PART II: HORIZONS

"So Helga definitely didn't know I was back in town."

A few days later found Arnold and Gerald at Blockbuster, perusing the cluttered shelves for horror films. Friday-night marathoning was a long-standing tradition of theirs that Gerald had casually suggested they resume.

Arnold was embarrassed to admit that the offer had pushed him to the brink of tears—a state which had regretfully become commonplace.

Since his visit to the cemetery, he'd found himself tearing up over the smallest of things. Heck, just that morning a dead pigeon in a dumpster had left him pressing the heels of his palms to his eyes.

His parents insisted it was a good thing—a sign that he was beginning to heal.

Arnold didn't know about that. What he did know was that resembling a leaking faucet at his age was mortifying. Thankfully, Gerald was too decent a friend to tease him about it.

"Can't see how she could have," Gerald agreed, spinning on his Heelys. He dumped two DVDs into Arnold's hand before turning to browse the selection on another shelf. "There was a power outage in that backwater town Phoebe's grandparents live in. She didn't get a chance to call your girl before the electricity went out."

He sighed. "Well, that explains why she looked so shocked to see me, I guess."

Not to mention furious, but Arnold was certain that would have been the case regardless.

While a part of Arnold clung to the excuse that he'd needed time to sort his head out before their inevitable confrontation, a much larger part writhed with guilt imagining how Helga must have felt when she learned he'd been back for nearly a month and hadn't reached out once. Had their roles been reversed, Arnold knew he would've felt wretched at being the last to find out.

Especially after sending such a vulnerable letter.

He patted the pocket the envelope was tucked in—for some reason he couldn't quite discern he'd taken to carrying it everywhere—and grimaced as guilt ballooned in his chest.

"Have you seen Evil Twin 4 yet?" Gerald's question pulled him from his thoughts.

Arnold shook his head and found himself with another movie in his hands—A VHS this time.

Gerald considered the small stack of movies Arnold was carrying, and then nodded decisively. "Alright, that should do it. Let's blow this joint—my ass is sweating just standing here."

He rolled down the aisle towards the checkout counter, and with a huff, Arnold followed after him.

They were back at Gerald's place when his friend posed the idea.

"Y'know, I've been thinking," Gerald started, opening the microwave just as it started to beep. The scent of overcooked popcorn filled the kitchen, and Arnold was so hungry that it was almost enough to distract him from the ominous pitch of his tone. Almost.

"How about we throw a party?"

"A party?" Arnold repeated dubiously, grabbing a two-liter bottle of Pepsi Blue from the freezer along with two empty cups. "Why?"

"To welcome you back to the neighborhood, of course!" Gerald said as they made their way up to his room, arms loaded with snacks.

There were few things Arnold could think of wanting less.

"Uh, thanks but no thanks?"

"Oh, c'mon, man! You've been so antisocial lately—"

"I visit you nearly every day!"

"—with other people," Gerald said without missing a beat, "and it's gotten to the point that the old gang has been asking if you dipped again. So here's my proposition: why not throw a party before school starts up, reassure your old buds that you're still alive and not actively avoiding them, and maybe relearn some of those social skills you lost while you were slumming it in the wild? Because let me tell you—there've been rumors going around that you were living like Tarzan over there, and you're on the fast track to getting a moniker you absolutely do not want."

Arnold groaned so loud that Timberly, from her room across the hall, shouted at them to keep it down.

"Sorry!" he called before ducking into Gerald's room. He used his foot to kick the door shut behind him.

"I don't know, Gerald," Arnold said, offloading his snacks and then following his friend onto the bed. The mattress springs complained under their combined weight. "It's not a bad idea, but…I just don't think I'm in the mood for a party right now."

"We'll keep it small," Gerald swore. "Just the old crew. I think it'll be good for you, man. Better to ease yourself back into things now than make it even more awkward by waiting 'til school starts up again."

Like always, Gerald made a convincing argument, but even in the face of all those valid points Arnold was reluctant. It wasn't that he didn't want to reconnect with his old friends. He did. But Arnold still felt so emotionally raw, and the thought of being surrounded by so many people at once—of having to field their intrusive questions and thoughtless comments for hours on end—filled him with dread.

Gerald saw his hesitance and, opportunist he was, went in for the kill.

"Phoebe's returning next week, too. Maybe she could even be convinced to drag your demon spawn girlfriend along. Since, y'know, you're too chicken-shit to just go to her house and talk to her."

"Ex-girlfriend," Arnold corrected as his mind whirred. He bit his lip as some of his resistance faded. "There's no way Helga would come if she knew I was there."

"Maybe, maybe not, but it couldn't hurt to try," Gerald said with a shrug. He stuffed a fistful of popcorn into his mouth and fiddled with the remote as Arnold mulled it over. For a while, all that could be heard was the sound of crunching kernels and the theme song for a Pizza Hut ad spilling from the television speakers.

"Let me think about it," Arnold eventually decided.

"Just don't take too long. I know you've probably forgotten social etiquette while you were swinging from vines in the wilderness, but a decent party needs ample time to plan."

