Chapter 1

Turning Time

I have spent many years of my life... Hating you. Just one day finding out that I loved you.

I scrutinized Helga as I watched the crowd carry her away in cheer. She'd made a home run for the winning home team of P.S. 119. She was a Softball champion amongst women. Helga was stunning, and to say stunning was only putting it lightly. She had long sweeping hair and each wave was a sea of blonde texture. Her wide eyes a deep Sapphire; perhaps her eyes held more depths in their blue then all the seven seas. Her lips were full and always painted pink with her pink bow. Her fixation with pink and bows were about the only damsel like trait to Helga Geraldine Pataki. She'd filled out exceptionally, shaped like an hourglass. Her chest size was at the very least a double D. Yes, stunning was in deed categorizing her beauty lightly.

"Hey my man Arnold, are you going with me to the sports bar?" Gerald took his olive textured hand and brushed it nervously across his tall House Party hair cut.

I knew he was brushing his hair nervously because Phoebe was walking past. Gerald had been in love with Phoebe since sixth grade. Why wouldn't he be though? Phoebe was the smartest girl in school and the most delicately featured Japanese woman in New York! She looked like a geisha who had stumbled into the Ghettos of New York completely lost to where she truly belonged. She was perfect for Gerald and obviously she found him perfect for her. I hated when two friends who were obviously meant for each other disregarded it. Rhonda was still the most popular girl in our senior year but it was obvious that she was spiteful of the irony that Phoebe and Helga had morphed into the most beautiful girls in school, even if the two girls did not realize this themselves.

"Nah, Gerald, I think I'll just head back to the Boarding House. I'm not really in a festive mood. High school is over now, and I still have no clue what to do with my summer." I sighed tugging uncomfortably at my blue Yankee fitted hat. My blonde tussles of hair curling around the hat I kept over my head on a regular basis.

"Suites yourself then." Gerald turned to Phoebe in the distance who was unnaturally walking slowly. "Hey Phoebe, wait up!" Gerald called after her. Gerald stopped to give me our secret handshake that we'd been doing since elementary school, and then ran to Phoebe's side as she blushed from gaining his attention.

I dragged all six two of my massive form through the streets heading home. I was quite muscular from all the sports and activates I participated in school. I was a bigger, stronger, more attractive Arnold and yet at times I still felt like the same old Arnold-o. I smirked how Helga or her words ever crept into my mind I would never know. She and I hadn't talked since our sophomore year. My mind began to relapse back to our last exchange of words.

It was a school masquerade dance. I had danced with every wall flower there that night. Done whatever it took to make every woman in my path that night feels beautiful and special, especially if the girl had come alone that evening. Only two girls had actually captivated me though. One was obviously Lila who I had a soft spot for since grade school. The other was a mystery woman even to our other classmates. The Woman in red.

She had called to me like a siren foreign in action yet in my soul somehow familiar. We'd danced the night away talking about anything and everything. Every time the woman in red called me stud my stomach did a million summersaults. As I spoke with her I thought of Helga. I had a secret admiration for Helga that had developed as we both hit puberty.

The girl pecked my lips softly. She whispered her sweet nothings in my ear. I flushed a deep red because she and I both knew the involuntary male body response I'd given her. We slinked out of the dance. I took her back to my place. We became intimate.

The words escaped my lips before I could contain them. I took her mask off her face holding her arms to peer into those deep sea eyes. "Helga I love you. You don't need a mask. You've been masking yourself from me our whole lives. I want more then just tonight. I want every night with you. Why not make this more then our first why not make this our start?" my voice trembled I had spoken in a tone that betrayed the bravery I was trying to convey. She'd taken me by surprise she pushed me away snatching up her dress from the floor.

"No Arnold, I'm not a mystery novel to try and read through. I can't let anyone in. It's not my nature I'm a lone ranger and that's how I like it. I think after tonight we shouldn't talk anymore." With that she put her dress on left her heel behind and walked away.

