"And you haven't seen or heard from her since?"

Arnold shook his head, slowly raising his eyes to rest on his father's face. "What do I do?"

Miles leaned back in his recliner and crossed his arms. "Well, son… I can't say that this is one of my prouder moments as a father, but you can still redeem yourself."

Feeling tears collecting in his eyes, Arnold clamped them shut and hung his head back down in shame. He placed his thumbs on the inner corners of his eyes, trembling with determination to keep from weeping.

His father placed a large, rough hand on Arnold's back as the speech continued. "You are a good, honest person so you need to tell Lila what happened over the weekend, son. Do you understand?"

Arnold fervently nodded and straightened up on the couch. "Yeah. You're absolutely right. I will do that. But… what about Helga?"

Miles' blue eyes stared inquisitively at his son for a long moment. He cleared his throat before speaking. "Helga," he murmured. "I suppose you're going to have to wait for her to come to you," he said simply.

"But I hurt her, too." That acknowledgment had been eating away at his mind the entire trek upstate to where he sat. In order to escape the events that had recently rendered the boarding house suffocating & confining, Arnold had commandeered Grandpa's Packard and drove to his parent's cabin.

"Your first order of business should be to fix the relationship with the woman you are going to marry. Unless—"

"Unless?" hope reverberated in Arnold's throat.

"Unless you don't want to marry Lila anymore… Are you going to marry Lila, Arnold?"

"What? Yea—Yes. Yes," he stammered back in reply. "I made a commitment, Dad. I'm going to marry her."

Miles nodded solemnly before reiterating, "Then fix things with Lila first. When you see Helga, apologize and offer to explain everything. Hopefully you all will be calm enough to discuss things rationally."

"And what if she can't be calm or rational?"

"Are you asking about Lila or Helga?"

"I—uh… both, I guess?"

"Well… there's a saying your mother has, son."

"What's that?"

"How people treat you is their karma; how you react is yours," Stella said as she entered the room and smiled lovingly at her son. "Hey, honey. What's with the tears?"

"It's nothing, Mom. Just a little stressed," he smiled back at her.

In the presence of his parents within the vibrant, deep chocolate colored walls of their cabin, he felt his body relax tension he was unaware that he had been carrying and the haze began to clear from his mind. Admittedly, he had been having trouble recognizing the person that had yelled at Lila and snapped on Helga, but the impromptu 2-hour road trip to see his parents seemed to be serving it's purpose. I'm starting to feel like myself again.

"Well, boys, it's getting late. Let's all get some shut eye and we'll all ride back into the city in the morning, okay?"

"You're coming with me?" Arnold was unable to mask his surprise.

"Well, yeah!" Miles chuckled. "We can't miss your big play, Romeo!"

Lila had been silent for at least ten minutes, her eyes void of any emotional response. They sat motionless upon a bench beneath an enormous oak tree, the morning sunlight peeking between the leaves. Arnold had just recounted the weekend's events with painstaking detail, hoping that transparency would help alleviate some of anger that his fiancé was sure to feel.

"If I somehow have forgotten to say so already, I'm really sorry," he said unable to absorb any more of the stillness.

"Yeah, you uh—you said that, already," she murmured. "I suppose I can't be too upset with you. You were sincerely hurt and thought that we had broken off the engagement," she said after another quiet moment.

Arnold felt his jaw open in surprise while he stared at Lila, wondering how she was able to stay so composed and be so forgiving. Wow, I must have underestimated how amazing she really is.

"I'm certain that I'm still not comfortable about your friendship with Helga, but I do appreciate the honesty. So… where does this leave us?" She tilted her head to one side as she turned to look at him.

"You know… I really don't deserve you, Lila. I can't believe how understanding you are," he smiled.

"Arnold—"

"No, I'm serious! You didn't do anything wrong with Timothy and I flipped out… I wouldn't even let you explain. Why are you so willing to forgive me?"

"I guess it's just that… I'm not ready to let you go."

He nodded and brought her hand to his lips, planting a light kiss on her knuckles. "I'm not ready to let you go, either."

Ringgg. Ringgg.

"What does Eugene want?" Lila questioned when as she glanced at Arnold's phone.

Before Arnold could utter a greeting, Eugene's frantic voice floated through the receiver. "Arnold! Where are you?!"

"Whoa, slow down. What's going on, man?"

