Chapter Text
The streets of Willow and Dean still retained their cracked, grimy appearance as a figure stepped out of the bus.
Shaking her head to get rid of the headache she had accrued inhaling the fumes and sitting in a particularly bumpy bus, she took a deep breath through her mouth and released it, visibly heaving her shoulders as she did so.
It had helped, though very little, and she had decided that she really could use a glass of water.
That wasn’t a huge issue. She could always get some where she was going.
Standing on the pavement, she looked up towards the old, cracked building where she was going, the windows dark and tinted against sunlight, the roof dusty from lack of cleaning. It had clearly seen better days.
The last time Helga G Pataki had set foot anywhere near the place, she had been 12, upset and angry. It had been a place of comfort and warmth despite the clinical purpose of most of her visits. And she had missed all that. In her last two visits back in Hillwood, she didn’t visit the office as Dr Vivian Bliss had never been around at the time, her unexpected trips coinciding with Dr Bliss own trips out of town. But well. She was going to live in Hillwood full time, and there was finally a window in Dr Bliss’ calendar.
She had to suppress a wry grin at that one. She was trying to make an appointment with a doctor. Even her own therapy appointments on her insurance were easier than this.
She crossed the road and marched up the stairs. She had a lot she wanted to tell Dr Bliss.
“And you know how it is, how do you pose for a dust jacket photo?” Dr Vivian Bliss laughed. “I can do anything but sit still long enough to take photos.”
Helga laughed, and as she did she had to once again bask in the glow of being back in old, familiar territory. The last few times she and Dr Vivian Bliss had been in the same town they always made it a point to get dinner, eat ice cream out of the tub mixed with Baileys, and talk the whole night away. It was one of their traditions and they tried to keep to it every year, and they usually did it when Dr Bliss had a chance to visit Michigan. They always booked a hotel room, they always wore PJs and they always had a good time. This time though, Helga was not staying over at Dr Bliss’ office, she had come over with a purpose, and a request for the doctor.
But first: catching up. Dr Vivian Bliss had just returned from her newest book tour, where she managed to stop by a town to take part in ...
“The Spartan Race!” Dr Bliss exclaimed as she poured Helga a cup of tea, “was amazing, and Helga, you really have to join me on one of these things one day, I think you’re in shape-“
“Hell no,” Helga had quickly said. “Nope. Nope nope nope. Not even in a million years-“
Dr. Bliss was laughing now, and she often did when she was teasing Helga. While Helga was athletic and pretty sporty, she really wasn’t into something as gruelling as the Spartan Race of all things.
Maybe she was getting soft in her 30s. That could be it. Baby Helga could have taken on the world. Adult Helga wanted to stay in and sleep. And to think she had wanted to become the president before hitting 35 back when she was a kid. She was leaving that up to the other women, she had so many things she had to handle right now, including some...possible emotional developments she really had no idea how it happened.
But that was later. Not now. Not when Dr Bliss and her were having such a lovely time. Start with the easier questions.
“So what brings you back to see me, Helga?”Dr Bliss asks , settling in with her cup of tea. “I am sorry I didn’t manage to see you in your last few visits here, and I know the move here must have been very stressful- how is that going, by the way?”
Helga groaned. “I packed up years worth of stuff in boxes I never want to see again.” She said, running a hand through her hair. Her bangs had been cut the other day and she hated them, they were at the short but still awkward looking stage, so they were hard to style. She had recently chopped off her hair to a choppy shoulder length, the ends now a faded cotton candy pink. She was considering maybe going a fire engine orange, it would be a nice change of pace instead of pink all the time. “Years and years of clothes, figures, books, all shipped back. I’ve made the mistake of buying so many books in my lifetime that moving them all back has been a huge mistake. I had to make a decision on moving some back. It took Eugene and Phoebe sitting with me to help me pack.”
Eugene had not been super helpful, making a case to keep near every single item Helga had ever owned, but Phoebe the saviour had been methodical and logical and Helga managed to get a large set of books to send back to Hillwood. She was leaving the other half of her books in the apartment she shared with Eugene.
It had been hard to explain her process but Eugene took it pretty okay. Somewhat.
“I refuse to let you throw away your scarf like how you are throwing me away!”He had declared.
