Author's Note: Ooh. The heartbreak chapter. Everything's going pretty
good for Helga…well… (Ominous music plays.) On another, non-story note,
who else is PUMPED for the April Fools episode?!? (I felt that deserved an
excess of punctuation.) Thanks for letting me know about that, Houkanno
Yuuhou. I am MORE than excited.
Disclaimer: Come on. Really. What do you think? (P.S. Craig is GOD!)
Part IX
"Confession"
Arnold took Helga out to dinner that night, to "celebrate your real, true homecoming." Her family had wanted her to have dinner with them, but nineteen years of neglect and four years of separation aren't cured in a few hours. Yes, she loved them, and was thrilled that they had finally admitted that they loved her too, but still, there was only so much time she could spend with them.
It was a technique she had learned from Arnold—two steps forward, one step back. It's slower, but you make it eventually. Someday, maybe, the Patakis would be a healthy, emotionally stable family. Right now, Helga just wanted to go out to dinner with Arnold.
She had to hand it to him, she thought, as he pulled her chair out for her to sit. He could make anything into an occasion. They had gone out to Chez Paris, to "make a night of it," Arnold had said. There was something he wanted to tell her, he said, and he wanted everything to be perfect.
That obnoxious little voice in the back of her head was bothering her again. A man dresses up and takes a woman to a fancy French restaurant to tell her something. Gee, I wonder what it could be…
Hey, I already told you to shut up! Despite the faint hopes that she could somehow never quite eradicate from her heart, Helga was sure that whatever Arnold needed to tell her was something completely innocent, nothing romantic whatsoever. Those girlish hopes were things of the past, things that could only get in the way of this newfound, precious friendship with Arnold.
"You look beautiful, Helga," Arnold said from across the table.
"Thank you," Helga replied softly, trying not to blush. Why was it that the slightest compliment from him, which wouldn't have made her blink from anyone else, made her flush and giggle like a teenager? Well, she knew why…
She did look nice, or at least that's what she had thought, dressing back at the boarding house. She had forgone the black for the night, and even the pink of her childhood, settling instead on a deep blue dress. A new relationship with her family, a new beginning, a new color. The dress was cut modestly in front, with a mid-thigh hemline and a low-cut back that was a maze of crisscrossing straps. Sexy without being slutty—perfect for Arnold.
"No, really," Arnold said earnestly, leaning forward slightly. "You look like…a woman."
It wasn't quite the compliment she was hoping for. "Um…thanks, I guess."
He laughed. "No, I mean…that's not what I mean. It's just…" He paused for a minute, trying to decide how best to put his thoughts into words. "When I last saw you—I mean, before Cairo—it was at graduation. And you were still—I mean, you were beautiful then, lovely but still with this innocence, this awful, heart-wrenching innocence, and a look in your eyes like there was something you were hoping would happen, something that you were praying for until the very last minute. You looked like…you looked like Olga when she was our student teacher, when we were children. With a woman's face and a woman's body and everything all grown up and mature, but still with a girl's heart underneath."
Helga was trying to decide how to process this, when their waiter appeared. They placed their orders, Helga ordering hers in fluent French, something she had picked up from her frequent trips around the world.
As the waiter left, Arnold began again. "And then I didn't see you in person again until last week. But I saw you on TV, and in your book jackets, and in articles, and you always seemed a little…lost. Like something was missing. Like you had been thrust into being grown-up too soon, and you weren't sure exactly what you were doing."
Helga felt her ears grow red, and she hoped she wasn't flushing too obviously. It was like he could read her thoughts, could sense the coldness, the loneliness she had felt during those years.
"And then you came into my cell, and I was finally confronted with a really, truly grown-up you," he went on, toying with his silverware. "And you were a woman…but there was something so hurt, so wounded in everything you did. You were skittish, almost…doelike, like an injured animal afraid of the hand that heals it. Am I embarrassing you?" he asked suddenly, looking up at her.
Helga looked down quickly at her hands. "Well…"
"I'm sorry," he said, and she knew that he didn't just mean for embarrassing her. "But…I guess what I'm trying to say is that you were always beautiful. Now you're a beautiful woman."
