Oh man I'm so sorry for the delay! I was having such issues writing this chapter. You can tell the first… two scenes or so are a little… weird. But as you get to the… I don't know… maybe third or fourth scene it's better… written better. Those are the parts that I planned out. I just needed to get into it some how. Idk, it's weird. The next chapter will be out by Wednesday the latest. I promise! Thanks to all the Reviews! You guys are the greatest! And about Helga's illness… I already no if she's going to die or not. If you really want to know if she dies or not you can email me of im me on BabyPink28SH on AIM. If you leave it in the review just leave an email and I'll get back to you. I pretty much have the rest of the story planned out… there's maybe two or three more chapters left. If you have any questions, comments, anything, email or IM me :) Thanks again. Hope you enjoy!

(I just want to reach the end of the tunnel and see the light. I haven't seen the light in so long.)

The sun was beyond bright this morning.

As the weekend had rolled into Monday and then finally into Wednesday, I found myself less talkative (if that was at all possible). I didn't feel as if I was all here.

My mind was wandering.

I had realized this morning, as I was putting on my sneakers, two more days till February fourteenth. Valentine's Day.

On some level this depressed me. While every other girl got candy, flowers, and cards, I got nothing. For four years I have sat in my desk trying hard not to begin just sobbing into my hands.

Arnold and Phoebe wouldn't dare get me anything. I "hated" this holiday, if you'd call it a holiday. But they were wrong. I didn't hate it. I misunderstood it. I was unsure of what it really represented.

What did I know of love?

I held my books close to my chest as I walked to my locker. I had straightened my hair this morning (I woke up three hours early). I liked it straight. It made me feel like a different person. Maybe it gave the illusion I was a different person.

Maybe I'm just off the deep end.

The halls were busy with the usual gossip and cliques hanging by the lockers.

Everything was how it was suppose to be. At least that's how I get through the day.

I got to my locker and noticed that there was neither Phoebe nor Arnold. I don't know what I felt. I think I was upset, but I can't be sure.

"Hello Helga." I closed my eyes. I want to know what I did in another lifetime to deserve this.

"Hello Lila." I said with as much distaste as she had given me.

"What a pleasure to see you." She looked me up and down, clicking her tongue against her teeth in a disapproving matter.

"Likewise." I said blandly turning back to my locker.

"I've noticed that Arnold has been hanging around you a lot lately." She clicked her teeth again.

"So?" I asked shutting my locker and folding my arms.

She shrugged and began cleaning her nails. She was wearing a short skirt with a long sleeved shirt that had a low V-neck. Slut.

"You know that he's my boyfriend." She said still trying to play cool.

I wandered where her little followers were. This surprised me.

"Since when?" I asked. This was getting amusing. Arnold would never go for the little tramp. Not after seventh grade when they had "gone out" for a week and then she dumped him.

"Saturday." She now had her hand out in front of her admiring the red shiny nail polish.

"Really now?" I said. Where the hell was this coming from? Why would I care if Ms. Perfect and Mr. Perfect were going out?

"Really." Lila said. She put her hand down and smirked at me. "I guess you'll have to find some new friends."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Don't let her get to you, I thought. She just wants to get to you.

"Well now that I have a boyfriend… your friend, I will be getting all that attention he keeps giving you. And I heard Phoebe talking to Gerald. She was not too pleased by such a bitch snapping at her. So, Helga? Who's left?

I stood and stared at her. Now let's think of this logically. I am paranoid, neoteric, and slowly going out of my mind. I so did not need this.

"Screw you." I began walking away. I had five more classes but there was no way I was staying in this school. Not for another second.

"Have fun playing the lonely misfit." She said. I could imagine her smirking while waving her little hand.

Why the hell is she bothering me?

I thought back to fifth grade. Arnold and I had to do a project together. Lila was so jealous that she spilt red paint all over me.

They called me Carrie for two weeks.

Ah, memories.

(Sometimes I pretend that I'm somewhere else, that I'm not really me, that I'm someone better. It works until I hear my name or see something I know. It works until I figure out that I'm the same person from this morning, from last night.)

I sat on the grass in the park. It was a small area that was hidden behind an overly large willow tree. I was leaning against the tree staring into the abyss known was the Summer Forest.

When I was little. Really little, like I had to have been four or five. Olga had taken me to the edge of Summer forest to have a picnic. (Miriam forgot to cook.) I pretended that I was a princess and I ruled the forest. Everything in the forest was mine. Olga had smiled and said that if I was the princess she was my trusty advisor.

