.

.

I was just exiting the ER when my phone rang. I fished it out of my pocket, then flipped it open when I saw that it was Stinky, because I figured they at least deserved to know where I had gone. Plus, I was Allen's ride. I had all his stuff in the car.

"Where are you? We've been tryin' to call you for the past twenny minutes," Stinky said.

"I thought I broke my hand, so I went to the ER," I said.

"Broke yer... what were you doin' out there, Sid?" Stinky asked, sounding confused.

"I punched a wall," I said, "Look, I'll call you later. Let Allen know I'll be by in a little bit to pick him up."

"Sid, how'd chu," Stinky started, but I hung up after that.

I looked down at my hand. God must have been smiling down on me, because I had only broken three fingers and nothing else in my hand. I broke the first three fingers of my right hand. They were taped together and splinted at the moment. Goddamn, I would have to flip people off with my left hand now, but at least I could still kind of play guitar.

"Okay, where do you live again?" I asked Helga, who was sitting the passenger seat.

I don't think she would have come to the ER with me except I told her that I couldn't drive with a broken hand, so on an act of faith, I handed the keys for Dad's precious car to her. She ended up driving safer than me. It was an act of faith that ultimately panned out in my favour.

"Browning Street. I know how to get there from here, so just drive," Helga said, propping her head up with her hand.

"Okay," I shrugged and started the car, carefully backing out of the spot because Dad's car was an absolute beast.

It was like driving a boat. But on land. And nowhere near as fun.

"Take a left at the light," Helga said, now sounding more tired than anything else.

I did so and soon enough, we found ourselves barrelling down Helga's street. I screeched to a halt right outside her house. It looked like a nice house, and she did live in a nicer part of town than I did. Helga unfastened her seatbelt and was about to open the door when I put my hand on her shoulder.

"Why don't you come over to my house tomorrow? We can figure out something to do," I said.

"I'll think about it," Helga shrugged and got out of the car, shutting the door and walking up the steps to her house.

I made a face but waited while she unlocked the door, just to be sure she got inside all right. Once Helga had disappeared into her house, I drove off and pulled a u-turn so I could go and pick up Allen.

He looked pissed when I pulled up to The People's Court. Allen yanked the door open then plopped down in the seat. He grabbed his wallet from his pocket and handed me a stack of bills.

"Thanks for letting me know where you were, jerk," Allen said.

"Yeah, I'm so sorry I didn't put off getting treated for an injury," I rolled my eyes and took the bills, putting them in my own wallet. I would count them later.

"Yeah, because it's totally not a dumbass thing to do, punching a brick wall," Allen said.

"Lay off, dude," I said, lighting up a cigarette.

"Fine, man," Allen said, bringing out a cigarette of his own. "Why do I have a feeling you were out there talking to Helga?"

I took a deep breath and fought the urge to drive right off the street and into the side of a building.

"What if I was? I don't see why you're pissing a bitch fit like a little girl, I'm still here to take you home," I told Allen.

"Whatever," Allen muttered, turning on the radio and blasting the music so we didn't have to say anything more.

The rest of the ride was silent. When I reached Allen's house, I helped him unload all his stuff the best I could with my injury. He didn't even thank me or say good night or anything. Maybe he really was gay and was mad that I didn't return his feelings. But that was just my imagination running wild. He was probably just pissed that I blew the guys off for a chick.

I don't see how he could be mad though, I had just gotten the hottest kiss of my life. Goddamn. I shook my head and focused back on the road. That would be fun to explain to Dad, hey, sorry, I crashed your precious car because I was thinking more about a girl than the road. He'd forgive me for that. Totally.

–

The next day I didn't work, so I sat around bored out of my mind. I burned a few more CDs for Kevin, because he had sold several last night at the show. Kevin had also made us a myspace and Facebook page, so I checked those out to make sure he wasn't spreading lies (he wasn't, except he fudged how we got together, making it sound neater than what really happened). Then I uploaded a few songs to youtube, just to pass the time. It was hard to type with three of your fingers merged into one ginormo-finger.

As I was about to die from the double punch of pure boredom and extreme heat, my phone rang, so I rolled over off my stomach and picked it up.

"'Sup?" I mumbled, not even checking the caller ID.

"Let me in," Helga said, "your door is locked."

"You weren't even gonna knock?"

"I did. Multiple times. Loudly," Helga said.

"Okay, okay, okay, I'll let you in," I said, hopping off the bed and thundering down the stairs. Dad always yelled at me whenever I came down stairs, he said it sounded like I was falling down them.

