This chapter gives more information about the context in which I set this story, as well as a greater insight into how Helga and Arnold have been feeling about (and acting towards) one another since the FTi incident five years ago. I hope you'll enjoy it! Please review, I'd love feedback!
"Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed."—Alexander Pope.
Arnold's tread was heavy as he followed Gerald down the aisle of the bus, weighed down by the thousands of hopes and disappointments which had pressed in on him for the past half hour. Half-formed thoughts and warmed-over flashes of desire skidded through his mind, colliding in confusing tangles of joy, pain, and fear all at once. Always, the anticipation which coursed through his veins. Always, the thundering beat of blood in his ears, magnifying the tumult into a deafening roar inside him. Always, that ever-present wanting, lurking behind it all and propelling every emotion to dizzying speeds.
And always, always, always—there was her.
Resplendent against the torrent, her glowing face and shining eyes beckoning him, demanding to be claimed as his own. Her sweetness permeating his thoughts like an exotic perfume, her exquisite laugh echoing like a tinkle of glass, clearly through all the noise. A sparkling, gleaming vision which lingered as though burned into the back of his eyelids.
Lila.
How could he help loving her, this goddess, this angel, this idol of his dreams?
The early morning sun glared against Arnold's eyes as he descended the steps of the bus. He paused at the bottom, shading his face, momentarily blinded.
"Hey Arnold."
Gerald stood waiting several paces ahead of him, arms folded.
"Just got the sun in my eyes." Arnold muttered, blinking a few times, watching the white flashes slowly fade from his vision.
He started forward to join Gerald, but as several people brushed past him, he was struck by a sudden idea. Lila was still on the bus. He could wait for her to come out and walk her to class—he could find out where her locker was—they both had first period English, so he'd have an excuse to sit beside her—perhaps those would be their assigned seats—maybe they'd even be partners for their first assignment and—
"Arnold!"
Without realizing it, Arnold had stopped in his tracks and turned back to look at the trickle of people issuing from the bus. He swivelled around guiltily.
"Are we doing this or what?"
Gerald sounded annoyed, as though he knew exactly who was occupying Arnold's thoughts and resented it—as though he knew it was a choice between the two of them.
"Gerald, I—" Arnold began helplessly, but his friend cut across his explanation impatiently.
"Whatever, Arnold." He said shortly, half-shrugging and walking swiftly away without him.
Arnold looked after him for a moment. Gerald couldn't understand. He'd never been in the same situation, could never have felt the way he did. Everything had always been secure for Gerald; his love had been satisfied, his desires met, even before he was old enough to be capable of either. Phoebe had always been there for him, appreciative, accessible. He could not know what is was to grasp for something just beyond your reach, straining and exerting yourself towards a future that you just knew, someday, must be yours for the taking, beset by endless hope and desperation until—
She was there. Arnold saw her out of the corner of his eye, and he whirled around to look her in the face. The sun lit her radiant, smiling face into brilliance. He couldn't breathe, he couldn't hear over the pounding in his ears—he could not stop looking at her.
"Lila!" He said, his face breaking into a grin, stepping towards her and trying with all his might to marshal his thoughts into order over the racing of his heart. "Lila, I thought we maybe could—"
She walked straight past him.
Without a word.
Without so much as a glance of recognition.
She hadn't betrayed a single sign that she had even heard him speak. She walked with her face glazed into a smile, her eyes fixed unswervingly ahead. She had ignored him. Totally and completely.
Arnold froze mid-stride, stunned. He stared blankly at the place where she had just been, his mouth still open, his words shrivelling on his tongue. Had she just ignored him? Had she done it...on purpose? Did she just see him and decide he wasn't worth her while, and that the best thing to do was to pretend he didn't exist? What had he done wrong? What had he done to deserve her disregard, her absolute avoidance?
The sniggers of unfamiliar passersby snapped him out of his reverie. Waves of humiliation and frustration washed over him, drowning his shock. What right had she to give him the cold shoulder when he had done nothing wrong? Why did she have to make him look like a complete idiot in front of all these people? He wasn't going to stand here like a gaping fish—he wasn't going to let her make him look ridiculous. Gritting his teeth, Arnold forced himself to look away. He gripped the straps of his backpack, determined to turn around and walk towards the school as though nothing had happened—but as he spun sharply around, he heard a yelp of alarm and felt his bag collide, hard, with someone's sharp, bony shoulder.