I don't know when we stopped playing pretend. Maybe it was when she left for college and I slowly realized what Olga meant to my parents. What I had meant to them. Jealousy makes you do crazy things.

I began coughing again. The monster was taking over. He had been doing that a lot lately. At night mostly. I had to keep my face buried in my pillow. If Miriam found out, I don't know what she do. Slowly the coughs died down and I found myself swallowing the taste of blood down my throat.

When would this all end?

"Hey."

Obviously never.

I looked up and felt my stomach sink. I was expecting to see Arnold or Phoebe. But Arnold's voice is not as gruff and Phoebe is a girl. This was clearly a "man's" voice. I looked at the taller boy. His black hair was cut short, his jeans baggy, and a nice white sweater that complimented his dark features.

I was very surprised on who I saw standing besides me.

"Hey Gerald." He took this as an invitation to sit down. I looked at him before turning back to the forest.

It was so quiet and peaceful. It was beautiful.

"You ran out of the school pretty quickly." My eyes fluttered from the forest to my watch. He was cutting school.

"I couldn't stay there." I said looking over at him and shrugged.

"What did Lila say?" I looked at him. What made him think he was so different? We're not even friends.

"Nothing." I said, looking away from him.

"Really? I know it looked like something." He said in a jokingly manner.

"I don't need this." I said standing up.

Gerald is a star athlete. Graceful and swift. It's not hard for him to fly up and grab my arm.

"Ow!" I said turning to him. He loosened his grip dramatically and stared at me. I felt almost intimidated.

"I'm sorry." He said still not letting go of my arm. "But I just… you need to be like… you're impossible."

This was getting us far. I yanked my arm from around his hand and stared at him as I rubbed the bruise I know would be forming later. I was very easily bruised.

"What do you care?" I asked. I wanted to go on but I felt attacking him after he cut school to hunt me down would be impolite.

"Because Arnold is a freakin' wreck. If I even mention the first few letters of your name he flips out. And Phoebe has been like a zombie since you snapped at her. The two are losing themselves."

I looked at him and raised my eyebrow. "This is for them?"

I'm a sick person. I am. I don't want it to be about me, but I do. Why should Arnold and Phoebe be getting the attention here? Why should we be worrying about Phoebe and Arnold? What is so humanly wrong with them that while I'm dying people are fussing over them?

I'm so going straight to hell.

"This is for everyone." He said after a pause. "They care for you Helga. Whether you like it or not."

Ah, yes, they do care for me. Why does that bother me? And when they aren't caring for me, why does that bothering me? Why can't I just find the middle and stick with it?

Because all your life you've only had one person whom really did care for you. Even when she was pissing you off.

And she's dying. You're back to where you were at the beginning.

It's only a matter of time.

I closed my eyes as the voice inside my head concocted words and excuses. As it tried to make sense of a delicate situation. As it tried to save me.

I looked at Gerald and noticed he had really nice eyes, chocolate brown with caramel edges. He looked like an old friend who I hadn't seen in years.

It wasn't like we were talking about death and life. Simply about the weather and what time it is in Belgium.

"Is Arnold going out with Lila?" I said it as calmly as possible. Trying to void any emotion from it.

"What? No!" Gerald said, disgust filling his voice. "Is that what she told you?"

"She said Phoebe called me a bitch. She said to have fun being a misfit." Maybe it was how she said it that got to me. She said it with such conviction. Truth masks the hideous lies.

I plopped back down on the grass.

I heard Gerald sigh and then sit down besides me.

"She's lying. She's a spoiled bitch." He began playing with a blade of grass. "Phoebe didn't call you a bitch, not at all, not even close. And Arnold, Helga he really does care for you. He hasn't mentioned Lila since… forever."

Gerald is one of those guys who observes and comments right away but can later come back and tell you something you didn't think he had noticed. Sometimes even things you hadn't notice.

"Remember when we were nine." I felt him move to look at me, but I was focused on the trees. "We use to just run around on crazy adventures. Ghosts, demons, crazy trains, everything weird and childish from A to Z."

"Most kids do that Helga." He slightly chuckled.

"When did it change?" I ignored him. I wasn't even talking to him anymore. I was talking to the air in front of me.

"I guess when we grew up." He shrugged.

"When did you grow up?" I asked, still not looking at him.

"I guess I started after entering high school." He was implying that he wasn't grown up yet. Which is true, he still had lots to see and experience before he could say he was "grown up".

I felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned and looked at him. He had pity in his eyes as he gently opened his mouth. "When did you grow up?"

(You look around your world. It's so broken; you're so broken.)

