Author's Note: The fourth chapter is up, and Curly is screwed up than ever. Kinda want to build the suspense here.
Legal junk: I don't own Hey Arnold, but Nickelodeon does and Mr. Craig Bartlett created it. But this fic belongs to me. Clear? Good.
Chapter 4: Insanity Starts to Play its Role.
"Rhonda! Rhonda, wait!" Nadine ran after her best friend, who hastened her way to the ladies room. She violently pushed the door away and went straight to the sink to douse her face with water, trying to cool herself down. With her face soaking wet, she stared at herself in front of the mirror seeing her emotionally tense self, breathing heavily. Nadine went and stood next to her, looking at her worriedly. "Rhonda? Rhonda sweetie, are you okay?" she asked softly as she grabbed Rhonda's left hand and patting it.
"I-I… can't believe I just did that…" Rhonda said in disbelief, stunned.
Seconds later, Phoebe and Lila emerged from the door. Nadine turned her head to them, but Rhonda didn't seem to be bothered by their presence.
"Is she alright?" Lila asked. Nadine wasn't exactly sure herself, and gave them a perturbing look. Phoebe and Lila walked to the two girls and Phoebe put her hand on Rhonda's shoulder. She then echoed Nadine's question. "Are you okay, Rhonda?"
"Yeah…" she replied softly, and then suddenly her disbelief thoughts slowly turned into joy and she turned her face at them with a maniacal smile, "Of course I'm okay! What do you think? He's off my back forever! YES! No more stalking! No more harassment! No more inane words of adoration! No. More. CURLY!!" she said euphorically, and then she pranced her way out of the bathroom singing and humming incoherently.
Nadine, Phoebe and Lila were just stunned in bewilderment at Rhonda's reaction as they look at each other with perplexity on their faces. "I propose that we should treat her to a nice, big piece of pie. What do you say to that, girls?" Phoebe suggested.
"Yes, I agree. Pie will do well to her." Nadine agreed nonchalantly. Lila nodded at the suggestion. "I have to concur, Phoebe."
"Yeah, let's get some pie! Ha-ha! Ha-ha!" Rhonda popped her head back in the bathroom, inviting her friends for a treat.
"Goodness. And I thought Curly was the only freak around here…"
---
After school…
"And then, BAM! She exploded like some kind of a freaking maniac or something! She grabbed him by his shirt, slammed him against the wall and yells at him like crazy!" Gerald explained to Stinky, Sid and Harold enthusiastically as they and Arnold walked away from school. "And then… heh, heh, here's the killer right here: y'all wanna know what she did to him? She slapped him man! It was f'ing insane!"
"Willikers! Too bad we ain't there to see all that." Stinky sighed, disappointed.
"Hey Arnold, you were there, how come you didn't intervene?" Sid asked. "Curly was clearly in need of help." he said as he took a pack of cigarettes from his bag, took one out, lit it up and started to smoke. Arnold had constantly advised him to quit the habit, but it was ignored as it was fallen on deaf ears.
"I wanted to, but I couldn't. I was too stunned, and Rhonda would've ripped me apart if I tried to. She was too angry at him that she couldn't even control herself. Even Helga was scared when she snapped at her."
"EVEN HELGA?!" the three boys responded skeptically in unison. "Man, she's really has gone to the deep end, hasn't she?" Harold added in awe. "Hey, there's Curly!" he said pointing at the depressed Curly crying, sitting on a bench. Curly took a quick glance at them and ran off. "Hey, Curly wait!" Arnold yelled at him. "We wanna help you!" but Curly kept running, ignoring them.
"Poor guy…" Gerald said, looking down and shaking his head. "Hel-lo… what's this?" Gerald picked up a torn picture on the sidewalk.
"Hey, that's Rhonda." Sid identified as he puffed out a cloud of smoke.
"Hey man, could you puff that smoke out ANY nearer?" Gerald scolded him, and picks up yet another piece of the picture.
"Heh, sorry dude. It was an honest mistake. C'mon, don't get too pissed about it huh, buddy, pal? I mean, it's not like I smoke pot or anything…" he said with a pathetic grin while patting Gerald's shoulder. Gerald wasn't amused by it a single bit.
"Man, she sure is hot!" Harold said, and everybody gave him an angry glare. "What? I'm just saying!"
Sid just rolled his eyes at Harold reply; he then turned to Stinky, "Psst, Stinky. Should we tell them now?" Sid whispered to him.
"Heck no. This ain't the right time, on account that the thing between Curly and Rhonda just happened." He responded. "And get your head away from me, that damn breath of yours stinks the high heavens. And uh, Sid… you have any cigs left I can bum?"
"Guys, we have to help him out, one way or another." Arnold said in a concerned voice, looking at the street where Curly just had left. "He's totally broken hearted."
---
That night, at Curly's house…
"Eww, get away from me, you freak!"
---
I don't like you, so stop touching me with your grimy hands!"
---
"Gross! No way! Absolutely not!"
---
"Listen to me, you slimy piece of ick!"
---
"He's a freak!"
---
"I don't ever, ever, ever want to be with you, ever!"
---
"But then again, everyone will hate me because I broke the little freak's heart!"
---
"Listen to me. I think you're a low down creep. It's over between us. And I don't ever want to be your 'girlfriend' again. Now crawl back under the rock you live again, you slug."
