Excellent part!
I won't quote Lois's march to the coffee because I would have to quote everything, but that was so well written that I could feel her tension and fluttering. When I finished reading, my heart was pounding.
She raised her head, determined to just do it, and she was immediately arrested by a pair of soulful brown eyes. He was staring at her, with something in his face that made her breath hitch and her heart start to pound. He was hurting. She knew this from one glance, though she couldn’t have said how, and just like the day before when they’d watched the Messenger explode, she had an almost uncontrollable impulse to go to him, to offer what comfort she could.
Beautiful. Sad. Sweet. There're so much emotions in this paragraph.
He held her gaze, not pretending that he wasn’t watching her. He had promised not to speak to her, she remembered dizzily, but he’d never promised he wouldn’t look, and what was the point of not speaking if every feeling he’d ever had was allowed to blaze forth from his eyes?
I've no words. Your ability to say so much in so few words is astonishing.
She was squinting at her notes, trying to make out her own handwriting, when she felt his presence beside her.
It startled her so much that she gasped, loud enough for him to hear. She stared at him, wide-eyed and speechless, stunned that he had approached her. She was so focused on his face that she hardly noticed when he set down a steaming Styrofoam cup and then reached into his pocket to pull out an assortment of little packets – sweeteners and creamers – and a plastic stirrer.
“I wasn’t sure what you liked in your coffee.” He sounded almost apologetic, as if he’d somehow been remiss, but she was still at least two steps behind.
“What?” she asked, because what he had said was so far removed from anything she’d expected to hear from him – not that she’d expected to hear anything at all.
“You shouldn’t have to give up coffee because of me,” he said softly.
“I wasn’t....” She began her denial and then gave it up just as quickly. They’d both know she was lying. She looked down at the cup on her desk, at the pile of little packets. “Thank you.”
A smile touched his lips, there and gone much too fast. “You’re welcome.”
And without another word, he walked away, back to his desk and whatever mundane story Perry had assigned him. Lois, her heart still pounding from his nearness, from the fact that they’d exchanged a few simple words, reached for packets of artificial sweetener and powdered whitener and ripped them open, dumping them into the coffee and feeling at once even more guilty than she had before, but also relieved.
Maybe they could actually do this. Maybe they could even – one day – be friends. Maybe he didn’t hate her as much as she deserved to be hated. Maybe when he’d said he wasn’t like most men, he’d actually been telling the truth.
This is long, but I had to quote everything. I loved Clark's gesture. How sweet of him. And finally there's light at the end of the tunnel. The ending of this chapter left me hopeful that they're going to work it out. More, please!
Andreia
