Okay, let's see, poll question of the week
What will you be doing on New Years?
Drinking with friends......A
Drinking with Family......B
Drinking with Significant Other.......C
Drinking with yourself.......D
Not Drinking (freak).......E
Chapter Seven
Helga walked across the street, dressed in black, her thin frail arms gently holding her pocketbook. Upon her eyes were dark, large sunglasses, and if you didn't know her, you could easily think that she was a woman in hiding from some sort of force.
-----The whole town is wet under the rain-----
She closed her eyes, as the wet consistency of the air on this gray afternoon gently caressed her skin.
-----Tonight, and during the cold day-----
Thoughts rang through her head, reoccurring ideas, strange fancies. What was going on in her life? Why was she there, what was the point of all the mistakes she had made? Deep in the dampness of tomorrow, her future must have been, but it seemed farther now from her than ever. No matter how hard she tried to reach for it, she never could.
-----We're no longer together-----
Arnold should have been out of her life, she promised herself on that rather similar rainy day that never would she see him again. But there she was again, she reappeared like some sort of sad memory, and their lives were interlocked again.
-----Too bad-----
He'd hurt her once, but perhaps that was because she was naïve, perhaps it was because she allowed him to hurt her, because she wanted him to. Because she was the only one who really knew the true man hidden underneath the clever agenda, perhaps it was because he made her smile, and cry. And laugh, and weep. Perhaps because no one had ever caused such conflicted emotions within her. She felt so much and yet so little, such dependence, and yet such hate.
-----And it doesn't matter whose fault it was-----
He was somewhere right now; he would always be somewhere to her. She could never shake loose of him, she could never forget that, as long as he was alive, as long as he was breathing somewhere, it was the same as if he sat at the precise moment in her bedroom, in her bed, alongside her and Noah, making love.
-----I walk the streets alone-----
Noah, she could not forget Noah. That sweet boy who made her dreams come true, with whom she felt beautiful, and frail, and womanly. A man who had the ability to enthrall her and bore her simultaneously, please her and annoy her at the same time. He was too good for her, but he didn't know that, and she did. She wanted to tell him, she tried to tell him, but there was more sound, more loud thunder from the words she was afraid to utter than those that had the boldness to escape the barrier of her lips.
-----Our unsaid words form a wall-----
The silence destroyed them, a constant fear, a life of polite disillusionment. She didn't know Noah, Noah didn't know her. What had become of their relationship? Something that seemed so right in the beginning dwindled down to a small knot of confusion that even the most clever and able of all could not untie. She was trapped in the middle of that knot, and life could not approach her from the outside. And Noah was long gone, trapped in some other knot she knew nothing about.
-----Alone-----
Left in what they had were only mindless conversations, and constant need to pretend. Helga hated pretending. At this rate, she would need to pretend eternally, until---
-----Until there's nothing left-----
Until life became a dream, a blur, a disguised element of pain. Until she no longer wanted to live, until death came to gather her rich entrails to itself.
-----The world becomes a black and white movie-----
Oh how gray the streets looked as she paced quickly through them on her long, thin legs, in her dark pumps. Noah was somewhere too, she had left him alone, to pursue some sort of excitement in her hometown. Of course, she was headed towards the home of her lover, but Noah could never imagine the woman he loved to be imperfect, to be less than holy, and completely spotless in the big picture.
-----I know that you're still waiting for me-----
He didn't want her to leave him. He wanted her to spend the day with him, to love him, to hold him. He was dependent on her, he needed her, constantly. Without her he was nothing. It was foolish of him to base his life on her. But there he was, doing it. And she almost hated him for it.
-----But love is flying away -----
The more she looked on him, the more she wondered what she saw in the first place. He was, of course, very handsome, and his heart was kind. He knew how to treat a woman, how to please a woman. But Helga was not a normal woman. She needed the opposite of what others required, she needed blunt honesty, and drama, and tears, and madness, and passion, and hate. She wanted someone to love her, but never let her know that they did. She wanted someone to make her feel weak, while, in the midst of passion, secretly holding her dearer than anything on earth. She wanted someone to please himself, while simultaneously pleasing her. Noah was none of these things.
