She felt her eyes go out of focus under the setting sun of the late night, walking back to her dorm after a late night spent at the soup kitchen.

It was the day after she held her boyfriend in her arms as he not only shed that armor of his, but broke down completely. What he had told her made him make so much more sense to her. She's felt as if she was doing a connect the dots puzzle without the numbers to guide her, and has been having to guess which dots connect to which. But now, with his confession, he gave her the numbers. She was able to see how he truly got this way, and every off handed comment at the end of each conversation made that much more sense to her.

"I come out here every weekend, trying desperately to find my way out of this magnetic field my moral compass seems to be stuck in."

"I would call it wise for the moth to fly away for the sake of its own life, rather to risk it because of the draw of the flames."

"You'll be a lot better off once you learn to let go of your preconceived notions of mankind's inherent kindheartedness."

Everything he's said to her made sense to her now. That doesn't mean that she agrees with them, but she understood why he felt the way he does. Her heart broke for him, and yet, she felt an odd sense of pride in him. She could never fathom how much hatred and anger he must have toward this person who took his grandparents life, and she can't even imagine how much it took him to not pull the trigger that day. She was trying her hardest to focus on the positive side to this heartbreaking chapter in his life, that he did the right thing, but her mind couldn't help but play out how it would have happened if he had pulled the trigger that day.

A part of her was telling her that he still has this anger in him, and that he will never let it go, that it will always be a part of him. And she was trying to understand that he can't just let go of it. He has every right to hate that man, even to want him dead, and the fact that he didn't give into that hate that day said a lot about him. But to her, it was also telling her that he's been letting this furious anger fester and boil inside of him for so long that one day, he might just let it out on anyone, and was she was scared of was that it would be her.

She was trying with every fiber of her being to focus on how hard she was falling for him in the hours before he made the confession to her, even when he was confessing it all to her, and even when his shoulders were wracking with sobs that he was trying to stifle into her shoulder while his clinging hands pulled her into him as tight as they could. But now that it has all sunken in, she felt that now she has her answers to the questions she's had since the day she met him, that now she couldn't pull herself out of falling for him, even if she wanted to. And she just might want to.

The sound of a loud rustling in the bushes briefly broke her out of her struggle, and for a moment, she paid it no mind, until she felt her shoulders being forcefully grabbed and shoved forward. Her heart slammed, her body coursing with adrenaline, her voice letting out a shriek as loud as she could without her thinking, before she felt a rough, sweaty, cold hand cover her mouth, stifling her screaming. As her front was slammed against the sharp bark of a tree, she began to thrash violently until another hand grabbed onto her shoulder and spun her around, her mouth still being covered, feeling her heart slam and crash against her chest.

The thrashing for her life came to a dead stop when she felt the cold steel of a knife being pressed into her throat as her wide eyes, quickly fazing eyes looked over to a darkened figure, his face dirty, his eyes dark, but his iris' glowing menacingly over to her as his rough, smelly hand squeezed her cheeks together, watching him, terrified, as his crocked teeth grinned evilly at her.

Just as she was ready to screw her eyes shut and accept her fate, she looked past her attacker to see a faint outline quickly march up behind him. As the figure got with in a few feet, she saw Arnold's dark, serious, emotionless face staring at her attacker just before his arms reached up, grabbed him by the shoulders, wrenching his clothes in his hands before Arnold pulled, hearing him let out a groan of anger as he tossed her attacker to the ground.

Her breath shooting out of her, her heart still slamming against her chest, a cold sweat breaking out over her, she stood motionless as Arnold calmly leered over the man, looking down at him, his expressionless face boring into him. He knelt down over him, his left hand grabbing the man's collar, with his right hand balling into a tight, white knuckled fist, rocking it back before quickly sending it down. She continued to watch, frozen in place, her breath just now coming back to her, as she watched Arnold face away from her, kneeling over this man, sending his fist down repeatedly, his groans of anger getting louder and louder with every punch.

Her breath stopped again when he raised his fist and saw his knuckles covered in blood just before he sent it down again, his fist coming back up with twice as much blood as before. "Arnold..." Her shaky, frightened voice said. He seemed to pay her no mind as he raised his blood covered fist in the air again, sending it down with a groan. "Arnold." She said a little more steadily. As he raised his fist in the air again, seeing his entire forearm covered in blood, she jumped forward, calling out to him, "Arnold, stop!" She shouted, grabbing onto his arm and pulling him back.

Her body locked when he rolled off and saw that she was looking at her own beaten face.

"Ahh!"

Her eyes shot open, quickly jetting from object to object in a darkened room that seemed foreign to her. Where was Arnold? Where was she? Where was the man who attacked her? What happened to her?

Her breath coming in deep, rapid breaths, the slow realization that it was a dream she wasn't quick to grasp. "Helga, what's wrong?" Rhonda asked, her voice very concerned, but still very sleepy.

Helga braced herself against her mattress with her arm, pressing the other against her sweat stained forehead, closing her eyes to steady herself, but the images of her dream flashing in her mind as clear as day. "Just... just a bad dream."

After a moment of silence, Helga heard Rhonda's bed shift. "Are you sure? You seem pretty shaken up." After Helga didn't offer a reassuring response, still trying to shake the mental pictures flashing relentlessly in her mind, Rhonda continued, "You want to talk about it?"

Letting out a sharp breath, focusing every working part of her brain on slowing down her heart rate, she limply shook her swimming head, "No... No, I'm fine. Go back to sleep."

