Brief History Of Love

I own nothing.

i. (there's always something left behind, sometimes it's a picture, this time it's me.)

She let's him go the day he leaves the airport. His shadowed back growing smaller and distant and the taste of his kiss is something like dust on her skin.

She decides he's better there, with his parents and the green and his big savior soul finally doing something more than cleaning up the grey streets.

And she isn't bitter. Even if the taste is salty. Because she knows he's happy. He's finally little boy found.

When she goes home her house is lit by the silent television, the burning smell of liquor surronds her and she's glad he's gone. Glad that he isn't wasting his time saving her and helping her and seeing her as fixable.

Because there isn't anything to fix anymore.

And when she sleeps, she forgets to write anything in her pink book.

2. (the liar's keep saying it'll be alright, and in the dark, i believe them)

She keeps his letters in a box under her bed. It's the only pink thing left.

She fingers the blue quilt on her bed. Childish things are for nine year olds and hopeful dreamers.

She's real and old and she knows.

Destiny is a liar's promise.

It's never about what's fair.

Fair isn't a sleeping mother to quiet and drunk to care.

Fair isn't a father that can not or will not see the crumbling empire around him.

Fair isn't a sister who's so perfect and a life that isn't.

Phoebe likes to say it's all about seeing.

She likes to believe it's all about knowing.

"Come on, Phoebe, she's such a kill joy." She bunches the quilt in her hands and pretends she doesn't hear.

Phoebe steps out of the room, her ear pressed hard over the phone and Helga falls in to the blanket. She can hear the soft press of soles on the ground.

"Helga-"

"Go. It's Friday and sunny and schools closed. Go. Have fun."

"You could-"

"I could, but I won't."

"Arnold wasn't everything, and to make him more than that is so unfair."

She doesn't answer and Phoebe doesn't wait.

The box is pink and the letters are worn. She's read them a hundred times.

She looks between the words and under the periods and through the commas, hoping to see something more.

He always signs them Arnold, neither in love or sincerity.

And she never answers them.

What more is there to same besides I love you.

"Olga!"

"It's Helga-"

"What are you crying for?" She touches her cheeks and wonders at the tears, she doesn't remember them filling up her eyes.

She doesn't remember a lot of things.

"It's nothing, Bob."

When he sits on bed she almost falls forward. "What the hell, Bo-"

"Why are you crying? I don't think I've ever seen you cry? Is this about your mother? She's just sleep-"

"She's just drunk." She didn't think Bob could flinch.

"She's sick."

"Call it anything you want, we both know why."

His fingers push at her cheeks, his fingers are calloused, and his eyes are shallow.

"Bob..."

"Helga. I'm- Don't cry, girl. Nothing bad, stays bad forever."

"B-"

"I wanted better for you and Olga, than what my parents had for me."

She doesn't move, her hands lying still on her knees, she keeps breathing.

"It's a guy."

"Did he hurt-"

"Not like that. Never- He left."

"The orp-"

She moves quickly, her feet on the floor and her face red, "Don't call him that. His parents are alive and they love him and he's happy. And he should be he's nice and kind and he's good, and me I'm not. I'm not. I can't be. I try, I try I do, but it's feels wrong, in my skin, I'm not Lila or Olga or anyone. I'm just Helga, and what's that anyway. I threw spitballs at him and called him names and I love him. And it's silly to because love is silly. It's stupid and I can't-"

He hugs her.

But she doesn't crumble in his arms. She is still and silent and he holds her.

"I'm not a very good father. It's true. I know that. It's just... I don't know how to be. You know." He pulls away, and for a moment she sees all of her in Bob. The eyes. The nose. The salty sting of her, it's all him. "No, no you don't. You never had to meet your grandparents. I never wanted you to. Mean. Never- What does it matter. You don't think much of me. I know. But- I do. I mean. I never wanted you to think love was silly. I thought I was letting you be strong."

She laughs. Her body shaking and it's all she can think to do, to stop her from crying and knowing at the same time.

"Helga-"

"That's the longest you've ever been able to remember my name."

"I'm so-"

"Don't, Bob. Just. It's late and I'm tired. And-"

"It's Five Thirty and still sunny."

"Don't pretend. Okay. Don't. I know you love Olga and not me. I know you love Bob's Bountiful Electronic more than me. You fucking love nacho's more than me and-"

"Don't tell me what I think or how I feel. I love you too. I do. Only it's easy with Olga."

Her face burns and she feels her spine stiffen. Bob doesn't matter, she repeats over and over.

"Of course. Olga's perfect."

