The silence was so thick that Arnold could practically cut it with a butter knife as he and Helga walked silently along the sidewalk together. It was an awkward silence that had started back at the classroom once they had been left alone together and it had continued on since. He wanted to break it, to talk to her about what he had been mulling over all day, but he just couldn't figure out how to start the conversation, as it was they were about halfway to her house and not a word had been said.

"So what did you want to talk about, Football Head? It better not be anything stupid if I have to walk all the way home!", the bully's words were rough like they always were, but it wasn't helping him. Stopping, he ran a hand through his hair lightly; how on earth was he going to start this? Perhaps he should start from the beginning.

"Helga, do you remember FTI?", he asked cautiously, watching as the girl immediately stiffened, the look on her face only briefly betraying her sensitivity to the subject before her face twisted back into it's usual glare.

"Yeah, sure I do, it's not like you can exactly forget a time when a big company tries to buy out your neighbor hood and someone you know manages to stop him.", she said it with sarcasm, her way to hide her discomfort over talking about the subject. Arnold looked down the street, finding it increasingly difficult to look at her as he brought up the awkward situation, but he had to bring it up, because it was his fault. He had been the one to give her a way out, if he hadn't then things wouldn't have turned out quite this way; though he wasn't sure how things would have turned out if he hadn't given her that escape.

"Do you remember what you said to me? On the roof?", he looked back to the girl and noted that she had stiffened again, this time her eyes going wide before she barely managed a nod. He turned away again. "I've been thinking about that a lot lately", he said softly, hearing her breath hitch in her throat.

She had turned the color of milk by the time that he'd returned his gaze to her. This wasn't the same, brash, bossy Helga that everyone always saw anymore, the Helga that he was looking at was a completely different girl. A fear was in her, skittering obviously up and down her spine, wrapping it's icy fist around her and sucking all that was inside away; the Helga everyone else knew didn't show fear. Arnold swallowed, he was in uncharted territory now; if any of his theories about her were wrong he was up to his eyeballs in trouble.

"Did you mean it?", the words came out shaky but they had a shockingly potent effect on the girl before him, she looked like she was about to run. He was reminded of a doe in headlights, fear blatant though she was struggling over the fight or flight mechanism.

- - -

Helga felt blindsided, she hadn't been expecting this, half of her wanted to scream yes while the other half wanted to run and hide under a rock until he utterly forgot about her. The war inside her was draining her quickly of everything she held dear, her ability to breathe, her ability to think, her instincts were kicking in and telling her to be mean, to get defensive; but the half of her that wanted to tell him everything wouldn't let her.

"I-", every snappy comeback in her arsenal got stuck in her throat, and before she knew it she was swallowing them, moving her head in a jerky nod that her body didn't seem to want to perform.

- - -

A flood of mixed emotions came over Arnold as he saw her nod, so many questions came to him, but the most prominent was why had she taken it back? If she'd meant it, if she really did love him and had gone through all the trouble of telling him-even if it hadn't exactly been a planned confession-why had she nullified all of her efforts?

"Then why did you-…", he couldn't hold her gaze anymore, that frightened look was cutting into him too deeply, he felt like he was hurting her. "Why did you take it back?" The bully looked away.

"Because I-…", her eyes looked distant for a second before she shook her head and turned away from him, "criminy! Why does it matter anyway?!", she demanded.

"Well, if you love me, I think I have the right to know…", he said simply; she turned on him then, the fire back in her eyes, the frightened girl from a moment before nothing but a brief memory. She advanced on him, towering over him the way she did all the others at school and looking like she was ready to kill him.

"You think you have the RIGHT?!", he took a step back and she pressed ever forward, "What pray tell makes you think that you have the right to know anything?!", Arnold knew that he taken a wrong step as she cracked her knuckles. "You don't have the right to anything!", she snapped, "Last I checked they were my feelings and as far as you're concerned, I hate you!"

"But Helga-", she picked him up by the collar, the look in her eyes stating that she was not joking, that she would go against any vow that she'd made to herself-which he didn't know about-and hurt him if he continued this endeavor.

"If you want to die, keep pushing", she hissed, her eyes stating that she was telling the truth, "but if you want to live, then this conversation never happened" Putting him down she started away down the street, leaving him there and assuming that he wouldn't follow; but he did.

"Helga, come on! I need to talk to you about this, it's important!", he called as he ran to catch her, the bully didn't even lose a step.

"What's so important about it?! It never mattered to you before!"

"Yes it did!"

"No it didn't! It never mattered! It's not important!", he grabbed her arm and stopped her, forcing her to turn to him, he expected her to glare at him, to growl and threaten him as she had only a moment before but the look he saw on her face was-instead-a distant look of pain, a helpless look that he'd only ever seen on her face once, and that had been in preschool.

"It's important to me", he said gently, "please, Helga, just tell me?", the girl was silent, chewing on her lip anxiously as though trying to keep whatever he was coaxing out of her inside.

"I took it back because-", she pulled away from him and rubbed her arms, "at first it was to save myself from my own humiliation, I intended to bring it up later on with you, when things cooled down and you'd had time to think about it; but as time went on a new realization dawned on me. You wouldn't have given me that way out if you'd felt the same, you would have awkwardly talked about it with me, or wouldn't have said anything at all about it…but instead you-", she swallowed, "you gave me an escape from the entire thing, so that we could both pretend that it hadn't happened…"

Turning away from him, she hurried away down the street, quickly making her way out of sight, not looking back to see if the boy was following her. He wasn't though; he watched her go, guilt having rooted him where he stood. The look on her face had been one that surprised him as she spoke; he could see such pain in her expression, pain that he had caused; an aching lump rose in his throat. He was the cause of this pain, the distant look in her eyes, the hurt softness of her voice; it had been him who'd caused it.

Trying to swallow the lump, he started walking again, deftly making his way to the boarding house and up the stairs towards his bedroom. Some of the boarders had spoken to him, asking him if something was the matter but he'd barely heard them and he didn't answer. Making his way up the ladder, he pulled it up and closed the hatch before he made his way up the steps to his bedroom.

The door was closed and locked before he made his way to his bed and laid down, digging out the notebook and a pen.

I really messed up, he scrawled across the available line below the last entry; he hadn't gotten more than those four words written before everything he was feeling finally bubbled to the surface and he pushed the book away, listening to it fall off the bed as he curled up into a tight little ball.

I really messed up…