Author's note: I really don't know what inspired me to write this, lol. I had some time to kill and not enough time to start a multi chapter story so I wrote up a quick something here.

This story is from Lila's perspective, and so I apologize for the irritating use of "ever so" and "oh so."

Disclaimer: I do not own Hey Arnold. This lovely show belongs to Craig Bartlett.

Perfect

For all of my oh so decent life, I've had a strong disliking toward the word "perfect."

Even back when I lived on an ever so lovely little farm with my parents, I despised the word "perfect." I'm oh too certain that my life was not perfect back then, just as my life was not perfect back then.

The farm was oh so lovely and it was fabulous to have my mother around, but things weren't perfect. During the last few years that I knew my mother, she had cancer; on most days, she was in and out of the hospital. I can hardly even describe how painful it was, always seeing my mother in a hospital bed.

My mother was a great woman, and oh so admirable; she was sweet, caring, and she was always telling me about how bad she felt about the fact that we couldn't spend much time together. I tried my best not to resent my mother – of course, there wasn't much to resent, but little girls can be silly, and as a little girl I sometimes thought that perhaps my mother had somehow done this to herself, that she somehow had cancer because of something that she had done. I never voiced my thoughts to her, but sometimes I think that she knew; my mother was always an observant woman in that way, and if she knew… oh gosh, I just really don't know what I'd do if I found out that she'd known. I might just cry myself to sleep more often than I already do if I knew that.

While my mother was technically alive for nine years, I really only remember her being part of my life for four of those nine (of course, my memories before the age of five are a bit cloudy, though I still have some memories of my mother.) My earliest memories with my mother are all very lovely – my mother liked to watch old movies from the 1950s and 1960s with my father and me, and tell us facts about them. I'll never forget those days, the days of my mother and father sitting together with their arms around each other, smiling at the screen and sharing a laugh over the silly antics of the characters on screen.

Even when I was little, my mother was in and out of the hospital. Sometimes I would have to miss school to visit my mother; some of my classmates, the meanest ones, would tease me about it. They called me "The Freak Girl." Oh, it's just making me so upset to recall it, but they would always point at me and tell me that it was my fault that my mother had… oh, you know, cancer. Thinking about it sometimes fills my eyes with tears like it is right now.

Oh, please forgive me for what I'm about to say, but I just don't understand how that could have been my fault! I try to have no hard feelings against those classmates – I'm twelve now, so I haven't seen them in a bit of time – but I just don't understand how they could have been ever so harsh about it. I try my very best to not think about it. Sometimes pushing out thoughts is what helps me. If the bad thoughts are pushed out, I can pretend that life is alright.

Sometimes I would cry when I visited my mother; my father would cry, too. As the years went by, my mother came to look increasingly sick every time I saw her in that hospital bed – bags under her eyes, pale skin and all.

It was when I was eight that the doctors informed my father of something awful: that they wouldn't be able to save my mother. When my father had told me, I ran into his arms crying; how could that really be the case? My mother had always taught me that hope was the best thing that you could have for any situation, and so I followed her advice. I hoped for my mother to live, even though I knew that the likeliness of her living was low.

I tried to be nice to my classmates at school, but I received nothing but harsh insults from some of them, and pity from others. I came to school feeling depressed often; I would try my best to be as sweet as I could for all of my teachers and classmates, but I think that all of them could see the sadness in my eyes.

During lunch, I would go to the bathroom and cry into my arms. I'm oh so certain that it just may have been the lowest point of my life. All that I wanted – all that I still want – was for my mother to stay with me forever. My mother was truly the only other person in my life that I had aside from my father; we were a small family, yes, but still a family.

Unfortunately, having hope doesn't always get you what you'd like. I'm oh too certain that I learned that on the day that my mother passed. I'll never forget that date – September 12, 1997. I cried until my stomach hurt on that day, and I let each and every tear fall down my face. I screamed at the wall in my room on that day. I didn't brush my teeth that day. My father didn't either. We couldn't will ourselves to do it.

Life became increasingly hard for the two of us after that. I still went to school near the farm, but my father had lost his job because he was out of work too often trying to help Mother treat her cancer. Even the meanest kids at my school seemed to pity me; I've always been oh too certain that pity is an awful, awful, thing. I don't like pity. It almost makes me feel bad, in some ways, to know that other people dedicate their time to feeling oh so sorry for me.

Eventually, we had to sell the farm and move. Father just couldn't afford it anymore, and of course at the young age of nine I was too young to get a long-term job for myself. All of our animals were sold, as well; I had to leave some of my favorite horses, pigs, cows, and multiple other animals.

Not even that left us with enough money once we moved, however; we moved to a big city called Hillwood. I must admit, as much as I'm content with living in Hillwood, when I had first gotten there, I just about thought that it was the strangest city that I had ever seen – full of… interesting looking people, and plenty of broken buildings. I knew immediately that while this may not have been the city that I had seen in all of those 1940s and 1950s movies, this was still the city that I would be living in for a long time, and so I may as well get used to it.

School, at first, was no better than it had been when Father and I lived on the farm. In fact, if I were being ever so honest, I'd probably tell you that my first few days of school in Hillwood were actually worse than they were on the farm. At least on the farm, I was used to everyone; when people that you don't know and hoped desperately would like you are targeting you and bullying you, it does an irreplaceable amount of things to your self-esteem.

I was luckier than a lot of new girls, though; my father found a new job in Hillwood, to begin. I was so happy when I found out, as up to that point, we had been eating canned beans.

I'm not too certain as to what happened, but all of the girls – Helga, Phoebe, Rhonda, Nadine, and Sheena if I'm correct – apologized to me right outside of my house. I wasn't even angry at them by then; I was just glad that I had received an apology. A lot of girls can't say that they're that lucky.

After that, things really did get better for me. I faced some issues – a nice boy in my class, Arnold, repeatedly asked me out on dates (though I never accepted them, because I always suspected that Helga, a classmate of mine, had a gigantic crush on him. I was right, and they're dating as of now.)

I'm in seventh-grade now at PS 119, and I can't say that things have gotten much better nowadays. I try to be as social as I can at school, and it seems to be working; Rhonda, the most popular girl in school, tells me that I'm one of the most popular girls at PS 119. I don't really enjoy social interactions for the sake of being social, however. Oh, no, I mostly enjoy them because talking to other people fills the empty space in my heart; even it's only for a few moments. When I'm talking to people, it's almost like I can't focus on the more upsetting things in life – in that moment, the person that I'm talking to is the only one who matters, and knowing that feels nice.

My life isn't perfect; no one has a perfect life. If people had perfect lives, there would be no point in living.

And that's why I hate it when people say that I'm perfect. I face the same challenges as anyone else does, though we deal with them in different ways.

I'm oh so sorry to say that I must end this here, but I hope that you all understand now just how much I despise the word "perfect," and why I do.