"Ugh, that was brutal..." The girl next to her groaned, dragging her feet out of the room.

"Yeah, did you get number fifteen?" Helga asked her, rubbing her forehead with her first finger and thumb.

"I don't remember..." She said, pressing her palm to her forehead.

"Well, I'll see you after the break." Helga said to her with a wave once they had gotten outside.

"You too, Helga. Happy Thanksgiving!" She said, waving back.

She had just gotten through her last test, and she felt the weight baring down on her lift. Typical that her worst subject would be her last midterm before the break. She felt her phone vibrate in her pocket and she dug it out, seeing a text message from Olga. I'll be up there in an hour and a half to pick you up. Love you little sister!

Rolling her eyes, with a smile nonetheless, she replied. Okay, I'll be ready.

A reply came a few seconds after. Oh, and I invited Grace and Mary over for Thanksgiving dinner. I hope you don't mind.

The thought was actually very pleasant. Mary had become sort of like a little sister to her. Helga has always wondered what it would be like to be the big sister for a change, and it was actually very refreshing, having someone always look up to you. Not at all, the more the merrier.

She slid her phone back into her pocket and made her way back up to her dorm room. She opened the door to see Rhonda packing a few pieces of clothes into her backpack. "Hey Rhonda, I thought you were staying here for Thanksgiving."

"Thaddy invited me to his parents house, and he wants to brag about me to them." Rhonda responded with a bright smirk.

Helga chuckled to herself and went over to her bed and sat down, opening her laptop to check her email, letting her mind wander, and just as she predicted it would, it wandered back to him.

She had done as he asked her to and left him alone. She figured he just needed time to work through whatever it is he's going through, and when he was ready, he would tell her. That was a week ago, and even though he had started showing up to class again, nothing has changed. It was as if he had never met her before. He just kept his eyes staring a thousand yards ahead of him, his face showing no emotion or expression whatsoever, his armor thicker than ever. She was beginning to lose hope that he would ever come around. And since her mind wasn't able to produce the memories of their kiss with out a serious amount of concentration and thought, she was losing her patience. She would have the occasional provocative dream, imagining the sight of his drenched t-shirt clinging to his abs, without the t-shirt of course.

A part of her wanted them to stop, because every time she would see him after one of those dreams, she felt her eyes go hazy, her mind fuzz, and limbs go weak, and it always took a forceful shake of her head to snap herself out of it. She felt like a little girl who had a crush on a rock star, but there was something different. He just had an air of darkness that followed him around, as if there was a dark thunderous cloud that loomed over him every where he went.

And she always felt bad that every time she saw him, that cloud seemed to get a little bit darker. She couldn't help but think that if he would just let himself step out from under it, he would be a completely different person, and she couldn't help but wonder how fast she would fall for him then. But the darker that cloud over him got, she more she knew that he never would. Maybe it wasn't just that he couldn't let it go, maybe he didn't want to. Maybe he wanted to be this dark, cold, distant, emotionally void, shell of a person.

She shook away the last thought, knowing it wasn't true. She knew that there was something to him, he wasn't empty, like he seemed to be. She knew that there was something more to him, she had seen it. More so, he showed it to her. He showed her that he is so disappointed with the world that he removes himself from it as much as he can. He showed her that he isn't emotionally void, he does feel, he isn't a robot. She knows that he feels saddened by what he found in the world when he went out looking for some reassurance. She knows that he isn't trusting in people, he always expects the worst, just so when those expectations are met, he can simply shake his head, sigh, and walk away. But the only reason she knows this is because she figured it out on her own.

He didn't tell her any of this up front. He just answered her when she asked why he prefers to be alone. But that conversation revealed to her a lot more than he probably intended, which is probably why he hasn't really spoken to her since they kissed. But as much as he had unknowingly revealed about himself to her, it all led back to one conclusion. He had told her that he had tried to prove to himself that people weren't as selfish as he thought they were, which said to her that he didn't always think the way he does now, which told her that he once had faith in humanity. And she could only speculate that something must have happened to crush that faith.

"You okay over there?" A voice snapped her out of her thoughts. She knew she had been staring off into the screen of her laptop for about ten minutes, probably looking as if she was hypnotized. She blinked a few times to break her stare and looked up to see Rhonda standing at her closet, her backpack over her shoulders.

"Yeah, just thinking." Helga replied, looking back down at her computer screen.

"Well, Thaddy's waiting for me downstairs. I'll see you after the break, 'kay?" Rhonda stepped forward, leaning down to give Helga a light hug before she skipped out the door with a smile.

After another forty five minutes of vegging on her laptop, her phone vibrated against her leg with a text message from her sister saying that she was waiting in the parking lot. Helga replied with a message saying that she would be down in about five minutes, and went about gathering a few things. She slipped her laptop into her backpack, pulled her sweatshirt over her head, then went out the door.

Stepping outside, she smiled when she saw her older sister waiting for her by the car. "Hey little sister!" Olga called enthusiastically.

"Hey big sister." She said back, much calmer, holding out her arms and hugging her.

"You ready?"

"Yeah, let's go."

They climbed into Olga's car and started off the campus, with Helga still being a bit lost in her mind as she stared out the window. She glanced out the front windshield and a nagging idea popped into her wandering mind, and once it did, it wouldn't let go. "Hey Olga?"

"Yes?"

"Could you stop up here real quick?" Helga asked, pointing up a ways in front of them.

"Why?" She said, slowing down and putting her blinker on.

"I just want to say goodbye to a friend before I leave, that's all."