Arnold rolled his eyes and plucked the bowl of popcorn from Gerald's greasy fingers.

"Hey!"

"Just shut up and fastforward the commercials already."

Arnold agreed to the party four days later, not because he was overcome with a sudden desire to be a social butterfly, but because it had become starkly evident that Helga was avoiding him.

After being notified by Phoebe that Helga had only just returned from visiting relatives in Europe, the fact that he hadn't spotted her even once throughout his city jaunts made so much more sense.

Arnold and Helga had always had this uncanny ability to bump into each other at even the most unexpected of places. They'd even joked about it a time or two—

("You're such a sap, Arnoldo. The entire concept of soulmates is a joke," Helga mocked from where she was sprawled on his bed. Her tone was cynical, but when Arnold looked up from his sketchbook, it was to find her watching him with that intense, possessive look she sometimes got when she was too distracted by thoughts to hide it.

Arnold's gut clenched as it always did when he found himself on the receiving end of that stare. As stealthily as possible, he flipped to a new page and began sketching.

"I don't know," he said from the floor as he filled another page with renderings that paled in comparison to the real thing. Not even Monet himself could have captured the clash of emotions he could see in her eyes—desire, obsession, love, and finally, when she realized she'd revealed too much, fear. Her gaze shuttered, and his pencil stilled in response.

"You don't know what?" she asked sharply, wary now. A cat with its hackles raised.

Arnold, who was used to her mercurial moods and the way she bristled when she let herself be too honest, reached out and laced their fingers together. Helga startled like she always did—somehow still taken aback whenever he demonstrated physical affection despite them having dated for half a year now—and then she went boneless just as he knew she would.

"About the notion of soulmates existing being a joke. There's no way to prove it, obviously, but I like to think it's real. That in a world full of billions, there exists one person out there who's meant for you." And because Arnold was so smitten with this porcupine of a girl, he drew their entwined hands down and pressed a kiss to her knuckles.

Helga turned scarlet and made a sound that Arnold nearly lost his life laughing over, but it had been worth it to make her go all soft the way she only ever did with him, eyes bright and so full of fervent adoration that he vibrated like a plucked string. Thirteen years old, and he'd never been more in love.)

—so the lack of sightings had been odd.

But now that she was back, it was inconceivable that he hadn't seen her anywhere. Not even her usual favorite haunts like the arcade, or the movie theater, or the skating rink, or that Korean hole-in-the-wall that sold those tacos she loved…

Not that he'd purposefully stalked out those places or anything. No matter what Gerald accused him of.

Point was, Helga was definitely avoiding him. And because Arnold couldn't muster up the courage to drop by her house unannounced, party it was.

Gerald thought he was just being a coward, which, alright, he could admit to that. With so much at stake, how could he not be afraid?

But fear alone wasn't what kept Arnold from ringing her doorbell. It wasn't as if he hadn't made any efforts to reach out—he'd called both her house phone and her cell, and the first had just kept ringing while the second had been picked up by some old woman with a Haitian accent. Efforts to obtain her new number from Phoebe had failed (not that Arnold blamed her; she was Helga's best friend first and foremost, and he had to respect that).

And yeah, okay, so maybe he had taken to conveniently ending up at her favorite locales in the city. But even the risk of public humiliation was preferred over cornering her at her own house.

Helga hated that place—had once likened it to living inside an André Masson painting—and Arnold was filled with shame for contributing to all the heartbreak and disappointment she'd already experienced in her childhood home. He'd broken up with her there—just one more bad memory in a long line of others—and Arnold couldn't corner her there. He just couldn't.

When they talked, it needed to be on neutral ground, not the hypocenter where everything had gone wrong.

So in a week's time there'd be a party, and hopefully Phoebe would be able to convince Helga to attend. If not, then Arnold would just keep trying until she either agreed to hear him out or told him to stop.

Even if he deserved it, he hoped with all his being that it wouldn't be the latter.

A week later, his welcome back party was in full swing, and just as Arnold had expected, there were a lot more people milling about than his friend promised. Half the neighborhood seemed to be there—spread across Gerald's backyard and occupying every corner of his house. Arnold couldn't take a step in any direction without bumping into someone.

He had met Gerald's eyes across the living room at one point, and at seeing his displeasure, his friend had merely shrugged as if to say whoops, nothing we can do about it now and gestured at him to socialize. And for a while Arnold had, because he wasn't so rude as to avoid the friends who'd come to see him.

So he mingled, and relayed stories of his travels, and did his best to pay attention as he was regaled with his friends' exaggerated shenanigans while being passed from person to person like a hot potato.

All the while, Arnold kept one eye and ear out for a splash of colorful hair or a familiar lilting voice.

Three hours into the party, when he'd made the rounds for the upteenth time and could find neither hide nor hair of Helga anywhere, he was forced to accept the truth.

Helga wasn't coming.

At once all the patience he'd been clinging onto turned to smoke, and he felt almost claustrophobic standing in the midst of so many hot, writhing bodies—the heavy bass of hip-hop music loud in his ears and under his feet. He almost crashed into Phoebe on his way out of the room, and one look into her eyes as they shifted from startled to sympathetic made him desperate to be anywhere but there.