Arnold immediately turned to face the person he had hit, automatically setting a placating hand on their shoulder, an apology forming on his lips—and found he was face to face with Helga G. Pataki.
For an instant, they stood there, their eyes locked. Arnold felt a sudden surge of embarrassment which he couldn't place, and warmth flooded his cheeks. Perhaps, in that moment, he had felt her stiffen beneath his touch; perhaps he had heard the hastily stifled gasp, the sharp intake of breath as she looked at him; perhaps he had seen the flash of unguarded emotion which had momentarily lit up her eyes with fire—but then, the instant passed. Her face set into familiar, violent dislike, etched with lines of loathing.
"Watch where you're fucking going, Football Head!" She snarled at him, elbowing past him and stalking off, rigid with fury.
As he watched her go, Arnold forgot about Lila. He forgot about the mortification which had threatened to overpower him just seconds before. It was as though his mind had been cleared of everything except the girl before him. He watched her shove through the crowd, hurling curses and insults at everyone in her path. He watched her wrench the front door open and disappear inside.
She hadn't fooled him.
He knew. Perhaps he had always known, deep down in the recesses of his subconscious, that behind Helga's mockery and rage and bullying, she hid a passion, an obsession—no, a love for him of a strength he had never encountered in anyone else before. But it had taken the FTi incident—the shocking revelation at the top of the tower—to make him realize what he knew. And that knowledge had completely floored him.
The unexpected awareness of her unconditional, frighteningly powerful emotions, as well as his sudden comprehension of her conflicted behaviour towards him throughout their entire childhood together, had nearly overwhelmed him. That day hadn't left him unmarked; it had forever changed his perception of the past. And, of course, of Helga herself.
His perception of Helga.
What was his perception of Helga?
He couldn't pinpoint exactly how he felt about her. The conflict in his feelings towards her had increased a hundredfold after her confession to him. She had reverted back to her normal, irate self relatively soon after that day, determined, it seemed, to forget that it had ever happened, to remain behind her facade even though he now knew it for what it was. For the past several years she had kept a cold, livid distance between them. The constant, bullying attention had ceased, replaced by a front of furious silence and pointed, unspoken disgust. Her outburst today had surprised him—it seemed almost a window into their past. He had become so used to her new, distant treatment of him that he had almost forgotten the passionate Helga, who seemed almost to breathe flames with every word and look. He ought to have been relieved by the change in her attitude towards him; it should have been so much easier to ignore her dirty looks now that she didn't constantly demand his attention with her insults.
But he felt no relief. He couldn't ignore her.
He knew that this new, cold, remote Helga was just another layer of her intricate disguise, that it was her way of throwing cold water over the fervent feelings he knew she still concealed. Hadn't she betrayed them again today? Hadn't she betrayed them every day through her exhibition of her enraged, if silent, detestation? He was immensely frustrated with her inability to accept her feelings, angry at her for continuing to hide behind a mask of hatred and harshness. He hated her for her attempts to deceive him.
And yet he couldn't harbor only those feelings towards her. He knew now, more securely than ever, that there was a softer, caring side to her, even though she cloaked it in cruelty. He felt a kind of tender pity towards her for the pain she put herself through, for the hopeless longing that he knew she felt so strongly. His pity always came to the surface over the chaos of anger and frustration he felt every time she tried to prove herself indifferent, reminding him of the emotions he could not help but sympathize with. His pity made excuses for her behaviour, forgiving her for every display of dislike. His pity had led him to offer her a way out of her confession, permitted her to once more build up the barriers she'd spent years constructing, whose integrity one impulsive declaration had compromised forever. When he considered it all, he truly believed that this pity was his strongest feeling towards her.
But there was something else skulking behind all of this, a feeling Arnold didn't fully understand. A feeling which made him recall, even now, every impassioned word she had torn from herself that day—a feeling which prompted him to remember, in perfect detail, the taste of her mouth, the feel of her lips on his—a feeling that, unnamed and unfamiliar, Arnold tried hard to push aside. It discomforted him. It confused him. And he didn't need any more of either emotion, especially with regards to Helga.
So, sighing a little, Arnold shifted the weight of his backpack on his shoulders and walked on towards his new school.
Alone.
. . .
Days like this made Helga hate herself.
Inwardly cursing herself, she had to force herself not to sprint as she pushed through the crowds, trying to get as far away from Arnold as possible. She swore loudly at the people in her way, trying desperately to relieve herself, but the outbursts only made her career even more wildly out of control. She could feel his eyes on her back, watching her, knowing only too well everything she was feeling—and it was all because of her idiocy, her complete lack of control. She had to bite down hard on her bottom lip to prevent herself from crying out in agony.
