"So, then," she said at last. "…What about San Lorenzo...?"
… … …
The Atlantic's salty brine may have wafted through the blown-out windows in a gentle breeze, but in the silence that stretched between them the air grew thick enough to choke.
She'd seen his many shades over the years—more than she liked, to be honest. Particularly today. But the glower crossing his averted gaze cast a mood so withering and grim that she had to remind herself to breathe as her stomach clenched ominously, and waited.
His voice was a dark, husky gravel when he finally replied.
"Nothing."
Her mouth dropped open, rearing to retort, but he cut her off.
"Gerald shouldn't have even…" he trailed off under his breath, a curl of betrayal at his lip.
"Oh, don't you make this about Gerald," she carped back with impatience; an easy front for the uneasy feelings that encroached. "C'mon. Spill it."
Shutting his eyes, the knuckles on his fists went white as he locked them around his knees.
"There's nothing to talk about."
Helga scowled, shaking her head.
You can't run, and don't even think you ain't cornered, Hair Boy.
"I said it before, and I'll say it again," she edged back. "Bull. Shit."
Arnold stood up, his hands rough on his face, rubbing the stress from his brows to his temples.
"I'm not—" he started strong, then stopped, grinding out the rest. "I'm not talking about this."
"Oh, there he goes. 'I'm not talking about this,'" she imitated, gesturing back with a scoff. "So clearly, you admit there's something."
"I'll talk about anything else, Helga."
Oh hoh.
She leaned over her knee, lowering her head at him in a challenge.
"Really?" she deadpanned, point-blank. "You wanna stress test that?"
A muscle in his jaw tightened as his teeth bared in a foul tempered sneer.
"Just change the goddamn topic, Helga."
Despite herself, and everything he'd said to her that day, she was momentarily stunned by the force of his bite.
Maybe it was the whiplash from his softer side earlier, or just how ridiculous he'd have to be to think she'd back off now, but before long, his refusal burned up her stupor. A sneer of her own shaped her features to match, and with no care to be in his crosshairs again. She'd already failed before, anyway, so screw his shitty attitude, and fuck the eggshells.
She had nothing left to lose.
"Hey. Hey hey hey hey!" she finger-jabbed. "Don't you give me shit for pushing you on this—you have this explanation fucking coming, Arnold."
"I seriously don't, Helga," he shot back, hands flashed open with frustrated impatience. His eyes finally met hers again, sharp and blown open and angry, and…
Nervous.
Really nervous.
She gulped at the sight, yet kept her glare focused and stern, questioning in the back of her mind if she really was too stubborn for her own good.
Or his.
But not for long, she reminded herself, a pained queasiness claiming space in that clenching ache in her stomach. Her feet were fucking planted on this one. He'd be leaving with her secrets, and dammit if she wasn't leaving with his.
Not if she could help it.
Helga practically snorted back, throwing her hands open with a light head shake that feigned to reconsider.
"Sure, fine. Maybe you don't, Arnold," she pivoted, her tone deceptively soft.
He went still, watching her shift warily.
"Not to me, or even your pal, Geraldo. And trust me, whatever you've told him, he knows he's been in the dark."
She cast him a long look and let it drag. It was the truth, afterall.
"And whatever you won't say to him, or anyone else? You can drop with me, and not even have to deal with it later. Like I said before," she continued, a tremble creeping into her voice, "staying your friend, isn't—hasn't been…good, for me, and…"
Helga strained, biting her lip as he shuddered, the refracted light from the lens glinting the greens of his eyes so fervently as he stared back that they nearly rattled her nerve.
"...And that, even if you tried to stay friends after this, that… I can't promise that I can," she reminded with an agony she shivered through, gritting out the weakness from her lowering voice, "even if I want to."
His throat bobbed.
"So," she resumed, drawing a facade of strength over the fragile hollow in her gut, "you might as well get this off your chest. And—"
Eyes narrowed on him, her heart wrenched horribly as she played her last hand of cards.
"—If you really feel guilty about earlier, then you can make up for it now, by fucking spilling already."
Arnold's eyes widened in the wake of her words, fever bright.
He wavered slightly on the spot, like a weight had just dropped on his shoulders, before wiping his hand down his face, and turning away—to breathe, something ragged wearing his frame. Shaking his head like he'd already forgotten, or… hoped better than the warning she gave after her confession earlier. Maybe it was too much to take all at once, and he hadn't processed everything, but her words weren't some empty harbinger like he might have hoped.
As much as she wished they weren't, they were true.
He didn't know what to do with his hands. In and out of his pockets, running through his hair, dragging at the nape of his neck, all while breathing unsteadily and shifting from foot to foot, like he couldn't stand to stay or go. He took off across the room at last with a distracted, haphazard pace, glass pieces kicking out from his sneakers. Her eyes widened at the edge of his movements, etched with a restraint that taxed against whatever he'd pent up inside, and it twisted her up to watch.