I smiled as I walked up to my house. Phoebe and I had made up after my little chat with Gerald. I still hadn't told her much more then that I would eventually be ok, but it was better then having her think I hated her.

I went up to Arnold yesterday before school ended and hugged him briefly in the hallway, surprising the crap out of him. I guess I was surprised too. Hell, the part of the school that was in the hallway was surprised. (Lila was turning green with envy and red with anger, Christmas came late I guess.)

I was finally feeling slightly better. Talking to Gerald helped in some twisted way. He didn't push for information but he didn't back off completely. He was the middleman.

I was happy to have my best friend back and to have Arnold back to his normal self.

Maybe this was my chance to find a normal self for me.

I opened the front door and walked in. I gently flung my coat on the rack and then proceeded through the living room to the kitchen.

"Mom! I'm home!" I shouted. I didn't get a response. I got some water and grabbed an apple.

She probably fell asleep in Olga's room. Which was fine. I wanted to go talk to Olga about a few things anyway. She would be happy to learn of my reconciliation with Phoebe. Maybe it would give me a chance to ask about my lovely symptoms as well. Maybe they have a cure for my stage of the illness.

I opened the door to her room only to find it empty. Completely empty.

My head went into instance overload. Why hadn't Miriam called? What was going on? Maybe Olga was…

I ran down the stairs. As I passed the table in the hallway, I saw the button blinking on the answering machine. I stopped and pressed it.

It was Miriam. She sounded as if she had been crying. Every few words there would be a sob and then a sigh and then a few more words. It took her six sobs to get to the point of the message.

"…I'm so sorry Helga, she's—"

I was already out the door.

She was gone.

(Sometimes you need a little rain to get to the rainbow. Maybe it takes a storm to get to the sunshine.)

There's a bar downtown. Simon's. Miriam used to come here when I was ten. She would come home drunk as anything and collapsed on the couch.

The bartender was an old man that looked like he bathed in grease and dirt. You could tell his morals were low.

I felt like I was slowly slipping away. Maybe I wasn't happier earlier. Maybe I had convinced myself that it would get better and I was living on a lie.

She was gone.

It was the only phrase circulating around my head.

I never got to say good bye to her. I hadn't talked to her since yesterday morning. She was so peaceful. She barely even coughed last night.

Ah, the calm before the storm.

I would never get to see her again.

Another cruel irony, it was Valentine's Day. This was my present. Take away the only person who loved me. Thanks.

It wasn't until about my fourth or fifth rum and coke that I began loosening up. I was laughing and joking with the other depressed fools sitting at the bar.

Good times.

When I mention this part of the story to people they say I was being premature and illogical. Running off to a bar my mother used to lose herself to and losing myself.

I look them dead in the eye, roll my tongue along my lips and boldly say. "Like mother, like daughter."

Miriam hadn't taken a drink in four years. Not since Olga's situation happened. Not since she had to become an adult.

I know why she came to Simon's. It was a small place where as long as you have money no questions asked. Again the bartender obviously had some high morals.

"And then she told me that I was a bitch." I began laughing hysterically as I told the guy sitting next to me about Lila. He looked at me with tired eyes and a half smile. I don't think he was completely with me as I told the story. He was probably in a half daze.

I jumped as I felt my cell phone vibrate against my hip.

"Hello!" I said laughing. I held my finger up to the guy sitting next to me and spun my chair so I was facing the opposite direction.

"Helga?"

"HI!" I practically screamed. I then continued to laugh.

"What's wrong with you?"

"Nothing!" I shouted again. I could tell that the voice on the other end of the phone was surprised, even panicked.

"Where are you?"

"At Simon's." I said smiling. "Come have a drink with me!"

"You're at a bar?"

"Yep!" I laughed again. "It's downtown. Come have a drink with me Arnold!"

"I'll be there in fifteen minutes. Don't you dare move."

"Ok!" I hung up the phone and turned to the guy next to me. "I'm not allowed to move."

"I'm not allowed to leave the city." He said taking a sip of his beer.

"Cool!" I said smiling. I looked at the bartender and threw down a ten. "A beer for my new friend here and another rum and coke. And make it snappy!"

I remember laughing.

(I'm all alone in bed and I can't sleep, I'm feeling blue. I try to close my eyes but all I'm thinking of is you.)

I woke up with a raging headache. As I tried to move my body screamed out in pain. I wanted to die. I was in so much pain.

Of course this did not stop me from trying to figure out where the hell I was. I wasn't in my bedroom because I was facing a wall with no window but rather a bookcase. And it was blue. I do not live in a blue room. The bed was also too comfortable to be my bed.

It was like a bed I could have slept on.