It was an eon before she reached the school. An eternity before she slammed the door shut, screening out the view of Arnold behind her. She had to find somewhere that she could be alone, somewhere where she could unleash some of the mounting, excruciating rage building up inside her. She looked frantically around, looking for anything, anything at all—and found a supply closet to her left. She jerked open the door and lunged inside, heedless of the strange looks she attracted on all sides, and slammed it closed. Still holding the handle tightly shut behind her, she slid down the door slowly.
"Fuck." She whispered, shutting her eyes tightly, seizing a fistful of hair with her free hand and tugging at it so hard that pinpricks of tears prodded against her eyelids. She could taste the blood pooling from her lip into her mouth, acrid and metallic. "Fuck."
She'd screwed up. In one look, in one, unrestrained, clumsy attempt to shield herself, she'd screwed up everything that she'd worked towards for the past five years. She'd worked so hard to govern herself. She had struggled so fiercely to learn self-control. She'd taught herself so many painful lessons in restraint, learned to abide the stabs of a hundred knives of jealousy without a grimace, learned to keep her silence even when a thousand voices screamed out their pain inside of her. She'd borne her crushing fears, her terrible anger, and her ballooning ecstasies, and always, always, the sheer force of her will suffocated their expression in her words or actions. And what had she done now? Oh god, what had she done?
She had succumbed. She had given in to the irresistible sensations he evoked when he touched her. She had betrayed—so clearly had she betrayed it in her face!—those forbidden feelings which she thought she had finally learned to confine to her heart. They had burst their bounds, and for a moment, they had shone out for all to see. And then, to cover up the lapse, she had once again yielded to the temptation to lash out. She'd even sweared at him—sweared at her darling, her innocent Arnold, for whom she could just as soon have died. She'd thrown up her cover of ferocity and offensiveness, a cover she had vowed never to take up again. A backfiring, self-destructive defense—for Arnold, and Arnold alone, understood it. He could strip it off and perceive, plainly, the naked, trembling vulnerability underneath.
She had given him that power the day she had told him everything.
And how desperately had she lived to regret that day!
Helga hid her face in both of her hands, moaning softly into her rough, callused palms. She had ruined everything that she had pledged to herself that dreadful day. How could she have allowed these moments of weakness? Hadn't she learned, from that fateful hour, how much pain and misery follow unreasoned impulse? Hadn't she discovered that when you tear your secret hopes out of your chest and expose them on your sleeve, your fears are also realized, and they come, like vultures, to peck at your arms in punishment for your ludicrous expectations?
She'd been a fool that day. She'd told herself that a hundred—no, a thousand times over. In her panic, in her frustration, she lost control of herself. She had exploded with the pent-up love of so many years, exposing every hope and fear of her life to him. During that moment, she had felt relief: exhilarating, delicious relief. For that moment, she had allowed her passion to carry her away, into his arms, up past cloud nine.
But he didn't love her back.
What did she expect?
She had always known that he didn't love her—his constant fawning over Lila was evidence enough. How could he, given the total lack of encouragement that her behaviour had given him for loving her? She ardently, fervently desired his love, hoped for it against hope—but she had always known that her hope was unlikely to be answered.
And yet in giving in, madly, to the urge to confess everything, she had thrown her vain hopes in the air and had welcomed her supreme fear into reality: the prospect of Arnold knowing what he meant to her, but not caring in return. He had made that much clear to her. He hadn't answered her with any of the passion and elation she had always dreamed of eliciting from him. He was shocked, but not pleasurably. The only eagerness he demonstrated was in his longing to get away from her. And of course, her dear, sweet, unfeeling Arnold, made uncomfortable by her vulnerability in her unrequited love, had offered her a way out.
And in her mortified pain, she took it.
That night, she had wandered the streets, restless with self-loathing, voiceless with the dull, aching depression which sat like a stone in her chest. That night, she understood the full scope of what she had done. That night, in her savage humiliation and throbbing unrest, she made a resolution.
She had to undo the steps she had taken. She couldn't erase what she had told Arnold, but she could erase every trace of her confession from her actions. Now that he knew that her open, loudly-voiced, too-often-proved dislike of him was just her way of hiding her real feelings, she would have to, in turn, hide that aspect of herself. No longer would she be obnoxious and rude towards him; no longer would she allow her love to find relief through the attentions of a bully. He knew what she was hiding, so what better way to convince him that there was nothing in it than to cast off her disguise?
