Short. Sorry.

….

…...

"Your sister knows you're here," Stella told Helga, as she walked into the kitchen with Arnold. Stella put two plates on the table. "Your not getting out of school today, Arnold."

"Please?" he begged.

"No," she said. "And considering what happened recently between the two schools, it might be wise for Helga to keep her head down."

She looked at Helga. "You can help me set up the guest room. You can stay for now, but your going back Sunday morning. Your family were worried. Why did you run away?"

Arnold looked over at Helga. Come to think of it, she hadn't told him why, either.

"It's complicated," she said, picking up her piece of toast and taking a bite, looking away from everyone.

…...

"Hey, man," Regan said, as Arnold walked up to his locker.

"Hey," he said, opening it and taking out what he needed.

"So, it's gotten around what happened. That you broke up with Clarissa but she didn't accept it," he told him.

"It's a little more complicated than that," Arnold said, closing his locker and sighing. He didn't want to be here today. He wanted to be home. Hanging out with Helga. They could be sneaking off to the movies or something.

"Well, the guys are still a bit angry, but we've all had girl problems," Regan told him.

"Look, it was both our faults. I should have stood by the breakup," Arnold said. Even though it had all ended badly, he still felt bad that people were trying to blame it all on Clarissa. It wasn't all her fault. Arnold had to take a big part of the blame, too.

"She guilt tripped you. Your not the first guy to have that done."

"Lets talk about something else," Arnold said.

But both boys were quiet for a long moment.

"Arnold?" he heard Clarissa's voice ask from behind. He automatically tensed up, but turned around to look at her.

"Hi, Clarissa," he said awkwardly. "How are you?"

"Angry and sad," she said. "I'm sorry I started that fight. I'm sorry I hit her. But she needed to learn to keep her hands off other peoples boyfriends."

Arnold sighed.

"I explained all this to you, Clarissa," he said, frustration creeping in. "I've been tearing myself apart, and I cant keep it up."

"What are you saying?" Clarissa asked, but already knowing the answer.

"I can't date you anymore, Clarissa," he said. He knew Regan was right behind him, and he could see Liam off to the right. "Not when I love someone else. Its not fair on either of us."

He heard the slap, felt the sting, but didn't react.

"I love you!" she screamed. "Why are you doing this to me?"

Arnold looked back at Regan, who looked a bit shocked. Clarissa was supposed to be one of the sane girls in the school . Liam moved forward.

"Your actions cost us that game!" he shouted at her. "Over a guy who doesn't love you."

Clarissa stared in shock at Liam for a moment, before getting angry.

"Stay out of this," she hissed at him.

Liam shook his head at her.

"You know what? Your no better than that nut job friend you had, Lacey. At least she had the decency to-" he never finished the sentence, because Arnold grabbed him and pulled him away.

"Don't," he said. "Don't say something you'll regret later." Liam looked past him at Clarissa, then walked away.

"Arnold, I'm sorry," she said. "How can I make it up to you?"

"Please, just leave me alone," he snapped.

"Is it sex? Is that why your choosing her over me?" Clarissa demanded. Arnold went red. This was getting embarrassing. "It is, isn't it? If you wanted sex, you just needed to ask."

"Argh! No, Clarissa, it isn't about sex," he said. "I just don't think its fair for me to date you when I don't love you."

"But you could," she said. "People learn to love people all the time."

"I don't think that will happen," he told her. "It wont happen."

"You don't know that," she said.

"I do."

…...

Arnold was glad to get away from school that day. Everyone was talking about his and Clarissa's break-up in the hallway. Some people were even choosing sides, which Arnold found ridiculous. All these people feeding on drama that had nothing to do with them, but he guessed that was High School.

His phone was ringing, and he looked to see it was Clarissa. He switched his phone off and put it back in his pocket. He'd been deleting her messages as soon as he got them. She wasn't giving up. When he entered the house, he saw his dad and Helga leaning over a sketch book.