Helga looked at him, read the piercing honesty in his green eyes. "Thank you," was all she could manage to say.
She didn't have to say much more. Their food came then, and they set to with a will. Helga noticed Arnold glancing askance at her plate.
"Is that…calf brains and eggs?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.
She nodded. "I know, it sounds really gross, but I developed a taste for in the few times I've been in France."
"Are you sure it won't make you throw up again?" he wanted to know.
"Throw up again…?" she asked, confused. Suddenly it hit her—nine years old, masquerading as Arnold's French pen pal Cecile, ordering the same thing here, at Chez Paris, and throwing up in the bathroom…
She cursed her foolishness. Her subconscious had done it, making her order the same thing she had eaten last time she was with Arnold here.
"You…knew?" she asked, unable to meet Arnold's eyes.
"Not at the time," he admitted, shrugging. "Not for a long time, actually. Not until you started wearing your hair down in eighth grade. You had this one piece that always fell in your eyes—like this," he said, reaching across the small table to tuck a lock of hair behind her ear. "It was so familiar to me, and then I realized why…and then I remember walking by your house one day in high school, and seeing that red shoe in the garbage…"
"Mirium tried to get rid of it," Helga said slowly, staring at her food, "because there was only one. She went through all of my stuff and threw out a bunch of it. I saved the shoe from the trash, though. I still have it."
"I suppose it's no good asking you why you did it?" Arnold asked, knowing that she would know he didn't mean rescuing the shoe.
"No," she replied morosely.
"I'm sorry if I made you uncomfortable," Arnold said softly. "I don't want you to be uncomfortable around me."
"I know."
They finished their dinner in silence. When the bill came, Arnold reached for it and began to giggle.
"What?" Helga asked, finally looking at him again.
"I was just remembering," he said, laughing outright now, "the time you invited me and Phoebe and Gerald out and you couldn't pay the bill, and we wound up washing dishes."
Helga started to laugh too, remembering. "I'm surprised they don't have pictures of the two of us in here by now, warning employees not to serve us. That was pretty funny."
"Best date I've ever been on," Arnold teased as the waiter took the check.
Helga paused for a minute. "I did it to impress you," she admitted finally.
Arnold met her eyes. There it was, those green eyes with that question she could never hide from. "I know."
They returned to the boarding house, where they headed up to the roof to look at the stars. Arnold opened his skylight so that the music from his CD player could be heard on the roof. Some old Dino Spumoni love song blared out, and Helga grinned knowingly.
"What was this, your high school seduction mix?" she asked teasingly. "Get a girl in your room and put this on, tell her that the songs reminded you of her and maybe get a little lucky?"
Arnold looked wounded. "I would never do that," he said, his eyes hurt.
She smiled gently. "I know you wouldn't, Arnold. That's why it was a joke."
"Oh."
They sat there as Dino crooned his way through a song about that good old girl from Brooklyn. Elton John followed Dino.
"I like this mix," Helga said, listening to the lyrics. And I guess that's why they call it the blues/ Time on my hands could be time spent with you/ Laughing like children, living like lovers/ Rolling like thunder under the covers/ And I guess that's why they call it the blues…
"His older stuff is great, isn't it?" Arnold asked. "I guess it's sappy, a guy liking love songs, but no one ever accused me of not being sappy. I have about a dozen mixes of love songs."
Helga smiled. "Yeah, I remember you burning CDs back in middle school when most of us were just getting the hang of e-mail. You were always up on the latest technology."
He shrugged. "It was a hobby, I guess. I was interested in a lot of things as a kid." Suddenly he looked at her. "Would you care to dance?"
Something in the way he asked made her cautious. He was planning something, she could tell. He looked far too pleased with himself. But she simply said, "Sure."
He got up and helped her to her feet. Ever the gentleman, he took her hand to dance, formally, rather than the more casual, close arms-around-the-neck dancing spawned on middle school gyms floors during Spring Fling dances. It still took a little getting used to that even in heels, he was a couple of inches taller than Helga.
