Title: Lies Are Told in Pink
Author: Minnie-May
Distribution: Just ask
Disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters. Obviously. Although I wouldn't mind owning Lex ^_~
Summary: Lana might never be anything other than pink.
Rating: PG
Feedback: Yes please! Send to: sweet_senshi@hotmail.com
Spoilers: Season 1
Author's Notes: Sometimes I think there might be more than meets the eye with Lana.

I always thought my mother's favorite color was pink.

I suppose it was a lie Nell told me to pull me away from books and to the Barbie racks. She wanted me to play with all the normal kids; the ones who went home to beaming parents. When I was younger all I wanted to do was lose myself in books and it didn't matter that most of the time the words were too big for me to understand. There were pictures of interesting places and beautiful, happy people. I would supply the stories for these people, making them lovers and heroes.

Heroes don't exist. At least not the kind that can walk up to you and make everything in your life better.

Travel books became my love after some time, though Nell obviously disapproved. She was already worried about me. I would often hear her talking on the phone to her friends late at night when I should have been asleep but instead sat on a carpet-covered stair out of view. She would recount all the ways that I let her down, all the ways that I wasn't normal enough.

I tried though, I really did. I just always found it more interesting to open a book and look at all the places that I could be. Ireland with it's rolling green hills; it's fairies and elves. Then of course there was Hawaii, where I would become a famous dancer with a green grass skirt and spend the nights laying in a hammock with the cool breeze washing over me, staring at the stars. Hawaii wasn't always my favorite destination but it was one that I would find myself going back to again and again like a security blanket.

I never had a security blanket, only a green rock that reminded me of why I was different. Why I should always remember that I should try that much harder to fit in.

My Aunt told me that my mother's favorite color was pink and then we both went out to the paint store the very next day. By that night my room was a pleasant perriwinkle. My aunt said she thought pink was a much better color for a little girl's room than the drab royal blue that had adored the walls before. I missed the blue. The first week I couldn't sleep in my room at all because it was too light and I felt too exposed. As soon as Nell tucked me in and I heard the door to her room close for the night I would sneak down the steps, careful to miss the squeaky one, and make myself room on the couch. I usually woke up before Nell anyway and then I would relocate back to my room as if nothing was wrong. Nell found out at the end of the week and then I just had to get used to the pink.

Whenever Nell took me shopping I would gravitate towards anything in that light hue. It was as if by wearing my mother's favorite color I could be closer to her somehow. If I wrapped myself in pink I wouldn't be orphaned, alone, desperate. I would have something tangible to bring me closer to my mother; something besides the rock that killed her.

Slowly I put the travel books away. Stacked them into a corner in my closet until Nell finally found them and put them in boxes. I think they're still down in the basement somewhere, growing mold. Ireland's hills are now dusty and cold; Hawaii covered in cobwebs. I gave up the fantasy of just leaving and never coming back and began to find joy in the simplicity of life in Smallville. The routine and the way things never changed was comforting to me.

Things still haven't changed except for one fact. I know the truth now. My mother's favorite color wasn't pink. It was blue; dark blue like the color of the ocean far off towards the horizon as the sun is setting.

It's not just the color that's different, it's everything I was lead to believe about her. My mother didn't want to be a cheerleader and she wasn't happy with her small life in Smallville with it's meaningless day to day activities. She hoped for something better, something grander than the town she had grown up in. The diary I held before me was covered in postcards pasted onto the pages with glue so old that it had begun to fray like an old quilt. I guess I wasn't the only one who liked travel.

I don't know what this means now. My mother was blue but I'm still pink. I still have a drawer full of tiaras. They sparkle when I take them out to look at them and inspect them in the light. They should make me feel something; proud, happy, adored. Instead as I look at them I feel the exact opposite of all that. I feel nothing. I wish I could even feel disgust or loathing for the cheap plastic and fake jewels that adore some of my "trophies", but I can't even muster that.

I know now that it is possible to lose yourself in a lie and I don't think I'll ever be able to find myself again. Maybe I'm in Hawaii (the real me) staring at the stars and charting a course in a travel book. Or maybe I'm just gone. Smothered under piles of pink perfection I varnished on myself to make my aunt happy and to show everyone that I wasn't a scared little girl anymore. No, I was a perfect little princess with my pastel blouse and my beaming smile. No one suspects that underneath it was all an act, a mask I wore to be like that ideal of my mother. Whose favorite color, as fate would have it, is not pink.

Does it make any difference anymore, that my walls are neon pink and everything about me is dainty and neat? Isn't that who I am now? I learned to sleep at night with those pink walls even though the light color always made me feel as if I wasn't alone in the room. I would often peak my eyes out from under a thick pile of covers and see a shadow flickering across the walls; would wonder if it was a shadow of the dead, finally coming to get me. I was meant to die that day and I didn't. It was only a matter of time before fate caught up with me.

I can sleep now, and quite well too. I can help Clark with his English paper and throw around words like alliteration and apostrophe. I can watch as his dark, wide eyes stare at me adoringly like I'm a goddess. I can be perfect around everyone, run the Talon myself even though the scent of coffee makes me want to hurl. I can be everything to everyone and not spare a thought about far off places.

Hawaii's there though, and when I'm not careful I'll feel a breeze and be in my hammock again. I'll be counting stars and all the things in Smallville won't matter. There will be the ocean in front of me, stretching in all directions and I know that if I look hard enough there will be a boat and I can just get in it and go in any direction that I please. I never get on the boat, although sometimes I want to. The hammock entwines me tightly when I try to move and the more I struggle the tighter it holds. My lies hold me in place and I know that one day, as I struggle to free myself the boat will just leave and I'll never be a different color than pink.

I close the diary and look around my room and I feel as if I'm falling. I reach out blindly and grab the first thing I see. It's my favorite pink shirt; when I wear it all the boys stare at me as if I'm an otherworldly creature whose presence they can't live without. I grab my trash can and hurry down the steps. Nell has a pack of cigarettes lying on the table, "just in case", whatever that means. Nell pretends she quit smoking years ago but I've seen her in the back yard, drawing so much smoke into her lungs it looks like she might pop. And now I feel the same way, as if I might burst if I don't do something soon.

I find the matches that are hidden in the second drawer and head outside. I throw my shirt into the trash can and even crumbled it still looks solid and perfect, as if no matter what happens nothing could affect it's beauty and rightness. It takes me a few matches but I finally get one to light and I stare at the flame until it bites the tips of my fingers. Then I drop it into the garbage can and watch as the orange and yellow do battle with my shirt; with my lie.

After an eternity of watching the flames jump over the edge of the trash bin and lick eagerly at the air I get a bucket of water and dowse the flames. The pink shirt is no more and I feel as if a weight has been lifted, however temporarily. I have no idea how to explain the charred trash basket to Nell so I just throw it into the dumpster and walk away from the house. I don't know where I'm going but I don't suspect I'll be back at the house until nightfall, when Nell will ask me where I've been. I'll reply that I took a long walk and she'll get that worried look in her eyes again. Maybe this time I won't care.

One day maybe I won't be pink anymore...maybe I'll just be Lana.

END