It had been difficult, extraordinarily difficult, at first. She found herself throwing spitballs against her volition, spitting out cruel words with every breath. Every feeling built up to enormous pressures when she denied herself a vent, and every so often they came whistling out, like steam from a boiling kettle. But every time something escaped her, she was met with Arnold—his face no longer full of anger, as it used to be, but with concern, and worse, pity. The inexpressible shame brought on by his pity drove her even more determinedly in pursuit of external indifference.
It had taken her several months to perfect her new image, to have those lessons in self-possession. She no longer threw spitballs or tripped him up the stairs. She no longer spent each day planning new ways to embarrass him. No taunts, no attention-drawing insults, escaped her lips. She avoided him as much as possible, and on the whole, she succeeded. When their paths did cross, or she was forced to speak, she did so with studied coolness. She frigidly repelled his conversation, and relatively soon, he stopped attempting it. She no longer smarted under the sting of his pity—she had believed, truly believed, that he had been taken in by her iciness, that he no longer suspected her of the catastrophically powerful love that ran through her veins, a roaring current on the underskirts of her glacial aloofness.
Until today.
A bell rang in the distance—a five minute warning for her first class. Helga unclenched her fists, calming herself, ridding herself of all signs of agitation. She had to be calm. She had to be master of herself. She had made a mistake today, but it didn't mean that she had to fall apart. She was Helga G. Pataki. She was made of stronger stuff than that, and she had prevailed over her emotions when there was even greater provocation than this.
She could do it. She had to.
Helga stood up carefully, smoothing down the wrinkles of her shirt and tugging down at her pants. She closed her eyes, took one, long, deep breath, and opened the door of the supply closet, walking steadily towards her first period English class, a faultless picture of serenity.
No one ever would have guessed what storms raged behind her composed demeanor. But then again, everyone always seemed to underestimate her ability to feel.
She was met by a tall, brunette woman at the door of her classroom—presumably, her new teacher. Helga scrutinized her warily. She looked quite young, and rather pretty, with thick dark hair and warm brown eyes. She was neither fussily over-professional nor conspicuously underdressed, which was a good sign; Helga scorned teachers who always dressed as though they occupied a much more important position than they actually held—or worse still, when they attempted to bond with their students by dressing plainly, and could easily be mistaken for a high school student in a crowd. She wore no distinguishable makeup, and no jewellery save for her simple gold earrings. She smiled at Helga as she walked up, holding out her hand to shake.
"Hello." She said. "And what is your name?"
"Helga Pataki." Helga replied, taking the offered hand and shaking it briefly.
"It's very nice to meet you." The woman replied. Helga noticed that she didn't speak with the same condescension that many of her other teachers did, and this immediately recommended her. "My name is Ms. Kenna. Please take a seat anywhere, we'll be starting soon."
Helga nodded and continued into the classroom. Some thirty students were already inside, chatting idly amongst themselves, a sea of mostly unfamiliar faces. Except, of course, for the blonde boy sitting in the second row, whose face immediately caught her eye. He was looking down at his desk, rifling through the notebook in front of him, so he didn't see her walk in. But even if he had, he would not have been able to detect any sign of her furiously pounding heartbeat, nor would he have seen any change in her countenance, despite the sudden frenzy which erupted in her mind. Her movements betrayed no agitation as she walked up the classroom, her eyes fixed straight forward. Her face was impassive as she passed him. And as she finally sat down, in a seat that was as far away from Arnold as she could possibly get, she even wore a tiny, quiet smile.
"Welcome, class!" Ms. Kenna said, walking briskly to the middle of the room as the bell rang. "Welcome to your first day of Honors English 9! I had the great pleasure of meeting most of you as you entered the classroom today, and I hope we will all get to know each other very well over the course of the next year. I am very excited to have the opportunity to teach all of you. If you learn anything from me this year, I hope that you learn to love English—everything about it, from the language itself to the great works of literature—as much as I do. I believe that is the best lesson that any teacher can impart to their students, so I will strive to kindle your interest."
She stood at the front of the classroom, beaming down at all of them, her enthusiasm palpable in every word. Helga liked her for it. She had no use for people who smiled, incessantly and inanely, determined to be pleased with the world, but she always felt a connection to people with true enthusiasm, a true passion for what they did. She had been disappointed with all of her junior high English teachers; she had been frustrated by the dullness of their lectures, the insipid, lacklustre monologues about this theme or that. Perhaps—just perhaps—this one would share the fervid admiration that she herself had for literature. Perhaps she could actually learn something from her class this year.