"Let me finish. Damn! I'm trying to be honest. Listen. It's easy because I know what she wants. She's a girl. She likes pianos and ballet and dolls and she's soft and she's nothing like me. Nothing. And you? You are complicated and hard. Not to love but to show. Olga use to hold on tight to me, when she was learning to walk. I use to think she'd never do it on her own. But you, you just got up, cried when I held you and pushed at me, even then, you walked and you fell and you got up. You love wrestling and poetry and you're...you're Helga. I don't know how to show you. All Olga needs is a smile and a princess and you need.... something more. And I can't figure out what. I never could, even when you were a baby. Even now. Especially now. I'm a shitty father. I pretend everything's good because, hell, I need it to be. I need it to be good, because I don't want it to be bad." The bed's dipped low and when he looks up at her, her own sad eyes seem to stare back.

"Yet. Here we are." Because a talk on a Friday doesn't fix years.

"Here we are." He says, but he doesn't sound like Bob.

Nothing's ever fair. She thinks.

iii. (once upon a time, this little girl grew up)

Senior year she falls in love again. As if she woke up one day and realized someone else had taken shape of her heart.

She kisses him first, because second chances are hard to come by.

He tastes nothing like Arnold or hope or dust. And for the first time, she glad.

"Dylan?"

He grins and she laughs and it's okay.

Arnold shows up on a Friday, his hands shoved in his pockets and his blonde hair inches to long.

She doesn't ache.

But she smiles.

"Hey."

"Hey."

"Well this isn't weird or awkward at all."

He laughs and it's easy.

They find there way to the dock and the sound of the tide makes her shiver.

"Why did you never write back?"

She shrugs and points to the sky. "Look at the stars. I think I see Orion."

"I think it's the big dipper."

She shrugs again but laughs. "I suck at Astronomy."

"I can see that. You also suck at changing the subject."

"I was in love with you. It's not your fault. But I wanted something more and I thought maybe...not having anything at all would be better than not having what I really wanted. Helga G. Pataki never settles for second best."

He doesn't answer but looks at her a long time.

The stars fade and she tells him she's okay. Because she is. And he tells her about the jungle and the people and a girl named Sarah. And she whispers about Dylan.

And she's happy.

Because life's never fair but sometimes it's good.

And that's enough.

iv. (life's a big circle, everything comes back to you)

At twenty-five, she's old and worn but alive.

College behind her and something waiting for her beyond the seeing or the knowing.

She runs into him at a diner. His face is longer and but his eyes are still young.

"Well, look who the Ghost Bride dragged in." She doesn't ask but slides into his booth.

"Helga G. Pataki." He doesn't hide his grin.

"The only one." She orders a burger and a milkshake, two in the morning be damned.

"The world couldn't handle two."

"Why so late?" He slurps his soup and she cringes.

"Office life sucks."

"So does the adventuring life." She shakes her head, and throws a napkin at him.

"Ahhh, Football Head, why so glum?"

"Do you ever think, that what you want out of life, what you've always worked for, it's moot?"

"Sometimes. But then...well sometimes it works."

"Great philosophy."

She sticks out her tongue. "Look, Bob told me once that nothing bad stays bad forever. And as much as it pains me to say. Bob's right. Life sucks sometimes. But well, it doesn't suck forever. Sometimes, it's the way your seeing."

He raises an eyebrow.

"Phoebe."

"When did you get so so..."

"Not bully like?"

"I mean I know, you at eighteen was different than you at nine-"

"The breasts and height difference tell you that?"

He hits her with a fry. "I just mean. I guess I always see you as a pink bow wearing, passive agressive, nine year old."

"Nothing like being remembered at your worst."

"You weren't so bad."

"You left. I grew up. My Dad went into therapy, Mom found AA and I remembered you weren't everything."

"That's an ego breaker."

"Sorry, Arnold-O. But I outgrew you." She grins around the burger and when the nights over and he helps her home.

It feels like some things you never really outgrow.

v. (this doesn't end, because living never done)

Diner Tuesdays become their thing.

She always gets the burger, he eats the turkey.

And when he takes her home.

His fingers always wind around hers.

She never asks what it all means.

"Tell me something, Helga."

"I broke my nose two years ago when I fell off a fence." She doesn't look at him, and counts the stars in the sky. A thousand and she's almost home.

"I think I love you." She wants to shake her head. She thinks maybe it's too soon for love. Or too late.

"Maybe," he says, "I always have." Too much for too long and she isn't who she was.

The sky's still dark and he's still waiting. "Not always." Is all she can think to say.

"Even when I didn't. I think maybe I did. I know, it's stupid. It is. But there was everyone else and they were great and I was happy. But there's only really you."

He kisses her first and she holds on tight.