…He can't stand this.
Preoccupied and restless, he pressed the windows with his palms in a frustrated daze as he passed them, brushed the lens roughly with his shoulder, and when he came by it, absently kicked out his foot to hook the handle of the stuck hatch, and—
—Recoiled in startlement, the hatch door slamming back in its frame as he did with an echoing clang.
Helga gawked.
Neither of them moved.
In a slow, agonizing moment, and without even sparing her a look, Arnold crouched down to the metal floor, grasped the handle, paused… and with an aching creak, lifted the hatch.
It opened all the way.
"...How?"'
Under his breath, she saw his mouth move in shock—knew what he said, but her blood was already pounding through her so fast its rhythm drowned out her ears. An emptying wash of despair stole sensation from her limbs and her tongue all at once, leaving her only able to watch, jaw-slacked and struck, as this new reality hit her hard enough to numb.
He…
He could just—
There was no space to breathe. It was too soon, no one had looked for them yet, there's no way that hatch could just open now, and whether the force of the wave or the ghosts of the fucking Tolmens themselves had somehow rend it unstuck, he could just—
He could just leave.
Now.
He hesitated, drifting toward the opening unconsciously, his gaze captive to the sight of his long-last freedom down the spiral staircase below.
No.
No, not yet.
I'm not—
In the clamor of her thoughts a desperate want clawed up and into her throat, found itself as cramped and trapped as he was free, and backfired in its riot, strangling her complaint and silent.
Her head fell back against the window behind her with a thud of defeat.
Arnold tore his gaze from the open hatch and back to her at the sound.
Despite everything rushing inside her all at once, her eyes were so dry they burned, and she wondered what picture she painted for him as he stared back. Did she look as powerless and pathetic as she felt? Did he catch the cold sweat at her brow, chilling at her clavicle as the breeze blew in? Her chin tilted back, her jugular exposed in symbolic surrender.
Could he see her fluttering pulse?
His lips parted, the roiling mix of emotion across his face morphing into something indecipherable as his eyes burned back into hers.
Her brow twisted as she took her last look at him, and shivered, clenching her eyes shut. Knowing when she eventually reopened them, he'd be gone, and…
Helga bit her quivering lip, and waited for the end.
For a kind of death neither had necessarily chosen, as she'd predicted, but a death of eventuality and foolish hopes, nevertheless. It was just how the world inevitably, always was—and always would be, for Helga G. Pataki.
Funny how she'd even believed it could be otherwise, honestly. That it was actually possible—tricking herself, cocky after staving off fate for so long. Really, it had always just been a matter of time.
When she'd hear his footsteps clang predictably down the metal staircase, she'd know it was over.
Anticipation laid the punishing weight of its burden on her chest, growing so heavy and painful as the silence stretched that she nearly swore for its relief to just crush her.
So just fucking go then already, my love, my torment.
Leave like it'd actually give me peace.
Just…
Fucking go.
And yet, still, there was nothing, and she knew her heartbeat couldn't have deafened her ears that much, so what the hell was taking so long?
The weight killed.
God—dammit, Arnold, stop dangling yourself like a fucking carrot and just—
She gave a startled gasp as the metal door slammed shut, its reverberations jolting through her. When her eyes dared open again, her jaw dropped.
Arnold, handle in hand, had closed the hatch.
They locked eyes, with such a torrent of wordless meaning between them that her heart seized.
He had that look again.
Not nearly missed in a glance as it had been for years, or hidden away once caught—but open, and staring into her with a force.
Like he knew she had him, and he could never leave, even if he wanted to.
And, she realized, swallowing around the unshed tears threatening to clog her airways, he didn't want to.
Even with her throat still closed, she had to fight to keep the swooning cry that sang inside her from scrambling its way out, as he finally stood and took a heavy step back toward her.
Arnold…
She swam with dizziness as he approached, his movements turning mechanical when his expression went inward, hard to read. He might as well have tilted the whole world when he finally took his last step and paused, every inch of him measured and tight as he sat next to her.
Arnold leaned over his knees, his eyes cast to the lens as the space between them filled with a long, deliberate silence she knew better than to break—if she were capable of articulation at that point, anyway.
In the timeless moment that passed, when it seemed that neither of them were capable, she forced her breath to slow, her jackrabbit heart be damned, reminding herself to not trust hope again—liar that it was. That she was better off ignoring the light, despairing flutter in her chest. Afterall, even if he had chosen to stay and talk, it wasn't like he had chosen her. So, stop.
Stop doing that.