-----You cannot return it-----
But once in her life, there has been something, something dark and passionate, dangerous and pleasurable. Something that made her feel a heaviness in the pit of her stomach, something that made her feel like a woman. And her loss of that something tore her up from within. Soon, tears began to appear across her face.
-----I'm not crying it's only the rain-----
And there it was, that hopeful complex, his apartment building in plain sight. She hurried toward it, her black shoes clinking against the wet sidewalk, a gentle beat to the music of the rain. Her hands became impatient, her facial expression turned to lust, and her arms felt like they just didn't belong to her body. She forgot about Noah, she forgot about common sense, she forgot about life altogether. She did not care if she died today, she did not care if she lived today, all she cared about is two bodies touching, bidding reality...
-----Good Bye-----
...Goodbye.
-----La La Fa-----
And it's all the same record from here, a broken record, a beautiful broken record, broken vows, broken integrity's, pointless hoping, lost dignity. But did she care? Not at all.
-----These Notes-----
He opened the door and they did not need words. Immediately, she leapt into his arms, their lips roughly stroking against one another, wet, sticky, pointless, hard, hot---
-----Lonely-----
They were not people anymore. They were beasts.
-----You and me-----
She tore off his shirt, revealing his muscular chest, as it pressed roughly against her own, as he buried his hands underneath her skirt, as she wrapped her legs around him. He fondled her flesh, smiling evilly, hearing her moan.
-----Cannot make it on time-----
A sudden rush, as she flew to her feet, as he chased her, as he stopped her at the door. She whispered something about it all being wrong, about it never being able to work out, about how they were destroying everything, how they simply could not go on. And then he told her to shut her mouth, to put herself to use, to not cry, to just not fucking cry. She obeyed immediately, as he began to unbutton the front of her dress, as his mouth fed on the porcelain smoothness, as she leaned her head against the door, as he traced his lips up the canal of her neck, and toward her mouth. And then it was all right again, so wrong that it was right.
-----La La Fa-----
They undressed one another quickly, he traced his path down her cleavage line, around her ribs, roughly fondling with his tongue her belly button. She moved her legs convulsively, feeling his hot breathing against her skin. It tickled her and she laughed, long sobs, she smiled and cried, and closed her eyes, and felt that the inevitable would come someday, but did not fear it. She felt shame and indignation, humiliation, fear, danger, but it all mixed into an orgasmic formula that aroused her more than it threatened her.
-----How sad-----
And then he was on top of her again. She quivered under his weight. They lay on the floor, the cold parquet sheltered her nude body. His muscular chest, his strong arms, all holding her motionless under his grip, the muscles on his thighs pressing into her. They smiled at one another, an intense, understanding smile, and then, without warning, he pushed himself inside of her, as she threw her head back, biting her lips, feeding on his mouth. He deeper inside of her than Noah ever could go, than any man could go. He went quickly, swiftly, carelessly. Nonetheless, he found her spot, he knew how to work it. She spread apart her legs wider, she banged her head on the hardwood floor. Soon, her own body began to follow the rhythm, roughly elevating itself and then drawing down onto the wood. Up and down they went, quickly, swiftly, all the while experiencing all the ecstasies of love. The pain, the pleasure, the dark, sensational feeling of being dirty. The enjoyment of the sin, the glorious culmination. Sweat, heat, dark, light, pain, pleasure, moans, screams, hands, hair, lips, kissing, abandon, regret, love, hate, tears, laughter, loss, gain, farewell, hello, reality, fantasy, explosion---climax!
-----La La Fa-----
And then it was over, and the reality of what she had just done began to sink in. Helga remembered the sweet smile of Noah, his careful hands, his gentle caresses. She remembered how bright the sun seemed to shine when he was by her side, the safety that she had experienced, lying in his arms on a midsummer night, listening to his sweet voice, to his heart beating. Arnold could never give her that security, that romance, that happiness. He could satisfy her lust, but never could her provide her with love.
