Lightning Bolt
Arnold saw her again later that day. She was sitting alone at a table at the edge of the quad. She was wearing an oversized pair of headphones that were connected to the laptop she was using. She would stop periodically to nibble on a sandwich. He looked around, since it was a particularly hot day there weren't too many other students outside for lunch. He figured most people opted for the comfort of the air conditioning in the cafeteria. There was the girl and a couple of other tables full of students chatting over their lunch.
"Hey man." His best friend since grade school, Gerald Johansson, snapped Arnold out his thoughts. "How's your day going?"
"Good." Arnold quickly answered. "It's going good. Thank God it's senior year though. I can't wait to be done."
"The girl you're staring at is kind of hot." Gerald stated as he took a seat at one of the tables closest to them. "You know her?"
Arnold said nothing as he sat down. Was he really being that obvious? Gerald knew right away he was staring at her and she knew he was staring at her in class. He sighed; he needed to work on his subtlety. He honestly hadn't mean to gawk at the blonde. "No. Not really." He finally answered. "She's in my creative writing class."
"You should tell her to come sit with us." Gerald suggested, "Or maybe we can go sit with her?" He grinned, "I can hook you up."
Arnold shook his head, "No." He quickly told him. "I kind of freaked her out earlier; I think talking to her now would creep her out even more."
Gerald raised a questionable eyebrow, "What did you do?"
"I kind of stared at her during class." He paused, "And then I kind of followed her out of class and tried to get her to tell me her name."
"You what?" Gerald blinked nearly wincing, "Dude. Seriously, you're lucky she didn't pepper spray you or something. Come on, you're not that bad when it comes talking to girls. Why would you be that…"He paused, "I'm sorry to say it, but creepy?" He grabbed the sub sandwich off his lunch tray. "You weren't even that bad with Lila." He said before taking a large bite out of his sub. "Ugh, I forgot how the food here tastes like shit. How do they mess up a sub sandwich, seriously?" He mumbled before he continued to eat the subpar sandwich.
Arnold nearly groaned, "I don't know what's wrong with me. She just caught me off guard or something." He admitted as he picked up his own sandwich and taking a bite. "She called me Football Head." He said as he took a quick glance at the blond before quickly looking away. The last thing he wanted to do was creep her out even more than he already had.
Gerald burst out laughing, nearly spewing the drink of Yahoo soda he just took all over the table in front of him, "She called you what? You said Football Head, right? She called you Football Head?" Gerald was practically gasping for air as he continued to laugh, "That might be the funniest thing I have ever heard." He chucked as he finally calmed down, "She's kinda right, you know? After she pointed it out I can't not see it."
Frowning, Arnold felt the shape of his head. "No it's not." He tried to deny it, though he had the lingering suspicion that it was in fact true.
"She's coming this way." Gerald pointed out, "If you want I can act like a bigger creep than you so you can at least look a little bit better in her eyes." He looked at the blonde, "Actually…Wolfgang might be able to do that for me."
Arnold's frown deepened as he turned to see Wolfgang make his way towards the blonde as she walked towards the building. He had known Wolfgang for a few years and he was one of the biggest, if not the biggest, assholes he had ever met in his life.
"Hey Pataki!" Wolfgang's voice boomed through the quad. "Hey!" He yelled her last name again attempting to gain her attention.
To Arnold's surprise, the blonde, whose last name was Pataki, looked completely unfazed. She didn't even slow her speed even a little bit. Instead she flashed her middle finger and simply said, "Fuck off, Wolfgang." By this time Arnold and Gerald had been watching the scene from the sidewalk, laughing at the dumbfounded look across Wolfgang's face. They hadn't realized they were blocking the walkway until she stopped in front of them and snapped, "Move it, Football Head!"
Arnold and Gerald quickly moved out of the way, both men mustering a 'sorry' as she stomped away towards the school.
"Fucking bitch." Wolfgang muttered slightly louder than under his breath. "I don't know why I bother with her." Arnold suspected that Wolfgang knew exactly why he 'bothered' with her.
"You know her Wolfgang?" Gerald questioned, "What's her name?"
"Yeah, I know her." Wolfgang told them. "Her name's Helga. We grew up in the same neighborhood." He explained. "She is such bitch." He nearly spat before taking off in the opposite direction that Helga had.
"Well, your mystery woman has a name." Gerald told Arnold with a smirk, "She sure knows how to push Wolfgang's buttons."
"He called her a bitch." Arnold frowned. He didn't know why and he knew it probably shouldn't, but it kind of bothered him when people threw out the word 'bitch' out so easily.
