Yes, I am well aware I'm childish.
L o s t a n d n e v e r f o u n d.
Don't you ever get the feeling that you let something pass you by? Something that could have been big, could have blown your entire world upside down?
Don't you ever lay awake at night wondering just what it was that you let slip by you and what could have been if you had held onto it for dear life?
Tonight is one of those nights.
I'm physically and mentally tired. School, work, and baseball practice does that to you. Not to mention living with my rather unusual family. It's been a long day, I can feel my limbs aching, and a soft lull fogging my mind. I should be sleeping by all rights. But I'm not, and no matter how much I yearn for some very much deserved rest for my conscious mind, my unconscious refuses to back down and competes for total control of my thoughts. It drags me back to that feeling of loss. Yet it's not the painful kind of loss you experience when someone dies, nor the temporary loss you feel when your girlfriend dumps you for some muscular jock (as much as I deny it I'm still sore about that). No, it's not heart wrenching like the first, nor shallow like the other. It stands somewhere in between those confusing, conflicting emotions that are keeping me awake. Again.
I guess you could say that it's more like a poignant feeling of regret, of a missed opportunity, of a chance of something that could have been and never was. But what WAS it?
I run trough my mind everything and anything that I could possibly have to be sorry for or anyone that I might have offended, but come up with nothing. No, I'm not so conceited to think that people adore me, or that I make no mistakes, not at all. It's just that my personality helps me gain more friends than it does enemies. I'm the reliable kind of guy you come to when you need help. You got a problem? Come to Arnold. You need some advice? Come to Arnold.
Problem is, I'M Arnold, and I can't exactly come running to myself for some answers. So I settle for the next best thing, which I think would be to allow my subconscious to resurface and systematically work out the kinks. No, I'm not a psychologist (although I did take the course in school, not that it did much good) so really, I have absolutely no clue what I'm doing or how I'm going to go about doing it, but Hey! I'm tired here, I'm doing the best I can.
So anyways, I'm thinking of everything that could be the cause of my insomnia, and when I'm getting bored and it all seems pointless I come up to the one aspect of my life when I can truly say I never succeeded. Love.
That tricky little four letter word that everyone mentions sometime in their life. Yes, I, Arnold, have rotten luck in love. Let's all go back to fourth grade when I had this crush on an older girl called Ruth. Of course, at the time I didn't think it was a crush, to me it felt as though it was the real thing. I was sure I was in love with this girl who didn't even know there was a kid named Arnold in the same school, and if she did she didn't care enough to look at me twice. Oh well, puppy love, what can I say?
So eventually I give up this girl and just go on about my life when she appears. She, with the vibrant red hair tied in pigtails, the large emerald eyes and delicate features. She with the sweet demeanor, always soft spoken, always polite, always right.
We're talking about the fourth grade here, so I was what? Nine, Ten? But yet I fell in love with pretty, sweet Lila, and, no I don't "grow out of it." All through elementary and middle school I follow her like a lost puppy, despite her continuous "I like you, but I don't like you like you."
Eventually, though, I begin to notice that there are other girls in the world and I detach myself enough from her to date a couple of sweet, cute girls with whom I don't last much. Several girlfriends pass by me, some stay longer than others, some barely qualify, all up to my junior year when she makes a bright reappearance in my life.
Several years older, she is even more stunning that before. Her red hair is now no longer confined to her pigtails and it cascades softly to her back, contrasting greatly with her lively green eyes. Her face conformed by fine features perfectly positioned, from the delicate nose to the full pouty lips. She is petite, yet she has the body of a Goddess, with all the right curves in all the right places. So naturally, I become enchanted again.
I go back to following her like a lost puppy, but this time she actually agrees and Voila! Instant couple. I had the girl of my dreams as my girlfriend. All was right with the world and nothing could go wrong.
Right.
Did I ever mention I'm kind of oblivious and idealistic?
Five weeks later she discarded me like an old toy, claiming that I crowded her and that she needed some personal space. Which she promptly found in Brian's (THE school's popular jock) arms. Boy, did I feel like a fool.
So as you can see, love is not my forte. I spent several weeks pining after Lila. I walked around like the dejected lovebird I was. I was a sad sight. Half the school was sympathetic, and the other half just pitied me. Well.... not everyone.
A face comes into focus in my mind slowly. The one person who didn't look at me with sympathy or pity. I remember that day.
~ ~ ~
I was sitting in the school's nursery wallowing in my just-been-dumped misery during lunch. I didn't feel up to eating in the same room as Lila and her new beau, so I decided that the plants would be nice enough company. So here I was looking miserable while grasping the one picture of Lila and I together, thinking that the plants were my only witnesses when someone spoke up.
"Damn.... That's just plain pathetic."