I unlocked the door and let Helga in. She breezed past me and plopped down on the couch, arms crossed and a scowl on her face. I just looked at her for a few seconds, wondering what crawled up her ass and died. Maybe it impaled itself on the stick that's always lodged there.

After shutting the door and locking it again, I sat down next to Helga on the couch. I sat closer than I normally would dare, figuring I had the leeway to do so since we had a quasi-relationship going on. Helga just looked at me and pulled her cigarettes from her jeans' pocket.

"So, you're angrier than usual. Any reason why?" I fussed like a sissy with my hair, pulling it up off my neck into a bun. God, I sounded like a chick, but seriously it was fucking hot and Dad was too cheap to put on the air conditioning, so I was sweating like a bitch. It was seriously like a hundred degrees out.

"Ol-ga's visiting," Helga said, like that explained everything. She leaned over and ashed her cigarette into the ashtray on the coffee table before leaning back into the couch and kicking her feet up on the tabletop.

"So?" I wiped my forehead, then decided screw it and took my shirt off. "Fuck this fucking weather!"

Helga just looked at me with a, "What the hell?" sort of look. I wadded up the shirt and shot it like a basketball towards the basement door. Once I pushed a few stray hairs out of my face, I stood up and stretched, intent on going to the kitchen and getting something cold to drink.

"You want something to drink? It's hot as hell," I said as I walked to the kitchen.

"Get me a Yahoo, and while you're at it, make me a sandwich."

"I just scoured the kitchen after I hung the laundry up to dry, couldn't the sandwich wait, dear? I'm making a roast for dinner," I pulled a Yahoo out of the fridge for Helga, then after some quick thinking, I grabbed a Rolling Rock from the vegetable crisper.

"If you call me dear again..." Helga warned, twisting the cap off the bottle and taking a swig.

"Yeah, let's lay some ground rules. No calling me anything embarrassing. I would prefer to be addressed by you as babe, beefcake, sex god, or, alternatively, sex tiger."

"Because those aren't embarrassing at all," Helga smirked a little.

"Hardly."

"Well, how about this, you address me as Helga at all times," Helga leaned forward again, dropping her cigarette butt in the ashtray.

"But that's no fun. Why can't I call you Cupcake Sugar Muffin?" I said, cracking open my drink.

"...What?"

"Why not? So what do you want to do? We have the exciting options of making sweet, sweet love; watching something on tv, sitting here trying to out-sarcasm each other, getting a free concert from me, or smoking this crazy super-weed I got."

"Exciting," Helga rolled her eyes. "Just turn on the tv."

I picked up the clicker and turned on the tv, idly flipping through all 15 channels we got with rabbit ears. Dad refused to pay for cable too. Helga didn't look impressed. She probably had like, nine thousand channels at her house since her Dad was the guy who everyone got their cellphones from. It must be nice being rich like that.

"Do you like Divorce Court?" I asked, teasingly.

"This is boring as shit, Sid," Helga lit up another cigarette.

I pulled out a cig of my own and lit up as well. Now that I was eighteen, Dad couldn't do anything to stop me from smoking and dying at fifty six of lung cancer.

"No duh, I was dying of boredom before this. You're not making it any better," I said. Helga was about to make a comeback, but my phone rang. I checked the Caller ID and didn't recognize the number, but the area code was at least for the state.

So I flipped the phone open and stuck it to my ear, then said, "Hello?"

"Hi, Sid, it's Mom."

I choked on smoke and spent the next few seconds hacking.

"W-what do you want, Mom?" I asked, rubbing my sweaty forehead. This heat was seriously kicking my ass.

"I wanted to see if you were free tonight. I want to take you out for dinner for your birthday," Mom said.

Frowning, I stood up and walked to the kitchen, so Helga couldn't hear me as much. Like I wanted her to see me get all pissed off at Mom right now.

"My birthday was two months ago, Mom," I chugged the rest of my beer, hoping it would help. "And you haven't talked to me since Christmas a year ago."

"Well, you're eighteen now, you're an adult, so I just wanted to talk to you like an adult," Mom said.

"Look, unless you're giving me a fucking car, I'm not really interested in helping you continue on your merry way of only-when-it's-convenient parenting," I told her. "So in the kindest possible way, Mom, fuck off. Maybe if you had called on my birthday."