-----As a goodbye-----
She dressed quickly, trying not to look at him, afraid to meet his eyes. But she felt him on top of her. She regretted everything that she had done. Once she loved a boy. A boy with cornflower hair, her beloved, and her despair. That boy had a kind and gentle heart, he could make her heart awaken with one single smile, with one touch, with one word. That boy she adored because he was nothing like her. He cared for other people, it did not matter to him who you were or what you had done. To him, all that mattered was that you were human, he respected you just for being that. And that boy would sacrifice everything to stand up for what he believed. He thought everything was possible, he believed into everything. She loved him for that, that boy with cornflower hair. That boy was Arnold, but he was not longer a boy. He was a man, a man who had changed. He was a man much like herself, with the same views, the same cold indifference to everything. A person afraid to show their emotions, afraid to say that they loved someone, for fear that it might make them seem weak. A person who felt unnatural to be happy. A person who did not believe in anything, and there for was willing to sacrifice nothing. And now she saw the plain truth, that she loved the boy, not the man. Now she knew why she felt so strongly for Noah. Noah was what Arnold had been once, for what she once loved Arnold. Because she could not bring the boy with the cornflower hair back, she searched for an alternative. She found it in Noah, and suddenly, she wanted him to be there with her.
-----Maybe you'll come-----
She knew she had to tell him, so she did.
"Arnold," she said slowly, "I can't do this anymore."
-----To finish singing our song-----
And now, she was running through the streets, her eyes were wet, her body was shaking on the inside. She was silently weeping, feeling her inner conscious fill to the rim, feeling as if she would explode from what had happened seconds earlier.
-----On the boulevards are wet umbrellas-----
He looked at her in disbelief, as if it was hard to fathom what it was that she was saying.
"You're kidding, right?"
"No," she said, "I'm sorry, I cannot explain it to you---I---" She felt feint.
"You better fucking explain it to me!" he exclaimed, making her shake. Their eyes met and she felt as if she were about to melt.
"What do you care, anyway?" she said slowly, "I'm leaving in a week, two days after Phoebe's marriage. And then we'll never see each other again anyway."
"Oh, alright. That's what I was to you then? A one week attraction?"
"No!" she exclaimed, "You got it all wrong---I---I mean---wasn't that what I was to you?"
"No," he said, "no that's not what you were to me, because when I heard your heart beating just now, I felt like the happiest man alive. Thank you, Helga, thank you very fucking much."
-----Above the river are wet bridges-----
"What?" she exclaimed, angry now, "You fucking liar! All your life you've been chasing after that little twerp Lila, you never cared about me. Did two years ago never occur to you? When you promised me the world, when all the while you were after hurting me? And for what? For something my father did to your grandfather thirteen years ago!"
-----A yellow flame is shaking in the dark-----
"Don't start with that!"
"Don't start with that? You expect me to forget? I loved you once, but I don't love you anymore and that bothers you. So stop pretending, because I'm not putting up my heart to be broken again!"
-----It's a taxi-----
"You stupid bitch!" he exclaimed, "You think you can live without me? Is that why every time you promise never to return you come back and fucking let me fuck you all over again? Don't you get it? You can't live without me!"
-----I know you're still waiting for me-----
"I can live without you!" she screamed, her heart racing, "I'm going to live without you!"
"Please!" he laughed, "You're madly in love with me, you always were and you always will be. You're pathetic!"
-----But love is flying away-----
"No!" she screamed, "You are!"
"I am?" he smiled, "You're saying that I'm pathetic? I'm sorry honey, but I did not spend my entire lifetime being devoted entirely to you. From the time I was nine years old I did not consider you my 'first love' or something like that---that speech you made to me. You're nothing to me, you never were and you never will be."
"Then I'm going to go, and never see you again, good bye!"
-----You cannot return it-----
He grabbed her by the arm, spinning her around. Some sort of impulse did not allow him to let her go. He could not stand the sight of her, walking out on him, slamming the door. He could not stand it.
-----I'm not crying it's only the rain-----
"Let go of me!" she screamed, "Let go of me!"