Okay so not really okay.
“Usually I’m the one with the dramatic outbursts of emotion, Genie,” Helga replied calmly. “I’m the emotionally reactive one, you’re the happy one, that’s how we balance each other out.”
“But you’re leaving me, Hell Girl!” He pleaded. “We’re two peas in a pod, you’re the bodyguard to my Whitney, the Shakira to my Shakira, the Jiggly to my puff-“
"Nope, you can’t use that, Arnold has rights to it.” Helga replied back calmly. “Also I like that we’re both Shakira-“
"You know what I mean, Helga!” He cried. “I want to see the positive side in this but you’re my best friend, have been for the last few years of my life! We’ve never been away for so long, the longest we’ve been apart was a 15 minute drive away, and now you’re going back to Hillwood! Like a whole other side of the country away!”
It was here that Eugene and Helga took a break from packing to talk out their emotions. It was tiring but fulfilling. Eugene had been trying to push his negative emotions about Helga moving away but in this case he just couldn’t.
“Ultimately it was a matter of reassuring that I was doing this for a good reason and I was not leaving him completely,” she had ended. “Eugene isn’t completely over me leaving, and honestly I’m not over me leaving too, but I did it for a good reason.”
She leaned back against the couch, a little drained just remembering all the emotions from that story.
Dr Bliss nodded solemnly, and once again Helga had to quietly marvel over how her mentor had changed over the years. Vivian Bliss was apparently one of those women who aged gracefully, wearing her now completely white hair with dignity not many women had and also liked comfy sweaters and jeans when she wasn’t in her office skirts. Today she was barefoot, having kicked off her sneakers when she arrived in the office. Helga herself kicked off her own shoes and currently had her sock-clad feet tucked under herself where she was curled on the couch.
“ So is he doing okay?” Dr Bliss asked.
“We still call once a day.”she laughs. “Eugene can’t function without me but he’ll cope. Like before I thought he was pining over Caleb-“
“ That’s the... hipster one, right?” Dr Bliss asked.
“ Yeah!” Helga said. “He hasn’t talked to him at all. I’m worried about him.”
Dr Bliss tapped a thoughtful finger against the ceramic of her mug. “Now Helga...”
“ I know, I know, he has to manage his own problems.” Helga finished. “But he’s family. I can worry about family right?”
“ Yes you can,” Dr Bliss smiled. “Speaking about family-“
Helga groaned, “Don’t start...”
“I have to ask, Helga!” Dr Bliss asked earnestly. “How is Olga?”
Helga rolled her eyes. In another life she would probably wince at her insensitivity towards her own sister. Thank god she was an atheist. “Not much change there,” she rolled her eyes. “Still being sweet as pie. Still making clueless comments thinking she knows better than me.”
Dr Bliss winced. Helga knew the feeling.
“When are your therapy sessions starting, Helga?” The older woman asked.
“In a month.” She replied, sipping some of her coffee. “I’m getting the house ready first.”
She was: the issue was the fact that Helga had absolutely no idea what she was planning to do with the amount of space she had suddenly inherited. She didn’t want so much space, she didn’t want anything familiar of certain spaces remaining. She certainly didn’t want to inherit the master bedroom in the house where Big Bob and Miriam slept, but neither did she want to sleep in her old room. She didn’t even know what she wanted to do with the third floor yet.
When she had walked back into the house, all those months ago when she first made the decision to move back to Hillwood, the first thing she did after the fateful decision was to go to the old house, and look at every room, from the living room to her own, and even the bathrooms.
That had been an emotionally-draining trip that she thanked her lucky stars she took the trip alone. The house had been rented out to others, but it still felt musty, old, stifling. The green wallpaper now peeling from the walls. The staircase railing, wooden, losing a bit of its varnish. The carpets were disgusting. At one point, she walked into her old room, and upon seeing the strange yet familiar fixtures, spent around half an hour crying, because who knew that she was back in a place she once thought was her haven but later realised was the source of her hell?
She calmly dried her tears, and took a deep breath.
Then she called the contractor and the architect to tell them her decision: she was renovating everything.
