Authors Notes: I don't have much to say, the story speaks for itself. Please review and feel free to email me at anytime. Keep in mind that the characters are older and just because I write their actions does not mean I condone what they do. Drugs are bad. M'kay? Heh. Enjoy.
Disclaimer: All "Hey Arnold" characters are not mine, only borrowed. : ) I only own the emotions I give them…and Jenny ; )
Dedication: To you, for making me write, feel, and remember.
Until the Rains Come In
"Or we could talk about Arnold."
The psychiatrist told me I wasn't crazy, just a neglected youth. Suffice it to say I wasn't impressed. Anyone could've told me that. Hell, I could've read it on the back of a cereal box with more credibility, but that's not the point.
The day I punched Brainy it all changed. In the principal's office…As if the lecture on self-control wasn't enough, before I knew it – counseling. This lady was different. I, of course, stormed in, rude, scared, and heartless as always, but she saw right through me. My pathetic eleven-year-old attempt to block out the world that had worked so flawlessly crumbled under her gaze. She knew it. She knew it from the instant she saw me. I wasn't crazy. I was lost. I was alone.
To make a long story short, by the end of the three hour secession, I had jumped upon her oak coffee table, thrown her glossy magazines into the air and proclaimed: "I love him! I love him madly!" She smiled, but it wasn't your typical "I'm-an-adult-and-I've-just-pulled-one-of-your-petty-secrets-from-you" condescending gaze. She was proud of me and I wasn't crazy.
We spoke more after that. After several explosions about my parents…or the two grown up children that call themselves my parents…well, when they remembered I was in the house….she told me that Arnold was my stability. Doy… like I didn't know.
Like I didn't wake up every morning of my childhood, take a long hot shower, make my own damn lunch, and leave the still quiet sleeping house. There were some days I stood in the kitchen smearing peanut butter on a slice of bread and I'd find myself just holding the knife limply in my hand as I listened to the soft sound of the upstairs shower turning on. Big Bob getting ready for work. Those days made me realize how very lonely I was. It was all a big downward spiral from there. Olga and her summer returnings, boasting of far off places I'd never see, things I'd never achieve, and dreams I'd never live. She was positively radiant…the idiot. Her smooth, short, tame blonde hair and clear blue eyes…her thin frame…and me…the awkward teenager, thin and taller than any boy in my class, with the exception of Stinky, long, messy blonde hair always haphazardly thrown back into a ponytail, and green eyes…not that anyone noticed. Hell, could I blame them? I didn't look in the mirror if I could help it. Like I didn't know…Like I didn't know he was my stability.
My obsession with Arnold, as crazy and dependent that it was, was still the only reliable thing in my life. Each morning, in the dark house, I brushed my teeth, made my lunch, and shut the door in silence, but I left with expectancy…today would be the day I would tell him. Today he would look at me the way he looked at that waste of oxygen Lila. Today he'd love me. Like I didn't know…Like I didn't know he was my stability….
"I like your bow. I like your bow because it matches your pink pants."
So I pushed the only one who ever gave me life away. I threw away every perfectly good opportunity to build a friendship with my fear, rage, and torment. I made his life hell, and still…he never turned me away.
I entered highschool just as, if not more, bitter than I was at P.S. 118. Suddenly surrounded by crowds and crowds of new faces and painfully familiar friends. There were clubs to join, activities to get involved with, and…evils to dance with….but that's for later. Suffice it to say, I finally thought I had found my niche. Drama.
I stared at the sign on the Drama club doors for hours before going in. After all, the last play I had done was Romeo and Juliet…with…Arnold. I let my pride take over my fear and headed into the crowd of students in the front of the stage.
"Hi, I'm Jenny." This girl with brown hair down to her butt and big hazel eyes randomly walked up to me.
"That's good. Glad you know your name." I said, walking away from her. Why was I such a bitch?
"Hey? You don't like people trying to be nice to you, then …the hell with you." She said.
I spun around with much more anger than I was feeling. "What the hell do you know? You don't know me!"
"Not like you'd give someone the chance anyway." She sneered and from that instant on… Jenny was my best friend. So we did the typical highschool things. We skipped school on pep rally days. We smoked in the bathroom because if we got caught they sent us home…so we were free all afternoon to roam the streets of lower Manhattan. We rode the subway as far as it would go and navigated our way home. We went to wild parties, did too many drugs, and ended up passed out and laughing on the stoop of Arnold's doorstep too many nights to remember.
Like I didn't know he was my stability.
Jenny and I had a lot of things in common. For one, we both listened to old rock music too loud. We hated everything and somedays we hated nothing. We loved life. We hated life. We were independent, but we needed each other. We hated pop music and heels because that's what everyone else enjoyed, and we hated everyone else. Most especially, Jenny hated Rhonda.
Ah yes, Rhonda, with her polished black pumps, expensive skirts and blazers. Her and her damned perfect black hair and her evil almond eyes. She had the build of a supermodel, the attitude of a supermodel, but the brains of a mob family. If there's anyone in my life I've ever seen Jenny come close to fearing, it was Rhonda. Little miss bloody prom queen – too good for the cheerleaders, too cunning for spirit squads. Rhonda lived in a realm all her own and two types of people fell under her. Those who longed for nothing more than to be exactly like her and those who hated her with such desire it was nearly an obsession. All that said, I still don't know how the hell Jenny and I ended up at her glorious birthday party with those twinkling wine glasses and white grapes falling from crystal pedestals. It wasn't a secret around town that her parents came into money through corruption and murder. It wasn't a huge shock whenever we found out about the literal mob ring that was being formed while we all slept peacefully in our beds. Then there was precious little Rhonda like a porcelain ballerina inside a music box, dancing on command when the lid opened, and falling back into the darkness and shame whenever it closed.