I hung up and quickly finished off my cigarette. Sometimes Mom really pissed me off. It's not like I have deep seated trauma from my parents divorcing or anything, they needed to do it. They weren't a good match. Dad was old and... old. He was a baller before ballers existed. I'm not gonna lie, Mom was hot when she was younger. Like, hot enough that I'm surprised Dad managed to snag her. Thank God she was hot too, or I would have turned out ugly like Dad.

I don't know why they got married though, I don't think they were really in love or anything. Maybe it was a shotgun wedding. Later on, Mom decided she was tired of doing the housewife thing and left to trade raising me in for a shiney new career. I was thirteen and by that time anything I really needed to know (like if you could really go blind by masturbating) could be taken care of by the internet. The was cool for a while, but her whole "I'm a liberated, working woman, hear me roar!" schpeel got a little overrated when she decided that her career was more important than still being my mom. But you know, people are people and they do fucked up shit.

When I walked back out to the living room, Helga was browsing through our collection of tapes, which we used in place of that new-fangled thing called DVR. Mostly, I had just recorded all the crazy conspiracy theory specials they played on the public access channel. There were a few History Channel conspiracy theory tapes in there that I had Harold and Allen record for me.

"See anything you want to watch?" I asked Helga.

"I put a tape about the Vietnam War that looked interesting in and all I got was My Little Pony," Helga said.

"My Little... dammit, Allen's little sister must have recorded over it or something," I said, walking over and picking up the offending tape, putting it in just to check.

Sure enough, it was My Little Pony. But instead of popping the tape back out of the VCR, I watched it for a few moments.

"I think something's wrong with me. I want to keep watching this show," I said as I slowly backed away from the tv and sat down on the couch.

Helga just gave me a look but came over and sat down. Soon enough, I was completely engrossed in the show and resorted to finding the other episodes on youtube. I don't know if Helga liked it or thought I was crazy but the angel still sat through me shouting, "Rainbow Dash, stop being such a cocky bitch!" She probably thought I was crazy.

Then the door opened and I quickly shut my laptop so Dad didn't see me watching a show about ponies. Dad was talking to someone, so I ran to grab my shirt, because really, that would probably be about the last thing the person wanted to see: me, shirtless.

As I pulled the shirt down over my head, I realized too late that it was inside out and I probably looked like I was sex dressed or something.

"Hey, son, guess who's here?" Dad said, walking into the living room with the last person I wanted to see: Mom.

"Hi, Mom," I said.

"Hi, Sid," she said coolly.

"Who's your little friend?" Dad asked.

"Helga," Helga introduced herself.

"We were hanging out," I told them, which was the truth.

"I think it's time she headed home," Dad said, taking his phone and wallet out of his pockets

So I walked Helga outside. It was still blisteringly hot outside, I swear I nearly passed out because the heat was so oppressive. Dad was probably going to give me the chewing out of a lifetime because I told Mom to fuck off. How was I supposed to know she was in town?

"Sorry, I don't know why my mom's there," I shrugged in apology. "I hope your sister's done doing whatever it is that pisses you off."

"She'd have to stop existing for that to happen," Helga said.

"You can always dream, right?" I said, then stood there awkwardly, wondering if I could kiss her goodbye.

"I suppose," Helga sounded tired, but it was probably the heat. "I suppose you could call me later if your dad's stolen your weed again."

I laughed a little, "Okay," I said, then leaned in and kissed her sweaty cheek. "See you later."

Helga bit her tongue, then gave me a look, but she turned and began walking towards the subway station. I watched her for a second or two before I went back inside. Mom and Dad were both waiting for me. My shirt was still inside out. I had a feeling they were thinking I had spent the whole afternoon banging Helga. I wish!

"Go shower and get dressed in some nice clothes, Sid," Dad said. "Your mother's taking you out for dinner."

"...Fine," I muttered, then stalked upstairs. I took as long as I could to shower and get dressed. Sure, I was acting a little like a child, but my parents acted like children sometimes so I figured the least I could do was repay them in kind.

When I came back downstairs, I could hear Mom and Dad talking in the kitchen, so real quietly, I crept up to the entranceway and listened to them talk. Of course, I have no conscience, so I didn't feel bad about eavesdropping. I mean, there had to be some sort of big reason that Mom dropped by after hardly paying me any attention. It sounded like a pretty intense conversation.

"...Don't see why you're getting married again," Dad was saying. "You're still the same girl I married twenty years ago, if it didn't work with me, I don't see why it will work with this guy, who from what you told me, is just like me." Dad sounded pissed.

"Give it a break, Ray, we knew from the beginning our marriage wouldn't work. I've lived with Laurence for the past three years, and I know that we're a much better match."