I turned abruptly and found myself face to face with the infamous Helga G. Pataki. She was just sitting there on a bench, a leg kneeled against her chest, one arm resting on the knee, holding her slightly tilted head, while her other hand brought a cigarette to her lips. I watched her take a drag of the cigarette and then release it slowly.
"Don't you know it's rude to spy on people?" I asked. So I was a bit testy. Sue me.
She raised one perfectly arched eyebrow (apparently a pair of tweezers and a lot of free time can do wonders) and just took another drag of her cigarette. She watched me for a second and then she responded. "Well Hair Boy, I was here first and in plain sight. I really can't be accused of spying when you were careless and did not see me right here."
I flushed and remained quiet. It was true, Helga was really in plain sight. I hadn't expected anyone to be there and didn't look around. I studied Helga for a moment taking in all the changes in her since elementary school. Even tough we had been occasionally in the same classes over the years, I really never paid much attention to her as we grew up and our lives took different social paths. As I studied her I realized just how much she had changed, and how little I had noticed.
She was tall and slim, although not skinny like many girls in school strove to be. All of the sports she practiced had gifted her with a fit and muscular, although still feminine body. I was sure she could still beat up half the male population if she wanted. She hadn't inherited Olga's voluptuous body, apparently, but her smaller proportions seemed to fit her nicely. Her face wasn't finely chiseled like her sister's either. She possessed stronger, sharper features that formed a rather handsome face. A handsome face heavily decorated in dark shades of makeup, that is. Her blond hair fell to her chin, one black streak predominant in the front. She really liked black. As a matter of fact, she was dressed in all black.
"Take a picture, it will last longer." She said somewhat acidly as she smoked.
"You know, those things can kill you." I said ignoring her previous comment.
She shrugged and kept smoking. "We all die, sooner or later."
"And you seem intent on a sooner rather than a later." I stated. "But I appreciate life and would hate to die of secondhand smoke."
She rolled her blue eyes and took one long drag of her cigarette before she threw it to the floor and squashed it with her foot. "There Football head. Feel all safe and sound from lung cancer now?"
"Yes." I said. "What are you doing out here anyways?"
She gave me a deadpan look. "Smoking. Or was, until you complained."
"What were you doing, other than smoking?" I asked, not relenting.
"Watching you weep over your long lost love?" She said in a tone of voice that was just too sweet for my comfort.
I flushed again. "Must you be so difficult?"
"I'm not the one who's looking at a picture like Lila is dead, instead of being in wonder boy's embrace over at the cafeteria at this moment." She said calmly.
I flinched at her words and remained quiet.
Her eyebrows rose and she looked at me for a second. "She really did a number on you, didn't she?" When I didn't say anything she continued. "I knew it wouldn't last, you know. It was obvious to anyone from the way she acted. You were probably the only one who didn't notice."
"Thanks for telling me." I said grudgingly.
"Right. 'Hey Arnold, nice day isn't it? By the way, Lila's not serious about you and she will dump you the first chance she gets.' " She laughed a humorless laugh. "Besides, would you have believed me?"
No, I wouldn't have, but I wasn't about to admit that to Helga.
"There you go." She said, taking my silence as an affirmative. "I don't get what it is with you. You are a perfectly fine kid. You have friends, grades, family, fun and all the works. Why do you have such a need for a relationship?"
I stared at her confused. "What do you mean?"
She sat cross-legged on the bench and looked at me tediously. "It's just that you have everything you want. People who love and care for you, you do well in school and in sports, and so on. You seem to be doing fine by yourself, but yet you always need to have a special someone by your side. It's like you are not complete without a girlfriend, like you need one to validate who you are."
I stared at her dumbfounded. Some of her words had struck a tad bit too close for comfort, and it wasn't something I wanted to explore, so I decided to turn the tables on her. "What it it with YOU? As far as I know you haven't had a single relationship. It's like you are afraid of men. How can you just sit there and criticize my love life when you haven't one of your own?"
Yes, I was testy, and I know that what I said was totally un-Arnold-like and definitely not nice. I'm not very proud of it.
She flinched and I thought that she would stand up and walk away, but she didn't. Instead she just sat quietly, and I thought that I had struck deeply, but just when I was about to apologize she spoke.
"Perhaps it may seem that way, on the outside, but know this: I am not afraid of men. There is no man on earth that can frighten Helga G. Pataki. None." She said while staring at me so fiercely that for a moment I regretted opening my mouth in the first place.
Her face and voice took on a sad tone and she looked at the ground before she spoke again. "You know, I once loved a boy with all my heart. It went to the point where I became obsessed. I would hear or see nothing but him, I gave him my heart and soul. But he never loved me back... Hell, he never looked twice at me."
I remained silent. Quite a feat for someone who just heard the most feared girl in school confess her feelings for some guy.