This was one of the reasons why he had wanted to keep Helga's presence a secret. His father and her had a love and talent for art in common and could spend ages trading secrets and techniques, and talking about it. It drove Arnold crazy!

Because Helga wasn't paying attention to him.

"Hey son, how was school today?" Miles asked, as Arnold walked into the room.

"Better. I stood my ground with Clarissa," Arnold told him. He looked at Helga. "It didn't go too well. She's in denial or something I guess."

Helga shrugged.

"She'll get over it," she said, and although she didn't say it, Arnold swore he could hear her thinking 'I did'.

'And look how that ended up for you', Arnold thought angrily. Then felt bad. It wasn't Helga's fault. But it would always be in the back of his head. If she could fall in love with someone else once, could she fall in love with someone else again?

…...

"So what happened that made you run away?" Arnold asked, dropping down on the couch next to her.

"This is going to sound terrible," she said. "But after our team heard what had happened to your team in regards to the whole fight? They kind of threw a party."

"Are you serious?" Arnold asked, angrily. Helga nodded.

"Anyway, the next day I get this text from Phoebe asking me if it's true? And I'm 'What's true?' and it turns out Lucas, who is Gerald's co-captain and the guy who was standing next to me the night of the game, had gone around telling everyone that we slept together."

"Did you?" he demanded.

Helga raised her eyebrows at him, then looked appalled at his question.

"Please," she said, for a moment sounding like Rhonda so much, that Arnold nearly smiled. She'd obviously been hanging around her a fair bit. "I've heard all about him, and nothing I've heard has impressed me."

Now Arnold did left him smile.

"Anyway, Rhonda and co are all excited and telling me to dump you, because your now "The Enemy", and date Lucas "Loser" Wattle," she told him, waving a hand in the air. "And I said 'No way, he's a small cock,' and Rhonda's like 'Date him, Helga, not marry him, sheesh!'. so now I'm getting hassled by them, and Lucas as well, and I needed to get away from it all."

"So you ran away because your getting annoyed?" Arnold asked, amused. Helga shook her head.

"No, I ran away, because I'm getting stalked," she said, pulling out her phone and showing him. "And that's just since this morning."

Arnold couldn't believe it. Her phone was full of messages from this Lucas guy.

"I'm keeping them, along with the emails," she said.

"There's emails?" Arnold asked, shocked.

Helga nodded.

"Wow, and I thought Clarissa couldn't take no for an answer!"

Helga sighed.

"I don't want to go back!" she yelled at the ceiling.

"Tough!" Stella's voice called from the kitchen. "Until you finish school, you need to be there!"

Both Arnold and Helga glared in the direction of the kitchen, then turned to each other.

"Is that an invitation?" Helga asked, slyly. Arnold smiled.

"What are you doing in regards to College?" he asked.

"Taking a year off. Gonna travel around Europe as a starving artist, take many lovers, return home with some incurable sexual disease and become post-humorously famous!" she declared. "You?"

Arnold just kind of stared at her, trying to decide if she was serious or being dramatic.

"Uhhh, NYU," he finally said. Helga smiled.

"Yeah, me too, probably. Though I wasn't completely lying about Europe. I applied to a performance and arts college in England," she told him honestly. "But we'll see what happens."

"England?" Arnold asked. "Like Britain, England? Where the queen lives, England?"

"Yeah," she said smiling. "I don't know if I'll actually go, but I'm thinking about it. I need to make my mind up soon, though. I'm still waiting to hear back from NYU."

"Wait, you've been accepted by this other college already?" he asked.

Helga nodded. "But I'm waiting to hear from some others based here. Will see. Another that's accepted me is in France. That one is pretty exclusive though. One of those, you don't apply to us, we apply to you, kind of deals."

Helga finally looked over at him, and seeing the look on his face, asked what was wrong."