That had been a few months ago, and Helga had, in all that time, made the trip back to Miltown to do the necessary arrangements, finished up a manuscript, finalised everything she had to do with her lawyer in his office back in Michigan, packed up and ship some items from Michigan to the house. She had made contact with a contractor and interior design firm, and, through their advice, made the decision to strip everything from its own fixtures.
Gone were the old furniture, any old wallpaper that still remained on the walls. The floorboards were ripped up and replaced with new ones, she was pretty sure she might have gotten a splinter if she had decided to walk barefoot around the house. She got rid of all the carpets in the room, it was making everything mustier, and now it was steadily looking different from before. Helga had made several decisions such as tearing down the wall between Olga and Helga’s bedrooms to turn it into one room. The master bedroom where her parents slept was still empty: fuck if she was going to sleep there. She had been thinking of converting it into a study or something, even she wasn’t sure. And, lastly, the third floor stood empty, and she still had no idea what she wanted to do with the area. But she was hoping she would get an answer to that soon.
“You still haven’t told me what you’re planning to do with the space, Helga.” Dr Bliss said, stirring a spoonful of sugar in her tea. “The last we spoke you said you didn’t want to take up all three levels, and you weren’t sure if you even wanted to live there by yourself, what with three levels being way too much. So what are you planning to do?”
Helga took a deep breath, to mental clear her head. Check one, two, three.
“How’s the office space here anyway?” She asked instead.
“You’re deflecting,” Dr Bliss but her eyes were twinkling which meant she was going to indulge her ex-patient turned protege and friend. “Well you’ve seen the neighbourhood, and the rest of Hillwood. Everything’s getting more expensive. New stores have opened up. A Whole Foods recently opened up around the corner and new businesses are now offering the most ridiculous of things. Did you see that boba pancakes store that opened across the road? Absolutely ridiculous.” She was stirring the tea in the mug she had in her hands, looking a little irritated and mournful. “My landlord’s going to increase the rental of my place to keep up. He hasn’t yet but you can tell what he’s going to do, he always looks guilty every time he sends me a note of recipient of the rental fees...” She took a sip of the tea and made a sound of satisfaction. “Good tea, yes?”
Helga nodded. Then she decided to proceed with her purpose of coming to see her mentor and friend.
“Dr Vivian Bliss-“
“Ooh, you’re using the first name, it must be serious.” Dr Bliss joked, but Helga could see the concern welling up in her eyes.
“Dr Vivian Bliss,” she continued. “Will you do me the honour of changing your office address to Muholland Drive? And would you do me the dubious honour of being my one and only tenant?”
“Is that a really good idea, Helga?” Arnold had asked, a month before Helga’s visit to see Doctor Bliss. She had made a trip down to see the house and she had gone to visit Arnold, as it was then summer break, and the man had been finding ways to stay away from coursework to plan for the upcoming syllabus. That was hard for the man, of course: he radiated duty and honour, and if left to his own devices he would have been mid throes in coursework planning. However, the need to stay away was due to a simple fact: Arnold, who had caught a cold a while back, had resisted going to see the doctor due to the term paper marking and deciding the grades, and as such, had caused his body to give out due to overwork.
Helga, who never knew the man to actually throw himself so deep into working like that, was surprised. Then again, she knew the man wanted to make sure he did right by the students, and didn’t want their marking to be delayed by a few days. Sometimes the man was too nice for his own good. Having been unable to visit him during the worst of his illness, Helga had decided to visit the man and make sure he didn’t overwork himself during his summer holidays.
So she had managed to do so by crashing at Arnold and Gerald’s place again, taking the opportunity to distract the blonde man from duty. It had been surprisingly easy: the man was game to do anything Helga suggested, and it included going on short trips to nearby cafes and shops, with Helga doing the driving as the man was still not back to full-strength yet, as well as vegging out on the couch watching all the shows available when his body got way too tired to do anything. They had even managed to catch up watching Game of Thrones, with heated discussions between the both of them on what house they would serve. All in all, they had been enjoying themselves.
On a balmy evening, where the both of them were on the couch making sure they were taking advantage of the best of the air-conditioning, Arnold asked Helga what she was planning to do with the house, and how everything was going.
