Helga G. Pataki had done many bad things. As a child she had threatened and bullied anyone who got in her way. As a teenager she had conned and intimidated her way to the top of several of the most prominent student body organizations. As an adult she had engaged in ruthless business takeovers to make Pataki Communications the dominating telecommunications company on the upper west coast. She was a steamroller, a harpy striking for the kill. Anything Helga wanted, Helga got, no matter the consequences.

There was only one thing Helga regretted. Only one. And it was the reason she pushed harder, the reason she became ruthless, the reason she became who she was.

She never wrote back.

Not once.

He had written her every week for four years. Then every month for three years. Then every four months for two years. Then once a year for five years. Then the letters stopped. Two hundred and fifty five letters, and not once had she replied.

It wasn't that she hadn't tried. She tried every day, but the words never came. After ten years of endless monologues and poems, Helga finally ran out of words.

She never forgot that fateful class trip to San Lorenzo in grade eight, the trip that changed the trajectory of her entire existence. After being outed by Arnold, who finally realized after all these years that she had been Cecile, he had confronted her about her feelings. As usual she had blustered and stormed and denied everything, insisting that she had only agreed to help him to shut him up about his parents. And, for what may have been the first time in her life, Arnold believed her.

She immediately wanted to retract her words, to catch him in her arms and kiss him with all the passion she felt in her young heart. But she faltered, and in that moment Arnold was lost. He stayed with his parents in San Lorenzo, never knowing that Helga's heart stayed with him. Helga went back to Hillwood, having missed the opportunity of a lifetime to finally share her feelings.

It wasn't so bad, she had thought. She would write to him and, gradually, express all the feelings that she had hidden, all the love she felt for him. But she didn't, and slowly Arnold drifted farther and farther away until at long last he was gone.

And she had no one to blame but herself.

AN: Thank you for reading my first submission ever on ! I had originally intended this to be a one-shot, but I may continue this if there is any interest. Any and all feedback is welcome!