Once Olga had stopped on the curb, she looked past her little sister, toward the large colonial house a ways off the side walk. Helga jumped out of the car, and quickly jogged across the lawn and knocked on the door. A few moments later, Arnie was pulling open the door. "Hi, I was just wondering if Arnold was here." She said with her heart in her throat.

"Actually, he is. I'll go get him." Arnie turned around and started for the stairs, but stopped once Arnold appeared at the top, "Oh."

Arnold looked down to Arnie, then shot a glance over to her, then down the stairs, making his way down, his sweatshirt and backpack on.

"You sure you don't want to come?" Arnie asked him.

"I'm sure." He replied in the same low tone he always had, not looking back toward his cousin. Even though she was looking him in the eye, he was looking past her. He made his way toward the front door, and she stepped back to let him through, averting her eyes to the ground until he past her and stepped off the porch, making his way across the lawn.

"I'm sorry, I didn't realize he was leaving." Arnie said from behind her. Helga looked back toward the door, Arnie had his hand on the back of his head, a bit of a sullen frown on his face.

"If you don't mind my asking, what was that about?"

"Oh, it's no big deal. I'm going back to my parents house tomorrow morning to spend Thanksgiving with them, and I told him he was welcome to come, but... as you can see, he has other plans." He said, raising his hand out toward the lawn where his cousin had just walked off.

Her heart aching a bit for Arnold's cousin, she sighed and turned to look where Arnold had disappeared. "Have you ever thought about following him, seeing where he goes?"

Arnie chuckled under his breath and shook his head. "I tried that once when we were in middle school, it didn't go over well."

"Middle school? How long has he been doing this?" Helga asked, honestly surprised to find out that he's been doing this for so long.

"As long as I can remember. First time it happened, my parents were pretty freaked out. But when he came home and they asked where he was, he just said he was 'out.' They never did get anything else out of him."

With a whirlwind of questions circling around in her brain, all dying to come out and be answered, Helga was startled by the sound of a honk coming from the street. She looked back and saw Olga waving her in and pointing to her wrist, which didn't have a watch on it. Sighing, she turned back to Arnie with a smile. "Well, I just wanted to stop by and tell him Happy Thanksgiving, but... I guess that's not going to happen."

"It's alright, I wouldn't take it personally." Arnie said with a shrug.

"Anyway, Happy Thanksgiving." She said with a wave behind her as she descended the few steps of the porch.

"You too." He said as he shut the door behind her.

She made her way across the lawn and over to her sisters car, and looked to her left where she saw him turn down the sidewalk, hoping to see where he turned to, but had no such luck. Letting out a small sigh, she pulled open the car door and fell into her seat. "Who was that?" Her sister asked, putting the car into gear.

"Oh, I just wanted to tell my friend Arnold Happy Thanksgiving, but he left before I could get the chance."

"Arnold? Whose that?" Olga asked in a bit of a teasing voice. "Was that the guy I saw walking out?" Helga nodded, not meeting her eyes. "So, who is he?"

Letting out another sigh despite herself, she turned her gaze back out the window at the passing trees. "I wish I knew."

It was on the drive back that Olga had began grilling her little sister about the guy she had mentioned. And with what little she knew about him, most of which being speculation, the only thing that she could say for sure is that he wasn't all that bad looking, which is what she told her older sister. She didn't need to know about the dreams his looks had caused her. "So, you're saying that if it wasn't for Arnold, you wouldn't have had the guts to break up with Justin?"

"That's what I'm saying." Helga nodded.

"I still don't understand how he knew Justin was cheating on you in the first place."

"Neither do I, but I've learned to live with not understanding him over the last couple of months." She said, honestly. True that sometimes the desperate need to ask questions about him was too severe to be bit back, but she's learned to find a bit of patience when it comes to getting her answers. "I don't know what it is, Olga. There's just something about him, something that's drawing me to him. I can't figure out what it is."

"May it be because he's a mystery that you can't solve?"

"Well... that's only part of it." Helga said, looking down at her hands in her lap. After a moment, she felt Olga's eyes go off the road for a moment and onto her.

"What are you not telling me?"

Chuckling under her breath, she began, "Well, I may have... kind of, sorta... kissed him... maybe... in the rain."

"Helga!"

"Before you get your panties in a twist, let me explain." She stopped her, looking over to her older sister, whose jaw had fallen. "It was pouring down rain, and he didn't have an umbrella, and our class was a twenty minute walk from the frat house. And I didn't want him getting sick, so I offered to walk with him back to the frat house with my umbrella. And we started talking, and he started telling me about how people always do what he expects them to, and that his expectations of the world are gone, so I... just decided to kiss him... because he wasn't expecting it."

"So you kissed a boy you barely know just because he wasn't expecting it?!"

"No, Olga, you don't get it. When we kissed, it... it was so..." She trailed off, getting lost in her memories of that stormy day.

"So what?" Olga pressed.

"Amazing..." She drew out, her head falling back against the headrest. "I never felt anything like that before. It was so incredible, and I don't think he even really kissed me back."

"What, are you saying that you felt a spark?" Olga asked, with a smile that Helga could even hear.

"Olga, this wasn't a spark. This was a... this was a forest fire." After Olga didn't offer a response, Helga looked over to see her smirking, still looking ahead of her toward the road. "What?"

"Hm?" Olga hummed, feigning not hearing her, "Oh, it's nothing." She said, smirk still in place.

Narrowing her vision, she shook her head and decided to pay it no mind, and turned back out the window at the thick layer of passing trees.