the shadow child CHAPTER FOUR

It's peculiar, this business of seeing things the way that nobody else in my family can. But even in its strangeness I can't help finding it an apt trait. In my family, being different is what makes you belong.

It's only when we try to deny that which makes us unique that there is any real rift between us. My brother tried to break away from who he is, from who he will become. I assume he thought it was almost noble at first, thinking he was giving up the conduit to all the answers he sought for the sake of family harmony. At least that's what he told himself he was thinking, in those brief moments afterward when he tried to justify his actions to himself. But most of the time, he didn't try. Like the true Kent that he wanted so desperately to be, Clark heaped all the blame upon his own shoulders. That's the first thing I learned about my brother.

In the months since the day I left my family behind, I've grown no closer to understanding pain, or fear, or bitterness. I don't know elation, fatigue, anger, desire, or guilt. But I can feel the weight of some unspoken responsibility, and that is solely mine. Clark's loneliness is the only thing that reaches me, so I try to reach back.

So far, I've managed little more than trying.

Metropolis was eager to help Clark forget and welcomed him into its darkest folds. I could see inside him then - his isolation was so barren that I think he almost felt me there. At least that's what I believe.

He kept the company of the city's vibrant and beautiful people, swimming with them in the undercurrent, but he couldn't bring himself to be swept away. He often longed to, hoping for just enough latitude to give him even one solid minute in which he didn't truly care about anything - for sixty seconds of unbound lightness, free of the constricting guilt that ensnared him. But not even the red stone in his ring had enough power to infiltrate so deep a place in his heart.

So, while he began every evening with a darkly charming smile and a girl with likely willing intentions, he ended it alone, tortured and broken from the inside out. The soul of vulnerability.

It was only there, in the dark behind closed doors, that the real shades of Clark Kent emerged that summer.

And it was only me who ever saw my brother cry.