"You're a better dancer than you were as a kid," Helga said as they swayed back and forth. "You were always stepping on my feet when we had that ridiculous unit in gym class."
"Yeah, we always got paired together," Arnold mused. "I wonder why? You're not half bad yourself."
"Yeah, well, sleep with enough Spanish choreographers and you pick it up," she replied as he dipped her.
"I'm afraid I haven't had the pleasure," he tossed back as she came back up, face to face with him.
"I can't picture you sleeping with anyone, actually," Helga realized out loud. "I guess I still think of you as being nine years old."
"Do you try to?" he wanted to know, his brow furrowed. "And why not? I'm not a 'sexual creature' to you?"
"I plead the fifth!" Helga begged, laughing at the mock-hurt look on his face. "Immunity, please!"
Arnold stopped and watched her double over in laughter, hands on his hips in mock-indignation. "I don't have to stand for this," he said, lifting his chin haughtily.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," she gasped, getting her laughter under control. "You're very sexy, Arnold. You're a total hottie. How's that?"
He smiled slightly. "Better," he replied, replacing his hand back on her waist and leading her across the roof again. "Getting there."
A new song had started, slowing their tempo slightly. The lyrics filtered gently past Helga as they danced. See the pyramids along the Nile/ Watch the sunrise on a tropic isle/ Just remember, baby, all the while/ You belong to me/ See the marketplace in old Algiers/ Send me photographs and souvenirs/ Just remember when a dream appears/ You belong to me…
Arnold spoke abruptly, breaking their silence. "I told you I needed to tell you something," he said, not looking at Helga. "Well, I suppose now would be as good a time as any."
"I'm listening," she assured him, confused.
"I know you are," he replied, "but this…it's hard. I…Helga, I…"
I'll be so lonesome without you/ Maybe you'll be lonesome too/ And blue…
They had stopped dancing. Arnold looked Helga directly in the eye, and said the words that she had been waiting her whole life to hear.
"Helga, I…I think I'm in love with you."
Fly the ocean in a silver plane/ See the jungle when it's wet with rain/ Just remember till you're home again/ You belong to me…
Helga stared at him, trying to find her voice. There it was. "You think…"
He shook his head. "No. That was wrong. I know. Helga, I'm in love with you."
The world stopped. It literally stopped spinning, and people were flung off from the abrupt cease of centrifugal force. The sun came out in the middle of the night, and the stars flew out of the sky, and birds burst into song, and flowers burst into bloom, and the whole of New York City lit up like one giant neon parade. Arnold loved her. He LOVED her. Her! Helga G. Pataki! Helga felt like shouting it out to the world, writing it across the sky with planes, beaming a message across every satellite in the stratosphere. HE LOVED HER!
But before she could even get a handle on her happiness, a small, nagging thought gave her pause.
When she had graduated and left Arnold, for good, she thought at the time, she had believe that there could have been no greater pain in existence. This pain, this disappointment, was greater.
"No, you don't," she said evenly, forcing all emotion out of her voice.
"W-what?" he asked, taken aback. Out of all the emotions and responses she could have had, this was not what he expected.
"You don't love me," she repeated, her heart growing heavier by the word. "You just think you do."
Arnold looked flabbergasted. "Helga, I…"
"No, listen to me now," she said, stepping away from him. "I know you. I know who you are, I know your right-and-wrongs, and your moral hang-ups, and your do-gooder instincts. You want to repay me for all I've done for you, and you have a surge of gratitude that you don't know how else to express. So you think you love me. But you don't," she went on, savagely. "You don't. You love the…the force that gave you back your parents, and saved your life, and freed you from prison, and since I did all that, you think you love me. But you love me for what I did, not who I am."
Arnold tried again to interject. "But you didn't give me a chance…"
Helga's tears were threatening to overflow. "Don't you get it, Arnold? I love you! I. Love. You. I always have. That's why I was Cecile, that's why I teased you, that's why I got you the snow boots…"
"Snow boots…?"