"No!" he replied.
"Why not?" sobbed, "why can't you just let me go? I'm trying to escape you, Arnold, please, just let me go!"
"Look at you! You are so depressing, you are so painful to even look at! What does he see in you?"
And then she realized what Noah saw, what made her perfect in every way.
"He sees something that you can't!" she screamed and he fixated on her.
"Oh really?" he asked sarcastically, "And what is that? What can he possibly know about you that I don't?"
"He knows that I am a human being, and he respects me because I am a human being," Helga exclaimed, "And he doesn't care who I am or what I have done because those types of things do not matter to him. He is capable of forgiving! And he is kind and pure and gentle, and he is ready to sacrifice everything for what he believes, and he believe into everything. He is everything I am not, and that's why I love him, and he is everything you are not, and that's why I don't love you!"
-----I'll try to forget you-----
He fell silent. Suddenly, the reality of the situation began to sink in to Arnold too. Time had passed, and everything had changed, and he realized that Helga loved someone who did not exist until she met Noah. Arnold was but a ghost of her past, only the villain in the love story, the one evil spirit that came between the two happy lovers.
-----What can I do? -----
But he didn't want that, he wanted to be the hero, he wanted her to love him, he was not used to her not feeling anything for him. She was, after all, the only woman who ever did care. She was the only real thing left in his life, the only hopeful promise for a future of honesty and happiness. Without her, there was only a secession of nameless, faceless women, women who did not care about him, women for whom he could never care. What had he done? Over and over her repeated the same mistake. Helga was not pathetic, Arnold was.
-----I need to live on-----
And suddenly, he wanted to tell her that he loved her, he wanted to tell her that she meant everything in the world to him. But she wouldn't have believed him, she wouldn't have accepted him. She would have said that he was trying to trick her again, she would have said that this was yet another evil plot of his to run her down into the mud. He'd broken her heart twice before, and she would never trust him with it again. So, Arnold decided not to say to Helga what he wanted to say. He felt that her rejection would damage his pride. He couldn't let that happen, he couldn't let her last memory of him be negative, a broken down man, who wanted her but couldn't have her.
-----And it doesn't matter whose fault it was-----
So he released her, silently bidding her goodbye, and she ran away, not once turning back.
-----I walk the streets alone-----
And she was crying. She ran across the street, feeling him still on her, still smelling his cologne, still experiencing the sensation of him being inside of her. But she could not let that thought overshadow reality. Did she not establish only moments ago that she felt nothing for him anymore? After all, he felt nothing for her. Where could their relationship possibly go? After all, she loved Noah. She loved him. She loved him. She loved him. And it didn't matter that she had to repeatedly tell herself that. And it didn't matter that not once did she feel entirely convinced.
-----Our unsaid words form a wall-----
It was over with Arnold, it was but a distant memory, she could not hold on to it, she left it all behind. But why did it still hurt so much? Why did she still feel so hopelessly hopeful when she should have simply stopped, and politely whispered---
-----Good Bye-----
-----La la Fa-----
And Noah was waiting for her now, still sitting in the hotel room, still not going out and seeing the sun and smelling the roses.
-----These notes-----
He was waiting, but she didn't want to go to him.
-----La La Fa-----
She did not want anything, she wanted to disappear, or become a bird, and never have to go back
-----Loneliness-----
Life became like a dream, a dream from which she could never awaken.
-----We can't bring back anything now-----
She walked the streets in sadness, soaked under the rain, her high heels clinking sadly.
-----La La Fa-----
Eternal Heartbreak, she would never be fulfilled, never be happy. She loved someone and hated them simultaneously.
-----So sad-----
Nothing could save her now, she was all alone in this world, she did not know which way to turn, she had nowhere to go.
-----La La Fa-----
It was all like a distant memory, like she'd seen all this before, like it was just reoccurring madness.
-----As a goodbye-----
And the only thing on her mind was the last thing she should have considered.
-----Maybe you'll come-----
The last person she should have considered.
-----To finish singing this song-----
Arnold.
