Lena is fifteen years old when she's outed.

She's a sophomore at St. Katharine's School for Girls, and she meets Ellen Bloom in physics class. Ellen is a senior. Physics is a senior class, but Lena's been two grades ahead in science since she started at St. Katharine's at eleven.

"You must be really smart," Ellen says when she sits down next to her on the first day.

"I am," Lena answers. It's not modest, but her mother has been telling her for years that modesty will get her nowhere. You must be an advocate for yourself, Lena.

"Great! Maybe you can tutor me when I start to fall behind."

Ellen has curly brown hair that brushes against the small of her back when she walks and wide, dark brown eyes. Lena feels like she could fall into them if she looked too long. She calls Lena a nerd, but she lets her sit at her table at lunch, even though her friends grumble about it in between making fun of the new money kids.

"I heard Casey Ryan was born in an apartment," Kim Pageau tells them conspiratorially during the second week of October. "And not like, one of the nice ones on the Upper West Side. It was in Milwaukee." She pauses dramatically. "And they were renting it."

"Her dad didn't even make his first million until 2003," Molly Holloway adds. "What do you expect?"

Kim wrinkles her nose. "That explains that trashy sports car he dropped her off in."

The way they talk about people reminds Lena of her mother's friends. It makes her stomach hurt, but she's never had friends at St. Katharine's and it's nice to eat lunch somewhere other than in the library with a book in front of her and the librarian looking on sympathetically, so she ignores it.

"Are you okay, Lena?" Ellen asks. "You look grossed out." She rests her hand on Lena's leg, and Lena can feel the color begin to rise to her face.

"I'm fine," she answers quickly. "I just really don't like this." She tosses the French fry she's holding back onto her tray, even though it doesn't taste that bad.

"Ugh, who does?" Ellen says. Her hand moves to Lena's arm, and she's pulling her out of her seat. "Lena and I are going to get some real food. You know, somewhere off-campus. Catch you guys later."

"Meet in my room at six to get ready for tonight," Kim says. "Veronica Sinclair says she can score some vodka. And don't forget…" her eyes drift to Lena, "it's exclusive."

Ellen rolls her eyes. "Whatever. See you tonight."

She lets go of Lena's arm and Lena follows her across the courtyard, through the gates to the path that leads down the hill to Plymouth. Only seniors are allowed to walk to town on weekdays, but Lena is with Ellen, so no one bothers them.

"What are you getting ready for?" Lena asks once they're out of earshot of the table.

"Just a yacht party tonight," Ellen answers. "Stacy's brother—Stacy from physics—her brother is throwing it. It's in Portsmouth. I would have invited you, but it was a closed invitation. You know, upperclassmen only?" She chews on her lip for a moment. "But don't worry. I'm sure you would have been invited too, if you weren't a sophomore."

"And if I wasn't that weird girl from the chess team," Lena adds.

"Oh, come on, you're not weird." Ellen pokes her in the ribs. "You're just… focused. Seriously, you're so pretty, and your family's one of the best. You'll definitely get an invite next year."

Lena takes a deep breath. "Can I ask you a question? You can't tell anyone."

"Sure, what's up?" Ellen asks.

"Am I new money?"

Ellen laughs. "You're a Luthor. Why would you even ask that?"

Lena shrugs. "Everyone knows I'm adopted. I was probably born in an apartment too. I lived all kinds of places before I was a Luthor, and none of them were luxury condos on Central Park West or Michigan Avenue."

She wraps her arm around Lena's shoulders. Lena can feel the cashmere of her St. Katharine's cardigan against the back of her neck. "It's not like that with you. Maybe if you were adopted when you were like, twelve or something. But it's not about where you were born. It's about what your last name is."

"But that's so messed up," Lena says. "I'm not really any different from Casey Ryan."

Ellen shrugs. "I don't get it either, but that's just how it is. I don't make the rules." Her arms slips back to her side and Lena immediately misses its weight, but Ellen takes her hand and squeezes. "You okay?"

Lena nods.

Ellen stops and turns toward her. "You're really great, Lena. It doesn't matter where you were born."

And then she's kissing her. Lena's first instinct is to pull away and make sure there's no one following them down the path, but Ellen's lips are so soft that the thought fizzles out before she can really consider it.