"It's dress rehearsal, Arnold… Everyone has been here for an hour and we only have the theater until noon because the senior center rented it out tonight…"

Eugene's high-pitched fast-paced speech trailed off as Arnold groaned. In the midst of everything, he had completely forgotten. He took a look at his watch, planning the quickest route to the theater from the park. The next bus will be here in 15 minutes. Hailing a cab this early in the morning would take a miracle. I shouldn't have left my damn bike at home.

"Arnold!" Eugene pleaded.

"Yeah, Eugene. I'm here."

"When can you get here? Helga is even more agitated than usual and I don't know how many more muffins it will take to keep her from killing me!"

Helga? Arnold's mind went into overdrive. He kissed the top of Lila's head and whispered a brief apologetic explanation to her before beginning sprinting towards the theater. "I got it. I'll be there in ten!" he exclaimed before abruptly ending the call.

I probably should have stretched before this run!

The heavy, red doors of the theater flung open with a large crash as Arnold skidded to a stop in front of the stage. "I'm here," he wheezed.

"Great! Now the world can resume revolving around you, football head," Helga grumbled and rolled her eyes.

"I'm sorry, everyone! Just give me a second to get changed," he said.

"No!" Helga asserted. "I'm not waiting another second."

"It's a dress rehearsal, Helga… and I'm not dressed." He now stood in front of his co-star, motioning to his sweat pants and hoodie.

"That's not my fault. I was here on time even though this whole play was your crazy idea, bucko!" Her eyes were dark with disdain as she heaved the accusation at him. Yup, she hates me.

"Where else do you need to be, Helga?"

"My mother's funeral," she said through gritted teeth.

Arnold felt the blood drain right out of his body. His heart began to ache of shame and regret while his arms instinctively reached out to Helga. She took a step backwards and glared at him. "I'm sorry," he murmured. "I'm so sorry."

Helga scanned their unintentional audience and lowered her voice before saying, "Let's not do this, okay? It's fine. Everything is fine."

"Helga…" Arnold sighed.

"We're ready, Eugene!" she called out. "Let's light, camera, action this thing!"

Eugene popped his head out from behind the first row of seats. "Okay, everyone. Let's take it from the top!" Groans came from every corner of the room, eliciting even more of Arnold's guilt over his tardiness.

The cast and crew rehearsed scene after scene without an intermission or even a single break. Eugene decided to end rehearsal at the beginning of the last scene as a direct result of the late start. Most of the cast retreated backstage, gleefully prepared to get out of their stage costumes.

The house lights shut off with a clang, forcing Arnold's eyes to adjust to the sudden loss of light on his own. Arnold stumbled around the dark with his arms extended, trying to find his jacket and phone on the ground. "Fuck!" he cried as his head smashed into something hard.

"Watch it!" an angry voice scolded from above. The sweet, fragrance of mangoes floated down and wrapped around him.

"Helga?" Arnold rose to his knees. "What are you doing?"

"Laying in my tomb, football head," she said. Even in the darkness, Arnold could feel a morbid smile peeking through her words. "I've been surrounded by people all day so when rehearsal ended, I just wanted a few minutes to myself."

"Oh… got room for one more up there?" Arnold's eyes finally adjusted to the darkness as he saw Helga shift her body to make space on the tomb. He slid carefully onto the platform, letting Helga radiate warmth in his direction. "So…"

"I'm sorry," she said.

"Huh?"

"I'm sorry that I went off on you. I'm sorry that I yelled at you. I'm sorry that I stormed out and ignored your calls," she said sadly. "I'm just sorry, Arnold."

"No, I'm sorry. I never meant for any of this to happen. I was mad at Lila and I just got caught up, you know? You were always this enigma… just a riddle I never had a chance to solve and when I saw you again—"

"I get it, Arnold. Life didn't just stop when I left. The reality is we grew up and we've led separate lives. You have Lila now and…" her voice faltered.

"Yeah, Lila," Arnold repeated.

"And you love her…"

He closed his eyes and let out a shaky breath. "And I love her," came the echo.

"So… there we go," Helga's voice quavered in response. The house lights gradually began to fill the auditorium as Helga sat up, pulling her knees into her chest. "I'm happy for you."

"Are you okay?" Arnold's shoulder brushed against her as he sat up.

"Me? Yeah, I'm good. Are you kidding?" She turned her face away as the room reached full illumination. "I gotta go, Arnold. I'll see you around."

As he sat atop the platform watching her recede, he felt a tightness in his chest and a lump in his throat. He stifled every urge to beg her to stay, instead choosing to remain frozen in place inhaling the last aromatic bit of mangoes that she had left behind.