What will you be doing on New Years?
Drinking with friends......A
Drinking with Family......B
Drinking with Significant Other.......C
Drinking with yourself.......D
Not Drinking (freak).......E
Chapter Seven
Helga walked across the street, dressed in black, her thin frail arms gently holding her pocketbook. Upon her eyes were dark, large sunglasses, and if you didn't know her, you could easily think that she was a woman in hiding from some sort of force.
-----The whole town is wet under the rain-----
She closed her eyes, as the wet consistency of the air on this gray afternoon gently caressed her skin.
-----Tonight, and during the cold day-----
Thoughts rang through her head, reoccurring ideas, strange fancies. What was going on in her life? Why was she there, what was the point of all the mistakes she had made? Deep in the dampness of tomorrow, her future must have been, but it seemed farther now from her than ever. No matter how hard she tried to reach for it, she never could.
-----We're no longer together-----
Arnold should have been out of her life, she promised herself on that rather similar rainy day that never would she see him again. But there she was again, she reappeared like some sort of sad memory, and their lives were interlocked again.
-----Too bad-----
He'd hurt her once, but perhaps that was because she was naïve, perhaps it was because she allowed him to hurt her, because she wanted him to. Because she was the only one who really knew the true man hidden underneath the clever agenda, perhaps it was because he made her smile, and cry. And laugh, and weep. Perhaps because no one had ever caused such conflicted emotions within her. She felt so much and yet so little, such dependence, and yet such hate.
-----And it doesn't matter whose fault it was-----
He was somewhere right now; he would always be somewhere to her. She could never shake loose of him, she could never forget that, as long as he was alive, as long as he was breathing somewhere, it was the same as if he sat at the precise moment in her bedroom, in her bed, alongside her and Noah, making love.
-----I walk the streets alone-----
Noah, she could not forget Noah. That sweet boy who made her dreams come true, with whom she felt beautiful, and frail, and womanly. A man who had the ability to enthrall her and bore her simultaneously, please her and annoy her at the same time. He was too good for her, but he didn't know that, and she did. She wanted to tell him, she tried to tell him, but there was more sound, more loud thunder from the words she was afraid to utter than those that had the boldness to escape the barrier of her lips.
-----Our unsaid words form a wall-----
The silence destroyed them, a constant fear, a life of polite disillusionment. She didn't know Noah, Noah didn't know her. What had become of their relationship? Something that seemed so right in the beginning dwindled down to a small knot of confusion that even the most clever and able of all could not untie. She was trapped in the middle of that knot, and life could not approach her from the outside. And Noah was long gone, trapped in some other knot she knew nothing about.
-----Alone-----
Left in what they had were only mindless conversations, and constant need to pretend. Helga hated pretending. At this rate, she would need to pretend eternally, until---
-----Until there's nothing left-----
Until life became a dream, a blur, a disguised element of pain. Until she no longer wanted to live, until death came to gather her rich entrails to itself.
-----The world becomes a black and white movie-----
Oh how gray the streets looked as she paced quickly through them on her long, thin legs, in her dark pumps. Noah was somewhere too, she had left him alone, to pursue some sort of excitement in her hometown. Of course, she was headed towards the home of her lover, but Noah could never imagine the woman he loved to be imperfect, to be less than holy, and completely spotless in the big picture.
-----I know that you're still waiting for me-----
He didn't want her to leave him. He wanted her to spend the day with him, to love him, to hold him. He was dependent on her, he needed her, constantly. Without her he was nothing. It was foolish of him to base his life on her. But there he was, doing it. And she almost hated him for it.
-----But love is flying away -----
The more she looked on him, the more she wondered what she saw in the first place. He was, of course, very handsome, and his heart was kind. He knew how to treat a woman, how to please a woman. But Helga was not a normal woman. She needed the opposite of what others required, she needed blunt honesty, and drama, and tears, and madness, and passion, and hate. She wanted someone to love her, but never let her know that they did. She wanted someone to make her feel weak, while, in the midst of passion, secretly holding her dearer than anything on earth. She wanted someone to please himself, while simultaneously pleasing her. Noah was none of these things.