"Don't tell anyone," Ellen breathes as she pulls away, but she doesn't let go of Lena's hand.

Ellen comes back from the yacht party with a boyfriend from Mount David, the boys' school in Campton. His name is Trevor McDonough. Lena meets him once. He has spiky blond hair and wears white sunglasses, even when it's cloudy. She doesn't like him.

Having a boyfriend doesn't deter Ellen though. Lena's been tutoring her for five months now, one hour twice a week, scheduled during her roommate's biology class. Usually, she spends the first twenty minutes of the session tutoring Ellen and the last forty minutes kissing her.

It happens in February. Lena is pressed against the wardrobe with Ellen's lips on her neck and hands up her shirt, and she don't hear her roommate unlock the door.

"Bio finished early." Elizabeth tosses her keys on the nightstand. "Mr. Hurly—" She breaks off when she sees them.

Ellen jumps away from Lena like her skin is scalding. Elizabeth turns and runs without saying a word, and Lena knows she's going to the house mother.

Ellen sinks down on the bed, her head in her hands, and she's silent for a long time. When she looks back up, her eyes are cold, like Lena is a complete stranger.

"I don't like you," she says evenly. "I never did. I'm dating Trevor and I love him. You made me do this so you would tutor me."

Lena knows in that moment that she's already lost. Ellen is pretty and popular. She's from a good family, and she has a boyfriend. Lena is a loner whom no one wants to hang out with, who never quite seemed to fit into this world. It won't matter that Ellen was the one pushing Lena up against the wardrobe. No one will have any trouble believing this was her idea.

They are called to the headmistress' office. She talks to Ellen first, and when she calls Lena in, she doesn't even ask for her side of the story.

"I called your mother," she says. "She'll be here to pick you up tomorrow."

"You're expelling me?" Lena asks, her voice flat.

"You haven't been expelled," Mrs. Spellman answers. "Your mother and I simply agreed that this environment is not the right fit for your… unique needs."

Lena waits until she's back in her room to cry. Elizabeth, watches her pack from her bed.

"It was never going to work out with her, you know?"

Lena looks at her through tear-blurred vision.

"Like, I know people live like that," she continues. "I've seen Rent. But not people like us, you know? Not people from our families."

Lena turns back to her wardrobe. She's dropping clothes into her suitcase without folding them. Normally, her mother would scold her for that, but this time, Lena doesn't think she'll notice.

"How many times did you do it?" Elizabeth asks.

Lena sniffles. "Do what?"

"That kissing and…" she pauses, Lena has never heard silence sound so scandalous, "and everything."

She tries to remember, but it all blurs together. She can't remember if the time she accidentally popped a button off Ellen's sweater was the same time Ellen let her take off her bra.

"I don't know," Lena finally answers. "A lot."

"Huh," Elizabeth replies. "She doesn't seem like the type. You're kind of weird, you know? But she just seemed normal."

The next morning, Lena's mother guides her out of the school with a firm hand on the back of her neck while everyone who has a free first period watches out their dorm room window.

She doesn't go to another boarding school. Her parents enroll her at Milton College Preparatory Academy in Metropolis.

"You're obviously just not ready to be on your own," her mother tells her over dinner. "Your father agrees."

"Does he?" Lena asks.

"He does," she answers sharply. "You can ask him yourself when he gets home. We're both very disappointed in you. Frankly, I don't know what you were thinking. This isn't how we raised you."

"I was thinking that I liked her," Lena mutters over her roast duck.

Her mother pauses with her fork halfway to her mouth. "Don't be absurd. Do you even hear yourself right now?"

"I know what I said," Lena answers. "I know how I feel."

Her mother takes a slow, deep breath, and Lena can tell she's trying not to raise her voice. "Lena, you are fifteen years old. You don't know what you want, and you are not old enough to understand that your actions have real consequences that will follow you for the rest of your life. When you're older, you'll thank us."

"I didn't make her do it," Lena protests. "She kissed me first."

"It doesn't matter," her mother snaps. "I don't want to hear any more about this."

The circle her family moves in is small, and the kids at Milton already know why she's there.

"My cousin's a freshman at St. Katharine's," a girl with long, blond hair tells her as she's trying to open her locker on her first day. "She told me what you did. I guess your parents thought you should be at a school with boys, huh?"

