Chapter 4
The next day after confronting Kara– well, more like Supergirl, Lena woke up late with a tremendous hangover. She was right, she knew that drinking her problems away would come to this in the end, but you have to give her credit, she took it like a champ. She had learned how to deal with hangovers of this magnitude by now, so she always made sure to have pills and a bottle of water at hand’s reach. She had a multibillion dollar company to run and a bad night and a headache would not stop her.
Lena sat on the bed, hating every second, her head pounding made it impossible to focus… She stood up only to sit again as everything around her just wouldn’t stop spinning. She took a few moments before grabbing the water and medicine she always kept in her bedside table.
‘This will be a long day…’ she thought while drinking the entire bottle. Her mouth was dry and all she wanted was to sleep again, but she had already slept in and was late for work. Not even the CEO was safe from having to be on time. She checked her phone, it had many missed calls and texts from Jess, asking if she was okay and telling her she had moved her meetings for the next day. Jess was doing her best to keep everything under control and it showed, Lena thought she deserved a raise, but she’d arrange that later, with a clearer head and less nausea….
Wait… nausea!
She ran to the bathroom, feeling sick all of a sudden, regretting drinking that much last night as she barely made it to the toilet and threw up. It was for the best, as she didn’t even remember why she had done it, and forgetting was almost always the reason why she drowned herself in alcohol. Sure, she had a problem with her coping mechanism, but you wouldn’t dare tell her that to her face.
As she could, she got up to the task of getting ready for work, before grabbing a snack from the always full, massive fridge, perks of being a millionaire, and she ventured into the late morning. She spent the entire ride to L-Corp with her designer shades on, as she couldn’t withstand the sunlight at the moment, and hating the happy people she saw through the window, wondering how in hell were they so happy at this time in the morning.
As she finally got to the building, she apologized to Jess for worrying her unnecessarily and they went through the schedule of the day. With a tired sigh, she sat at her desk, where the memories of last night came to her at their fullest. How she yelled at Kara, how awful she felt thanks to the betrayal, and the reason why she chose to drank herself to sleep, everything making of her horrible mood an even worse one. She decided to bury herself with work, not that she was avoiding her problems… perhaps yes, but she wouldn’t admit it, and went through most of the day without problems, except an inconvenience with a member of the board that was quickly and efficiently solved.
Lunchtime arrived, and Lena wouldn’t have noticed if it weren’t for Jess, who was confused by the lack of the best friend carrying enormous amounts of food, which she always doubted they’d be able to finish but Kara didn’t fail in proving her wrong by coming out of the office empty handed. Jess had grown fond of Kara with time, and was genuinely curious as to why the sun personified hadn’t danced her way in that day, but as she went to ask Lena, she was met with a grim face before she even could question anything and instead she opted for asking if her boss wanted her to order something, to which Lena answered with a dry no. Lena didn’t have mind to think about food at the moment. She felt a bit bad about telling Jess off so harshly, but Jess didn’t know what Lena was going through. She also didn’t know that Lena had forgot to turn off several alarms on her phone, those she had set to announce know it was almost time for Kara to arrive, so she always had everything in order when Kara came in. Jess didn’t know that a few seconds before she opened the door one of the alarms went off, painfully reminding Lena of her situation. Lena sighed, she really had been lucky to have landed such a great assistant, and then remembered about the raise she planned on giving her, so she started arranging everything. Maybe she could even throw a basket with gifts in there too.
She outdid herself and spent every minute, every second, on doing something, anything to avoid thinking about…her… and she had been doing a great job so far, until past afternoon, when her phone buzzed, the screen showing a new message. It was from Alex, asking her if everything was okay, because Kara was sad but wouldn’t tell her why.
Lena grimaced when she saw the text. How would she respond to Alex? She said Kara didn’t tell her what happened, but why didn’t she? She knew Alex would protect her sister with teeth and nails if she had to but– wait… Alex was Kara’s sister… Alex was Supergirl’s sister! Lena hadn’t think of it until that moment, but Alex– she knew. Alex knew since the beginning that Kara was an alien, and if she knew then that meant they both had shamelessly lied to her. How could she been so foolish? How is it that she didn’t connect the dots until now? How did she missed the signs? Alex would appear concerned and worried every time Supergirl got injured, the same Alex who didn’t care for anyone but her family. And Alex always would cover for Kara with lame excuses as to why she suddenly disappeared. Or Alex would always– Damn, it was so fucking obvious! How in nine hells had she missed it? She was supposed to be a genius, then why hadn’t she figured it out before! And if Alex, someone she had gotten to consider a good friend, had lied to her too, what was the chance that the other ‘friends’ she’d met through Kara weren’t also lying to her?