Arnold offered her a strained smile then quickly stepped past her, disinclined to hear what he already knew. He weaved through the sweaty, undulating masses—evading hands meant to reel him in and ignoring calls of his name—and stumbled out the front door.

Only when he was several blocks away did he feel like he could breathe properly again, the oppressive summer heat less intense in the open air. His hands found their way into his pockets, fingers clenching over the worn envelope that hid there, and he just walked until the din of the party was a murmur in his ears, and then silent.

Arnold shouldn't have felt as disheartened as he did. He'd already known that the chance of Helga showing up was slim—had tried to stave off the inevitable disappointment by reminding himself of it over and over, even as he fitted himself in his best clothes and spent several hours preparing what to say. But there was dissonance between what the brain knew and the heart wanted, and Arnold's heart had always been the more demanding of the two.

You'll have other opportunities, he tried to reassure himself as he aimlessly wandered the night-lit streets, feet having long ago memorized the labyrinthine patterns of the city.

At least in this way he would never be lost.

A half-disc moon was high in the sky as Arnold stepped through the entrance of Hillwood Park. There were only a few other people around—a couple necking on a bench, some joggers on the track, a group of college students reading beneath a robust callery pear tree.

He tried to clear his thoughts as he stepped onto a random stone path and traveled deeper into the park but it was pointless; the recollection of his last encounter with Helga, if one could even call it something so tame, kept flickering in his mind like repeating slides from a magic lantern. He shook his head but the unpleasant images refused to fade.

A sharp rattle of metal chains jolted Arnold from his thoughts, and he thoughtlessly looked up and—

Of course.

Of course.

(...Arnold and Helga had always had this uncanny ability to run into each other at even the most unexpected of places…)

A bubble of incredulous hilarity rose in him at the sight of Helga right there, swaying on a swing, but anxiety reared up and dragged it back down. Before he could believe that what he was seeing was an illusion conjured by his own yearning, Helga suddenly looked up and oh. This was real.

It felt like déjà vu, standing so far away and watching her expression transition in the same pattern he'd seen at the cemetery. Arnold heard metal creaking as she shot to her feet, and he moved without thinking, sneakers slamming against the pavement as he overtook the distance between them, unwilling to let her leave when she was finally here.

"Helga!" he shouted, too eager to care about the desperation they could both hear in his voice.

Helga froze as Arnold approached, her hand visibly tight over the chains, and Arnold breathed her name once more.

"Helga, please. Can we talk?"

She took a shuddering breath, face averted so whatever expression she wore was cloaked in shadow.

"Oh, now you want to talk," she said waspishly, and though her words stung, the fact that she'd spoken to Arnold at all nearly bowled him over. He hadn't fully grasped just how much he'd missed her voice until then.

Oh, who was he kidding? He'd missed everything about her.

Arnold needed to make this right no matter what it took.

"Please, Helga," he entreated, edging closer. "I know I don't deserve it, and that you don't owe me anything, but just—please."

Silence stretched between them like a taut rubber band. Arnold's heart pounded as he waited, watching with the assistance of a glowing lamppost as an internal battle warred on her face. He only breathed when she let loose a curse and dropped back into the swing, the chains groaning under her sudden weight.

"You've got two minutes," she said through gritted teeth, still not looking in his direction.

Arnold hesitated, then sat in the swing next to her.

After several failed attempts at starting the conversation, Arnold could only despair. How ironic that he'd spent hours rehearsing exactly what to say to Helga, yet the moment an opportunity presented itself, he found himself void of words.

No, that wasn't quite right. It was the opposite—he had too much to say, and couldn't figure out where to start. The fear of saying the wrong thing, of screwing this up, made the words he'd so painstakingly practiced cower in his throat.

"Well, this has certainly been illuminating," Helga snarked, but there was something hiding in the sharpness of her tone that Arnold only caught because he'd developed a habit for listening for the things that went unsaid—for parsing the honesty that at times could only exist in the space between her words.

There was anger there, and self-reproach, and underneath it all, the unbidden vestiges of bitter disappointment.

I still love you, her letter had said.

He gained courage at the echo of that truth he could still hear in her voice—stifled and unwanted, but there.

"I still love you," Arnold reechoed—thoughtlessly, recklessly.

He turned towards Helga as she choked on her breath, whatever cutting remark she'd been gearing up to say sticking in her throat. For the first time that night they looked at each other, and he knew that the devastation he could see in her eyes was reflected in his own. The words he'd tried so hard to keep under lock and key, both out of self-preservation (they were a painful reminder of what he'd thrown away) and out of guilt (because he didn't deserve to so much as think them, not after causing her so much pain) tore him up from the inside.

But he barrelled on, because Helga needed to know this truth.

"I still love you," he repeated, gripping the chains of the swing so tightly the metal pinched his clammy skin. He watched her unwaveringly, and so didn't miss the way she flinched at his words and turned away as if to ward against them.