“ I took out everything,” Helga declared. “ Knocked down the walls, tore off the wallpaper, installed wifi and better wiring…it might even become the smart-home of my dreams. I think at some point I’m installing an Alexa, and I can pretend I’m magic or something-“
Arnold chuckled, but she could still see the concern in his eyes, and it was then when he asked her, frankly, if it was a good idea. She knew he was referring to the very extensive renovations she had planned, practically gutting the house from top to bottom.
“Yes,” She said resolutely. “ It’s no longer a house that I know, and that’s good. It can finally do some good in the neighbourhood maybe. I…I had good memories there, but I also had terrible ones. I’m gonna make it so that if I’m staying there, I’ll be creating new memories. Or something. Besides, the house was at least twenty years old, and it needed some upkeep.”
She did not mention the small breakdown she had when walking into her old room, ages and ages before. It had felt way too much, and way too soon. At one point, after opening the window to air out the bedroom, she had turned back to look at the closet door where had housed near a good portion of her childhood. Obviously the room had been cleaned out, empty, but she opened the door all the same, a part of her hoping for even a small vestige of herself left in there.
Obviously, there was nothing. It was empty. Just like how Helga sometimes felt she was.
So that may have made her cry a little, by which she actually meant “a lot”, and then spend the rest of a good hour in a dissociative state. But that was months and months ago, and should not be brought up in polite company.
Arnold had made a noise that meant he sympathized, even if he wasn’t aware of her inner turmoil. He had tried to move over to give the woman a hug, but then huffed suddenly, collapsing into himself. “Damn body,” he muttered, and Helga laughed softly.
“You knucklehead.” She chided, “What were you doing getting all crazy exhausted on yourself in the first place?”
Arnold sighed, “Look, I’m sorry okay, I just...” he was silent for awhile, and Helga could see how the cogs in the man’s head were turning, as though he were mulling hard over what he wanted to say next. Helga rolled her eyes.
“Just, don’t push yourself like that again.” She said. Arnold, who was leaning back against the back of the couch, made another small huff in return, but at least he was smiling.
“ For your, Helga? Anything.” He murmured, and the deep tone he said that in, the way it was a small rumble rather than the usual, easy-going lilt he had, the kind where his voice settled deep into his chest, made Helga’s eyes widen, and she turned to look at the man in question who was looking at her through half-lidded eyes, looking at her through his lashes. He had a small smile playing on his lips and Helga could feel her heart clutching just a tiny bit more.
She was having more of these attacks after declaring she was going to move back to Hillwood, and in the last few months after every phone conversation with the blonde man. And the attacks have been getting stronger.
Maybe it was a sign she needed proper therapy, cause obviously the way her talks with Arnold were going, she was not doing very well.
A doctor, even…
Doctor….
OF COURSE!
“ FUCKING HELL WHY DIDN’T I THINK OF IT!” Helga roared, the cogs in her rather fuzzy brain FINALLY working for once since accidentally delving into the terrible terrible situation that was her life. “A doctor in the house!”
Arnold, who had not been privy to Helga’s thought processes, was understandably confused but Helga was up on her feet now, cause her head was dizzy with the possibilities. Of course, of course! Her one way of doing good and repairing her karma!
“ Dr. Bliss! Of course!” She couldn’t help but smile now, damnit she was a fucking genius. “ I can give Dr Bliss the office she properly deserves!”
“ Your old therapist?” she could vaguely hear Arnold asking. “ What’s wrong with her office?”
“ Bleah, after a good 20 years that office should be condemned,” Helga scoffed. “ Pipes bursting, cracks in the ceiling, so much mold…do you know her building’s been condemned for asbestos?”
“ Wait what? Then how is she not –“
“ Apparently it was a new type of asbestos, and rather rare, so the hipsters were all about it, and the landlord didn’t want to take a side-“ Helga waved a hand. “ The point is, she could move in with me! The building’s all good, she can have her office on the third floor, and-“ She was running around the room now, looking for her laptop. Were there any requirements to run a doctor’s office in a residential neighbourhood? She would need to make another trip to the furniture store, Dr Bliss would need a new couch, right? Did Dr Bliss want an Alexa in her office? Damnit, maybe even a new table, and a working toilet, was there even proper plumbing on the 3rd floor? She knew there were rooms there, but a working toilet? Or even a shower? Would Dr Bliss need a toilet with a shower? A sink? A bidet?! So many questions, she needed to write this all down, where was her phone?!
