Whitney’s resentment at Lana’s words about their break up. As we all saw, in Smallville series between two episodes can be different time. For example, between ‘Persona’ and ‘Siren’, one day only passed. Between ‘Unsafe’ and ‘Pariah’, nearly 2 months passed. Lana broke up with Whitney through the video at the end of ‘Heat’. Then the next episode, she said Whitney offended to her because of their break up, although as we saw later, he wasn’t (in Smallville comic book ‘The few, the proud’, there is a scene where he writes her back a letter that he understands her and wants she move on but doesn’t have time to send it before his death). That means between ‘Heat’ and ‘Duplicity’ enough time passed to receive a reply for a letter (the comic book ‘The few, the proud’, where events happen between these two episodes, proves my theory). Otherwise Clark would be surprised how she received a reply to her video letter so fast. Also that means between ‘Duplicity’ and ‘Skinwalker’ (where Whitney was in MIA), on the contrary, a few time passed (in spite of 7 episodes). That means some episodes and some scenes aren't chronologically. So if in ‘Duplicity’, it was the time to receive a reply on her letter, but Lana didn’t, she could get Whitney’s silence as he was offended. So she could tell the truth about his resentment. Regarding Lana’s resentment here at Clark’s refusal to tell why his and Pete’s friendship had a crack. At first, he asks her about telling the truth, then he tells about possibly ending of his and Pete’s friendship. When Lana asks him what happened, he refuses to tell her, and she is offended. If Clark can’t tell her what exactly happened, why he tells her about it at all? I mean about his friendship crack. In such scene, he just embarrassed Lana who (in the point of view of polite) was supposed to give him advice what he should do (even if he didn't expect her to advice something). Of course, she was offended and got angry. Lana has a flaw: she’s _irascible_ and can overreact if someone makes her angry. This scene is an example. So actually she just wanted to _help_ him with advice. He could tell her what happened not revealing anything in details. Pay attention _it was Clark who started the conversation about honesty, not Lana._ There was also a similar scene in 'Lineage' where Lana tells she knows about his and Chloe's conflict but he doesn't need to worry because she doesn't know _details._ Regarding her words that she was honest with him when she told him about her and Whitney’s break up. It was just a cover up to put Clark in her place. Regarding Lana's avoidance of Nell's boyfriend. She came to Clark and, probably, expected him to give her some advice what to do. She could want to show him she needed him in such awkward situations and she herself would help him. It's not coincidence Lana came to _Clark,_ not to other person, for example, Chloe, like all other such moments. And if this scene still seems odd for a conflict, I can give a similar one. In one of later episodes of season 9, Lois was avoiding Clark for a while and then decided to break up with him. And you know why? Because they were fired from Daily Planet 🤦🏻♀️ As if it was his fault that they lost their job 🧠 🔫
He was young, afraid of rejection, and still struggling to reconcile between the life he wanted to have and the destiny he felt was forced on him. He did make things unnecessarily complicated, but he was teenage boy with the weight of the world on his shoulders. He didn’t know any better. He had to learn through trial and error, just like every other human being, but the stakes felt infinitely higher for him.