She felt Rhonda's worried gaze on her for a moment before she heard her bed shift again. Helga looked over to the digital clock in the windowsill and saw that it was only three thirty in the morning, and she knew that she wouldn't be getting anymore sleep, paranoid that her nightmare would continue. After letting herself fall back against the mattress, she stared up at the darkened ceiling for only a few, antagonizing minutes before she let out a frustrated sigh and sat up, grabbing her laptop and opening it, distracting herself by deciding to watch a movie.

As morning slowly came, it was only six thirty when Helga decided to get out of bed and go about her routine. It was Monday, and with her nightmare last night, she was relieved when she realized that she didn't have a class with Arnold today. She didn't know if she could face him yet with these pictures in her mind. Her day went by in a daze. If her mind wasn't playing back her nightmare, it was focusing on trying not to. As she stepped off the bus stop near Mary's kindergarten, she hoped that Mary's bright smile and big brown eyes would brighten her spirits. As Mary jumped down the steps of her kindergarten with a smile, latching herself around Helga's legs, Helga smiled, patted the girl on the head and took her hand down the street toward their apartment.

The worst feeling was realizing that she had no one to talk to about any of this. She couldn't talk to Arnold, because he was too close to it. She couldn't talk to Rhonda because she feared that she wouldn't be any help. She couldn't talk to her sister, or any of her family because they didn't even know about Arnold, save for his name. And even if she were to tell her sister, what help would Olga be?

She didn't know how long it would take to get over this nightmare on her own, but apparently, she would have to try.

The front door of the apartment opened with Grace's soft smile breezing through, brightening a little bit when her daughter came running up to her. "Hey sweetheart." Mary's mother said, bending over to hug her daughter before she scampered off back into her room. "Hi Helga." Grace greeted her, setting her purse down onto the table.

"Hey," Helga said, pushing herself off the couch and stepping up to Grace, not meeting her eyes.

"Everything okay? You seem troubled?" Grace asked kindly.

Helga lifted her eyes, and thought. She knew a little about Arnold, she's face heartbreak and tragedy, she seems to have wisdom to offer. "Can I talk to you about something... kind of personal?" Helga asked, pinching her first finger with her other.

"Of course, Helga. What is it?" Grace asked, placing a hand softly onto her shoulder.

Helga let out a breath and walked past her to sit down at the table, and Grace followed after her. After a moment, Helga began to tell her everything. Everything about Arnold, everything she knew about him, what he told her, and what she found out on her own. She told her about how she was falling for him, and how they had gone out on a date a few days ago, and about his confession to her, and about how he broke down in her arms, and about the nightmare she had the night before. And it felt good to talk to someone about all this. She's been holding it in for so long, having to figure out the subtext on her own, but now, she wasn't the only one that knew everything.

"I'm just so conflicted about all this." Helga said, her pleading eyes looking over to Grace. "I mean, I know that I should be proud of him, and that I should love him even more for deciding not to pull that trigger, and I do, but... I can't help but think that he's been holding all this anger inside for so long, that he can't let it go. And I'm afraid that, if he does let it go..." Helga trailed off.

"That he'll let it go on you." Grace's soft voice affirmed. Helga only nodded, looking down at the table. "Listen Helga, I'm going to tell you something that I was going to tell Mary when she was much older. But I feel that it will help you understand what he's going through." Helga nodded again, watching as Grace's eyes went down to the table in front of her. "Brian wasn't just killed in a car accident. He was killed by a drunk driver. I remember that Brian was coming home from a meeting with a real estate agent, because we were about to put a down payment down on a house. I answered the phone thinking that it was Brian, calling me to tell me that he found one, but... it was the hospital. I took Mary and rushed down to the emergency room, and just as I was giving them my husband's name, a doctor came walking up, and I could tell by the look in his eyes that..." Grace's voice began to show her unshed tears as the shake became more evident.

Helga was going to stop her, she's faced enough heartbreaking stories for one week, but she wanted desperately to hear where she was going with this.

"I sent Mary off so she wouldn't hear, and the doctor told me that they did every thing they could, but they couldn't save him. But... the other driver only had a broken arm and a few broken ribs. I know that it makes me a terrible person to wish that it was him who was killed instead of my husband, or even to wish that he was killed along with him, but I couldn't stop myself. He killed my husband, the father of my child, and he got to walk away with his life, but my husband didn't. I know that it wouldn't do anybody any good, but I wanted to see him dead. I wanted revenge, but... I had bigger problems than that. I had to tell explain to my three year old daughter that she wouldn't get to see her daddy anymore. Someday, I might tell her what really happened to her father, but I know by then she wouldn't have any clear memories of what a good man her father was."

After a thick pause between them, waiting for Grace to regain her composure, Helga began. "Excuse me, but... I don't see how this helps me understand Arnold."

"What I'm saying is that I know what it feels like to want revenge on someone. It's a very powerful feeling, and if it wasn't for my daughter, I don't know that I would have had the strength to let it go. If it wasn't for my Mary, I don't know that I wouldn't have given into that feeling. So, what I'm saying is that if he had the chance to get his revenge, but didn't take it because of his grandparents, it says how strong he truly is. But what says the most to me is that he told you all of this to begin with."

"But Grace, things were just starting to get so great between us. I mean, we had just gone on this dream date, and..."

"That's probably why he told you, Helga. He probably thought that if he were to tell you a few months, or few years down the road, it would drive you away. I think the reason he told you is because he wants to be with you as much as you want to be with him, and he wants you to know everything there is to know about him. I think he doesn't want you to fall in love with a facade. He wants you to fall in love with the real him. I think he told you what he did in the hopes that you'd see it and stay with him anyway.

"But I am falling for the real him. I do want to stay with him." Helga argued.

Grace smiled softly and reached over to place her hand on top of Helga's, "Then stay with him."