-----You cannot return it-----
But once in her life, there has been something, something dark and passionate, dangerous and pleasurable. Something that made her feel a heaviness in the pit of her stomach, something that made her feel like a woman. And her loss of that something tore her up from within. Soon, tears began to appear across her face.
-----I'm not crying it's only the rain-----
And there it was, that hopeful complex, his apartment building in plain sight. She hurried toward it, her black shoes clinking against the wet sidewalk, a gentle beat to the music of the rain. Her hands became impatient, her facial expression turned to lust, and her arms felt like they just didn't belong to her body. She forgot about Noah, she forgot about common sense, she forgot about life altogether. She did not care if she died today, she did not care if she lived today, all she cared about is two bodies touching, bidding reality...
-----Good Bye-----
...Goodbye.
-----La La Fa-----
And it's all the same record from here, a broken record, a beautiful broken record, broken vows, broken integrity's, pointless hoping, lost dignity. But did she care? Not at all.
-----These Notes-----
He opened the door and they did not need words. Immediately, she leapt into his arms, their lips roughly stroking against one another, wet, sticky, pointless, hard, hot---
-----Lonely-----
They were not people anymore. They were beasts.
-----You and me-----
She tore off his shirt, revealing his muscular chest, as it pressed roughly against her own, as he buried his hands underneath her skirt, as she wrapped her legs around him. He fondled her flesh, smiling evilly, hearing her moan.
-----Cannot make it on time-----
A sudden rush, as she flew to her feet, as he chased her, as he stopped her at the door. She whispered something about it all being wrong, about it never being able to work out, about how they were destroying everything, how they simply could not go on. And then he told her to shut her mouth, to put herself to use, to not cry, to just not fucking cry. She obeyed immediately, as he began to unbutton the front of her dress, as his mouth fed on the porcelain smoothness, as she leaned her head against the door, as he traced his lips up the canal of her neck, and toward her mouth. And then it was all right again, so wrong that it was right.
-----La La Fa-----
They undressed one another quickly, he traced his path down her cleavage line, around her ribs, roughly fondling with his tongue her belly button. She moved her legs convulsively, feeling his hot breathing against her skin. It tickled her and she laughed, long sobs, she smiled and cried, and closed her eyes, and felt that the inevitable would come someday, but did not fear it. She felt shame and indignation, humiliation, fear, danger, but it all mixed into an orgasmic formula that aroused her more than it threatened her.
-----How sad-----
And then he was on top of her again. She quivered under his weight. They lay on the floor, the cold parquet sheltered her nude body. His muscular chest, his strong arms, all holding her motionless under his grip, the muscles on his thighs pressing into her. They smiled at one another, an intense, understanding smile, and then, without warning, he pushed himself inside of her, as she threw her head back, biting her lips, feeding on his mouth. He deeper inside of her than Noah ever could go, than any man could go. He went quickly, swiftly, carelessly. Nonetheless, he found her spot, he knew how to work it. She spread apart her legs wider, she banged her head on the hardwood floor. Soon, her own body began to follow the rhythm, roughly elevating itself and then drawing down onto the wood. Up and down they went, quickly, swiftly, all the while experiencing all the ecstasies of love. The pain, the pleasure, the dark, sensational feeling of being dirty. The enjoyment of the sin, the glorious culmination. Sweat, heat, dark, light, pain, pleasure, moans, screams, hands, hair, lips, kissing, abandon, regret, love, hate, tears, laughter, loss, gain, farewell, hello, reality, fantasy, explosion---climax!
-----La La Fa-----
And then it was over, and the reality of what she had just done began to sink in. Helga remembered the sweet smile of Noah, his careful hands, his gentle caresses. She remembered how bright the sun seemed to shine when he was by her side, the safety that she had experienced, lying in his arms on a midsummer night, listening to his sweet voice, to his heart beating. Arnold could never give her that security, that romance, that happiness. He could satisfy her lust, but never could her provide her with love.
