My High

Chapter One: I Don't Want To Grow Up

It was cold.

Tired blue eyes wandered to her window as a chill breeze wove itself into her empty room. Goosebumps rose as she shivered, rubbing her naked pastel skin. Beside her a rather bulky frame turned uncomfortably, pulling the covers until they shielded him from the cold draft. Blonde hair shifted over his face, dark brown eyes fluttering open as the woman beside him buried her face into her knees.

"You ok Helga?" The tired man asked his voice hoarse and thick with sleepiness. Helga bit her lip, leaning up from her stance. Slowly she nodded, not even bothering to give him a vocal answer. Absent mindedly she rubbed the still tender hickey burning on the nape of her neck. In the morning Phoebe would look at her with a mixture of shock and terror, stuttering out something to the effect of-

'Did you two- I mean-'

And she'd deny it, say that it was just a normal bruise, and attest that the two of them never even touched. Phoebe would pretend to believe her. Helga's eyes moved to the sleeping boy beside her. Slowly she moved her fingers down his large back, tickling gently down his spine. He shivered, arching up into her nails with a soft sound of content.

In the morning his friends would see him leaving her home and he'd rave about the ferocity miss pigtails had in bed. Both of them would be lying…

But it was better than the truth.

"Hey Wolfgang, my parents are gonna be home soon. You should probably get out of here." Helga whispered lowly. The boy stirred, mumbling under his breath as he pushed into her soft hands. Helga smirked to herself, drifting her nails down his arm and back again. He shivered in pleasure before relaxing into her bed.

"Come on Helga…you're moving in the morning, what're they going to do? Scold you all the way to the car?" He mumbled. Helga rolled her eyes, kicking him in the side with her lanky legs. He groaned, gripping his side as she climbed over him, reaching for the bottle on her nightstand. The swish of the liquid seemed to perk him up for he sat up just as quickly as she brought the bottle to her lips.

"Hey, hey, isn't it a little late to be drinking?" He asked, taking the bottle from her hands as she offered it to him. Helga twisted up her face in disgust, still not able to take the sharp bight of drinking vodka straight. It was like drinking nail polish. Wolfgang didn't seem to have too much trouble with it, for after a few glugs he leaned back into her bedpost with a rather relaxed expression.

"I just wanted to get warm." Helga mumbled, wiping her lips of the disgusting liquid. Wolfgang smirked, nudging against her shoulder before taking one last swig out of the bottle.

"I know an easier way to warm you up." He teased. Helga sighed, too tired to fight against his advances. She closed her eyes as his lips moved down her shoulders, gently nipping here and there to try and get her attention. Helga flinched, biting her lip as he pushed aside her hair to suck at the back of her neck.

This used to feel good.

This used to be fun…

But now it just made her tired, and angry, and sad. If you eat too much of the forbidden fruit you start to get sick, isn't that what they used to tell her? Helga brushed her fingers through her hair as a variety of images occupied her mind to try and take her away from what she was doing right now.

"I'm so sorry Helga…"

Dr. Bliss? Well, that was a new one. There she was though, clear as day, streaks of gray popping out of her usually tight bun. Bags fell under her dark blue eyes, her body fallen and tired. Her office had been void of any personal objects, boxes lined the shadowed walls. That was freshman year. The school's budget had practically been cut in two, and along with many of the art programs, busses, and after school activities, Dr. Bliss had been cut off of the schools payment.

"You promised…you promised you wouldn't abandon me." It was such a pathetic plea, but it was the truth. Dr. Bliss carried half of her heart on those tiny shoulders. Had she always been so frail? Dr. Bliss sighed, her guard falling down as she pushed her bangs back.

"I'm sorry…" she repeated. Without the school's funds her practice had fallen to pieces and Dr. Bliss had been forced to take a low end internship across the state back in her hometown. It was rather pitiable now, realizing how much of her sanity depended on those weekly sessions- on him. Phoebe did what she could to help but without her doctor, without her love-

She was devastated.

Helga had done fine for a few weeks. Although Arnold was gone, far from her reach, she was still her own person and the letters that he sent to her kept her mind at bay. Then the withdrawal started to kick in. It had taken five fist fights and three drunken stupors for her parents to catch onto her misery. When yelling and punishing didn't work, Olga came up with the brilliant idea of therapy. It had kept her sane before, in theory, it should have made her sane again.

Then…why did it turn out like this?

One image especially burned into her mind. The horror and disgust that played over her psychologist face as she re-told him the story of her obsession with Arnold, her family life, some of her works of poetry. With her face still beaten blue from a fight with big patty in the locker room, the poor man probably feared for his own safety as well as the wellbeing of others.

He listed off a long list of terms to describe Helga's 'illness', which was odd, because Helga didn't feel sick. He deemed that she was mentally unfit, a ticking time bomb that needed help right away. This again came as a surprise to Helga. She didn't feel ready to burst, if anything, she was just looking for an outlet on where to exert those driving emotions that bubbled inside of her.

That's when he mentioned the medicine.

It started off small; so small that Helga almost didn't notice it, just a small anti-depressant to keep her on her feet. After a month she was starting to feel…happier…if one could call it that. She felt independent, energetic, and more aware. But with that awareness, with that mask lifted off of her face, she could only see more clearly the dark shades of blue in front of her.

The once numb feeling that had kept her comfortable now gave opportunity for new and fresh wounds. She had become more depressed than she'd ever been. On her third visit the psychologist he suggested upping her medicine. She didn't know what that meant, but made the fatal choice of trusting him as she trusted the doctor before him.

That's when everything went grey.

Three pills in the morning. Two pills at night. A special chalky pill for when she's feeling down, a nice yellow pill for when she's angry-

Pills, pills, pills all around her- falling like droplets from a waterfall onto her head.

Helga opened up her eyes, twisting her lip some as she stared at the bed frame below her. Why such a memory had surfaced while her sometime fling was seducing her was well beyond her comprehension. Helga moved her fingers through the long blonde hair that fell over her chest. Maybe that's where all this madness started?

The moment she fell down the rabbit hole.

"Hey…you ok?" Wolfgang asked as Helga pushed herself up and off the squeaking mattress. For once in what seemed like years a small fire burned in her chest. She didn't know what she was doing, or why she was doing it. All she knew was that she needed to fan it- baby it- help it grow, lest it wither away and die. Wolfgang watched curiously as the girl, wearing nothing but her small pink boxers and white push up, walked to the vanity dresser beside her door.

"Helga?" He asked.

Helga held up her finger for him to be quiet. Usually he would have been offended at this, but the pure determination in her wake made him comply. The scrape of her old dresser drawers opening rang throughout the silent room. Her breathing hurried as she reached inside of it, eyes focused. Even though it was freezing cold inside of the room sweat dripped down her cheek.

It was hot…and getting hotter. She could feel the flames engulfing her stomach as she pulled out a pair of shimmering scissors from the pill bottle encrusted space. Wolfgang opened his mouth in a panic, knowing that Helga's mental state was not always a good one, but the shing of the scissors rang so fast he had to blink twice to figure out what had happened.

Long locks of blonde hair fell to the floor as Helga panted, dropping the scissors to the ground. Wolfgang slowly moved behind her, picking up the nearly foot long streams in his fingers. He raised a brow at her before exhaling loudly.

"…why did you do that…?" He asked softly. Helga tugged at her now neck long locks, the light from her eyes slowly fading into their normal calm state. But just for a moment, just a small fleeting moment, the sanity, the status quos, the intelligence, all fled from her body. In that shimmering moment, as the weight fell from her shoulders and onto the floor-

She felt alive…