"I like boys," a girl with wire-rimmed glasses says when Lena sits down at the vacant desk behind her in pre-calc. "So don't try anything."

"Hey, Luthor," a boy calls to her from across the cafeteria as she's paying for her lunch. "I need some help with chem. Think you can hook me up, or am I not your type?"

"Lena!" someone calls as she walks though the door of her English class. "Have you met Amanda? I think you were meant for each other."

Amanda Yeh is the only person who doesn't make fun of her. She has short black hair that's gelled up in the front like a boy's, and she wears khaki pants instead of the uniform skirt. Lena's not allowed to leave the cafeteria with food, so she can't eat lunch in the library, and Amanda lets her sit with her.

"Is it true?" she asks on Lena's fourth day.

"You're the first person whose asked me that," Lena comments as she picks at her mac and cheese.

"Yeah."

Lena sighs and smashes a noodle against the side of her tray. "Part of it."

"Which part?"

"The part where we were…" Lena flushes, "doing things."

"Making out?"

"Yes."

"Nice."

"But not the part where I threatened to stop tutoring her if she said no," Lena adds.

Amanda puts a piece of broccoli in her mouth. She mixed together half the food on her tray, and it has mashed potato clinging to it.

"I figured. Seemed like the kind of thing kids would make up."

"It's what she told the headmistress," Lena admits. "But it's not what happened."

"Ah," Amanda nods. "A closet case."

"You don't think it's gross?" she asks.

Amanda laughs. "Are you kidding? Have you seen me? There's a reason no one here talks to me, and it's not my stunning good looks. I know I make all the girls go weak in the knees."

Lena's mother makes her bring a date to Lex's birthday dinner. His name is Ryan Newbold, and he's the son of her parents' friends. He's wearing a green polo with an upturned collar when the car drops him off at her family's brownstone. He reminds her of Trevor, but his smile isn't so wolfish.

Lex shows up to dinner with a girl who looks like a model. She's wearing a string of pearls and her nails have designs on them. On the car ride home, her mother will comment on how tacky they looked and her father will mutter that Lex will find someone more serious once he gets it out of his system.

"Lena!" Lex wraps her into a hug. "Good to see you! I heard you weren't in New Hampshire anymore. I'm glad to hear you're finally living a little."

Their parents told Lex that she was caught with pot in her room. It explains the fact that she's in trouble without requiring her parents to humiliate themselves by disclosing why.

Her father and Lex talk about the company for a while, and then Lex tries to talk to Ryan about the Generals, but Ryan doesn't seem to know much about basketball.

After dinner, Lex takes Lena out onto the restaurant's rooftop plaza. It's mid-June, warm but not yet hot enough to be oppressive. They're up high enough that she can see the other five borough, and she can even make out the Gotham skyline across the Delaware Bay. Lex wraps his arm around her shoulders and looks across the city, where Luthor Corp. Tower juts out against the horizon.

"You're going to intern with us next summer," he tells her. "I've got it all worked out with Dad. We can have you running numbers for R&D. It'll look great on your college applications."

"Really?" Lena asks.

"Yeah, really," he answers. "You're going to love some of the stuff we're working on. We have some tech—now it's in its early stages, so don't get too excited—but it can analyze skin cells and tell whether someone's human."

Lena frowns at him. "What are you going to use that for?"

"Don't you get it?" he asks. "All someone would have to do is touch a pad, and the machine could tell whether they were an alien. Something like that could get us military contracts. We're talking about billions of dollars. Of course, Clark thinks it'll be dangerous for the aliens, but what does he know? He always was a goody two-shoes." He nudges her in the ribs. "Are you sure he's not your real brother?"

She laughs. "Shut up! You're such an asshole."

Lena's always loved hanging out with Lex. When she's with him, she forgets that sometimes she still feels like an outsider looking in on a family that isn't hers.

"So," he nods back towards the door to the restaurant. "What's up with Ryan? You've barely said a word to him all night."

Lena rolls her eyes. "Mom set us up. I just met him today. What's with… what was it… Chelsea?"

"We've been seeing each other for a month," he says. "It's not that serious. Really though, he doesn't seem like the kind of guy I pictured you with."

"What kind of guy did you picture me with?" Lena asks. She can feel her heartrate start to pick up.