Arnold would not let her.

"And I've never stopped, not once."

Helga's piercing laugh scythed the night air and frightened a nearby crow into flight.

"Criminy, this is rich," she laughed, pushing herself to her feet. She spun on Arnold with wild eyes and a smile so jagged it hurt to look at.

"You—your fucking gall to say this to me when you were the one who said we weren't good for each other. When you were the one who pushed me away and treated me like crud. When you were the one who—who fucking left."

Helga was no longer smiling. She loomed over him like a storm, thunderous and vengeful, but Arnold didn't budge—not only because he deserved the onslaught of her wrath, but because he wouldn't have a hope of mending anything if he couldn't even withstand this.

"You left," she shouted, the accusation in her voice a strike of lightning. "After everything you put me through, you just up and left without a single word! And you have the audacity to say that you love me? When I wasn't even worth the second it would have taken you to shoot a text? Though why would you? You'd already made it crystal fucking clear we were over—that you'd never given a shit about me!"

"That's not true," Arnold denied as he stood, refusing to be cowed by her scorching glare even as his heart splintered under the agonizing fusion of guilt and regret that swelled in his chest. "Helga, I know I screwed up. I screwed up so badly—"

Helga scoffed, and Arnold accepted her contempt even as he cannoned through. "I took you for granted, and I shut you out, and I hurt you, and I don't think I'm ever going to forgive myself for any of it. I don't…I don't expect you to forgive me for that either. But I've always cared about you, even though I did an awful job of showing it. You're right—you're completely right. You meant so much to me, and you deserved more than the way I treated you, and I'm so damn sorry, but Helga—don't you dare say I never loved you. I did. I do."

Arnold raked a hand through his hair and fisted the ends, the ache in his scalp momentarily grounding him. He took a careful step forward, trying not to feel like a prey animal pinned beneath a predator's pitiless gaze.

"I'm just—I'm so damn sorry, Helga. For all of it—avoiding you, breaking our promise to always be honest with each other, making you doubt for a single moment that I loved you…I'm sorry."

With his eyes, he pleaded with her to believe him, but Helga's face was a bulwark and she wasn't letting even a shadow of emotion escape.

"You're sorry. Do you think that changes anything?" she asked at last, quiet but harsh.

Arnold's splintered heart cracked in half.

"Only if you want it to," he whispered, putting the broken pieces of it in a crucible and offering it up to her adjudication.

Arnold's hope dwindled with every torturous second of silence that ticked by, but he unflinchingly met her cold gaze. Even if he only had a fraying thread of hope to cling to, he wouldn't let go.

"I hate you," she hissed after a minute had passed—bitter, resigned. She stomped back to the swing and it squeaked as she threw herself into it.

Arnold followed suit, weak kneed, whatever threadbare stings that had been holding up finally cut loose.

"I'm so sorry, Helga," he repeated in a hush, chains jangling as he gripped them.

She clenched her jaw and glanced away.

"Will you let me explain what happened? Before I left? It—it won't excuse any of what I did, but maybe…"

Maybe afterward you would hate me less.

Helga said nothing, just continued staring off into the gloomy distance, so Arnold took a steadying breath and began to talk.

He spared no details. Helga wasn't Gerald, who'd been satisfied with a summary of events and hadn't minded when Arnold glossed over particulars that were too uncomfortable to share.

She'd never been content to have less than all of him, and hiding anything from her would just fuel her belief that she didn't mean as much to him as he claimed.

It used to fascinate him—the strange fixation she had with his honesty, considering she wasn't a very honest person herself. It took him a long time to figure out how flawed his understanding of her was—Helga was honest in her own stilted way if you knew where to look—and even longer to figure out the reason why.

Aside from Phoebe, there wasn't a single person in her life she could trust.

Arnold, optimist he was, hadn't wanted to believe it at first, but it had taken only a few encounters with her family to realize it was true.

Her older sister was distant even when she was around, which was rare, and broke promises as easily as she made them.

Her mom was either drunk or in recovery, and vacillated between being indifferent or irritable depending on which. She, too, made and broke promises as if it were a habit.

As for her dad…well, the less said about him the better.

Once Arnold understood that, Helga's obsession with his honesty made so much sense. It had also made it easier for him to be more honest—to open himself up to her in ways he never thought he could with another person. To give her access to his every thought and worry and desire, just to see her bloom like a sheltered plant finally being exposed to sunlight.

She was starved for it. And Arnold had loved giving her what she needed. Had loved the rapacious adoration in her eyes when he whispered his innermost thoughts to her in the dead of night. Had relished in the fact that after months of burning her ears with endearments and declarations, she finally started to believe him. Trusted him, despite her natural inclination to always doubt.

He'd come to hunger for it, too: the act of carving himself open, letting her see into the very depths of him and trusting that no matter what she found—

(even the dark thoughts he shied away from, twisted emotions he wished didn't exist)

—she'd accept it all. Because he was hers, all of him, every cell, and she cherished him. Found every inch of him wondrous.