"I'd say you're just after his money."

"Like hell I am! You think I'm not satisfied with the money I already make?"

"Well, you were never satisfied with what I could give you."

"I'm not having this money argument with you again, all I wanted to do was take my son out for his birthday," Mom sounded just as pissed as Dad. "I can't believe I had to call you just to get him to go."

"I fuckin' wonder why," Dad muttered.

"Don't patronize me, Ray," Mom sighed.

I didn't feel like listening any more, so I walked straight into the kitchen, not really caring if they realized I had been eavesdropping. I said I was ready to go and Mom just looked at me for a while. I didn't think I had dressed that outlandishly: black, ripped jeans, those jump boots Dad bought me, and a t-shirt.

"Ray, you haven't made him cut his hair? He looks ridiculous," Mom said.

"He's standing right here," I said, my patience growing shorter by the second. "Look, Mom, if Dad doesn't have a problem with it, where I work doesn't have a problem with it, and school doesn't have a problem with it, I don't think you should. Let's just go."

Mom gave Dad a face that made it plain she wasn't pleased with how he had raised me or something like that. Dad just gave her a hard look right back so she grabbed her purse and marched out of the kitchen with a, "Follow me, Sid." I sighed and resigned myself to the fact that I would have to spend an evening with my mother.

Twenty minutes later, I was sitting in a restaurant where everyone was looking at me because I was in jeans and the only light came from candles. Also, Mom wasn't lying when she said she was getting married. Not ten minutes after we were seated, I was introduced to Laurence. I called him Laurence once in conversation and he told me to call him Mr Lydell instead. Jesus, dude, I was going to be your stepson.

"We're going to be getting married in the early spring, and we were thinking you should be one of Laurence's groomsmen," Mom said, staring at the wine in her glass before taking a sip.

Christ, the guy didn't even like me. I didn't even know what to think of Mom right then. She thought that she could just disappear from my life and then pop right back in like she had never left? Yeah right, Mom, life doesn't work that way. I was so uncomfortable, I couldn't wait for dinner to be over.

"Look, Mom, it's the twenty-fuckin'-first century, you can have me in your wedding party. Larry here doesn't even like me."

"Sid, you're being unreasonable," Mom hissed, because the people around us were staring since I had raised my voice.

"I don't think I am. Weddings are supposed to be filled with people you care about, and you haven't really made it clear to me that you care about me," I said slowly. "Look, thanks for taking me out for my birthday that was two months ago, it's been a real slice." And with that, I got up and walked out of the restaurant. My tolerance for bullshit was apparently very low that day.

I stopped outside to light up, knowing it would calm me down a little. Not a second later, the door open and Laurence, oh, shit, right, Mr Lydell, stepped out. Then he pulled out a pipe. Fuck that, did he just carry around a Goddamn pipe? Jesus Christ.

He didn't say anything, he just calmly pulled out a pouch of tobacco and put it in his pipe. I watched him light matches and smoke his pipe for a few minutes. Finally, he brought the pipe away from his lips and spoke to me.

"Your mother's a complicated person," he said.

"Thanks for the brilliant bit of info there, Larry," I snapped.

Mr Lydell chose to ignore my sarcastic response, instead he said, "I would have rather us just go to the courthouse. Let her do what she wants and she'll leave you alone."

I snorted, "You think that's what I want from her? For her to leave me alone? That's what she's been doing since she left. She can keep doing it for all I care, I don't need to be in her life because she's making it clear she doesn't want me there," God, I was doing that talking without shutting up thing again.

I decided that I should probably leave before I spilled my guts to the guy, so I turned away from Mr Lydell and made my way to the nearest subway station. When I took a quick glance behind me, he was still there smoking that stupid pipe. And Dad thought that Mr Lydell was like him. Yeah right. They were miles apart.

Instead of transferring to the train that would take me home, I rode the line I was on and got off at a stop by Helga's house. I swear to God the girl was probably going to kick me in the nads or something for showing up at her house unannounced, but what was the worst that could happen?

I forgot how nice her house looked. Still feeling like the same urchin I felt like last time I was near her house, I found my cajones and knocked on her door. While waiting for someone to answer, I absent-mindedly put my hair up since it was still about a bijillion degrees outside.

A girl who was hotter than Helga (as if that was even possible) answered the door. A big smiled formed on her lips.

"Oh, hello! Are you one of Helga's friends?" she asked, her voice fluttery and kind of breathy.

