You know, sometimes life gets to the point where you're just absolutely positive that it can't get worse. Everything that could possibly go wrong goes wrong, and everybody and their dog hates you. Then, just as you settle into the fact that you are a worthless scab on the backside of creation, something else happens to deepen the scar.
"Helga, honey, your dad is opening his new beeper emporium in a month. You knew that, right?"
Miriam was stoned out of her mind. Or maybe she was just drunk. I couldn't tell. But at least she was speaking in complete sentences.
"No, Miriam, I didn't. What does that have to do with anything?" I scowled at her, and she smiled in return.
"Oh, honey, why didn't you tell her?" she moaned, laying her head down on the table.
"I forgot! Sue me!" he shouted from the next room, where he had been captivated by the Stars of Fishing marathon for the past four hours.
"Forgot to tell me what, Miriam?! Criminey, I don't have all day!"
She looked up at me through half-lidded eyes. "Oh . . . right. We're moving at the end of the month. To . . ." She started to doze, but snapped back to consciousness. "The South side."
My mouth fell open. That was on the complete opposite side of the city! I wasn't ready for this. Too much had happened recently.
"So what, you're telling me I'll have to start at a new school, make new friends, what are you saying?"
But Miriam was in never-never land, downing all the 12.5% alcohol-content beverages she could handle. I sat in silence. I shut my eyes. His face appeared, like it always did. I tried to smile, but I couldn't.
I called Phoebe that afternoon. "Well, Helga, just because you won't be in the same school as the rest of us doesn't mean we won't still be friends. It'll just be a longer drive to see you, that's all."
"Let's just drop this subject, Pheebs. I'm sick of talking about it."
"Dropping," she said. I had her trained like a Saint Bernard.
I wasn't sure what I should talk about next, so Phoebe jumped in with a new random topic. "So, what did you and Arnold talk about yesterday?"
Ha, there was a good one. We didn't talk much at all. I just tried to share my deepest feelings with him and ended up slapping him across his adorable face.
"I . . . don't really wanna talk about it," I said, biting nervously at a fingernail.
"Helga, I think you do. You can't fool me." Good old Phoebe. Can't pull anything over her eyes.
I twiddled my thumbs for a moment, then sighed. "Fine, you win. He hates me."
"What, you didn't try to tell him . . .?" She sounded shocked.
I laughed quietly, bitterly. "Oh, I tried alright. But he wouldn't listen. He just kept saying how he knows that I've always hated him, and that I was just being nice to him now because I felt bad for him."
Phoebe didn't respond. I thought I might have lost the connection. "Phoebe?"
"I'm here. I'm just . . . surprised. I mean, he's usually so understanding. But I guess he's been through a lot recently, huh?"
"Yeah. But did I tell you I kissed him, at his house the other night?"
"No, you didn't tell me that. You did?!"
I laughed again, not as bitterly this time. "Yeah. He probably just took it as me trying to buy salvation or something. He didn't return it or anything."
Phoebe sighed. At least she felt bad for me. "I can see why you're upset. Did anything else happen?"
I paused. I wasn't sure I wanted to admit this. But I decided that if you can't admit something to your best friend, it probably never happened in the first place.
"Well, when he was accusing me of hating him and trying to buy his forgiveness, I got really mad. I didn't mean to, I just did. And I slapped him."
"Really?! How hard?"
"Hard."
She was thoughtful for a moment, then: "You need to apologize, you know."
I didn't say anything.
"He didn't deserve that. You need to realize that you're reaping what you sowed. You treated him like dirt, and now he's turning it back on you. You need to go and make it right."
She was right. But I wouldn't admit it. "Whatever, Pheebs. Look, I gotta go. I'll see you later."
"Okay. Bye."
I walked outside, not entirely sure of what I was going to do. Things were happening really fast. I didn't want to move. I didn't want Arnold to leave me. I didn't want to slap him, or hurt him in any way. I didn't want to apologize. But I knew I had to.
I took another walk, and once again found myself at Sunset Arms. Another striking coincidence.
I knocked a couple times and waited. Nothing. So I tried the door. It opened without a problem.
The place was quiet. I figured everyone was out, probably working or something. But Arnold wouldn't have any reason to be gone, so I figured he was just upstairs. I pulled down the staircase leading to his room and climbed quietly, hoping that I wouldn't be caught. And hoping that I would be caught and someone would stop me from doing what I had to do.
No one stopped me. And no one would've caught me if I had passed out, which I nearly did. There was Arnold, laying on his bed, an empty bottle of Tylenol next to him.
Everything after that was a blur, until I found myself in the back of an ambulance, holding his hand as they rushed him to the hospital. His face had started to turn blue at one point, but they started him on an IV, and things sort of improved from there. He was breathing really shallowly, though, and he was still awfully pale. I had never prayed before, but I did then. I prayed that, if anyone was listening, Arnold would be as good as new. That he would then fall madly in love with me, and that we would be married and have two point five kids and live in a small suburban neighborhood with a nice house with a picket fence and nice neighbors with children for our kids to play with and nice jobs and a white refrigerator and a toaster and a microwave . . .
I was bawling. I was bawling my eyes out. I was so scared, and I guess I'd had a lot bottled up over the past couple of days. The nurse that was back there with us put her hand on my shoulder and told me everything would be alright. But I didn't believe her. She was just saying that, because that's what she was expected to say. "Everything will be alright." Sure. I mean, that's not the love of your life laying there, dying slowly before your eyes. You're not attached. You're just doing your job. Your stupid, moronic job.
At the hospital they wheeled him into the emergency room, and I wasn't allowed to follow. So I called Big Bob and told him to come pick me up in an hour. He wasn't in the least bit curious as to why I was at the hospital. Not that I expected him to be.
The doctor came out about forty-five minutes later. "Helga?"
"Yes?" I asked, standing up. "Is he alright?"
The doctor sighed. "Yes, he's stabilized. We're working on getting all the poison out of his system. He's going to be in recovery for a day or two. Are you his sister?"
I shook my head. "Just a friend." I'd never described Arnold as that before. I was surprised.
"Well, come and see him tomorrow. That'll be good for him. We'll be talking to a counselor soon, too. He needs professional help."
I nodded. "I know the perfect one. Doctor Bliss. She has an office in the area."
He smiled. "Yes. She's my sister-in-law. That's just who I was going to recommend."
I turned around and started to walk away, but stopped. "He won't be able to pay, you know. He's orphaned."
"He's covered. We won't dump anything else on him now. He can't handle it at this point."
I nodded slowly, then continued out to Big Bob's car, which was parked illegally in the ambulance zone.
As I rode home that evening, I couldn't help but wonder... Was it me who had pushed him over the edge? And if it was me......
Could I live with myself?