"Walked on the stones,
Then sank through these oceans,
Heaven's fields laid bare,
I'd give up the ghosts,
Locked up inside me,
If I ever once had cared." -- Four Star Mary, "Thrown to the Wolves"

---

She's lost something, and she's not sure she can find it.

There's this hole she has now, and she keeps swallowing, hoping it will fill itself up as if its just her stomach that's empty. She's tried food; plate after plate of food, praying the gap will fill itself. She's fond of the sponge desserts--Victoria sandwich cake, fudge cake, hot treacle pudding. She thought that maybe the sponge would expand and fill the space inside, but it never happened. She felt sick for a while, but it was nothing compared to the vile sickness of knowing you'd lost something and you couldn't get it back.

She laughed it off at first. Playful laughs; deep, throaty laughs; hysterical laughs that bordered on sobs, but the emptiness still snaked through the sickening vibration of her pseudo joy. On occasion, she'd claw at her chest, at her stomach; never certain where the hole existed but willing it to wilt beneath her frantic hands. It never did. All there was left was blood; the soft red hue patterning her skin as a reminder that the hole was still there, that it wasn't going away.

The nothing she feels is something, and that frustrates Chloe even more, because she can't figure out why the emptiness feels more consuming than empty. It isn't a hole; a hole doesn't feel this heavy. It's a suffocating mass that lounges tiredly on her breast bone, and the young woman longs to shift it. But screaming at it doesn't work; sobbing at it doesn't work, and laughing at it most certainly doesn't work.

She knows what will work but when she thinks about it, the hole just starts growing again and one day she's sure it'll eat her alive.

She's not insane. She's not mentally, nor emotionally, unstable. She feels the same as any girl in her position would. Alone and afraid. She's grasping at threads of a dream she left behind a short while ago and she knows the hopelessness - the futility - in willing the threads to re-weave themselves, to create the perfect picture she used to have framed, hooked and hung in the small crevice of her mind where Hopeless Romantic hung out to play Russian Roulette with Clark's Best Friend. She isn't sure which one won, or if either of them won at all. All she knows is that there isn't enough room for the both of them.

She curses him for the war raging within and she's finding the conflict is turning her into the girl she hoped she'd never become. A weeping mass of frayed nerves, longing for him to rescue her; to sweep her up in his arms and tell her over and over that it was going to be okay, that the emptiness was only temporary and that'd she'd never be alone again, that the war was over. But it would never--could never happen, and Chloe tore at the truth with tired hands.

Damn him. Damn him and his infatuation with the girl next door. Damn him for wanting the unattainable, for wasting his youth waiting for something that would never be his. What kind of fool would choose to ignore the hearts of others in exchange for one heart that wasn't open to them?

Her kind of fool, obviously.

Chloe isn't sure she likes her train of logic. It makes too much sense, and it scares her more than the confusing rants ever did. Her head hurts from all the crying, and she barely registers that her anguished sobs have given way to silent tears.

Funny how that small fact doesn't make it hurt less. It hurts more because she's alone; so completely and utterly alone. It was different in Smallville; it had always been different. It was hard to be alone in a town so small, hard to be alone when Clark was beside her day in and day out. His constant presence, aswell as Pete's, Lana's--hell, even Lex's, was a tangible lifeline and Chloe didn't have the time nor the chance to feel lonely.

That was, of course, until she'd left everything behind - Smallville, Clark, The Torch, her friends - to come here, to Metropolis, to chase a dream that seems a little hollow now, a little more empty because she can't share the dream anymore. And now she no longer feels the comfort, the ease of living in such a small town. She no longer has the presence of her friends, of Clark to reassure her that the big hole she's feeling right now, the vague sense that she's lost something, is merely the result of being alone in a big city.

She knows it's bullshit, but she doesn't care. It beats thinking about the things she refuses to think about, because it hurts too much and she's so tired of hurting. Not that it makes a difference. Just because she wants it to stop hurting, doesn't mean it will. She wants the gaping hole in her chest--her stomach to close, but Chloe's never been one to get what she wants--why should this be any different?

Because she's not a little girl anymore, she thinks. She's a woman now; a beautiful woman, and she knows it. But she's been here four months and the men she's met have never lasted more than night; maybe two if they were lucky. No one could, and would never come close to Clark and something inside of her screams at the futility of it all. She wasn't a child anymore and this wasn't some high school crush. She'd outgrown that long ago, even back in Smallville, and it was no longer a childhood fancy that she'd harboured for years upon years...

... and that's what scares her. It's no longer a crush; it's something so much more. Something deeper--lasting, and Chloe isn't sure she can handle it. She isn't sure she likes the fact that Clark owns her, body and soul, like a possession--like a thing. Because she doesn't belong to herself anymore and she hates it; she hates it because she'd always been her own person, has always belonged only to herself, and never once in all the time she has loved Clark has she felt trapped, chained to him in a way that takes away her choice, her free will.

Until now, of course.

She weeps silently, her face buried deep into the soft feathers of her pillow.

She never had a choice, she realises. Back in high school, when Clark was always there, always her best friend, it didn't matter. She didn't care about choice, about free will, because she had everything she had ever needed. Who needs choice when you've no reason to choose? She certainly hadn't. But leaving behind her comfort zone had forced her to make choices, and she'd been happy to make them. It's why she hurts now, because she finds that when it comes to matters of the heart; to love; to Clark, she doesn't have a choice--she never had.

She also knows that's bullshit, too. She has a choice, but she refuses to choose it. If she does, maybe the hole will go away, but she'd still be so tiredly numb. If she makes that choice, it would have all been for nothing--the struggle, the heartbreak, the constant tears. She can't--no, she won't throw it away. She likes the memories, although some are dark, and if she throws the bad ones away, she knows the good ones will go along with it. And the good ones are why she's here.

So no, she won't make that choice--not yet. She'll cope with the tears, and the emptiness, and the gaping hole in her chest for a little longer. She'll cry and she'll scream and she'll pretend she has no choice, because it's easier; easier than the truth will ever and could ever be.