Gerald shrugged, "Didn't seem to bother her much. Besides, it's Wolfgang. Are you really that surprised?"
Arnold sighed, "I suppose not." He checked the time on his cell phone, "I guess I should get to my next class. I'll see you later."
*
It was Friday and Arnold had found himself excited to go to his creative writing class again. He had gotten over some of the anxiety he had been feeling and now he was just looking forward to see Helga again. He had even gotten to class rather early. So early that Helga was the only other person in the room. The first time he saw her she was wearing her hair in a simple pony tail, today her hair was down. Her hair had some natural curl in it with the blonde strands tumbling down her back.
She was sitting at the same seat she sat in during their first class and quietly leafing through the book for the class, seemingly making a few notes inside the book. Arnold swallowed nervously before taking the steps towards her. He took the seat directly to her right. "Hi Helga." He offered her a small smile.
To his surprise Helga didn't seem at all surprised that he now knew her name. "Football Head." She used the nickname she gave him two days earlier. She sighed, she didn't bother looking at him. She just continued to page through the course book. "I take it Wolfgang told you my name."
"Yea…He said you two are from the same neighborhood?"
"What else did he say?" Arnold noted there seemed to be a slight edge to her voice when she asked.
"Err…Nothing,"
Finally Helga looked into his direction. "You are a terrible liar."
"Um...Well…He just said that you were a…" He trailed off nervously.
"Bitch?" Helga finished for him and he nodded, "I figured as much." Arnold didn't noticed the sound of relief in her voice.
"I'm sorry he called you that."
Helga furred her eyebrows in confusion, "Why are you sorry about that?"
"It's just…" Arnold stuttered, "He shouldn't have said that about you. It wasn't right. I'm just sorry he said that about you."
"That's just stupid." She simply stated. "Why would you ever apologize for what someone else says or does? That is just idiotic. Besides, you don't know me. I may very well be a bitch." A slight smirk played on her lips, "And like I give a shit what Wolfgang says. He is such a prick."
"I don't think you're a bitch." Arnold stated stubbornly.
Helga rolled her eyes, "You don't even know me." She muttered before turning her attention back to her book.
Arnold sighed, but said nothing before he started to take the things he needed out of his backpack. By this time other students had begun to file into the classroom. As hard as he tried Arnold couldn't stop himself to look in Helga's direction. It was then he noticed the two tattoos in her arms. She had one on each arm on the same spot below the inside of her elbows. On her left arm there was an open bird cage, on the right a flying bird.
He leaned towards her desk, "I like your tattoos." He whispered, in particularly gesturing to the ones on her arms.
Helga looked down at her tattoos. "Thanks." She muttered under her breath.
"How many do you have?" He asked curiously.
She smirked, "More than you can see now." Her smirk seemed to broaden when she noticed Arnold's cheeks turn red.
"Good morning." The class's professor, Simon greeted the class before Arnold could reply. "I really enjoyed reading everyone's prompts from the other day. Some of you have some real raw talent." Arnold couldn't help but notice he seemingly looked directly at Helga when he saw that. "Others of you will hopefully be able to greatly benefit from this class." He cleared his throat, "Now before I hand these back I would like to read an excerpt from one of my favorite pieces."
"I woke up in complete darkness. I'm cold, but I'm sweating. I squint, struggling to make out any of my surroundings. I know I'm in a bed because I can feel the softness of blankets beneath me. I don't want to move because I don't know if I'm alone or not. My throat is dry, I desperately want water. I don't know where I am and I don't know where I can find water. I try to get up but my legs and arms feel heavy and as I try to get out of bed my legs cannot support my weight and I fall to the hardwood floor with a painful thump. I just lay there on the cool floor for a long while trying to clear the cloudiness from my mind that just won't go away."
Arnold noticed Helga slumping down in her seat. She was biting down on her lower lip, looking down at her hands, a light pink blush spread across her cheeks. Realization hit him. Helga was the one who wrote that.
"Fantastic." Simon smiled widely, "Wonderful job Miss Pataki, I cannot wait to see what else you have in store for me." He handed her back her prompt, which Arnold could plainly see was three full pages long. "I wrote a few notes on everyone's prompts, mostly on things you are doing well or need work." He handed Arnold back his paper, "Today we are going to do a quick journal entry before we continue on with class."
Arnold basically stopped listening as he read Simon's comments about his prompt. They were mostly all negative. Actually each comment was about something Arnold needed to work on. Except for the last one, one that Arnold guessed that Simon wanted to leave him with at least something positive. You have really good handwriting, Arnold sighed; well at least he had that going for him. He had a feeling that this class wasn't going to be the easy A that he originally thought it would be.
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