kent

iron man

There is a pep assembly today. Pep assemblies are approximately number seventy-eight on the list of things that Carly hates. She doesn’t quite enjoy being claustrophobically pressed up against a  group of high schoolers who either reek of a too much perfume or carry the heavy stench of B.O. She has always been one to prefer fresh air, even if the extent of the air she considers “fresh” are rich with the pollutants of New York. Maybe her mask has some sort of superhero filter on it, because she has never felt like she was choking on smog.

Carly also isn’t particularly fond of pep assemblies, because she isn’t exactly the type that anyone would consider peppy. She rolls her eyes a bit too much, and as her eyes scan the red bleachers, she can’t help but cast a look of judgement over the majority of the crowd. Pep seems so false in the high school setting. She doesn’t understand the hype of sports. They seem trivial in comparison to the real game. This global sporting event, where the arena spans the continents and the oceans, has over seven billion spectators. She doesn’t really care about sports at all.

She only cares about sports to the tiniest degree because of one particular person.

It just so happens that said person is having his name announced through a barely functioning microphone. It pops and crackles with every other syllable, at times the voice barely audible, other times loud enough for parts of the crowd to visibly flinch. The other portion have blasted their music a bit too loudly to the point where most noises are too quiet for them.

There’s a red cape across his back and he runs to the half court line where he high fives the other players on the team, before standing straight and proud. He waves at the students on either side of the gym. Carly watches him, ignoring the rest of the crowd. For a while she forgets the way her arms are uncomfortably pressed against her classmates and how the bleacher is far too hard to sit upon for lengthy periods of time. It slips her mind that she is absolutely no leg room and that the temperature is quickly rising because of the trapped body heat. She only hopes that Clark is searching for her in the sea of people. This thought alone is scrawled into the lobes of her brains, rewiring all of her functions.

Carly thinks that he is looking at her now, and she gives him a small wave. Grinning and rolling her eyes and still forgetting that there are so many people around her. The satisfaction she feels is short-lived, because out of her peripheral vision she recognizes a flip of blonde hair. She sees this figurine take a deep breath and bob on the tips of her toes. Her immaculately white shoes squeak on the gym floor and with a dainty two run step she springs into the air. Her muscles are clenched and her toes are pointed. She catapults into a round-off and a series of back handsprings and winds up a couple feet from Clark.

She closes the distance, hips swaying as she takes a few steps forward. Clark leans forward and she cups her hand to his ear and whispers something. Carly swears she can see Taylor’s eyes twinkling from all this way, and Carly huffs rather dramatically in the stands. The age old nerd versus cheerleader feud boiling in her veins. However it seems that the odds are stacked even more against Carly’s favors than the traditional story goes, because in her case the nerd and the cheerleader are the same person. Carly is a nerd, but she is a lesser nerd, and she can’t quite comprehend how someone with superpowers manages to be the underdog.

Clark laughs, too, and whispers something back to her. Then, the whispering is all around and the rumor mill starts to turn. Carly can already hear the theories starting to circulate throughout the student body as they try to figure out what this exchange is all about.

Carly rolls her eyes. People are suckers for this popular little love story, where head cheerleader gets together with some sports star. Her fingers dig into the palms of her hands, trying to hold onto something. In her head, it doesn’t make sense. Had she done something? Why is she undeserving of him? Couldn’t he see that this is betrayal- this secret exchange of words that she is not included in?