She watched his unfocused stare drill through the lens, his breath uneven like hers. As he edged on what was clearly the precipice of actually talking, actually sharing whatever the hell it was that he'd hidden away and had eaten at him for years, she couldn't stand that something in her still clung to the pointless, false notion that when he got so worked up in her presence, it was because of her. Because he wanted her and was finally facing that, and—
God, she couldn't stand herself, how pathetic and weak she was—if her will could find a way, she'd bite out her own heart for it.
You stupid, hopeless…fucking idiot.
Arnold spoke at last; and when he did, Helga's world slowly reoriented, tilting back the right way on its axis as the words reached her through a haze.
"What did Gerald tell you?" he finally asked, sounding unknowably distant in the rough, low tones of his voice.
Helga blinked once; twice, slowly finding sensation in her limbs again, and hoisted herself up, back straight against the glass wall to anchor herself. She swallowed thickly, and had to actually work to get her thoughts straight.
"...Not much," she practically croaked, and swallowed again, clearing her throat to find her voice. "He was just…fucking steamed, after he'd visited you. I always thought he just ranted off a bunch of petty crap that pissed you off..."
Arnold's mouth pressed thin; quiet for another spell. In it, Helga wondered just how much he was willing to spill, how much he wasn't, and just how much Gerald had always known, while keeping her and Phoebe in the dark.
She brushed it off. As his best friend, of course he'd be privy to details others wouldn't. But, there was no doubt that Arnold not only worried, but also baffled Gerald. And, if closing the hatch and coming back had half the gravity she sensed it did, then she figured she'd be privy to a whole lot more than Tall Hair Boy was by the time he finished.
Arnold took a wavering breath, and Helga stilled, wide-eyed and watchful.
"You probably don't remember, but," he muttered, looking down at his sneakers, "Mr. Simmons actually brought up San Lorenzo in class once. End of… fifth grade. Right before the last bell of the year."
Her brow pinched, not expecting this direction. He was right though, she didn't remember. And, she thought, as some truth to form returned through frayed nerves and exhaustion—no shit she didn't. She'd have been counting down the seconds to summer vacation like any other sane person and tuning the teacher out.
"...No, I don't. I was probably watching the clock," she replied with slow puzzlement.
How could this possibly be relevant?
"But yeah, okay, so…" she stirred the air a bit with her hand, trying to engage. "How'd we hear about it? Some last minute pop quiz? Vacation brag?"
"No. It was, um," he swallowed and licked his lips, something unsteady in his voice, "an announcement. About our class being selected, to… compete in a contest, to go to Central America. It was put up, by…"
He bit his lip and struggled, and for the life of her, Helga could not understand how the hell something like this could be so serious, or why he'd trip over his words.
"...By an organization called Helpers for Humanity," he finished, his eyes narrowing and tight. "Wanted some… video presentations, of kids being 'humanitarians in their own neighborhood,' in order to win. Had a… week to submit. The prize," he paused, closing his eyes as his brow furrowed bitterly, "was a class trip to San Lorenzo."
Helga gave a nod, some answers seeming easier to guess, and others further out of reach as she mulled over his words.
Humanitarians in their own neighborhood, huh? She gave a light scoff as she recalled his many selfless community deeds, and her long-junked, secret trove of video archives that would've proved it.
Damn. Coulda won that.
"So…what?" she echoed her thoughts with a half-handed gesture. "You got all bent outta shape over not winning, or something?"
And, Jesus…why the hell, anyway?
He went completely still and hesitated, before pushing out the words in a hollow gust.
"...I never entered."
Her brow quirked, her thoughts temporarily fogged, unable to grasp his rationale, the eerie rigidness of his frame or the jumped muscle in his jaw, and, just—then, why—?
"Okay, so…what? I don't get it," she gestured with honest bafflement and budding impatience, her low tolerance for confusion rearing its head unhelpfully. "I mean, you definitely could have—hell, and probably could've won, too, goody-two-shoes samaritan you are, and all."
Save for a hard flinch in his shoulder, he didn't respond; his gaze still locked back on the lens. Eventually, she dropped her hands to her lap, and shook her head at him.
"But, if you didn't even bother entering in the first place, then…what's the big deal?"
Despite his earlier excess of nervous energy, now, his body froze so tightly it unnerved—a tension like a rubber band stretched at its furthest point, before either snapping back or apart. It was something she'd never seen from him before, even in those moments he went statue-still under her interrogation, before the wave hit.
Scrutinizing him with a rising sense of trepidation, she gave him another prod, her voice quiet.
"...Why didn't you enter?"
She hadn't realized she was doing it, but she'd apparently taken a hard lean to her right, angling her body away from him incrementally without even noticing. Her eyes widened at herself, and drew up to lean her back straight against the glass again with slow, calculated motions.
