Author's Note:

It's short, but it's the end. Let me know what you think, and stuff.

Thank you again for reading. So much love to you.

3: On Happily Ever Afters

Summer comes in droves of mosquitoes and throngs of bikini-clad teenagers who giggle their way through the streets of Hillwood, their arms laden with brightly colored beach towels and the occasional bottle of beer.

Stella herself is not a fan of community pools. She'd rather be in her own space. She's better off cooled by the oscillating wall fan in the bedroom than trapped in those congested cement squares with barely an inch of breathing room in the chlorinated water. Miles, she knows, feels the same way.

But their son - never having lived outside of the city - sees everything differently.

So they find themselves slathering sunscreen on their faces on a clear, blue-skied morning, listening carefully to Arnold's instructions.

"I know you're a little nervous about this," he tells his mother soothingly. "But we'll be there to help you out if you need anything. Dad grew up here, he knows how it is. Anyway, we don't have to stay too long if it's really crowded."

An impatient knock rattles against the front door. Carefully placing the several bags of potato chips in his arms into the duffel bag on the coffee table, Arnold goes to answer it.

"Criminy, it's already like a hundred and twelve degrees."

"I know. It's way too hot," Arnold tells Helga, leading her back into the living room with him. She's dressed in denim cutoff shorts and a one-piece bathing suit, the growing curves on her spindly body highlighted by the tight material. Arnold looks like he's fighting to keep his eyes from straying towards her chest. Helga, clearly taking notice of this, immediately turns a violent shade of red. Stella looks away from the two of them quickly.

"If we go now," Miles says, "We might beat the crowd."

Helga shrugs. "Eh, hard to tell. Public pools are public pools. There're sweaty bodies everywhere, day and night. Gerald and Pheebs should already be there, though. They said they'd meet us."

"Let's just get going," Stella suggests.

Arnold smiles proudly at her. "You're being really brave about this, Mom."

"For you, honey," she tells him, holding her hands over her heart. "I'd do anything."

"I'd do anything," Miriam tells the girl in front of her, whose blonde pigtails are still dripping with water, "For you."

Helga looks like she's battling internally with the urge to smile. The corners of her mouth twitch uneasily, her eyes stony and guarded. She's a tough little girl, Stella thinks. She'll be tougher, still, by this time next year, when she's a hormonal teenager in full force.

"Well, jeez, Miriam," Helga says. Her tone is filled with its usual calculated nonchalance. "You don't have to get all cheesy on me."

In response, the aging woman takes an audible breath, leans over, and throws her arms around her daughter, hands kneading desperately into the sweat-coated skin of Helga's neck.

Helga lets out a surprised little gasp, clenching her own arms at her sides as if she wouldn't for all the world know what else to do with them.

Stella looks at Arnold, whose suntanned face is radiating with affection. His half-lidded gaze never leaves the scene in front of them; his smile buttery, contented.

"I love you, Helga," Miriam says. Her voice shakes as she extracts her hands from around her daughter and straightens up.

Helga stares at her, lips pursed.

"I'm trying harder for you," Miriam says. There's a blindness in her voice; a sightlessness, like a person grasping for straws in the dark. Still, she's trying. She's trying to find the straws.

"I know," Helga replies, uncharacteristically quiet.

"It's going to be different," Miriam promises. "Things are going to get better around here for you."

Helga opens her mouth to respond, then closes it again. From a back closet somewhere deep in the bowels of the store, they hear a husky voice booming out, muffled by walls and several layers of tossed-aside clothes.

"Miriam!" Bob Pataki demands. "Where in blue blazes is my lucky white belt?"

"Give me a minute, B!" Miriam calls back. "I'm talking to Helga!"

"Olga?" Bob retorts loudly.

"Helga!" Miriam corrects him. "She went to the pool with her little boyfriend Archie today! His mom's my best friend, you know!"

"He's not my boyfriend," Helga says automatically, flustered.

"I'm not?" Arnold asks.

"I - well - I mean - "

"I thought..." Arnold trails off, rubbing the back of his neck and suddenly flushing dark red. "I mean, I know we never, you know, said it, quite like that, but I thought..."

"You - well - I - " Helga stammers. "Criminy, Arnoldo, do you want to be?"

Arnold stares at her for a long moment, searching her anxious face for clues. She's good at hiding - mostly - but this time she's unable to contain the hope in her eyes.

"Yes," he says finally, softly. "Yes, I do."

Helga's trembling mouth quirks upward.

"Do you?" Arnold asks quickly. "Want me to be?"

She rolls her eyes, as though he couldn't have asked a dumber question. Then, shaking slightly, she seems to make a hasty decision in her mind. She strides forward, clenches the collar of his T-shirt with two hands, and kisses him quickly on the mouth.

"Doi," she pants, releasing him in seconds flat with so much force that he nearly topples backwards into the display tree of beepers by the doorframe.

Miriam clasps her hands to her cheeks. "Ohhhh, that... is... wonderful, sweetie!"

Both kids turn to glance at her in surprise, as though they'd forgotten they weren't the only ones there.

Stella clears her throat. "We should probably get going soon, Arnold," she says, patting her son on the shoulder to remind him of her presence. Even from inside, they can see the edges of the magenta lights from atop the Beeper Emporium glimmering down and pooling against the windows, their bright hue illuminated in the growing dark.

"Miriam!" Bob yells again. "How do you expect me to do well on this sales pitch tomorrow if I'm not wearing my big. Lucky. Belt?"

"Bye," Arnold says quickly, regaining his composure enough to take Helga's hand and softly squeeze it.

Happily ever afters are only for storybooks, her father had once told her.

She was ten years old, and not at all pleased by this insight. She wanted a princess ending. Someday, she thought, a prince - hopefully one who would like microscopes and diagrams of the human nervous system, just like her - would fall in love with her. He would carry her off into the sunset. They would sing sweet songs and they would live in a foreverland of grass and wild animals; an eternal heaven of light and laughter.

It hasn't happened quite like that.

But her father was wrong, she still thinks. There are plenty of happily ever afters.

They're dynamic - not stagnant. They grow and they shift and they bleed, full of open wounds and hot tears. Occasionally, the people inside of the stories fall down a hole for nine years. Sometimes there are recurring nightmares - bottles of vodka - antidepressants. Sometimes broken brides and sometimes hearts that can't help but sear with pain. It's the love that matters. As long as there's love, then there are happily ever afters - they still count.

"It's strange to think about, isn't it, Stella?" Miles muses. His fingers knot together with hers, his hands sticky against her wrists in the August heat. "Arnold starting the seventh grade soon?"

"It's very strange," she says, smiling. "It's not easy to process."

Miles stares at her. He's studying her face, his eyes full of wondering.

"You're happy," he says finally.

She looks back at him, and she nods.

He opens the front door and they head for the park, still holding hands.