"Never mind. I love you, Arnold. And for your sake—yours, not mine—I can't let you do this. Because I know you, and I know that after a declaration of love you could never bring yourself to take it back, never cause that much inadvertent hurt to another person, and you'd be stuck. Stuck with me, instead of someone who deserves you and your impossible goodness." She was practically shouting now, and tears were streaming down her face, but she barely felt them. Why was it that every time things seemed to be going right, the world had to come in and ruin it?
Arnold seemed to have lost his strength, and now he simply looked sad. "Helga…"
She shook her head. "I'm sorry, Arnold. I'm so sorry…"
Before she knew what was happening, he had pulled her into his arms and was kissing her, harder, more desperately than he ever had before. For a moment she let herself sink into the kiss, drown herself in it. It would be so easy to let go, to let him take over… She was reminded of stories she had heard of people who froze to death, who died because it was so much more pleasant than living; of divers who got so caught up in the beauty they saw under the ocean they forgot about the need for air. That was what Arnold was like. It would be so easy…and such a pleasant way to go…
No. She pushed herself away from Arnold, who was breathing hard, as if he'd just run a marathon.
"I have to go," she said abruptly. "Good-bye, Arnold."
She turned and ran. He didn't follow her, just stood there as the music washed over him. Maybe you'll be lonely too/ And blue…
Helga was glad it was late enough for all of the boarders to be in bed. She wept openly as she threw what few belongings she had with her into her suitcase and headed for the door. She tiptoed down the stairs, careful not to wake Arnold's family as she went. She wanted to say good-bye to Sam and Katie, to thank Gertie and Phil, but more than that she just wanted to get away, get out of Arnold's house, away from the hurt and the boy she had left alone on the roof.
She saw a taxi in the distance and waited impatiently for it to arrive, trying to stop crying. It didn't help that the music from the roof was loud enough for her to hear, mocking her as she stood in her blue evening gown on the street. Fly the ocean in a silver plane/ See the jungle when it's wet with rain… A new color, a new beginning…so much for that. She felt old and broken.
The cab pulled to a stop and she got in, tossing her suitcase in first. As the door closed, the last strains of music followed her, playing inside her heart.
Just remember till you're home again/ You belong to me…
"Good-bye, Arnold," she whispered again, as the streets of Brooklyn faded away, brown and crumbling in the distance, the lights of LaGuardia International Airport gleaming ahead.
Disclaimer: Come on. Really. What do you think? (P.S. Craig is GOD!)
Part IX
"Confession"
Arnold took Helga out to dinner that night, to "celebrate your real, true homecoming." Her family had wanted her to have dinner with them, but nineteen years of neglect and four years of separation aren't cured in a few hours. Yes, she loved them, and was thrilled that they had finally admitted that they loved her too, but still, there was only so much time she could spend with them.
It was a technique she had learned from Arnold—two steps forward, one step back. It's slower, but you make it eventually. Someday, maybe, the Patakis would be a healthy, emotionally stable family. Right now, Helga just wanted to go out to dinner with Arnold.
She had to hand it to him, she thought, as he pulled her chair out for her to sit. He could make anything into an occasion. They had gone out to Chez Paris, to "make a night of it," Arnold had said. There was something he wanted to tell her, he said, and he wanted everything to be perfect.
That obnoxious little voice in the back of her head was bothering her again. A man dresses up and takes a woman to a fancy French restaurant to tell her something. Gee, I wonder what it could be…
Hey, I already told you to shut up! Despite the faint hopes that she could somehow never quite eradicate from her heart, Helga was sure that whatever Arnold needed to tell her was something completely innocent, nothing romantic whatsoever. Those girlish hopes were things of the past, things that could only get in the way of this newfound, precious friendship with Arnold.
"You look beautiful, Helga," Arnold said from across the table.
"Thank you," Helga replied softly, trying not to blush. Why was it that the slightest compliment from him, which wouldn't have made her blink from anyone else, made her flush and giggle like a teenager? Well, she knew why…
She did look nice, or at least that's what she had thought, dressing back at the boarding house. She had forgone the black for the night, and even the pink of her childhood, settling instead on a deep blue dress. A new relationship with her family, a new beginning, a new color. The dress was cut modestly in front, with a mid-thigh hemline and a low-cut back that was a maze of crisscrossing straps. Sexy without being slutty—perfect for Arnold.
