"Do you know what it's like to love someone, and to live knowing that your feelings will never be reciprocated? To know that your love, no matter how much you become virtually incapacitated by its intensity, no matter how passionate and genuine you believe it to be, it has no real significance on the outside of your own heart? To convince yourself day after day that this morning's processions may be different, that maybe this is the day that through a twist of fate, you will wind up in your lover's arms and be eternally and unequivocally happy?
You spend all of your days waiting for a moment- a single moment in time that could possible live up to all of your girlish fantasies, the ones which remain hidden within your secret heart. You wait and wait...
but the moment never comes."
Helga apathetically shut her pink notebook and sighed. She had become largely disinterested with her art over the last few months, and had taken instead to jotting down her fragmented emotions- with habitual pauses for sobbing, and the occasional outbursts directed largely at her closet shrine. With her muse gone, she was but an empty shell- a shadow of her former self. All that flowed from her pen at present were the heartbroken ramblings of a young teenager, who was still very much in love despite the passing of multiple years in between. She had always thought herself rather special, that as a girl of five years old she had found a person of which she could love so completely. What was once something to pride herself on had now become a curse, devouring the few happy thoughts that she had in the past allowed herself to indulge.
Her love for the blonde-haired boy had become very much a part of her, with much of her surroundings serving as a constant reminder of its existence. It had become difficult to get up in the morning, knowing she would somewhere in the day be confronted by him in the forms of everyday objects- ranging from the occasional football at the park or Miriam's newly developed obsession with ice-cream – a result of her rehabilitation, which ensured that the fridge was stocked full of frozen desserts.
Helga was completely aware of just how much resolve it took to overcome an addiction (Miriam had unknowingly demonstrated that to her in a moment of weakness that saw her return to blending 'smoothies'). She had always largely detested those who were 'weak-willed', and this was a character flaw that she was now identifying herself as having. Every notion of this she found to be confronting and, as a girl who had barely an understanding of good self esteem to begin with, she grew to hate her own identity even more in light of this reveal. It was these emotions that lead to her physical confinement- the desire to hide away from the world and all that was vaguely reminiscent of him. Behind that constant scowl beat the heart of someone who had been truly and unknowingly hurt, and the scars that had developed with his leaving ensured that her every breath brought her pain and a never ending sense of loneliness.
How was he to know what he had left behind- he was after all only ten years old when he made such a choice. How could he possibly have seen the impact he would have on her by leaving— such an insight and wisdom would only be expected of someone well beyond their years, and while Arnold was both an intelligent and thoughtful boy, he was completely dense when it came to matters of the heart. Perhaps such a definitive lack of parental presence within his life had seen him develop without the ability to discern between real feelings and the ones he had always felt- shallow crushes on even shallower people. In hindsight, he had completely forgotten just what he had seen in Ruth, and had continued to wonder how he had been so oblivious to her obvious vanity. Lila had been a different story- although she was a genuinely nice girl the truth was that between them, they had no actual chemistry. Arnold in his haste to find someone had mistaken her attempts for friendship as romantic advances, placing her in a rather difficult situation which could only result in a form of heartbreak on Arnold's side. The immediate discomfort that he had felt with this rejection was minute in comparison to how Helga had been feeling- she had spent more than half of her life in love with the same boy, and these feelings never faulted or changed in time. Her heart was not as fickle as Arnold's had been in his youth; where good looks and a charming smile would be reciprocated by romantic thought and a dopey half-lidded gaze.
Time and experiences have the ability to change a person. Certain occurrences impact largely on people's perceptions and ideals. It is in this way that Arnold was able to develop as a person; his staying in San Lorenzo with his parents saw to much of his newly gained maturity. His priorities and actions had become much clearer to him in the light of his fifteenth birthday when a letter had arrived from Hillwood. Written in black ink it was reflective of the author's internal bleakness and its contents detailed the desire for one to denounce her former love. She revealed to him all- the many times in which she would place his happiness above her own, her poetic soul, closet shrine and even the schemes that she had implicated in an attempt to notice her (upon reflection, his heart skipped a beat when she mentioned Cecile). Initially taken aback by the sheer selflessness of his childhood tormentor, he was driven to a maddening state of questioning. How could he have been so blind to everything she had done for him? And there had been that kiss! Why was everything that he had thought an ambiguity so clear in hindsight, when he was miles and miles away from Helga and her suffering? He felt annoyed with himself. He was ashamed, but possibly most of all he was worried, spending nights on end thinking of the girl he had left behind.
By the morning of his last day in San Lorenzo, Arnold finally knew how he felt- he was much surer than he had ever been when it came to what lay inside his heart. With the guidance of both Miles and Stella, he proceeded to write her a letter; one he had hoped she would receive before his plane touched down in Hillwood.