-----As a goodbye-----
She dressed quickly, trying not to look at him, afraid to meet his eyes. But she felt him on top of her. She regretted everything that she had done. Once she loved a boy. A boy with cornflower hair, her beloved, and her despair. That boy had a kind and gentle heart, he could make her heart awaken with one single smile, with one touch, with one word. That boy she adored because he was nothing like her. He cared for other people, it did not matter to him who you were or what you had done. To him, all that mattered was that you were human, he respected you just for being that. And that boy would sacrifice everything to stand up for what he believed. He thought everything was possible, he believed into everything. She loved him for that, that boy with cornflower hair. That boy was Arnold, but he was not longer a boy. He was a man, a man who had changed. He was a man much like herself, with the same views, the same cold indifference to everything. A person afraid to show their emotions, afraid to say that they loved someone, for fear that it might make them seem weak. A person who felt unnatural to be happy. A person who did not believe in anything, and there for was willing to sacrifice nothing. And now she saw the plain truth, that she loved the boy, not the man. Now she knew why she felt so strongly for Noah. Noah was what Arnold had been once, for what she once loved Arnold. Because she could not bring the boy with the cornflower hair back, she searched for an alternative. She found it in Noah, and suddenly, she wanted him to be there with her.
-----Maybe you'll come-----
She knew she had to tell him, so she did.
"Arnold," she said slowly, "I can't do this anymore."
-----To finish singing our song-----
And now, she was running through the streets, her eyes were wet, her body was shaking on the inside. She was silently weeping, feeling her inner conscious fill to the rim, feeling as if she would explode from what had happened seconds earlier.
-----On the boulevards are wet umbrellas-----
He looked at her in disbelief, as if it was hard to fathom what it was that she was saying.
"You're kidding, right?"
"No," she said, "I'm sorry, I cannot explain it to you---I---" She felt feint.
"You better fucking explain it to me!" he exclaimed, making her shake. Their eyes met and she felt as if she were about to melt.
"What do you care, anyway?" she said slowly, "I'm leaving in a week, two days after Phoebe's marriage. And then we'll never see each other again anyway."
"Oh, alright. That's what I was to you then? A one week attraction?"
"No!" she exclaimed, "You got it all wrong---I---I mean---wasn't that what I was to you?"
"No," he said, "no that's not what you were to me, because when I heard your heart beating just now, I felt like the happiest man alive. Thank you, Helga, thank you very fucking much."
-----Above the river are wet bridges-----
"What?" she exclaimed, angry now, "You fucking liar! All your life you've been chasing after that little twerp Lila, you never cared about me. Did two years ago never occur to you? When you promised me the world, when all the while you were after hurting me? And for what? For something my father did to your grandfather thirteen years ago!"
-----A yellow flame is shaking in the dark-----
"Don't start with that!"
"Don't start with that? You expect me to forget? I loved you once, but I don't love you anymore and that bothers you. So stop pretending, because I'm not putting up my heart to be broken again!"
-----It's a taxi-----
"You stupid bitch!" he exclaimed, "You think you can live without me? Is that why every time you promise never to return you come back and fucking let me fuck you all over again? Don't you get it? You can't live without me!"
-----I know you're still waiting for me-----
"I can live without you!" she screamed, her heart racing, "I'm going to live without you!"
"Please!" he laughed, "You're madly in love with me, you always were and you always will be. You're pathetic!"
-----But love is flying away-----
"No!" she screamed, "You are!"
"I am?" he smiled, "You're saying that I'm pathetic? I'm sorry honey, but I did not spend my entire lifetime being devoted entirely to you. From the time I was nine years old I did not consider you my 'first love' or something like that---that speech you made to me. You're nothing to me, you never were and you never will be."
"Then I'm going to go, and never see you again, good bye!"
-----You cannot return it-----
He grabbed her by the arm, spinning her around. Some sort of impulse did not allow him to let her go. He could not stand the sight of her, walking out on him, slamming the door. He could not stand it.
-----I'm not crying it's only the rain-----
"Let go of me!" she screamed, "Let go of me!"
