Changes Undesired

***

She hated herself for it. Why her? Why did SHE have to be cursed with this retched passion for a boy who paid little to no attention to her? When he did acknowledge her existence, it was 90% of the time out of annoyance. She would take what attention she could get.

Helga loves Arnold. No matter how many times she had scribbled that in her notebook, it never seemed to dull the emotion she felt for him. For Arnold. For the enigma inside that football head of his.

She had tried everything to get rid of her obsession. Out-of-love potions, bullying, and the like. How could she still want him after so long? She didn't even see him much anymore. High school changed things. The gang had all matured to some level and they'd all taken up a semblance of normalcy, discarding their foolish childhood notions. The ties that held them all together in fourth grade had loosened to a point of minimum acknowledgment amongst themselves. Sometimes a few of them would get together to rehash old times and maybe catch a flick.

Rhonda and Nadine hardly spoke, Gerald and Arnold were acquaintances, and Phoebe and Helga weren't even friends anymore. She supposed that Phoebe's genius had finally picked up on the fact that Helga was a loser. Sometimes they would bump into each other in the halls and give each other tight smiles, both remembering a time when their innocence permitted them to be friends.

Helga didn't understand why her love for Arnold hadn't dimmed along with all her other friendships. She often wished it had. And then the realization would come to her that, in all the change that had occurred in her universe, this was the one thing that remained the same. In truth, it was her lifeline. Helga would always love Arnold.

***

He played with the cool brass between his fingertips. He'd had this thing forever. It was strange how he even got it. Beginning of fifth grade, and he'd found it lying on the fire escape below his window. He had always had a suspicion that Grandma never really gave Grandpa that locket, and he had found his proof. In the beginning it disconcerted him. First the pink notebook Gerald had showed him, then the poetry reciting parrot, and finally the locket. At the time, he had thought it was pretty weird.

So it was strange how, in the years that followed, he always came back to it. He had begun to think of it in a different way. The heart shaped locket was now a source of comfort. He would wonder sometimes if whoever had once loved him with such obsession, still did. He would also wonder who it had been. And why HIM?

Once junior high had begun, things started to really change. People became different. School became different. Life became different. For Arnold, that basically meant being cut off from all his other friends. Even Gerald. Arnold just couldn't relate to anyone anymore, and it got worse in high school. He remembered his fourth grade years with great fondness; even the thought of Helga's bullying brought a grin to his face. His nostalgia was usually short-lived, however, because reality would eventually set in. He wasn't in fourth grade anymore, and it seemed as if everything was so keen on changing; everything except him.

He took one last glance at the locket in his hands. The metal had warmed to his body temperature. He never DID get it open again, but he had never really tried. Part of him was afraid of destroying the mystery, of unlocking the secret. That part of him was afraid that if he found out who it was behind all this, his only source of comfort would disappear. Because, after all, no one could possibly maintain a crush of that proportion for so long. It had been over 6 years since the end of fourth grade.

Arnold played halfheartedly at the clasp for a few seconds before locking the trinket back in his drawer. Someday he'd do it. Just not today.