Lena felt rage bubbling inside her. She had made a mistake by trusting Kara. She had made a mistake by opening again to someone at all. And now, she was paying the consequences.
In a fit of anger Lena threw the phone away. It smashed against the wall, but being of her own design and creation of course it would be of great quality and barely got a scratch with the impact. Damn it. Lena was pissed at her past self who decided to make a tough use phone with the best of materials. She thought of just letting the phone there, forgotten, but the insistent buzzing made her stand and turn it off without even reading the rest of the text Alex desperately sent her.
Lena took a moment to calm herself. She decided that it was a good day to stay in the office and see that everything ran smoothly, maybe even do some progress on her latest project. Yes, that would do. She called Jess and asked her to order a lot of coffee and after that she could leave for the day. Jess was surprised but didn’t argue, it was her job after all.
It was well into the night when she ran out of coffee. She might be a world saving genius but she always forgot to install a coffee maker in her secret laboratory beneath L-Corp.
Lena looked at the digital clock in the wall; it marked 4:16am. She hadn’t even noticed the time flying, but now she felt sleepy, oh, and also tired. Although, tired is an understatement. The high heels she wore were killing her. She felt both physical and emotionally exhausted. She wanted nothing more than to forget, but she had done that already and it only had left her with a pounding headache and hatred for humanity. She thought for a second, what if she made a device to make her forget those painful memories? Something to wipe from her mind those deep blue eyes that made her heart ache just at the mere thought of them. But no, she discarded the idea as soon as it came. It was a mistake, sure, her love for Kara, and daring to maintain a friendship with someone again, but mistakes were what made her stronger and she would learn from them. She always did.
But for now, even looking at the computer screen made her head spin. She had been distracting herself all day, going up and down without eating anything more than the thing in the morning, she couldn’t even recall what it was, and now her body was complaining. Lena decided it was a good time for a break when her stomach started grumbling. She wouldn’t leave the building, the mere idea of going to her penthouse made her sick, but she was going to get something to eat at least. Lena had enough with the carefully designed heels and took them off roughly. Fuck it, it was her building, maintained with her money, it was her property, she could waltz around naked if she wanted to, so walking barefooted was nothing. She went up the elevator, to her office, and opened the hidden door of the frigobar, where she kept snacks and drinks for emergencies or late night stays. The little fridge was full of course, Lena made sure to fill it regularly, but the things that it contained had been there for a while now. It made Lena sad to know that Kara was the reason. With Kara making sure she didn’t stay late as often as she used to, there was no need to use it or refill it at all.
“It was all a lie…” she whispered, reminding herself. Saying it out loud helped it to stick.
Lena rummaged through the stuff inside the frigobar, discarding everything expired. She grabbed a package of m&m’s but threw it away as soon as she realized what it was; those chocolates were Kara’s favorite. She hated herself for remembering such a small detail about Kara, one that had slipped into a conversation they’d had a long time ago and that had impulsed Lena to have the candies around for Kara. At the end, she settled for one of the granola bars.
Lena slumped in the couch, giving small bites to the granola bar, and asked herself what she had done to end up like this. The Luthors were awful people, sure, even herself had her slips, but she never wanted to be a bad person, she was good, so why did all the tragedies and back stabbings happened to her? She wondered if she was meant to be alone forever. She wondered if fate was using her just for the sake of a good laugh, giving her hopes and then shattering the illusion.
There, munching on a granola bar in the middle of the early morning, alone in the whole building, and most certainly alone in the world, Lena Luthor felt miserable
Lena’s eyes caught movement in the balcony, but by the time she actually focused her sore sight beyond the reinforced glass, whatever was there it was gone. She stood up and hesitantly walked towards the closed glass door. She felt a sting in her heart. Was she really expecting Kara to show? Was she hoping for Kara to show? Silently begging to see a silver of a red cape in the sky? No, she wasn’t. She shouldn’t. She hated her, with all her soul, with every cell of her being– except, she was lying to herself. Ironic, how she hated lies more than anything, and yet the only person who she could count on, herself, was also full of lies.
Lena couldn’t stand it, not anymore.
“It was all a lie!” Lena shouted at the empty room, her voice cracking. Too late she realized she was crying. Hot tears were freely rolling down her now pink cheeks, and no matter how much Lena wiped them off, new tears would replace them. Her legs wavered and couldn’t support her anymore. She fell on her knees, her sobs loudly begging to be pacified only by the arms of her one true love.
She didn’t notice the lone, slumped figure in the air watching her from the distance.