---
"You're the thorn, the scourge, the plague, the pestilence of my life; a FREAKING virus, and I want it to be removed."
---
Rhonda's words of resentment of him repeated in his mind again and again. There he was, sitting on his bed alone staring at his Rhonda shrine in his dark room, slightly illuminated by the moonlight. His adoration for her faded as the minutes went by, and fire of hatred began to engulf ever larger in his heart. Slowly, he picked up the Rhonda pictures he had agonizingly collected and took from the past several years, tore them apart piece by piece and put them all in a tin bucket. The snippets of hair and clothes were also inside. Finally, the framed picture of Rhonda, which he cherished so much, was dropped down into the bucket. He lighted up a match, and hesitantly he dropped it in. The reflection of the raging fire became visible on his glasses, which was also the same feeling he had about Rhonda now, burning with anger, hatred, misery, bitterness, and dejection.
"Curly? Son, are you upstairs? I'm back from the dry cleaners," declared his father from the front entrance of the house. "Mom will be back as soon as she's done grocery shopping." He said as he opened the safe to store the gun. The noise made from the safe echoes to his room and triggers Curly's darker side to life.
"The gun…"
---
Two days later… at the school cafeteria
"Boy howdy, just look at the poor bastard. Ever since Rhonda snapped at him, he's been depressed and completely isolating himself from us." Sid said to the gang who was with him, looking at the forlorn Curly sitting alone at the nearby table.
"But what can we do? Even when we wanted to help him out, he just sat there and staring blankly at us without saying anything." Gerald explained.
"Kinda like the fourth grade, isn't it fellers?" Stinky added quickly.
"I don't know you guys. That was then. This is now. I just hope he won't snapped and lock himself inside the Principal's office like he did before." Arnold said with a sigh.
"Nah, I'm sure he won't, and that was a completely different situation. Jeez Arnold, you worry too much," Harold responded to negate Arnold's fears, as he drinks a carton of chocolate milk.
"Hey guys." Somebody greeted at them.
"Hi, Nadine," Sid greeted back on behalf of the gang. "Wanna join us for lunch?"
"Thanks," she replied back, and took a seat next to Gerald and Harold. She then took a look at Curly, feeling sorry for him. "Poor guy…"
Stinky sighed, and said, "Yeah… ever since he got blasted by Rhonda; that is the only thing he does now-a-days, moping around feeling depressed."
"Man, I wonder how Rhonda feels…" Arnold wondered.
"HELLO WORLD!" Rhonda said happily as she suddenly burst through the cafeteria double-doors. Merrily she skipped to the counter to buy some lunch. "Hello, Mrs. Lunch Lady! Nice weather we're having, aren't we?"
The lunch lady grumbled.
"Oh, don't be so sad! Like, let's see your happy face!" she said cheerfully.
Again, the lunch lady grumbled.
"That answers your question, my friend?" Gerald asked Arnold, rather sarcastically.
At a different table, Helga and Phoebe looked at Rhonda with a perplexing look written on their faces.
"You know what, Pheebs?" she said as she munches her sandwich. "As strangely as it sounds, I prefer the old Princess better."
"Although I can't hastily pass my judgment onto someone; I have to admit; she is different than before."
"How about now? Should we tell them now?" Sid whispered to Stinky and Harold.
"No, no, no, hell, no! This ain't the right time!" Harold shouted to Sid.
"Right time for what?" Gerald intruded.
"Uh, to order pizza?" Harold replied nervously. Gerald rolled his eyes, "Man, those blows he got from those wrestling matches must've screwed his brain up pretty badly."
After she had paid her lunch, she skipped back, but stopped at her tracks when she noticed Curly was in the cafeteria. "YOU!" she snapped at him, fuming with hatred. Curly looked at her blankly, he stood up and left.
"That's right Curly! Who's the boss around here, HUH?!"
---
Sunday night. It was dark, cold, gloomy and stormy, very much like Curly's emotion. He stood in front of the fireplace, staring at the picture. Midnight just passed, and the dings of the old grandfather clock provoked him more and more to get a hold on the gun as his hands were tingling for it. Slowly, he opened the save and took the gun out. He wielded it to have a feel for it. Then he checked the ammunition inside. None, there weren't any bullets at all. Damnit, where does he keep them?" He was not quite happy about it, and he tapped his finger on the chin thinking thoughtfully, and finally he remembered something. He tiptoed upstairs pass his parents' bedroom, which thankfully were sound asleep, and headed up to the attic. He switched the light on, revealing all sorts of junk that his family had stored inside there from years before. Near the window, there was a small trunk on top of a pile of musty old boxes. He opened it and finally found the thing he had searched.
"One, two for your legs so you wouldn't run away from me… three, four for your hands so you wouldn't push me away… five for your guts, that had the nerve to shout all those nasty things at me… and finally six, you broke my heart, and I will pay the favor back." He soliloquized as he picked the bullets one by one.
"Six will suffice," he said in a malevolent voice, closing his hand and it turned into a fist with the bullets still inside. Outside his house, lightning struck twice, and the drizzling rain quickly turned into a downpour of heavy thunderstorm.
Kinda makes you want to pray for Rhonda, doesn't it? Anyway, thanks for reading and please leave a review.