"Yeah, she here?" I asked, shifting my weight from foot to foot. The girl nodded. I realized that it was probably Olga, Helga's sister. "Oh, well, I want to talk to her."

"I'll go get her, why don't you come in?" Olga said, still smiling.

"That's okay," I started to say, but Olga continued to insist, saying that it was dreadfully hot out, and that she would bring me a glass of lemonade. So I stepped inside and waited nervously by the door.

Helga's house looked normal on the inside. Except for a room that was full of trophies. It looked like it once had been a living room. I wondered who the trophies were for until Helga came down the stairs, a surprised expression on her face, like she didn't expect me to come over to her house.

"Sid?" she said, her surprised expression melting into one of anger.

"I just wanted to see if you felt like going out and doing something,"

"Oh, are you taking my baby sister out on a date?" I hadn't realized that Olga was right behind Helga.

Helga blanched, so I tried to rectify the situation, "No, we're not dating. I just wanted to see if she felt like hanging out."

"Oh," Olga sounded almost disappointed. I figured it must be a sibling thing, something I wouldn't understand seeing as I'm an only child.

"I guess," Helga shrugged, "just let me grab my stuff."

While I was waiting for Helga to get her things, Olga took me into the kitchen and poured me a glass of lemonade. And holy shit, it was the best lemonade I ever tasted in my life. I saw Jesus when I drank it.

"This is really good," I gasped after gulping the rest of the lemonade.

"Aw, thank you!" Olga beamed. "I made it myself, from organic lemons I grew on the dwarf lemon tree I planted out back for Daddy..."

"Yo, Sid, let's bounce," Helga said.

She was standing in the doorway, so I thanked Olga for the lemonade and left with Helga. Once we were outside, Helga asked where we were going.

"I dunno, we could go throw rocks at dumpsters. I just got done with the worst fucking dinner of my life, so I don't really feel like going back home and having Dad grill me."

"Sounds riveting."

"Absolutely," I muttered and brought out a cigarette.

We were silent for a while until we came across a place we had stopped at often when we were younger, Slausen's Ice Cream. Neither of us needed to say anything, because of the heat, we were both thinking that ice cream would be fantastic right now. Helga pulled the door open and the cool, air-conditioned air washed over me. This heat was going to be the death of me.

Helga ordered a chocolate milkshake, and before she had a chance to say that we weren't together, I stuck my order of a sundae on there and paid for both of our treats. After handing the cashier a twenty and getting my change back, I joined Helga at the booth she sat at. She was looking out the window, her face pensive. Helga's cheeks were red and her face shone with sweat. I figured I looked about the same.

There was something kind of attractive about her like that, but who was I kidding, I always found her attractive.

"Why'd you say we aren't dating?" Helga asked a few minutes after I got my sundae and she got her milkshake.

"...Because we aren't?" I said, confused as to why she cared. "I don't think I'm dating you, or that you're my girlfriend."

"You make it sound like this is some on the side, summer-fling," Helga said.

I shrugged, "I don't want to make assumptions about what this is or isn't. I'll take whatever I can get."

Helga looked down into her glass, stirring the contents around with her straw before looking back up at me again. I pushed my ice cream away, not hungry any more. Helga's eyes were intense again. Did I end up offending her or something by saying we didn't have a legit relationship?

I never thought that we did, I never asked her out on a date, I never made it clear that we were boyfriend and girlfriend, we only got somewhere yesterday!

"You keep giving me that look," I said, and trying to be playful, "you're going to turn me on."

Helga's cheeks turned faintly pink as she quickly turned her head to look out the window. My phone went off, so I picked it up off the table and answered it only because it was Dad who was calling.

"Hi, Dad," I said.

"Are you still at dinner?"

"No, I haven't been for at least an hour. Mom really pissed me off, so I'm just with a friend now."

"Your little girlfriend with the bushy eyebrows?"

"She's not my girlfriend. I'll be home later, Dad, don't worry," I said, knowing Helga was watching me and listening to what I was saying.

"Whatever you say, son," Dad said before hanging up.

"I don't know why everyone keeps calling you little," I said to Helga, "'cuz you're pretty much as tall as me."

–

Those stupid share buttons are messing up my formatting‼

IN other news, July 7th or whenever I update the story, whatever ends up coming first, I'll be changing this story's rating to M, since it's pretty much running on raunch and swear words.

And again, I want to thank everyone for reviewing and adding the story to their favourites/alerts and such! Much love to you guys, I really appreciate you :)