"I don't know." He shrugs. "I guess someone who seems less… metrosexual?"

She furrow her brow. "Metrosexual?"

"You know, a straight guy who acts gay," Lex explains. "I mean, did you see his hair? How long did that take him? Longer than you spent on yours, probably."

Lena feels like her stomach is in her throat. "What if I just never dated any guys?"

"Oh, I get it." He claps her on the shoulder. "Guys are assholes in high school. It'll be better once you get to college."

"I don't know," she answers, trying to keep her voice casual. "I'm just not sure I'm that interested in dating guys."

"Yeah, I felt that way about girls when I was your age. Who has time for that when there's so much to learn, right?" He jostles her shoulders. "I know you're adopted, but I swear to god, sometimes it's hard to believe we're not biologically related. Now, come on." He turns back toward the restaurant. "Let's go save Ryan and Chelsea from Mom and Dad."

He throws his arm around Lena's shoulders and walks her towards the door.

He chuckles. "You know, it's a good thing you're so girly, or I might have thought you were telling me you were gay or something." She feels him shudder. "Scary how early kids are getting into that now. You know, as gross as it is, at least everyone doing it was an adult before. Now they're getting them way younger." He gives her shoulder a squeeze. "We live in depressing times, Lena, but you're the future. Maybe once you're at Luthor Corp. with me, we can work on turning it around."

She decides not to try to tell him again.

Lena's father dies during her senior year of high school on the weekend before spring break. Her family is planning on spending the week in Monaco, and Lex is coming. She's been there once before, when she was six, but all she remembers from that trip is being on a cliff overlooking the ocean and sitting on her father's lap on a sailboat.

Her mother shakes her awake early on Monday morning, six hours before they're supposed to fly out.

"Lena, get up," she hisses. "Come on, Lena. It's important."

Her mother never wakes her up—even if she'd overslept and they needed to leave for the airport in ten minutes, it would have been her father—so she knows immediately that something is wrong.

"What's going on?" she asks. She's still in a haze of half-sleep, but she sits up and rubs her eyes. Her mother has turned on her bedroom light, and it burns when she opens them. "What time is it?"

"Your father has been in an accident," her mother says. "We're going to the hospital."

She gets off the bed and starts rummaging in Lena's closet for clothes. She throws a pair of St. Katharine's sweatpants and a t-shirt with Luthor Corp.'s logo on it at her.

"Get dressed. We're leaving in five minutes."

The drive through the city to the St. Martin's Island Medical Center lasts twenty-five minutes and is completely silent. Lena sits across from her mother in the back of one of her family's cars wearing the sweats under her purple designer coat. Her mother's hair and makeup look like she never went to sleep at all. She's even wearing a string of pearls.

Lex is waiting when they arrive. His eyes are red-rimmed, and he sweeps Lena and their mother into a hug and doesn't let go until their mother asks in a strangled voice, "You've spoken to the doctor?"

He nods against her shoulder. As he pulls away, he pinches the bridge of his nose. "He was, uh…" He sobs from deep in his chest. "He was already gone when he got here."

"What?" Lena feels like the room is spinning around her. She stumbles to the side. Someone wraps their arm around her. Her mother.

"What happened?" her mother asks tightly.

"He went off the Oaktown Bridge," Lex says. "They're saying his car hit a school bus. I don't really know."

Her mother's arm falls away as a police officer approaches.

"Take care of your sister," she mutters to Lex.

He guides Lena with a hand on her shoulder to a row of plastic chairs against the wall. She sinks into one, her head in her hands. Lex rubs her back, and then she hears him sobbing too.

"He loved you, Lena," he manages between gasps.

The sun is rising by the time they leave the hospital. Lex rides home with Lena and their mother. He wraps his arm around her when she rests her head on his shoulder. She tries to close her eyes, but all she sees behind her eyelids are the suffocating white walls of the hospital.

She doesn't think she'll be able to sleep, but she's out before she's even aware of being in bed. It helps having Lex in the bedroom next-door. The house always feels friendlier when he's home.

When Lena wakes up, she's alone. She finds a note on the island in the kitchen.

Lena,

Out making funeral arrangements. Lex is reachable at your father's work number. Coffee cake on the counter.