"No, really," Arnold said earnestly, leaning forward slightly. "You look like…a woman."
It wasn't quite the compliment she was hoping for. "Um…thanks, I guess."
He laughed. "No, I mean…that's not what I mean. It's just…" He paused for a minute, trying to decide how best to put his thoughts into words. "When I last saw you—I mean, before Cairo—it was at graduation. And you were still—I mean, you were beautiful then, lovely but still with this innocence, this awful, heart-wrenching innocence, and a look in your eyes like there was something you were hoping would happen, something that you were praying for until the very last minute. You looked like…you looked like Olga when she was our student teacher, when we were children. With a woman's face and a woman's body and everything all grown up and mature, but still with a girl's heart underneath."
Helga was trying to decide how to process this, when their waiter appeared. They placed their orders, Helga ordering hers in fluent French, something she had picked up from her frequent trips around the world.
As the waiter left, Arnold began again. "And then I didn't see you in person again until last week. But I saw you on TV, and in your book jackets, and in articles, and you always seemed a little…lost. Like something was missing. Like you had been thrust into being grown-up too soon, and you weren't sure exactly what you were doing."
Helga felt her ears grow red, and she hoped she wasn't flushing too obviously. It was like he could read her thoughts, could sense the coldness, the loneliness she had felt during those years.
"And then you came into my cell, and I was finally confronted with a really, truly grown-up you," he went on, toying with his silverware. "And you were a woman…but there was something so hurt, so wounded in everything you did. You were skittish, almost…doelike, like an injured animal afraid of the hand that heals it. Am I embarrassing you?" he asked suddenly, looking up at her.
Helga looked down quickly at her hands. "Well…"
"I'm sorry," he said, and she knew that he didn't just mean for embarrassing her. "But…I guess what I'm trying to say is that you were always beautiful. Now you're a beautiful woman."
Helga looked at him, read the piercing honesty in his green eyes. "Thank you," was all she could manage to say.
She didn't have to say much more. Their food came then, and they set to with a will. Helga noticed Arnold glancing askance at her plate.
"Is that…calf brains and eggs?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.
She nodded. "I know, it sounds really gross, but I developed a taste for in the few times I've been in France."
"Are you sure it won't make you throw up again?" he wanted to know.
"Throw up again…?" she asked, confused. Suddenly it hit her—nine years old, masquerading as Arnold's French pen pal Cecile, ordering the same thing here, at Chez Paris, and throwing up in the bathroom…
She cursed her foolishness. Her subconscious had done it, making her order the same thing she had eaten last time she was with Arnold here.
"You…knew?" she asked, unable to meet Arnold's eyes.
"Not at the time," he admitted, shrugging. "Not for a long time, actually. Not until you started wearing your hair down in eighth grade. You had this one piece that always fell in your eyes—like this," he said, reaching across the small table to tuck a lock of hair behind her ear. "It was so familiar to me, and then I realized why…and then I remember walking by your house one day in high school, and seeing that red shoe in the garbage…"
"Mirium tried to get rid of it," Helga said slowly, staring at her food, "because there was only one. She went through all of my stuff and threw out a bunch of it. I saved the shoe from the trash, though. I still have it."
"I suppose it's no good asking you why you did it?" Arnold asked, knowing that she would know he didn't mean rescuing the shoe.
"No," she replied morosely.
"I'm sorry if I made you uncomfortable," Arnold said softly. "I don't want you to be uncomfortable around me."
"I know."
They finished their dinner in silence. When the bill came, Arnold reached for it and began to giggle.
"What?" Helga asked, finally looking at him again.
"I was just remembering," he said, laughing outright now, "the time you invited me and Phoebe and Gerald out and you couldn't pay the bill, and we wound up washing dishes."
Helga started to laugh too, remembering. "I'm surprised they don't have pictures of the two of us in here by now, warning employees not to serve us. That was pretty funny."
"Best date I've ever been on," Arnold teased as the waiter took the check.
Helga paused for a minute. "I did it to impress you," she admitted finally.