"No!" he replied.
"Why not?" sobbed, "why can't you just let me go? I'm trying to escape you, Arnold, please, just let me go!"
"Look at you! You are so depressing, you are so painful to even look at! What does he see in you?"
And then she realized what Noah saw, what made her perfect in every way.
"He sees something that you can't!" she screamed and he fixated on her.
"Oh really?" he asked sarcastically, "And what is that? What can he possibly know about you that I don't?"
"He knows that I am a human being, and he respects me because I am a human being," Helga exclaimed, "And he doesn't care who I am or what I have done because those types of things do not matter to him. He is capable of forgiving! And he is kind and pure and gentle, and he is ready to sacrifice everything for what he believes, and he believe into everything. He is everything I am not, and that's why I love him, and he is everything you are not, and that's why I don't love you!"
-----I'll try to forget you-----
He fell silent. Suddenly, the reality of the situation began to sink in to Arnold too. Time had passed, and everything had changed, and he realized that Helga loved someone who did not exist until she met Noah. Arnold was but a ghost of her past, only the villain in the love story, the one evil spirit that came between the two happy lovers.
-----What can I do? -----
But he didn't want that, he wanted to be the hero, he wanted her to love him, he was not used to her not feeling anything for him. She was, after all, the only woman who ever did care. She was the only real thing left in his life, the only hopeful promise for a future of honesty and happiness. Without her, there was only a secession of nameless, faceless women, women who did not care about him, women for whom he could never care. What had he done? Over and over her repeated the same mistake. Helga was not pathetic, Arnold was.
-----I need to live on-----
And suddenly, he wanted to tell her that he loved her, he wanted to tell her that she meant everything in the world to him. But she wouldn't have believed him, she wouldn't have accepted him. She would have said that he was trying to trick her again, she would have said that this was yet another evil plot of his to run her down into the mud. He'd broken her heart twice before, and she would never trust him with it again. So, Arnold decided not to say to Helga what he wanted to say. He felt that her rejection would damage his pride. He couldn't let that happen, he couldn't let her last memory of him be negative, a broken down man, who wanted her but couldn't have her.
-----And it doesn't matter whose fault it was-----
So he released her, silently bidding her goodbye, and she ran away, not once turning back.
-----I walk the streets alone-----
And she was crying. She ran across the street, feeling him still on her, still smelling his cologne, still experiencing the sensation of him being inside of her. But she could not let that thought overshadow reality. Did she not establish only moments ago that she felt nothing for him anymore? After all, he felt nothing for her. Where could their relationship possibly go? After all, she loved Noah. She loved him. She loved him. She loved him. And it didn't matter that she had to repeatedly tell herself that. And it didn't matter that not once did she feel entirely convinced.
-----Our unsaid words form a wall-----
It was over with Arnold, it was but a distant memory, she could not hold on to it, she left it all behind. But why did it still hurt so much? Why did she still feel so hopelessly hopeful when she should have simply stopped, and politely whispered---
-----Good Bye-----
-----La la Fa-----
And Noah was waiting for her now, still sitting in the hotel room, still not going out and seeing the sun and smelling the roses.
-----These notes-----
He was waiting, but she didn't want to go to him.
-----La La Fa-----
She did not want anything, she wanted to disappear, or become a bird, and never have to go back
-----Loneliness-----
Life became like a dream, a dream from which she could never awaken.
-----We can't bring back anything now-----
She walked the streets in sadness, soaked under the rain, her high heels clinking sadly.
-----La La Fa-----
Eternal Heartbreak, she would never be fulfilled, never be happy. She loved someone and hated them simultaneously.
-----So sad-----
Nothing could save her now, she was all alone in this world, she did not know which way to turn, she had nowhere to go.
-----La La Fa-----
It was all like a distant memory, like she'd seen all this before, like it was just reoccurring madness.
-----As a goodbye-----
And the only thing on her mind was the last thing she should have considered.
-----Maybe you'll come-----
The last person she should have considered.
-----To finish singing this song-----
Arnold.