What they'd shared had been intense—far more intense than any relationship between teenagers should have been—but he'd loved it. Loved the weight of it, the intimacy, the passion. Knew then, as he did now, that he'd never find a love like it again. Wouldn't even want to without Helga to share it with.

And yet he'd still been stupid enough to throw it all away.

With everything on the line, Arnold poured out his soul.

How deep in denial he'd been over his grandparent's worsening health. How he'd clung to the belief that things would turn out fine and refused to acknowledge that they might not be. How it had taken everything he had just to keep the crumbling pieces of himself together.

And when they died and the illusion shattered, he'd spiraled because in his youthful optimism, in his stupid naivety…he hadn't expected it. He'd been so certain that they would pull through. Would have bet anything on it. Everything.

But they hadn't. And he fell apart.

What he couldn't bring himself to say was this:

Throughout it all, Arnold had pushed everyone he loved away—and Helga most of all because she knew him best. Would have seen straight through the lies he'd wrapped around himself to the grisly truth. He couldn't hide from her, couldn't lie or pretend, so he fettered his own heart and distanced himself instead.

Only when he stopped talking did Arnold realize how silent the park had become—bereft of the muted chatter and laughter from earlier. A firefly blinked into existence on his lap, but he paid it little heed, ears straining for a hint of sound from the girl next to him.

Long minutes passed, and Arnold broke.

"Please say something," he begged.

When Helga finally spoke, her voice was thick. "Like what? What do you expect me to say right now, Arnold?"

"Anything!"

She stood, the swing jerking from the abrupt movement, and began to pace.

"Did you think I didn't already know all that?" she asked. "That I didn't notice you were falling apart? Because I did. You were a goddamn trainwreck, Arnold, and I couldn't do anything but watch you crash and burn because nothing I did or said could prevent any of it!"

She whirled on him, eyes as dark as the starless sky. "Do you have any idea how that felt? Knowing that I wasn't enough to help, that you wouldn't let me?"

She laughed, bitter and self-deprecating, and Arnold didn't think he'd ever hated a sound more.

"It's ironic, isn't it? That the entire time we were together I was constantly worrying about falling short and making you carry too much of the relationship alone. Because being open and honest was your shtick, and you made it seem so damn easy when to me it felt like pulling nails. But the joke was on me, huh? Because when it came down to it, you didn't trust me. Not with anything real. And isn't that a zany role reversal.

"You wanted to know where I stood? Well there it is." She spread out her arms as if to say this is what you asked for, so take a good look. "I thought I knew what we were, but it was a lie. And the fact of the matter is, I don't trust you. Not anymore." Her arms fell. The show was over. She took a deliberate step back. "I don't think I need to say anything more, do I?"

Arnold opened his mouth, then closed it.

He'd known he'd hurt her—of course he had. But knowing just how worthless he'd made her feel had bile rising to his throat. Arnold had never been blind to Helga's insecurities; they were obvious once you realized all her chutzpah and blustering were screens meant to keep anyone from looking too close. It hadn't taken him long to realize that Helga was so much softer than she portrayed herself to be. She had a delicate underbelly that Arnold had spent months proving himself trustworthy enough to see, to touch.

He'd made a promise with himself to protect the fragile side of her that she only ever showed him. To protect her, the way no one else in her life would.

He'd broken his promise, betrayed her trust, hurt her, and how could he ever make amends for that? Did he even deserve another opportunity to try?

A part of him wanted to just leave. What right did he have to interfere in her life when he was the one who walked away?

But a much bigger part—the part that loved this beautiful storm of a girl with everything he had—knew he couldn't give her up without a fight.

Helga spoke of their relationship like it had been a sham—a daydream that unraveled with a harsh tug. But it hadn't been. It had been realer than anything he'd known. And despite how badly he'd messed up, Arnold had to believe that deep down, she knew it, too.

For each bad memory between them, there were ten times as many good.

He had to get her to remember that, and he had to do it fast because Helga was beginning to shut him out. It was in the way she folded her arms, hardened her expression, banked the fire from her gaze.

Panic gripped Arnold, and it was instinct more than anything that had him reaching into his pocket and extracting her letter.

Helga recoiled when she saw it, fracturing the stoicism she'd been raising as a shield. Her eyes, when they met him, were suddenly hot with ire. Before she could unleash any of the vitriol he could see building in her—because that's what wounded animals did, they lashed out—Arnold stepped into her space and yielded what she so clearly desired.

An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, and a heart for a heart. She'd bled, so he would have to bleed, too.

"You want me to be completely honest? Then fine. The truth is, Helga, I resented you."

Helga sucked in a shocked breath, but Arnold pressed forward before she could recoup. He needed to get the words out before his nerves caught up with his heart and he lost his courage.

"You keep saying that I didn't trust you, but that's not it. I did. I trusted you more than I've ever trusted anyone. And that was the problem. I knew that if I gave you the opportunity, you would have helped me come to terms with my grandparents dying. You would have been a rock I could lean on to get me through it. I knew that, Helga, but I didn't want it. I didn't want your help. Because being helped by you would have meant acknowledging that there was a problem at all, and I couldn't handle that. Even though I needed you so damn much, I just couldn't.