Mom

When her mother doesn't usually sign notes when she leaves them for Lena.

She cuts herself a piece of coffee cake, but her stomach churns when she takes the first bite, so it sits on the coffee table in front of her while she lies on the couch and stares aimlessly at The Today Show. She doesn't even notice when the credits roll and the news starts until she hears her father's name.

We begin this morning with breaking news, the sudden death of Luthor Corp. CEO, Lionel Luthor.

She knows she should change the channel, but she can't summon the willpower to reach for the remote.

Luthor's BMW struck a school bus at approximately 1:45 this morning in the northbound lane on the Trans-Metropolis Highway. Luthor's car and the bus wedged between guardrails on the Oaktown Bridge. Superman arrived on the scene just moments after first responders. We're going to play some footage that our news team recovered from the scene of the accident. Some viewers may find these images disturbing.

The screen cuts to video footage that looks like it was filmed from a helicopter. Superman hovers just off the bridge between a bus labeled Metropolis Unified School District on the side and the car Lena recognizes as her father's. He begins to lift the school bus by the bumper, but the front of her father's car tips forward off the side of the bridge. He rushes to steady it.

He flies around to the back of the school bus, and Lena watches the bus wobble on the edge of the bridge precariously as he pulls the emergency door off. He flies back to the front of the bus to hold it steady as its occupants stream out the back and across the road.

The front of her father's car begins to slowly tip forward again. Superman is craning his neck in the opposite direction watching the bus empty. He must hear something, because he suddenly turns back towards her father's car and lunges toward it. He gets close enough that his fingers might be touching the bumper, but the school bus lurches and he pulls his arm back. He watches helplessly as her father's car falls into the river below.

And there you have it, the news anchor comments grimly. Later footage shows the Man of Steel retrieving Luthor's car from the river, where it appears to have spent about six minutes. Mr. Luthor was rushed to St. Martin's Island Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead. His chauffeur, Raymond Pike, died on the scene. No word yet on why Mr. Luthor was returning from St. Martin's Island at such an early hour.

The school bus was carrying students from P.S. 194 back from Metropolis International Airport, where they had just returned from a senior trip to Washington, D.C. Seventeen students were taken to St. Martin's Island Medical Center to receive treatment for minor injuries.

Mr. Luthor and Mr. Pike were the only fatalities.

Lena rolls over on the couch and falls into an uneasy sleep to the sound of the weather forecast.

On the morning of her father's funeral, she meets her mother and brother in the foyer. Lex has been living with them for the past three days, but Lena has hardly seen him. He's spent most of his time at Luthor Corp. running the transition and talking to estate lawyers.

"You look very appropriate," her mother says, but the tone of her voice tells her that she's impressed.

Lex is standing by the door with his coat already on, looking at his phone.

"Clark's on his way to the funeral home," he says. "He wants to know if he can pick us up breakfast."

"I've eaten," her mother answers stiffly. "Lena?"

"Sure," she answers slowly. "Whatever you're having?"

Lex nods at her and taps something into his phone.

"We should get going." Her mother fishes a large pair of sunglasses out of her purse and hands them to Lena. "These are for you. There will be press outside the funeral home." She lays a hand on her shoulder. "They're there for our tears. We won't give them to them."

Lena rarely sees both her mother and Lex at the same time anymore. She usually has dinner with one of them while the other is still at work. Dinners with her mother are quiet, but they've gotten less tense over the past two years. Dinners with Lex often consist of Lena watching him pour over work documents while shoving green beans into his mouth.

"Dad never worked this much," she comments over mashed potatoes on a Wednesday night in June. It's her first week as a high school graduate, and she's spent almost all of it here by herself.

Lex was at the graduation ceremony though. Lena wasn't sure he'd be able to make it. She spent the week leading up to it practicing hiding her disappointment and graciously telling her mother that she understands how busy he is. But she got out of the theater after the ceremony and there he was, standing beside her mother holding a huge bouquet of flowers. The picture her mother snapped of the two of them is sitting on Lena's nightstand waiting to be framed.

"No, he didn't," Lex sighs. "But I'm still figuring this out. He never exactly got around to training me to take over."

She pours gravy over her plate. Lex's eyes flit up to watch her for a moment before returning to a piece of paper with a couple of multicolored graphs on it.