Helga meant it though. It had been both our first times and our last time. She refused to ever speak to me again. After having my heart curb stomped I rebounded to Lila and that sealed Helga and I our fates never to cross again.

I kept her red heel buried deep in my closet next to the one that belonged to Cecile who was also obviously Helga. She had a mystique that still called to me like a siren's lullaby. I loved her I always had and yet I hated Helga G. Pataki equally as much. I had admired her from afar for many years now and one day I swore I'd confront her for somehow being the only girl to ever really capture my heart.

I dated Lila for a view months and after that I'd became a bit of a serial dater. I always let the girls down easy and pointed their hearts in the direction of another boy when I broke up with them. It wasn't fair to them not when I was in love with another woman. I lost my train of thought as I collided forcefully into someone. I gained back my footing and instantly I wrapped my arms around the woman pulling her close to me before the gal could hit the hard cement pavement.

"Get off me Football head!" I was taken aback it was the first thing the girl had said to me in over two years! Her hair hung down to her waist as the tip of our baseball caps touched. Helga's uniform clutched her body in a sporty and very appealing to the eyes way.

"Whatever you say Helga," I responded moving my arms to indicate that she could pass me. She turned her heels to storm off.

I don't know if it was because of the memory I had just encountered, I didn't know if it was because of the way she simply was, but something beyond my control made my hand pull her back to me until we were nose to nose. The closeness made me recall when she and I had Tangoed tauntingly during an April Fools dance in grade school.

"Helga, tell me you haven't thought of me not even once in the past three years and I will let you go and never look back." I hissed and I knew she could smell all the big red gum I constantly chewed on my breath.

"Arnold, it's none of your concern what I do or don't think about in my spare time." Helga hissed.

"Stop it! Just stop being stubborn for just a second let me shatter a single glass wall." I prompted Helga.

"No Arnold, I don't need this right now. Now isn't a good time. I want what I wanted back them. I want you to leave me alone. Let me live my miserable life. They say misery loves company; my love I don't want your sufferance for company." Her words were delicate and took me by surprise.

What were the odds? The odds, which Helga and I would run into one another as we used to when we were kids? What were the odds? The odds, that perhaps we were always meant to be star crossed lovers. I remember thinking earlier about Phoebe and Gerald. I remember how I had thought to myself how I despised people who were clearly meant for each other and yet they avoided initiating intimacy. I realized now that it was rooted subconsciously to my hate for the cat and mouse game Helga and I had played since we were nine years old.

"Helga, I don't care. I don't care about your flaws or mine even in this moment." I began but she cut me off.

"No you wouldn't Arnold, because you're the good doer. Mister healer of all wounds. Always charitable and ready to serve others no matter what. Don't you see it's not me you love but the good deeds you could do. Compassion is your nature." Helga's words lit a fire of rage in my belly.

"You say I don't know you. You're wrong Helga I know you better then anyone else. How dare you say you know me Helga you don't know the first thing about me. I thought you did but I was wrong." I hissed taking in deep breaths. The scent of Vanilla perfumed the air around me.

I didn't get an opportunity to continue my argument as the most bizarre happening I'd ever witness in my life appeared to me. Helga gasped in astonishment as well. Right behind the brick side wall of Mr. Green's meat shop was a large gaping black hole! Everything about today was becoming bizarre to the point of slightly fictional. I was stunned it was surreal the events taking place today.

Helga approached it and at 5'4 in height she was eye level with the black hole. I clutched her shoulder peering into it as well. Nothing but darkness seemed to pour from within the black holes depths. Helga stuck her hand inside the black abyss of this most peculiar unexplainable hole. Without so much as a single warning the hole suctioned her hand trapping it. I began to tug her towards me but it was too late! With in seconds the hole sucked both Helga and I inside of its contents. In a single moment the world became dark and I began to spin into oblivion clutching Helga in the darkness not sure where we were headed.