"He would go on about his life and date little cute girls with big Bambi eyes. I would hate those girls for getting his attention, and I would hate myself even more for not being them, for not being a petite, delicate damsel." She stopped for a second, as to collect herself before she continued. "I would go on pretending to be the strong Amazon that everyone, including I, thought I was. Then I realized that for someone who was supposed to be strong and independent, I was actually very weak. I was nothing more than a lovesick girl who was wasting away on a seemingly impossible amorous relationship. I realized that I didn't know who I was anymore, just who I wanted to be. Somewhere along all that love I felt for him I had lost Helga."
My throat was dry and I swallowed before asking a question. "So what did you do?"
She looked at me slightly startled like she had forgotten I was there to begin with and then looked back at the floor before answering. "I decided to let go of my obsession. I understood that I couldn't waste away on something that might never be. And I understood that if if anything DID ever happen between us, I had to find more to offer to him that blind love. He didn't need a slave, but someone who could offer him love, friendship and guidance every now and then." She paused for a moment and then continued in a faraway tone. "It wasn't easy, you know? To let go of him? It was probably the hardest thing I've ever done. I started with small things, like writing poems about something other than him, then progressed as time went on, little by little, until he was no longer the center of my thoughts. Nowdays I'm perfectly comfortable with and by myself. I've found ways to be happy that don't depend solely on his presence."
We sat in silence, both lost in thought until the the bell rang signaling the end of lunch. We both startled and it was Helga who got herself together first. She picked up her stuff and headed towards the nursery's door with a casual "I'll see you when I see you football head."
But before she left I had to ask just one more question.
"Hey Helga?"
She stopped but didn't turn around. "Yeah?"
"So you don't love that guy anymore?" I still have no idea why I asked that.
"I didn't say that. I still care for him, maybe as much as before, but I don't live just for him like I used to. Nevertheless, there's a part of my heart that won't let go of that love and might never do. For all I know I could love him for the rest of my life. Such is the way of love." And with those last dramatic words she left.
~ ~ ~
It's been several months since that day. I still remember Helga's words, and I have to say that I learned many things from her. She was right, I did always seem to have a girl around at all times. Inspired by her own "self-discovery journey" I tried to spend less time dating and more time doing the things I liked to do. It has been a somewhat tedious, long and not entirely easy task, but I think that I'm there. The one point where I am ready for a relationship with Someone, rather than just anyone. And if it happens, cool, if it doesn't... well that's cool too.
So really, it can't be love. My insomnia must have another root. I try to go back to analyzing just what it is that is keeping me up, but no matter what I do, my thoughts return to Helga.
Good old Helga, always there to bring me back down to earth.
Helga, the bully in pink.
Helga, the poet in black.
Helga. Simply, irrefutably just Helga.
Her face comes into my mind and I find myself wondering about the perplexing girl that she is. I just can't get her out of my head. How she kicked me when I was on top, and pulled me up when I was down. How she was always there when I needed her. How something always seemed to be static between us. How there was something that could have been and never was.
And suddenly I realize that SHE is what was lost and never found. The missing piece of the puzzle. The lost feather that floated away when the wind blew. The one being that could have turned my world upside down.
And I remember that she graduated early with Phoebe due to their A.P. classes, and that they both went off for an extended vacation in God knows what parts of the world. I feel so lost, like a little child, and I blame myself for taking do damned long to realize just what part I want Helga to play in my life. I want to weep.
I remember something though... A brusque good bye, a half felt hug, a scrap of paper given to me by her before she left. I stand and frenetically rummage though every corner of my bedroom, looking for that scrap of paper, and just when I'm about to give up I see it there, in a corner surrounded by gum wrappers. Scrap paper never looked so good.
I grab it delicately, as though it is some sort of valuable antique and I read it's contents. Her name and a cellular phone number scribbled quickly. I reach for the phone and dial, careless of the ungodly bill that I will most likely have to pay, and the equally ungodly hour it is.
It rings once.
Twice.
Thrice.
And it keeps on ringing. I fight bitter tears of disappointment and am about to hang up when suddenly someone answers.
"Moshi Moshi?" Comes the breathless answer. Even though the owner of the voice is panting out a greeting in a foreign language, I recognize the voice immediately.
I breathe deeply and find my voice.
"Hey Helga. It's Arnold."
~ ~ ~
I believe that this will be my last Hey Arnold! fic. My other one, Reflection, didn't do too well with reviews and I'm taking that as a big, blatant sign that I suck and u guys really don't want to read any more of my stuff. So I'll just be posting this and will say my good-byes and thank those that did review. You guys made my day.
TaDah: tnx. I was going for something different.
Laurel: I'm honored you felt I got my point across.
wHIte-cHOcoLaTE: Actually, Reflection was meant as a one-shot, so as to why Helga did what she did is up to you, really.
Yardbird9: Well, that was the point. I wanted a Helga that didn't necessarily have to be successful. Just a run of the mill kind of girl.
Thanx for everything u guys, and ciao. Hope I didn't put you all though too much emotional suffering.
Meztli