"I had never let anyone in as much as I did you, and because of that you became a threat. I could pretend in front of anyone else—but not you. No one knew me like you did. No one saw me like you did. And suddenly it wasn't amazing anymore. It was terrifying."

The words came from a chest inside of him he'd never wanted to open, but now that they were free there was no stopping them.

"When I left, I had this insane idea that I could just put everything behind me and move on. And for a time it seemed to work. The grief became more bearable. I was starting to enjoy life again. But always, at the back of my thoughts, was you. It felt like I'd been chained to you, and no matter what I did I couldn't rid myself of them. And I won't lie—I resented you so much for that."

They were both still as statues. Helga looked spellbound, rapt, and her eyes flickered over his face as if scanning it for truth.

Arnold knew that look; he had been on the receiving end of it countless times before.

It was the same hungry, covetous expression she wore whenever he revealed something about himself that she hadn't known before. And seeing it here, now, rallied his languishing hope. Helga still cared about him, even if she didn't want to. If he could just touch that part of her, coax it awake, he'd still have a chance.

"And then I received this." The envelope crinkled as his grip on it tightened. "Six words, and they dispelled the fog—no, the lie I'd been living in. The one I'd almost convinced myself was true. It was like a bucket of ice water had been upended over me. I hadn't really understood until then how easy it is for me to just…lose myself in self-denial. Because for a moment, I'd almost convinced myself that things were fine. That I wasn't crazy in love with you, that I didn't need you, that you weren't one of the best things to have happened to me, that will ever happen to me."

Arnold took a tremulous breath and took another step forward. They were almost touching now, but still the space between them felt immense.

"Did you mean it, Helga? What you wrote in your letter?"

Her bright hair fluttered as she shook her head. "You weren't supposed to read it. I hadn't meant to send it."

"That's not what I asked. Did you mean it?"

Arnold stumbled as he was suddenly shoved back—not hard enough to send him to the ground, but just enough to create distance, to warn him away, to sting.

"Does it matter?" Helga demanded.

Arnold's eyes bored into hers as if he could pull the truth from them. "Of course it matters. Did you mean it?"

"Yes, I meant it!" she shouted at him. "But it doesn't change anything!"

"It changes everything!" he shot back, letting the envelope fall to the ground so he could reach up and cup her cheeks. The skin beneath his palms were wet. "Helga, I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry. If you wanted me to apologize every day for the rest of my life, I would, and it still wouldn't absolve me of my part in hurting you. I know I don't even have the right to try convincing you to give me another chance, but I am, because what we had—it wasn't fake. It was terrifying and incredible and real, and isn't it worth it to try? If—if we both still love each other?"

Helga closed her eyes. She didn't push him away.

"I don't trust you."

He gently swiped his thumb under her eye—brushed away the dew there. Ignored the burning he could feel in his own eyes.

"I know. I can say I won't make the same mistakes again, but they're just words. Give me a chance to prove to you that you still can."

"I don't know if I can."

His heart slammed against his ribcage as she opened her blue, glistening eyes.

"Please," he whispered. "Don't let our story end here."

The exhale she released sounded like an aborted sob. She bowed her head, and their foreheads rested together. Arnold could smell the spearmint on her breath. The air between their lips quivered as she spoke. It tasted of salt.

"You broke my fucking heart."

"I know. I broke mine, too."

"I hate you so goddamned much."

"I love you more than words can express."

When their lips met, it felt like a continuation of their conversation—Helga resisted, Arnold coaxed. When he sighed her name and nudged their noses together like they always used to, she made a despairing sound before giving in.

Arnold had a second to feel relieved, and then he was clinging to her as she deepened the kiss. It was bruising, punishing, needful. Their teeth clacked painfully together until they adjusted the angle. Hands roughly tugged his hair and he hissed; Helga caught the sound with her mouth and did it again. Bit his bottom lip, then followed it with an unapologetic lick.

"Arnold," she rasped against him, and he felt a lump rise to his throat even amidst the pleasure because he'd come so damn close to never feeling this again.

He went limp in her arms and let himself be devoured.

They laid side-by-side on the rubber ground, arms pressed together as they stared up at the beclouded sky. There was a slight chill in the air, but it was bearable. The skin where they touched made his whole body warm.

Arnold wasn't sure how long they'd talked for. His phone was probably dead; he had no desire to check.

"Why were you at the cemetery that day?" he finally managed to ask the question that had been plaguing him for weeks.

He felt Helga stiffen next to him and turned to face her, but she was looking purposefully ahead.

He nudged her. "Helga?"

She grunted, annoyed. "Well, it's not like I knew you were back. Wouldn't have bothered otherwise."

"And that answered absolutely nothing."

"Criminsy, you're nosy," she prevaricated, and the cogs in Arnold's head started to turn.

"Helga…were you there to visit my grandparents?"

Helga said nothing, which was answer enough.

Something warm and convoluted bloomed in Arnold's chest as he propped himself up on one elbow and hovered over her. It was difficult to tell in the dark, but he thought she might be flushed.