“ Helga!” That was Arnold, who had somehow managed to get up from the couch and shuffle over to where she was now, wildly searching for her phone, where the hell was it- and placed a hand on her shoulder. The rather clammy feel of the hand then reminded her of a few things, namely that she had left her phone in the bathroom and that Arnold was still not up to full strength and there should not be ambling after her like a very weak confused zombie, and so she squawked and shepherded Arnold back on to the couch like a very angry and protective shepherd looking after a particularly adorable sheep who was probably just a tiny bit silly.
“ Look I think you should consider asking Dr Bliss first?” Arnold mumbled as she made him sit down on the couch, fussing over him by throwing a quilt over him. This one was a particularly fuzzy one that she had stolen off Gerald’s bed, he wasn’t around, she could trust Arnold to lie about it. “ She could have other plans, you know-“
That was…actually very sensible. Damn this man and his sensibilities. He was the very embodiment of a Jane Austen novel…title. The very specific one.
“And that, Doctor Vivian Bliss, is why you should move in with me, “ finished Helga.
Dr Bliss had been sitting through Helga’s entire proposal in shocked silence. Helga didn’t know whether to be pleased at the response or to be worried.
“ Dr Bliss? You can say no, of course, I just wanted to ask if you would be-“
“ Helga, I would have to think about it, of course.” The woman said quietly, “ I cannot accept this offer, and –“
“ Just, THINK ABOUT IT!” Helga pleaded. “ For me, at least! You’ve been my guiding light, my inspiration, my helpline when things were dire, and this is the one way I can help you! You don’t have to move in, if you don’t want to. Just… I want you to think about moving your practice to a place with stability, and where you can practice for as long as you want, or space where you can be you, and you can write in peace without having to worry about a toilet, you know? I actually looked into bidets, by the way, you should totally have one, I am having one installed in the second-floor bathroom-“
“ I assure you, Helga, I will be perfectly fine with any toilet you choose to install in any bathroom, but am I the right person?” Dr Bliss asked, eyes shining, but still apprehensive. “ I am older than you are-“
“ I’m not asking you to be my sugar mummy, Vivian, I already have complicated relationships with people I know and currently live with-“
“ And this is a big offer, Helga.” Dr Bliss said gently. “I know you want to create good memories out of this house, but offering me this place-“
“ Dr Bliss, I’m begging you to really consider this.” Helga pleaded. “ You’ve been my rock when I needed guidance, and without you, I would never have figured out that I had a network of people who loved and supported me, and who showed me what family really was. You were the one who encouraged me to write, and you were the one who managed to talk me through a terrible time in my university life when I was almost ready to give up on everything. I want you to give that gift to all the kids out here in Hillwood who don’t have that chance, no matter who they are. Look at Phi. She was raised with the best of care and money and she somehow managed to be as screwed up as me. Lots of kids out there are scared, confused, and lonely, and you’re providing them the care and concern they need. Please. At least consider it. I drew up plans, I had a lawyer look through this, we can easily convert the entire building into three separate floors, and you will never have to answer to a creepy landlord. Just me. Please.”
The older woman looked like she wanted to argue with Helga again, but Helga knew that she was not going to let go until she got her to agree about at least think about it. She nodded, “ I …will take it into serious consideration, and I would like to see the floor plans.”
Helga, wan face but triumphant, grinned. She somehow knew that Dr Bliss would, eventually, agree to become her tenant, but in the meantime, the small victories were something she could get.
The older woman rolled her eyes, but she smiled at the blonde woman, “ Again, I want you to know I am really thankful for your generosity...”
“ Think nothing of it, de nada.” The woman waved a hand in dismissal, as she pulled out her phone. “ I’ll get the contractor to forward the floorplans over to you, I think he has them in PDF, wait, let me just text him-“
The two women sat there in comfortable silence, while Helga was fiddling with her phone messaging the contractor in question. Then…
“ Helga, did you just say you were having complicated relationships with people you were living with?” Dr Bliss frowned.
Helga’s fingers nearly lost grip on her phone, but she managed to catch it before it slipped and hit the ground. Thank god too, it was a new phone.