Arnold met her eyes. There it was, those green eyes with that question she could never hide from. "I know."
They returned to the boarding house, where they headed up to the roof to look at the stars. Arnold opened his skylight so that the music from his CD player could be heard on the roof. Some old Dino Spumoni love song blared out, and Helga grinned knowingly.
"What was this, your high school seduction mix?" she asked teasingly. "Get a girl in your room and put this on, tell her that the songs reminded you of her and maybe get a little lucky?"
Arnold looked wounded. "I would never do that," he said, his eyes hurt.
She smiled gently. "I know you wouldn't, Arnold. That's why it was a joke."
"Oh."
They sat there as Dino crooned his way through a song about that good old girl from Brooklyn. Elton John followed Dino.
"I like this mix," Helga said, listening to the lyrics. And I guess that's why they call it the blues/ Time on my hands could be time spent with you/ Laughing like children, living like lovers/ Rolling like thunder under the covers/ And I guess that's why they call it the blues…
"His older stuff is great, isn't it?" Arnold asked. "I guess it's sappy, a guy liking love songs, but no one ever accused me of not being sappy. I have about a dozen mixes of love songs."
Helga smiled. "Yeah, I remember you burning CDs back in middle school when most of us were just getting the hang of e-mail. You were always up on the latest technology."
He shrugged. "It was a hobby, I guess. I was interested in a lot of things as a kid." Suddenly he looked at her. "Would you care to dance?"
Something in the way he asked made her cautious. He was planning something, she could tell. He looked far too pleased with himself. But she simply said, "Sure."
He got up and helped her to her feet. Ever the gentleman, he took her hand to dance, formally, rather than the more casual, close arms-around-the-neck dancing spawned on middle school gyms floors during Spring Fling dances. It still took a little getting used to that even in heels, he was a couple of inches taller than Helga.
"You're a better dancer than you were as a kid," Helga said as they swayed back and forth. "You were always stepping on my feet when we had that ridiculous unit in gym class."
"Yeah, we always got paired together," Arnold mused. "I wonder why? You're not half bad yourself."
"Yeah, well, sleep with enough Spanish choreographers and you pick it up," she replied as he dipped her.
"I'm afraid I haven't had the pleasure," he tossed back as she came back up, face to face with him.
"I can't picture you sleeping with anyone, actually," Helga realized out loud. "I guess I still think of you as being nine years old."
"Do you try to?" he wanted to know, his brow furrowed. "And why not? I'm not a 'sexual creature' to you?"
"I plead the fifth!" Helga begged, laughing at the mock-hurt look on his face. "Immunity, please!"
Arnold stopped and watched her double over in laughter, hands on his hips in mock-indignation. "I don't have to stand for this," he said, lifting his chin haughtily.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," she gasped, getting her laughter under control. "You're very sexy, Arnold. You're a total hottie. How's that?"
He smiled slightly. "Better," he replied, replacing his hand back on her waist and leading her across the roof again. "Getting there."
A new song had started, slowing their tempo slightly. The lyrics filtered gently past Helga as they danced. See the pyramids along the Nile/ Watch the sunrise on a tropic isle/ Just remember, baby, all the while/ You belong to me/ See the marketplace in old Algiers/ Send me photographs and souvenirs/ Just remember when a dream appears/ You belong to me…
Arnold spoke abruptly, breaking their silence. "I told you I needed to tell you something," he said, not looking at Helga. "Well, I suppose now would be as good a time as any."
"I'm listening," she assured him, confused.
"I know you are," he replied, "but this…it's hard. I…Helga, I…"
I'll be so lonesome without you/ Maybe you'll be lonesome too/ And blue…
They had stopped dancing. Arnold looked Helga directly in the eye, and said the words that she had been waiting her whole life to hear.
"Helga, I…I think I'm in love with you."
Fly the ocean in a silver plane/ See the jungle when it's wet with rain/ Just remember till you're home again/ You belong to me…
Helga stared at him, trying to find her voice. There it was. "You think…"
He shook his head. "No. That was wrong. I know. Helga, I'm in love with you."