"Helga?"

"So what if I was?" she snapped, persistent in her refusal to look at him. "It's not like you were around to do it! All I did was drop off some flowers and rant about what a raging asshole you were, so don't get all choked up about it."

The warning came too late, because Arnold already was. He shouldn't have felt so surprised. Helga had always gotten along with his grandparents. His grandma had especially been fond of her—used to say that Helga reminded her of herself back in the day, and would always keep homemade tapioca pudding in the fridge for when she came over. Which, after the whole Big Bob fiasco, was almost daily.

When his grandparents' health started to decline, Arnold knew she'd visited them in the hospital regularly. His parents had often mentioned it as a lure, but Arnold had been too stubborn to bite.

Two years after their death, Helga was still stepping up to do what he couldn't.

Arnold didn't deserve this incredible girl, but he was too selfish to let her go.

When Helga finally slanted a sideways gaze at him, he knew she could see all the love, gratitude, and regret clear as day on his face.

"Ugh, you sap," she grumbled, closing her eyes, and yup, that was definitely a blush.

Arnold leaned down and pressed a tender kiss to her hot skin.

"I don't deserve you, but I'm going to do everything I can so I one day will."

He didn't resist when he was pulled down for another searing kiss.

"Did you mean it? When you said we weren't good for each other?"

The question was spoken so quietly he barely heard it over the hum of insects, the soft rustling of distant trees, and the guilty tempo of his heart.

"No," Arnold said, his regret a living thing inside him. "I said it because I was trying to convince myself it was true. Then maybe leaving you wouldn't hurt so much. Obviously it didn't work."

They lapsed into a silence wrought with so many unpleasant memories that he felt suffocated by it. He drew in a breath, and the air almost hurt to breathe.

Tentatively, Arnold brushed Helga's knuckles with his fingers, and when she didn't pull away he slipped his palm into hers. Reacquainted himself with the writing calluses on her fingertips, her delicate bones, the lines and grooves he used to spend ages tracing. Arnold had broken her of the habit of biting her nails, but she must have continued it in his absence for they were blunt now—uneven and coated with chipped polish.

"Remember when we used to joke that our habit of bumping into each other at the randomest of places meant we were soulmates? And you'd laugh at me for being a dork, and I could never make up my mind as to whether I believed in it or not? Well, I'm starting to. Because even after everything that happened—no, especially after everything that happened, somehow everything always leads back to you."

He squeezed her hand and offered her a tight, helpless smile that she devoured with her eyes.

"You know I'm not as eloquent as you are," he whispered, "but if I had to put it into words…I feel like I'm a compass needle and you, Helga, are my true north, always guiding me back home. And I don't know if it's fate or coincidence, it doesn't really matter. All I know is that your side is where I always want to be."

She said his name like a curse and rolled on top of him, drawing him into a starving kiss that made him feel as if she was trying to swallow his words and take them into herself. Arnold let her try.

"You're such a fucking sap," she panted when they broke for oxygen, hatred and love feuding in her eyes. "I despise you."

"You'd run screaming if you knew how much I loved you."

She keened like he knew she would, because she was as darkly possessive as he was, and then she captured his mouth again, claimed his tongue as her own, and any thought that wasn't her namewas scattered to the wind.

"Was there anyone else?"

"Never. How about you?

"Don't be stupid."

They talked throughout the night until both their voices were hoarse, and then they just laid together. Arnold's back ached as the last vestiges of night gave way to dawn. The sun shyly peeked out at them from just over the treetops, illuminating the world in a soft light. Head pillowed in the crook of his arms, Arnold watched as the sky turned pink and the clouds burned gold.

It was often said that any situation would seem better in the light of day, and he had to admit there was some truth to it. Oh, he wasn't naive enough to think that things between them had been miraculously fixed. There was still a junkyard of bad memories and broken promises to wade through. So many more arguments and conversations to be had. It would take weeks, months, perhaps even years for their wounds to heal enough not to hurt.

While Helga's fury had calmed, he knew it was only a matter of time until it flared again. She still didn't trust him—he had not yet given her any reason to, beyond his word, which to her held little weight.

And there were still moments where Arnold found himself shying away from her piercing gaze, uncomfortable at the thought of being seen through by her.

So no, nothing had been fixed. But under the ascending sun his hope gained power, and Helga's head on his chest, over his heart, felt like a new beginning.

They detangled themselves and stood as the world erupted in a cacophony of birdsong, chirping crickets, and a stirring city.

His back popped as he stretched, and Helga shot him a disgusted look as she rolled her shoulders and angled her head side to side.

"We're getting too old for things like this," he sighed, trying to soothe a crick in his neck.

"Pathetic. You'd think all that time spent swinging from trees would have kept you in better shape, huh?" she taunted.

Arnold shot her a deadpan look that revealed none of the butterflies he felt fluttering in his stomach at her casual mention of his years abroad.

"Hilarious," he said, ducking his head to hide his smile. It stretched wider when he heard her snort.