“Erm…” she said eloquently, thinking back to that same night she decided to get Dr Bliss to move in.
Helga huffed in exasperation and rolled her eyes, but her smile betrayed her. She took the opportunity to ruffle the man’s hair, and she could almost swear the man leaned into her touch.
The poor man was touch-starved. Maybe she should consider finding him someone. It didn’t seem right that he of all people had no one to look after him.
Besides her, of course, but she was merely a concerned friend.
She went to the bathroom to grab her phone, as well as a glass of water she filled up and passed to the rather weak blonde man.
“ Thanks,” she heard him murmur. Seeing him, curled up so much smaller than his usual 6-foot frame, was really getting unsettling. The man had not mentioned his illness at all when she was back in Miltown, and had insisted on her staying on their couch again when she was in town, before the house was finished and the furniture came in. When Gerald had mentioned, in passing, that Arnold been admitted to the hospital for fainting in the staffroom on the last day of school, two weeks later, she had been livid. The woman had been on her way from the airport to her house to meet with the contractor when she saw Gerald’s text, and she marched her way to Arnold’s apartment to yell at him for being an asshole and not tell her that he had been to the hospital. She had then proceeded to yell at him for thirty seconds before she took in his appearance: pale-faced, blonde hair in disarray, dark under-circles, clutching on to his blanket. She then rolled her eyes, marched Arnold back to his couch and ordered him hot soup from a delivery app.
And so here she was, when she hadn’t been at the house speaking to contractors or having short, civil meetings with Olga in a café.
“ Helga?” Arnold asked, his voice small and a little sad. Helga shifted her thoughts to concentrate on the blonde man next to her, tilting her head and nodding for him to continue.
“Have you…I didn’t mean to fall sick like that.” He mumbled, “ I swear, I didn’t think I would make anyone worry like that-“
“ Of course anyone will be worried!” Helga snapped, and she had immediately regretted the tone. She sighed. “ Football Head, you’re a good friend of mine, okay? I would have been worried if someone close to me had to go to the hospital.” The man was silent next to her, and she took it as an opportunity to continue, “I was angry that you didn’t tell me, and honestly, I wished you had trusted me enough. You’re practically family. Familia, famille…criminy, I wish I knew more words in different languages-“
Arnold chuckled, “The last one’s French, right?” he asked, shifting a little so that he was facing Helga. “I know a couple of words. Remember when we were kids and we had that whole penpal thing going on? I was exchanging letters with this girl called …Cera? Clementine? Celine?”
“ Cecile-“ murmured Helga who was not paying full attention to what he was saying, until she realised what she was saying and then her throat seized up and it was like, WHAT THE HELL WAS SHE EVEN SAYING FUCKING HELL-
“ Ah, yeah! That was her name!” she could hear the man laugh again over the sound of her impending heart attack. “She taught me a few French words…do you know she came down to Hillwood once?”
ABORT. FUCKING ABORT. ABORT.
“That’s…wow!” Helga had managed to grit out before the forces holding her throat and sanity hostage. Civility seemed like the right way to go, so she smiled and asked, “Was she…was she nice?”
It was there that Helga had decided that if she had ever decided to get into BDSM, she would be perfect as a switch, because she was clearly very good at inflicting pain on herself, and she was clearly doing it more often. She could hear Arnold patter on about Cecile, but she wasn’t exactly sure what he was saying, so she slapped herself to listen properly-
“ So to cut a long story short, I was having a nice dinner with a complete blonde stranger, and she wasn’t even French, she was American, she practically catfished me-“he shook his head ruefully. “ The real Cecile showed up, the blonde one then disappeared, I swear to you she just freaked out when she realised the real one appeared, and then she apologised to me for not being able to tell me who she was-“
Fucking hell, when put that way, she had been creepy when she had been a kid. How was it she hadn’t been registered as a sex offender back then? Was there a minimum age to be a sexual predator? This was why she was glad she was born and raised in the 80s, and not right now, when hearing her exploits meant hearing about how weird she had been expressing her feelings back then. What was the phrase again? “Seducing people with awkwardness”? That seemed to apply. The kids on Tumblr would be having a field day. She could see them now with their technicoloured hair making hashtags screaming #justiceforarnold or #shortmanwasshortchanged, and making protest posters using her face in a aesthetically pleasing moodboard.