The world stopped. It literally stopped spinning, and people were flung off from the abrupt cease of centrifugal force. The sun came out in the middle of the night, and the stars flew out of the sky, and birds burst into song, and flowers burst into bloom, and the whole of New York City lit up like one giant neon parade. Arnold loved her. He LOVED her. Her! Helga G. Pataki! Helga felt like shouting it out to the world, writing it across the sky with planes, beaming a message across every satellite in the stratosphere. HE LOVED HER!
But before she could even get a handle on her happiness, a small, nagging thought gave her pause.
When she had graduated and left Arnold, for good, she thought at the time, she had believe that there could have been no greater pain in existence. This pain, this disappointment, was greater.
"No, you don't," she said evenly, forcing all emotion out of her voice.
"W-what?" he asked, taken aback. Out of all the emotions and responses she could have had, this was not what he expected.
"You don't love me," she repeated, her heart growing heavier by the word. "You just think you do."
Arnold looked flabbergasted. "Helga, I…"
"No, listen to me now," she said, stepping away from him. "I know you. I know who you are, I know your right-and-wrongs, and your moral hang-ups, and your do-gooder instincts. You want to repay me for all I've done for you, and you have a surge of gratitude that you don't know how else to express. So you think you love me. But you don't," she went on, savagely. "You don't. You love the…the force that gave you back your parents, and saved your life, and freed you from prison, and since I did all that, you think you love me. But you love me for what I did, not who I am."
Arnold tried again to interject. "But you didn't give me a chance…"
Helga's tears were threatening to overflow. "Don't you get it, Arnold? I love you! I. Love. You. I always have. That's why I was Cecile, that's why I teased you, that's why I got you the snow boots…"
"Snow boots…?"
"Never mind. I love you, Arnold. And for your sake—yours, not mine—I can't let you do this. Because I know you, and I know that after a declaration of love you could never bring yourself to take it back, never cause that much inadvertent hurt to another person, and you'd be stuck. Stuck with me, instead of someone who deserves you and your impossible goodness." She was practically shouting now, and tears were streaming down her face, but she barely felt them. Why was it that every time things seemed to be going right, the world had to come in and ruin it?
Arnold seemed to have lost his strength, and now he simply looked sad. "Helga…"
She shook her head. "I'm sorry, Arnold. I'm so sorry…"
Before she knew what was happening, he had pulled her into his arms and was kissing her, harder, more desperately than he ever had before. For a moment she let herself sink into the kiss, drown herself in it. It would be so easy to let go, to let him take over… She was reminded of stories she had heard of people who froze to death, who died because it was so much more pleasant than living; of divers who got so caught up in the beauty they saw under the ocean they forgot about the need for air. That was what Arnold was like. It would be so easy…and such a pleasant way to go…
No. She pushed herself away from Arnold, who was breathing hard, as if he'd just run a marathon.
"I have to go," she said abruptly. "Good-bye, Arnold."
She turned and ran. He didn't follow her, just stood there as the music washed over him. Maybe you'll be lonely too/ And blue…
Helga was glad it was late enough for all of the boarders to be in bed. She wept openly as she threw what few belongings she had with her into her suitcase and headed for the door. She tiptoed down the stairs, careful not to wake Arnold's family as she went. She wanted to say good-bye to Sam and Katie, to thank Gertie and Phil, but more than that she just wanted to get away, get out of Arnold's house, away from the hurt and the boy she had left alone on the roof.
She saw a taxi in the distance and waited impatiently for it to arrive, trying to stop crying. It didn't help that the music from the roof was loud enough for her to hear, mocking her as she stood in her blue evening gown on the street. Fly the ocean in a silver plane/ See the jungle when it's wet with rain… A new color, a new beginning…so much for that. She felt old and broken.
The cab pulled to a stop and she got in, tossing her suitcase in first. As the door closed, the last strains of music followed her, playing inside her heart.
Just remember till you're home again/ You belong to me…
"Good-bye, Arnold," she whispered again, as the streets of Brooklyn faded away, brown and crumbling in the distance, the lights of LaGuardia International Airport gleaming ahead.