That's when the wheels began turning.

"Oh crap." I mumbled as I turned over (body screaming in pain). I allowed my eyes to round the room only to land on a certain blonde haired boy sleeping on the small couch in his bedroom. "Oh crap." I repeated closing my eyes tightly

"Morning to you too." I reopened my eyes to see him sitting up and rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.

"How did I get here?" I asked. Moving my hand over my face. This is when I realized I was in the same clothes I had been in last night.

"I called you last night to see if you wanted to hang out today and you answered the phone drunk. You told me to come have a drink with you. I found the bar and brought you back here." He said.

Flashes of yesterday came into my head. Smiling, coming home, worried, a phone message, my heart stopping, and then drinking. Oh crap.

She was gone. That's why I had to escape, I had to lose myself. I couldn't stay in the house or go to the hospitable. I couldn't bear to see Bob and Miriam. Sitting at opposite sides of the waiting room crying and damaged. I couldn't cry. I couldn't sit in a room with them and not be able to cry.

"Can I take a shower?" I had to clean myself of everything. I had to just wash it all off of me.

"Yeah, sure." He said standing up and stretching. He went over to his dresser and pulled out a pair of sweat pants, a black tank top, and a sweatshirt. He also grabbed an extra towel from the top of a folded pile of laundry on his desk. "You need anything else?"

I looked at the pile and shook my head.

"It's down the stairs and then the door on the left. It's my bathroom so no one will bother you."

"Thanks." I mumbled. I then looked at him. I could feel the tears in the back of my eyes. "Really… thank you."

"Of course." He smiled.

I turned and walked down the stairs.

I entered the bathroom and closed the door locking it. I searched for a few minutes until I found an extra toothbrush and a bar of soap. I have issues using other people soap.

I stepped into the shower and turned the water as hot as I could feel. The issue here was I was so numb that I couldn't even feel how hot the water was. I didn't even know it was hot until I stepped out of the shower and found my pale body red with heat.

I ran the soap all over myself, washing away everything I could possibly wash away. I washed my hair and stood still under the water allowing the soap to run down to the floor of the tub.

As I let the water hit me and wash the alcohol from my system I thought about what it meant to no longer have Olga in my life.

It didn't mean much. Nothing would initially change at home. Bob would no longer come to the house or even bother with Miriam and me. I'm not sure what would happen to Miriam. I might have to take care of myself.

I realized that I've been taking care of myself since I was four.

I began crying. I didn't want her to be gone. I wanted to go home and hear her annoying voice call me her baby sister. I wanted her to trap me into an overly aggressive hug and then to pat me on the head. I didn't want to see her lying in bed with this sad smile on her face.

When I was nine she was not a real person. She was the goddess of all that was good and pure. At least that's how I perceived it. Then, after the sickness came, she became a real person. She was not just Olga; she was a real person. I could talk to her. Worst of all I could love her.

I began crying harder.

I wanted to go home and see her there, standing at the door her large smile on her face.

I wanted my sister to be alive.

I could feel my chest constrict and I began coughing. I leaned against the wall and continued to cough and sob at the same time.

She was never coming back.

(They tell you when someone you love dies you mourn for the rest of your life. They never tell you how you find yourself living to forgive yourself for not wanting to mourn.)

I walked back to his room and sat on his bed. I had the towel around my head as I stared into space. I had calmed myself down enough to seem like a functioning human being.

"I bought some orange juice and toast." I looked to see Arnold with a tray an overly large smile plastered on his face.

"I'm not hungry." I said as I watched him move from the doorway to his desk.

"You have to eat Helga. All you have is alcohol in your system." And a sickness, I added for him.

"Arnold… please… I'm not hungry." I could feel my face harden as the tears rimmed my eyes.

"What happened?" He asked coming up and sitting next to me.

I looked at him, tears burning my eyes. And I just fell into him.

He wrapped his arms around my back and moved the towel off my head. I could feel my wet hair falling over my back. He began stroking my head as I cried into his chest.

"They got a divorce." I heard my voice through the sobs. "When I turned thirteen. He left and they got divorced. He remarried two years ago."

I began crying harder. Arnold was trying to sooth me with soft words and warm arms.

"She's dead." And that's what broke the camel's back. I had finally said it. Out loud. To someone beside myself. "Olga's dead. She's never coming back."

I didn't go into details until much later. I was too emotionally broken to even fathom telling him more then that.

I remember he didn't push, not once. All he did was hold me as I cried myself into a broken abyss.

That's where I find myself, every time, my broken abyss.

Maybe that's where she is.

Immortal in a broken abyss.