“Creepy girl, Football Head,” she drawled. Maybe if she was blasé about it, he would be too. “ I’m surprised you didn’t report a creeper like her to the police or something.” There. Perfect response. She should win an Oscar or something, maybe a Tony-
“ I don’t know…” Arnold mused. “That girl… honestly speaking, by the end of the dinner, I just thought she was nice, you know? The whole time she kept trying to impress me, and pretending to be sophisticated and very French? That was just confusing as hell. But then, she saw I was upset with Ruth-“
Ruth? She could vaguely remember a brunette with wide set eyes, perky brown hair, and who had an obsession with breadsticks. Damn, now that she thought about it, Ruth looked like a preppy housewife who was all about country club memberships and perfect vacant smiles, who was into doing the bus boy at the back of the country club when she was bored. Damn, the Ruth in her memory and her mind was a cliché . Definitely not someone Arnold would get along with…
“ And she gave me really great advice, you know? About liking someone who was genuine and kind, no matter who or what they looked like on the outside.” Arnold paused, and then laughed, “ A bit funny really, considering she turned out to not be Cecile, but hey, I had a great time… ” Arnold looked up at the ceiling, and then back at her. “ I thought I knew her, you know? And she obviously knew who I was, but it was hard , figuring out who she was and what she wanted with me…”
Helga was pretty sure she had something to say but her mind was drawing a huge blank.
“ I never got to see that girl again,” Arnold continued quietly. “ But the last few days, especially recently, I have been thinking about her, you know?”
Helga didn’t understand when or how she had stopped breathing but when she finally did, she tried not to look like she had swallowed way too much air, opting instead to turn her head towards Arnold naturally, in the most natural way ever, naturally breathing. “ In- in what way?” she asked, naturally (as per usual, naturally).
Arnold had paused. She seemed to follow the same beat. She realised that right then, right now, the both of them were on their sides, curled up on the couch, facing each other, the man with half-lidded green eyes, and herself. When did Arnold’s eyes get so green? Was it illness that made his eyes flicker with a sheen of clear electricity? That flush on his cheeks seemed to indicate the same, but she was very sure, very very sure, that Arnold was not saying this in the feverish fervour of a sick person, but with the calm clarity of a man who knew what he was saying.
“ She was yelling at me at the time, telling me off about not being a person who was completely honest with my feelings?” he said, in that calm steady tone that for some reason made Helga’s heart pound faster, harder, all while the bottom of her heart was being pulled downwards, as though a sharp bit was determined to tear up the bottom and make every single bit of blood drain out and leave her empty. “ And well, I’ve thought about it, and I realised a few things. Helga. I wanted to tell you this…”
“ ARNOLDOOOOOOOOO~!”
And that had been Gerald, coming back in, half drunk and cutting off any other conversation she and Arnold were able to have that night. The man had leapt about a foot in the air when he heard Gerald come in, and his subsequent rushing off to drag Gerald back into his room and make sure the man didn’t choke on his own vomit and cry was a welcome distraction, because frankly Helga didn’t want to hear about how Arnold had managed to rumble on to her game of past creepiness and decided he didn’t want to be her friend anymore. That had made her very sad, as though something was tearing through her heart.
Why WAS she feeling as though something was tearing through her heart? Over fucking Arnold of all people?
Oh fuck.
Oh motherfucking mother of dragons.
Oh Thor Odinson and his arms almighty.
Did Helga G Pataki have FEELINGS FOR THE FOOTBALL HEAD AGAIN?!
She stood up calmly, and, without seeing if anyone else was noticing, said, “ Please excuse me.”
No one had replied, because Arnold was now comforting a rather drunk Gerald in his bedroom, and denying ever stealing his fuzzy blanket.
That left the blonde woman to casually walk to the kitchen, find the drawer where the boys kept their spare plastic and paper bags, find a nice brown one, walk to the gloriously empty bathroom, and proceed to have a panic attack, all while taking controlled breaths through the paper bag chosen.
The paper bag helped, but not by much, unless she could reach inside her, grab her traitorous heart, place it in the paper bag, and then smash it to pieces.
Yeah, she was in deep shit now. And no amount of paper bags was going to help.