"What's wrong is my girlfriend is leaving as soon as she can!" he shouted.

Stella put down the bowl and went to stand by the door to the lounge. Helga had already told her about her possible plans for after graduation. Sounds like she was telling Arnold now. And he wasn't taking it too well.

"I didn't say for sure I was going," Helga pointed out, getting angry herself. Who was he to get angry at her for being offered such a great opportunity?

"That's not the point! Why didn't you tell me?" he asked.

"We weren't exclusive, you were technically dating someone else-"

"Should have stayed dating her. At least she wanted to be with me!" he shouted at Helga.

Stella smacked her forehead and decided to intervene.

"Okay guys-"

"No one's stopping you from running back to her, Arnoldo," Helga snapped, getting up. "You wanna spend the rest of your life with a crazy, go right ahead. But no way am I making the same mistake my mother did!"

"Okay, you two, calm do-"

"Oh, so now marrying me would be a mistake?" Arnold demanded, getting up also.

"No, compromising my future and dreams would be a mistake!" Helga yelled at him.

"Arnold, Helga, stop now," Stella said.

"What's going on down here?" Miles asked, coming into the room.

"Arnold wants me to be a loser housewife!" Helga yelled.

"I didn't say that!" Arnold yelled. "Helga just wants to run away to Europe and sleep with as many men as she wants!"

"I was joking!" She screamed.

"Were you, Helga? Were you really?" he asked, walking closer to her.

"Alright, that's enough," Miles said, coming in and dragging his son out of the room.

Stella went over to Helga, and got her to sit down.

"What the hell are you doing?" Miles asked.

"She's going away to England or France and didn't even ask me how I felt," he said.

"Really?" he asked, surprised. "Wow, she's lucky."

"Dad!"

"Sorry, but you should be happy for her. It's not easy getting into overseas colleges and universities," he told him.

"I just don't understand why," Arnold said, angrily.

"Well, screaming and yelling at each other and accusing her of wanting to slut around Europe isn't going to help you understand, Arnold," his father told him.

"I don't want her to leave me. Everyone's leaving me all the time," he whispered.

Miles frowned. "What do you mean?" he asked, concerned. Arnold just shook his head, got up and left the room. He glanced briefly at Helga who was crying onto his mothers shoulder, then went upstairs to his room.

He felt awful.

…...

"I couldn't believe how fast it escalated into a fight. It was literally, one second happy, next second ripping each others throats out!" Stella told Miles, later in the kitchen. Both teens had gone to bed. Stella and Miles decided there wasn't a need for "sentry duty" tonight. Neither Arnold nor Helga were talking to each other, and that didn't look to be changing anytime soon.

"They're young," he said. "They'll bounce back. They've been through worse. I'm more worried about Arnold, though."

"Why?" Stella asked, growing concerned.

"He said he didn't want her leaving him, because everyone leaves him," Miles told her.

"What does that mean?" Stella asked.

Miles just shook his head. He had no idea what was going on in his son's head.

…...

Arnold couldn't sleep. He laid awake, staring at his ceiling, wishing he was back at the boarding house with the skylight. He sighed and turned onto his side, seeing his door opening slowly. He sat up expecting his mom, but saw Helga sneaking in instead.

"I'm sorry," he whispered.

She came over to his bed quietly and sat on the end.

"Me too," she whispered back. "It honestly never occurred to me to tell you, because I had kind of ruled it out."

"Really?" he asked.

"Yeah, I was just boasting," she laughed quietly. She crawled forward so she was leaning over him. "I'm not going to lose you again."

"I don't want you to leave me," he said, pushing her hair back. "My parents left me. My parents left me for years, and grandma's left me . . . I abandoned my grandparents after everything they had done for me . . ."

Helga just kissed him.

"I. wont. Leave. Except Sunday morning. But I'll come back. Or you can come back. Whatever, just let me know," she told him smiling.

Arnold just pulled her down for a kiss.

…...