Helga sat on her bed with her laptop. It had been a almost two weeks since her fight with Arnold, and she still felt terrible about it. Every time she thought of it she felt a sinking feeling in her stomach and a lump form in her throat.
Helga Pataki didn't cry. She was stronger than that. She didn't let things get to her, especially not a boy. So after a few days of feeling bad about it Helga decided she wasn't going to feel this way anymore. She decided to distract herself with anything she could.
It had been working so far give or take a few times. Helga pulled her blanket a little closer around her. She didn't really get on social media often, but it was pretty entertaining and mindless. She stopped at on a video of a recipe of crêpes. She felt her stomach growl and glanced at her alarm clock. It read 8:30 am.
She kept scrolling and saw a picture of Arnold. The photo wasn't a big deal. It was just a photo of him in the aquarium back home gazing up at fish as they swam above him. The light from the water illuminating the features in his face. He looked so...happy.
And yet Helga felt so miserable without him. She felt so stupid for not just admitting her feelings for him. Instead she just lied. To his face. This wasn't anything new to her. She'd been lying to him her whole life. Why did she feel so bad about it now?
Because he finally gave up on her. What he said was right. He had always been there for her. No matter how mean she had been to him or how much she ignored him he always came back to help her. And she subconsciously always knew he would always be there for her. But this time it was different.
Helga felt the lump form in her throat again and tears started to prick in her eyes. She tried to take a deep breath but it came out shaky. She clenched her teeth together. Don't cry, she thought. But she thought her tears threaten to spill over. But then she heard her phone ring on her nightstand.
Helga reached across her bed and picked up her phone. "Hello?" She said.
"Helga? I hope you're not sitting in your bed moping," Julían said.
"Helga Pataki doesn't mope," Helga said, scowling, pushing her laptop away from her.
"Yeah, sure, ok. You're not moping. Let's go get breakfast," Julían said.
"I'm not hungry," Helga said just as her stomach growled loudly.
Julían laughed, "You know, you're not a very good liar."
I'm a better liar than you think, Helga thought solemnly. "Fine, we can get breakfast. But lets get crêpes," Helga said, standing up from her bed and walking to her bathroom.
Helga looked down at her crêpe and stabbed it with her fork. It was delicious, but her mind was elsewhere.
"Calmate Helga, what did the crêpe do to you?" Julían said, putting a piece of strawberry in his mouth. Helga just sighed and rolled her eyes in response.
"Helga, you should talk to Arnold already," Julían said.
"And why would I do that?" Helga said, picking her head up to scowl at him.
"Because you're obviously miserable," Julían said.
"How do you know I'm miserable? No one has seen me cry and I've been very busy these past few weeks," Helga said.
"Yeah, you've been busying yourself with not crying and being miserable," Julían said, smirking.
Helga glared at him. "You know nothing about me!" Helga said defensively, shoving the rest of her crepe into her mouth.
Julían chewed on the inside of his cheek. "Look, I may not know you or Arnold very well. But its very obvious that you two care about each other. So now you can either do something about it or you can continue to mope and waste your life away. You shouldn't have to walk around day after day, hopelessly in love. I know you're a lot of things, Helga, but I never pegged you as a coward."
Helga sighed. "I've heard that piece of advice before. Fine, I'll talk to him."
Helga pulled the tray of garlic bread out of the oven. "Are you sure Arnold isn't coming, Pheebs?"
"Positive. It's just you, Gerald and I," Phoebe said, placing chicken parmesan on three plates. Helga sighed and walked out of the kitchen.
Helga picked at her food as she half-heartedly listened to one of Phoebe's residency horror stories. Helga normally loved her stories, they were always the perfect amount of horrifying and hilarious. But she was trying to think of a way to subtly get information about Arnold so she could talk to him.
"And then he puked all over the doctor and the nurse slipped in the vomit and knocked all the kids vaccines onto the floor," Phoebe laughed, whipping a tear from her eye.
Gerald laughed, "Babe, you have to get into the crazies situations."
"I don't know why this stuff keeps happening to me! I guess its better than going in and being bored all day," Phoebe said, smiling.
"That's true. You know something crazy like that happened to Arnold today in one of his pharmacology classes the other day," Gerald said.
This peaked Helga's interest. "What happened?" She asked, breathing an inward sigh of releif that she didn't have to bring up Arnold on her own.
"He was in lab working on the 'toxicity of...something' and one of the mice got lose and crawled up his lab partners shirt. She freaked out and starting flailing her arms around ended up tripping and hitting her head on the lab table, knocking herself out. Arnold had to carry her all the way across campus to the student health center," Gerald laughed.
"Wow, if she's afraid of mice she is going into the wrong profession," Phoebe snickered.
"That's very true. Anyway, he stayed with her until she woke up, she ended up being fine, but the professor never found the mouse," Gerald laughed. "I tell you, Arnold will do anything to help people."
"Yeah, he will," Helga said, looking down at her plate. "Excuse me."
Helga felt the lump rising in her throat again as she walked into the living room. She felt pressure in the front of her head as tears started to form in her eyes. No, don't you dare cry, Helga thought. She sat on the couch and took a few deep breaths.
Helga jumped when she heard a voice. "Helga, are you ok?" Gerald asked. Helga quickly turned away and whiped her eyes. "Are you crying?" He asked.
"Crying? Of course not, I just needed a minute to myself, criminy! Is that too much to ask?" She said, standing up and walking back into the kitchen. "Whatever you say," Gerald said, shaking his head.
As Helga approached the table, she tried taking a few more deep breaths to calm herself down, but it didn't seem to be working. Phoebe looked up at her with a worried expression. "Helga?" She said, frowning.
Helga shook her head. "I, uh, need to go." She quickly turned on her heel and ran to her room, grabbing her back back and running out of the front door.
Helga pushed the door open and walked inside. It was dark, but she quickly found a light switch and flipped it on. She walked down the aisle and sat on the edge of the stage, lacing up her shoes. She stood up and took a deep breath.
Helga raised up on pointe and began to dance. She watched the auditorium spin around her and felt her troubles melt away. She leapt into the air and felt goosebumps raise up her arm as she felt free as a bird.
But when she landed her worries seemed to come back to her, because she heard someone calling her name.
"Helga?" Arnold said, looking up at her.
A/N: Thanks for the reviews! Sorry this took so long! Please notify me if you catch any errors.
I do not own Hey Arnold.
