceded to try and look over Chloe’s shoulder. “Are you even trying to write anymore?”

Chloe shrugged and closed the word doc. She’d had about enough OCD for one day.

Plopping down beside Lana, she snatched away the current book she had been perusing.

“Hey!” Lana tried to snatch the book back, but Chloe was an excellent player at keep away. She’d had years of it with Clark.

“What?” It was probably easier to feign ignorance if she hadn’t been cracking into a smile. But she couldn’t help it, the way Lana looked so put upon about the fact that Chloe could *dare* steal away her book.

“I was actually working, unlike certain nosy reporters we know.”

“Hey, I’m working. Right now I’m studying the effects of impressed culture on the female psyche. Tell me Lana, do you think the absence of female representation in Roman times represents the sentiments towards women today?” Chloe was always good at faking it through a question.

“Do you even know what you’re talking about half the time?” Lana tried to hide a smile as she reached for the book again. And failed.

“No. And you don’t get the book back until you answer the question, Ms. Lang.” She stretched the book as far away as she could, intent on keeping up the ruse.

“I’ve got a paper to write Chloe and I *need* that book.”

“The paper’s probably due in three weeks anyway. It’s not like it’s begging you to write it.”

There was probably a moment when Chloe should have realized that Lana was going to jump her. Of course, by the time the moment passed, Lana had already tackled Chloe to the bed and proceeded to steal the book back from her while warding away any advances by Chloe to stop such a thing.

There was also probably a moment when Chloe should have thought that Murphy was right. Because it was just then that Chloe realized she was in love with her best friend.

 

***

Lesson 6 . Never go to a club with the best friend you are secretly in love with. Note: Getting drunk while at said club is sheer stupidity on your part.

The club was loud and boisterous. She could hardly hear her own thoughts let alone anyone trying to talk to her. It was perfect.

“Come on!”

They slipped through the crowd as best they could, young gyrating bodies accosting them on all sides. Alcohol and sweat mingled on the dance floor. The smell nearly overpowering. She pulled Lana towards the bar that offered fresh air and fresh alcohol.

“Sit. We’ll have two rum and colas.”

“Chloe! I don’t drink, you know that.”

“Lana, we’ve been all hat and no cattle for months. *We* deserve a party break. You can’t party without beer. Besides just one won’t kill you. It’s not even that alcohol-y. Just like flavored water.”

“Chloe, this isn’t -“

“Drink.” She pushed the drink in Lana’s hand, smooth fingers grazing hers.

“Besides, it’s college. You’re supposed to experiment.”

She dragged Lana on to the dance floor, drink sloshing behind her and hitting an unsuspecting couple.

“Chloe!”

But she didn’t care because there was music and rhythm and dancing. Everything was simple on the dance floor with Lana squealing behind her when others “accidentally” bumped or groped her. She continued to pull Lana with her until they were in the thick of it. Flesh and skin tight clothing was everywhere and it was real.

“C’mon Lana. Dance.” And Chloe danced and spun and twirled while Lana kinda stared for a moment, still getting jostled by the crowd. “Lana, if you don’t dance with me, someone else will.” She let all the implications and danger-that-might filter into her voice.

So Lana danced. Chloe could play her so easily.

They spun and dipped, bodies twining together to the beat of the music. Lana’s hand was still gripped in hers. She could feel her pulse beat-beat-beat to the rhythm while sweat beaded on her neck in a string of pearls. Her hair was slightly damp and falling out of the makeshift bun, surrounding her face and highlighting her lightly closed eyelids where charcoal eye shadow shone like a smudge of darkness.

She was beautiful.

When Chloe looks back on it, she pins the one moment when everything changed on that nightclub. Even if it felt like every other night and like every other nightclub, that one was different.

It was the one where she kissed Lana Lang for the first time.

They’d danced and flirted like mad on that dance floor for hours until Chloe’s blood was singing in her veins and Lana’s cheeks were flushed crimson. She’d whispered something dangerous to Lana and drug her out of the mass of bodies, this time with giggles and a willing participant.

A dark private corner was hard to secure and in the end she’d said to hell with it and just beside the stairs had stopped and turned. Lana ran into her, still giggling and Chloe couldn’t take it anymore so she just kissed her.

One simple clean kiss that tasted like soap and sunshine.

Lesson 7. Never, ever, *ever* fuck your best friend.

That morning the air felt too tight and her skin was too raw. Chloe woke up with a slight headache and a mist filled brain.

She sat up and couldn’t quite remember where she was until the night before came rushing back in vivid surround sound detail that would have made her smile if she hadn’t been alone.

There was no note, no goodbye and no apology. Their dorm room was missing one occupant at 9 in the morning, way earlier then either of their classes demanded. The moment screamed of typical college cliché as Chloe frantically grabbed jeans and a shirt, not caring if any of it was actually hers.

If she had just fucked up their friendship, she’d damn well get the last word in.

 

***

Lesson 8. Time is a precious commodity. Use it wisely.

She habitually checked her watch again, nervously pacing as the seconds ticked by and there was still no Lana.

Four Twenty-seven.

She’d checked by all the professors and they’d either not seen her, said she’d just left, or they ignored Chloe completely after shooing her away. Lana’s two thirty Art History class was the last one for the day and since she’d raved on and off about it all year, Chloe was positive that there was no way Lana’d blow it off.

Chloe, on the other hand, had frantically jotted notes and scattered ideas throughout the three classes of the day. She still had *no* idea what they had been talking about. Same old, same old really.

Four thirty.

The class should have been over *hours* ago...okay, maybe not but it should have been over *now*. What the hell was going on?

Four thirty one.

Chloe was seriously thinking about storming into the classroom. Striding in there and just getting it over with.

Four thirty two.

Any second now she’d just burst through that door, scare Lana half to death, and probably have the teacher demand what she thought she was doing. Yep.

Four thirty one.

Wait.

What?

Chloe checked her watch again.

Four thirty.

Shit.

 

***

“Lana, I’m sorry.”

She’d possibly said that on voice mail a billion times now, but it still wasn’t working. Every time she called Lana’s cell, it was the same message.

After finally realizing the watch gods were mocking her, Chloe had hightailed it back to their dorm after learning she was, in fact, two hours late.

It didn’t matter though since there was still no Lana when Chloe got there.

 

***

Lesson 9. Expect the unexpected.

For more then a week, Lana played her perverse game of cat and mouse.

Chloe was about to go insane from the guilt, the shame, the need, and most importantly, the loss.

The Friday after Finals, Chloe was wiped. She returned to the now habitually empty room that had lost all its cheer. She still wasn’t sure *where* Lana was staying, even her reporter skills meet a blockade in the inner friends circle of Miss Lana Lang.

For all Chloe knew she was sprawled out on a couch in Uzbekistan.

She fought a losing battle while hastily retrieving her keys and praying the books under her arm wouldn’t fall. It was for naught since the second the door was open, they practically jumped away from her in a loud crash of paper covers and bindings.

This was mostly due to the fact that her arm involuntarily stopped working from shock.

Half of the room was empty.

*Lana’s* half of the room was empty.

Lesson 10 . You’re supposed to experiment in college. Not fall in love.