The scratching of a branch on her bedside window had seen Helga torn from her sleep, in the same fashion that she had laid waste to her poetry. Bleary eyed and disconcerted, she fumbled with the bands on her pigtails, letting her long, blonde hair droop lifelessly down the small of her back. The cold night offered little solace to her internal emptiness as she lay there, in a silence perturbed only by the gentle splattering of rain and the occasional clamour of tree limbs colliding with the glass.
Through the corner of her eye, she noticed a disturbance on her bedside table. Almost immediately putting the blame on one of Miriam's drunken night-time ventures she at first thought little of it, however there was something inside that possessed her to rise from her bed and inspect the damage. There was an adventurous spirit that still lingered on inside her, despite her many attempts to drown it with the tears that she had cried, spending months prior confined to the fetal position.
Wiping away the remaining tears from her eyes, she noticed a letter written in blue scrawl that was addressed to her. Becoming increasingly curious as to why someone would be writing to her, she hastily opened the brown paper envelope and was instantly taken aback. Between her fingertips, Helga held one final reminder of Arnold in his absence- one that had sneakily broken in to her Arnold-less sanctuary while she was sleeping peacefully.
With conflicting emotions, Helga began to read the contents of the letter. There were many instances within the text in which she felt Arnold's words would cause her heart to break over and over again, yet she continued to read onwards- forever determined, and compelled by a force that was beyond even her own comprehension. The opening few paragraphs of the letter were nothing special (they primarily consisted of various ramblings about Arnold's experiences in San Lorenzo and in providing continuous aide to the' Green-Eyed people') yet they set Helga's heart on fire, fighting the returning emotions that she had spent years desperately trying to let go of.
Breaking her concentration from the letter, she assumed a more familiar state, delivering an intense external monologue, fuelled by her ever-increasing frustration at the hands of the football-headed boy.
"Oh Footballhead! Why now, after all of this time? Why have you chosen now, after I have spent so long convincing myself that I would never hear from you again, to talk to me again? I thought you had forgotten me"
The response to her questioning came almost immediately, as she resumed reading his letter.
"I could never forget you- of everything you have meant to me within this stage of my life. I mean, for Christs sake- you were my first kiss! As a nine year old, I found that incredibly daunting, and I know that I did not act in the way that I should have.
As a child growing up in Hillwood, I was always known as someone who looks on the bright side; someone who always tries to see the good in everyone no matter how they feel towards me. I however, believe that you are more deserving of these titles. You never gave up on me, no matter what- I didn't appreciate it enough at the time, but in hindsight, much of the time I spent with you (the real you) has been some of my most treasured memories. I don't know how, but through some means you have found your way into my heart, and things are not looking as if they are changing.
Helga, if you truly understand me as much as you claim to, somewhere inside yourself you would have known that as a nine year old boy, I could barely understand what it was to 'like like' someone, and your declarations of love were all the more confusing- not that I wasn't flattered of course! The truth is, it has taken me a significant amount of time (as shown by the very late letter- for that, I apologise immensely) for me to come to terms with just how I was feeling.
But you knew all along, didn't you? That I would one day fall in love with miss Helga Geraldine Pataki. That one day my every thought would be consumed by visions of the same girl wearing a pink bow and a permanent scowl, with an entire personality hidden from the eyes of the world, revealed only in moments to the eyes of the few. You knew it all, somewhere within yourself- which is why I found you let me go.
This has all been rather funny really. No matter how much I had wanted to discourage every notion of an 'us' that had been suggested at various stages within our lives; in the end, fate is a slave to irony and it is clear that you can never completely tell just what the outcome of a choice is going to be. "
Arnold's words continued to resonate with Helga long after she had finished reading, yet they did nothing to alleviate the confusion he had unintentionally imposed with his contact. As a distinctive change from her months-uninterrupted emotional bleakness, she was instead overflowing with emotion and had little idea how to express herself. Flopping in defeat onto her duvet, she landed on something- a hard surface that interrupted the soft, textile feel of her bedspread. With hands groping around underneath the sheets, she pulled them back to find a little pink book that had long since been forgotten as a result of the emotionally turbulent events that had transpired over the course of the night. With a blue pen in hand, she let her emotions guide her, as words grew to form entire stanzas on the page.
She remained that way for the rest of the night- bent over in her single king-sized bed, furiously transposing all of her internal emotions into poetry. Entrenched in both thought and her actions, she lay there in silence, physically undisturbed, yet her mind was ablaze with wondering what the heck was going through Arnold's head when he wrote that letter.
A knock on the door impacted largely on her concentration, as she arose from her position on the mattress in a state of half-fury.
"Criminy! Who the heck could this be?" she blurted out, angered by this sudden interruption.
It was this occurrence, barely audible against the furore of the night wind that would see all her questions answered.