Exhausted and rumpled, they left the park together. Arnold was once again the one to initiate the hand-holding, but he didn't mind. That she didn't pull away was all that mattered. It was progress, and he could be patient with whatever pace she set. He was just ecstatic there was a pace to set. He wouldn't ruin this fledgling thing between them by being reckless or hasty.

Whatever she wanted from him, whatever she needed, he would readily give.

"Thank you," he found himself saying.

"For what?"

"Sending the letter. Giving us another chance." He pitched his voice lower and added, hesitantly, "Continuing to love me despite everything."

Helga stopped in her tracks and barked an incredulous laugh.

"Oh, Arnold," she said, her smile equal parts loving and sour. "I couldn't stop even if I wanted to. And I did. I fucking tried." There was heartbreak in her eyes as she looked at him. "You're so deep under my skin that if I tried to cut you out, I don't know if there'd be anything left of me."

Heart throbbing, eyes stinging, he swayed towards her and lifted himself to his tiptoes to soften the edges of that craggy smile with a kiss. Sunlight limned her face and exposed the shadows in her eyes as she tracked his movements.

"It's only fair," he murmured against her mouth, "since you drove a flagpole through my heart and conquered it as your own. Even from thousands of miles away I couldn't rid myself of your claim. It's as much yours as it is mine."

Avarice flared in her eyes before she lowered her lashes to hide it. "Criminy, what a pair we are."

"It's almost like we were meant for each other, huh?"

Helga scoffed and nipped his bottom lip hard, but her lack of refute didn't go unnoticed.

"Don't tell me the cynical Helga G. Pataki has finally started to believe in romantic things like soulmates—"

"Shut up, football head," she snapped, turning on her heel and storming down the street.

Arnold, whose hand was caught in hers, could do nothing but follow.

He had to jog a bit to match her long strides until she eventually slowed enough for him to fall into step next to her.

"I hate you," she groused, squeezing his hand hard enough to hurt and then lacing their fingers together like a cage. "I hate you so much."

"Yeah," he said, smiling ruefully up at the splendent sun. "I love you, too."

Arnold's second visit to his grandparents' graves went marginally better. After crying himself dry, he leaned against their headstone and tried talking to them like his new therapist suggested. He figured it couldn't make him feel any worse than he already did, so why not?

He was wrong—it was just another harsh reminder that they weren't really there and couldn't respond. Even so, he pushed past the grief in his throat and talked—stilted and awkward at first, until he gained a bit of momentum and the words no longer felt like they were fighting him.

He didn't speak for long—just a few snippets of conversation about his parents and friends. His visit to the boarding house. His progress with Helga. Eventually he ran out of things to say, so he shifted until he was facing the headstone and stared at his grandparents' immortalized grins.

"I…I'm going to be okay," he told them, voice hitching. He tugged at the grass but unlike last time, didn't tear it out. "It hurts—you not being here. I don't think it's ever going to stop hurting. But I know the two of you would have wanted me to be happy, and to live my life to the fullest, so that's what I'm going to do."

He thought he had no more tears left to cry, but he was wrong about that, too. His vision swam and he closed his eyes to try to imagine them not as they looked in the photo, but as he remembered them to be—old yet full of more life than anyone he'd ever known.

"I came back to find the pieces of the heart I'd left behind, and I did." A piece for Helga, and Gerald, and this city he knew and loved. A piece right here, buried six feet below. "It's battered and bruised and I don't know if it'll ever be whole again, but it's slowly healing. And I'm so lucky that I'm surrounded by people who love me enough to help."

Arnold exhaled deeply, then shakily stood to his feet. Wiped his eyes, then beat the dirt from his jeans. He bent over to prop the bouquet of yellow lilies next to the stone pedestal, and took a step back.

"I miss you, grandma, grandpa. So much. I'm going to do my best to live well and become the best version of myself I can be." He adjusted his cap and straightened his shoulders. "Love you. See you soon."

With one final look at their engraved names, their frozen smiles, he turned away.

Arnold was halfway down the hill that would lead to the main trail when a strong gust of wind suddenly swept past, rustling the tree branches above him and tugging colorful leaves into the air.

The hair on his nape rose, and for a second he could have sworn he heard two achingly familiar voices whisper we're proud of you, Arnold, before the wind picked up and all he could hear was its gentle whistle.

Beneath the dazzling sky, Arnold took a shaky breath, blinked away his tears, and forced his heavy feet to move.

Helga and his parents were waiting for him by the entrance—lighthouses signaling safe harbor—and like a battered boat over choppy waters, he allowed himself to be guided by their warm light and the comforting promise of home.

The future was bright and full of promise, and he was ready for it.

The End

Author's Notes: You know, for someone who primarily enjoys fluff, I sure do write a lot of angst. What is it about this pairing that always has me writing emotionally-wrought confrontation scenes, seriously.

Helga and Arnold's relationship was a bit more intense than I usually portray it to be, which ngl, was fun to explore.

Thanks so much for reading, everyone! I sincerely hope you enjoyed it!

As always, feedback is super appreciated. Until next time!