She takes a deep breath. "Lex?"

"What?" He doesn't look back up.

"Was there a work reason for Dad to be on St. Martin's Island?"

The question has been nagging at her since she saw that news segment the day he died, but she hasn't been able to bring herself to ask. It feels disrespectful somehow, like if she's trying to tarnish his memory.

Lex stops making annotations on the paper for a moment, but then he continues.

"No."

She hesitates, bites her lip. "Do you think he was—"

"He's dead," Lex snaps. "What does it matter?"

She shrugs. "It's just been bothering me. If he died because he was on St. Martin's Island, doesn't it matter why he was there?"

"He didn't die because he was in St. Martin's Island," Lex answers. "He died because Superman didn't save him."

Lena smears a forkful of turkey around in the gravy puddled on her plate and shoves it into her mouth. If her mother was here, she'd scold her for eating in a way that made her look undignified.

On the other side of the table, Lex is balling his hand so tightly into a fist that his knuckles are turning white.

"All they keep talking about on the news is how he saved those kids," he says. "He's making hospital visits. He's going to dinner with families. He's going to the graduation ceremony. They never talk about how he let Dad die. They never talk about how Dad had a family too." Lex scoffs. "And where was he at the funeral? Nowhere to be seen. We didn't even get a phone call."

Lena chews a little faster. She hears him take a couple of deep breaths as his hand relaxes.

"Sorry," he says. "I'm just so tired of hearing about what a hero he is. The only reason he seems so heroic is because, when he screws up, no one ever talks about it. He could make most of the emergencies he shows up to worse, and we'd never know."

He shoves a forkful of mashed potatoes in his mouth and pushes his chair away from the table.

"I've got to get back to work," he says.

Lena furrows her brow. "You're going back?"

"I have a lot of work to get done," he replies. "We just wanted to make sure you weren't eating alone."

The night before Lena moves to MIT, her mother calls her into her office. It was her father's office for almost Lena's entire life, and then it sat unused for four months as a sort of memorial to him until she and her mother finally cleaned it out over the summer.

Lena sits in one of the leather armchairs where she and her father used to sit while they played chess. Her mother finishes reading the piece of paper in her hands and sets it down on the desk.

"You've done well these past couple of years," she begins without saying hello. "As I'm sure you know, once you're in Boston, I won't be able to keep as much of an eye on you. Nor do I have time to watch you like you're a toddler."

Lena nods, carefully schooling the relief off her face.

"The time has come for you to decide what you want your life to be," her mother says. "Should you choose some sort of—" she wrinkles her nose—"alternative lifestyle, there's nothing I can do to stop you. However, you should keep in mind the impact your reputation has on your future prospects at Luthor Corp."

Lena furrows her brow. "What are you talking about?"

Her mother takes her glasses off and sets them on the desk. "You're at an age where your personal life has become fair game for the press," she answers. "And they are much more interested in this family now than they were before your father's death. Lex bears the brunt of it, of course, but you would do well to remember that nothing you do in the company of another person is ever private."

"Okay…" she replies.

Her mother sighs. "Lena, what I'm trying to say is that what your peers think of you, and what the public thinks of you, are not irrelevant to your future. If your involvement with the company is an impediment to our ability to manage investors or attract clients, it will be terminated."

"You're saying Lex won't hire me if I… if I'm…" She swallows thickly. Her mouth has gone dry.

"Your brother wants you to run the company with him someday," her mother tells her, "an arrangement that I support, but your reputation is this family's reputation, and if you're going to be attracting attention with distasteful habits, he'll have to do what's right for this family's legacy. A legacy that also belongs to you, whatever choices you make."

"So… so what?" Lena asks. "Are you threatening to disown me or something? Is this how you're going to get rid of me?"

Her mother shakes her head. "Of course not. I know you and I don't see eye to eye on many things, but you're my daughter. That is not what I want for us. It's not the future I want for you. This choice is yours to make. You can keep your life together or you can pursue these interests with the knowledge that, should word get out, you will be a Luthor in name only."

Lena crumples against the back of the chair. Her mother leans toward her across the desk.

"I know sounds like I'm asking a lot," she says. "Nothing comes easy, not even happiness. It takes work. It takes sacrifice. What you want that sacrifice to be… well, that's a choice only you can make."