"Why the hell are we going to Rhon-da's…daaaaling?" Jenny smirked, sitting upon the Patacki kitchen countertop. Her long brown hair gracing her knees. For as much as I'd never say it, if I could be anyone, I'd have been Jenny. Her and her tanned olive body, long brown hair and tiny little waist with fierce arms and a look in her eye that just begged those guys who thought she was gorgeous to approach her just so she could kick their asses.
"Because she's our favorite
person in this entire damned world." I smirked sitting on the island countertop
across from her.
"But it's her..and her family…and does this mean I can't wear my boots?" Jenny asked with a tone so serious I laughed. Glancing down to her black military boots halfway laced the to her shin, scuffed and dirty… I grinned at the thought of Rhonda's mothers face.
"I think we have to dress up." I answered dully, looking out the window.
"What's with you and this whole staying connected to the people of your childhood thing?" Jenny asked sliding off the counter to rummage through the liquor cabinet. "Hey! Way to go Bob! Boy, he knows how I like it." She smirked, standing up to reveal a bottle of Vodka dangling from her fingertips.
"Don't you already have a hangover?"
"I'm drinking it off." She said cheerfully.
That was just the thing about Jenny. That body could handle more liquor and drugs than most men, but she was blissfully not dependent on either. She could have a hangover and kiss a cop without getting as much as a second glance. The girl would never be in the AA simply because she had nearly perfected a chemistry within her body of what she could handle in a night.
So we were rather self-destructive. We only had each other.
"You didn't answer me. What's with you and staying connected to people you went to grade school with?"
"We're kind of a disgusting, demented family. I owe it to them."
"Helga, you hate Rhonda."
"Nah, you hate her. I grew up with her." Somehow that summarized exactly what I was feeling.
"Who the hell cares who you grew up with? We're graduating in a month."
"Since when did you care about graduation?" I asked, taking a sip of the Vodka and feeling it burn my throat with a bitter soothing hand.
" I don't. I'd drop out if I didn't think that an education could get me out of this hole." Jenny grew very dark and very angry. The repercussions of her hangover were about to surface. Her tanned hands balled up into the angry fists of a four year old.
"Hey, you don't have to go. I don't mind. It's just something I have to do. I can't explain it." I said putting the vodka away and walking upstairs to my room. Jenny's footsteps fell heavily behind my own as we neared my door. Rock music softly droning into the hallway.
"Ugh. I still don't know how you live here." She said lying on her stomach across my pale blue bedspread.
"It's shelter." I said, rummaging through my closet.
"Yeah, but it's a shelter with pink and blue walls." She laughed and rolled over to pick at things on my nightstand. I had grown used to Jenny's way of rummaging through my things. She had the attention span of a two year old on speed.
"Hey," she said grinning as she pulled herself into an Indian style sitting position. "What's this?"
To my horror, in her hand laid a tarnished gold heart frame. Arnold. I rushed across the room in a mad rush. Ripping the frame from her hands and throwing it into the bottom of my vanity drawer my eyes caught his eyes and all my childhood angst seemed to swell within my ribcage. "It's nothing." I said, returning to the closet and sliding out of my jeans.
"He had a goofy head." She laughed, laying back on a pillow and stretching out her long legs. "Hey Patacki, you're getting' a tan. Very unlike you."
"It's not by choice. It's called 'evading the house whenever the family is home.' It leads to me being outside and walking around a lot." I pulled my shirt over my shoulders and put on a black tank top in its place.
"You goin' in your underwear?"
"You goin' with that face?" I said, searching for a skirt.
"I'm wearin' what I have on." She said, getting to her feet.
"Finally!" I said, pulling on a flowy knee length white skirt with large black flowers spread around it. Shoes….damn…oh well, black flip flops never hurt anyone.
"A Skirt?"
"Olga brought it back from France." I answered walking over to the vanity mirror.
"You're makin' me look bad." She said. "I'm offended and hurt." Jenny followed me to the vanity and looked at my fourth grade class picture. "Good thing you fixed those eye brows Patacki."
I looked at Jenny's outfit and once again grinned at the way Rhonda's country club parents would welcome her. Jenny wore baggy dark green khakis bunched up around her knees from her military boots and a thin white beader, cut off to reveal a sliver of her tiny stomach. Her black bra was noticeable through the thin material of the beader and if her hair wasn't as long she would've been a bit more revealing than she intended. She walked up behind me and began playing with my hair. It was long then, falling halfway down my back in waves and brightened by all the sun I was getting.
"This is about as ready as I get." I said, standing up and picking up a gift bag in the corner.
"You shouldn't have!" Jenny smirked.
"Not for you, you idiot, it's for Rhonda."
"Either way you shouldn't have." She answered. I locked the door behind us and we set off towards the Mansion. Twilight was falling over the tattering buildings like a sad painting. Orange and purple washes dripping all over the hot pavement from the colors of the sunset. Like I didn't know he was my stability.