"So, in view of the fact that I aim to inspire you," Ms. Kenna continued, taking out her clipboard, "I am going to begin the school year by reading you a truly wonderful poem. Yes, I know," She said, smilingly knowingly, because she had heard the low groans and mutters from the class, "Boring, sentimental, confusing, cheesy poetry. I know how most of you feel about that. But like I said, I'm hopeful, and I want you all to walk out this door on the last day of class and be able to face poetry without all this moaning and groaning."
There were some laughs at this. Helga felt her interest in her teacher increase. So they were going to study poetry, were they? Was this a teacher who could understand—really, truly understand—poetry?
"So," She continued. "I'm going to read you 'We Wear the Mask,' by Paul Laurence Dunbar, a personal favorite of mine."
Helga smiled at this. So she did have some taste—she didn't choose to read them "The Raven," or "Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day," the stereotypical English class poems which Helga had grown sick of through innumerable repetition.
Ms. Kenna cleared her throat, tilted her clipboard towards her face, and began.
"We wear the mask which grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,
This debt we pay to human guile,
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties."
A girl in front of Helga shifted downwards in her seat, and suddenly she had an unhindered view of Arnold at the front of the classroom. He was resting his head on one of his hands, running his fingers idly through the short strands of his blonde hair. Ms. Kenna's words faded into the periphery of her consciousness as she looked at him.
It was safe to look at him now, for the attention of everyone was directed towards the front of the room. It was safe to look at him now that he couldn't suspect her notice of him. It was safe, now that indulging in her most avid admiration would not mean a sacrifice to her most zealous pride.
He was too beautiful.
She could never be safe from him, even if in the eyes of the rest of the world she was impassive. Just as she had been the only one to completely delve into the deep mysteries of his character, a feat won by her ceaseless, discerning observation, he was the only one who could navigate the subtle canals of her masquerade and, ultimately, strip away the mask that was her only safeguard from wretchedness.
But she must always hide behind her deceitful camouflage, for the heart palpitating in her chest would be torn and bleeding for as long as his was free of her.
And that eventuality, she knew, could only live in the dungeons of her deepest hopes.
So sighing, she savored the stolen pleasure of watching Arnold, her eyes tracing every memorized feature—engraving him further into herself.
"Why should the world be over-wise,
In counting all our tears and sighs?
Nay, let them only see us, while
We wear the mask."
Arnold listened only partially to the words of his teacher as he sat, gazing at the red-headed girl who sat three seats to his right. She sat, unmoving, her face expressionless. She had made no greeting or sign to him—or indeed, to anyone—as she had entered the room. He so wished he knew what was wrong, desperately hoping that he hadn't done something to offend her. What could he have done to deserve such a chilly reception, if he had done something?
The derision of those standing around him that morning suddenly surfaced in his memory, and Arnold's face tightened at the thought. He had been so obvious, so terribly obvious about what he was feeling—everything was written in his face, and his actions, for all to see! He remembered Gerald as well, dubious and annoyed, at what he perceived as a baseless hope.
Why did he need their scorn and cynicism?
Perhaps...perhaps it was better for them not to know. Perhaps he ought to make a greater effort not to bandy about his emotions for all to see. Maybe this was what had turned Lila against him—had she been put off by his overeager, his over-apparent attention to her?
If he was going to try and change his attitude towards her, he would have to start now.
So, heaving a great sigh, he slowly retracted his gaze from her. He looked down at his desk, trying resolutely to clear the chaotic desire to feast his eyes on her from his mind. It was going to be very difficult to restrain himself, but he had to do it.
For his own good.
"We smile, but O great Christ, our cries
To thee from tortured souls arise.
We sing, but oh the clay is vile
Beneath our feet, and long the mile,
But let the world dream otherwise.
We wear the mask!"
Lila sat, unseeing, oblivious of the noise of the classroom or the voice of Ms. Kenna. She could see nothing, hear nothing, know nothing except the fact that something in the grand, colossal scheme of things that she called her world had gone dreadfully, woefully, unaccountably awry. She wanted to scream and cry out, but she could not. She could only sit in this frozen, numb, torturous silence.
Waiting for the gears of time to shift forward again, pushing her, against her volition, into the cruel future.