Damn.
He'd been the one to close the hatch and stay, and sit down, and talk—all on his own choice. But even though he was just sitting there, and wasn't even emoting anything, his whole body just seemed to somehow radiate a message loud and clear, that said:
'Stay away.'
Not a message she would heed—afterall, he was still here—but a sentiment she'd seen from him over the years, from his everyday body language, his boundaries, and absences…
But not like this.
Helga took a focused breath and lobbed her questioning thoughts back and forth, chills trickling down her back with her growing wariness.
"...Why does San Lorenzo matter so much to you?" she probed, rephrasing her original question deliberately.
Arnold lowered his head, the tousled straw of his cowlicked hair obscuring his profile.
Catching the tremors running through the tensed muscles of his arms, and the way his stomach sucked back through the thin fabric of his bloodied tank, she wracked her thoughts for any trivial knowledge she had about him that she may have overlooked. Anything that could possibly tie-in to not just the country in question, but even Central America as a whole. She couldn't recall any meaningful signs, or even a time where he expressed a mundane, passing interest in that region outside of school.
Nothing that could explain, or clue her in, to what the reason was—or why it was so big to him.
She stilled when he parted his lips and took a shaky breath, his face mostly hidden when he finally spoke.
"My parents… disappeared… in San Lorenzo."
…Oh.
His words sank in, silencing her thoughts, before pieces started slotting in places there weren't even spaces for, breaking parts of a puzzle of Arnold she thought she'd already solved, and, just…
Whoa.
…Wait, she thought, her eyes widening as the puzzle's image kept reforming.
Whoa, wait, wait a minute—
Elbows on his knees, Arnold scaled his trembling fingers across his scalp, catching messy sections of hair as he did; revealing his flushed face.
In the long moment his head turned just enough for their eyes to meet, with a look she could only describe as exposed—before she could even think to say anything—that overstretched, rubber band tension of his snapped.
"I knew it," he blew out in a rush—erupting to his feet, "I knew it—that look on your face, just like Gerald—"
His fists broke open, wiping his mouth as his head shook back and forth bitterly; grimace mired and pacing in place, like he'd break into a run if he could.
"I knew—"
Her breathing shallow in the tightness of her chest, her back pressed even further against the glass as she watched him, the only coherent response she could form dropping dry and heavy in her mind:
Holy shit.
The way his eyes lingered on the closed hatch again, and the look he gave her before wrenching his gaze away after, made her dimly consider a twist to the whole affair she'd never considered until then.
What if, instead of merely fearing being trapped in there with her, he'd also dreaded trapping her with him?
Grasping for her bearings with his back turned, she figured she might've been onto something.
"God, I can't believe I…" he began under his breath, trailing off with a half-broken laugh like he felt examined and trapped. Something Helga closely understood, because she'd have felt the same way. She feared enduring those feelings all her life.
And she had years of therapy for that, on top of everything else. Whereas, he…
…Ooh, fucking boy.
Too stubborn for her own good, and way in over her goddamn head. However much her picture of him had reframed in the short time she had to only begin unpacking the implications, something told her he was just getting started, and to hold on.
Knowing her luck, she had a strong feeling that at the very least, she'd be taken for a fucking ride.
"Gerald, did—" she stopped, feeling like a hapless bull in a china shop, but she had to start somewhere. She swallowed and aimed for careful, yet figured she'd land in calamity. "...What did he say?"
He gestured back with an agitation that had nowhere to go—could sense his impulse to lash out, but held back as he fumed… At least trying to do better, she thought with a pang.
"What you're probably thinking right now," he replied, his voice quiet but strained, and harsh.
Okay, she thought, just tiptoe around that, see if you can't gather more info without setting him off again—too much, anyway. If being a deer in headlights was all it took before, then she really was dealing with something new and uncharted.
Arnold, at his most charged, and sensitive. And her, unbalanced by him, to boot.
"...And what do you think I'm thinking?" she fished, cautiously.
He facepalmed with his back turned to her, knuckles tight over his jutted hip. Shifting restlessly as he said nothing; sticking with his choice to stay with her, but unable to just be.
Helga chewed her lip, examining her options. And, fuck, appreciated—really appreciated, for the first time, the absolute tightrope other's had walked around her most her life. Ironic, that she'd find herself in the role of needing to be the stable one with Arnold goddamn Shortman. And, that if this was going to go anywhere, she'd have to lead. And be… empathetic, and, listen, and—all that other shit she cut her teeth on, during her brief stint as a peer support. What she'd seen modeled for her, by Dr. Bliss, and Phoebe, and…
Even him, back in the day. Her first role model of good.
…Fuck. Okay, backtrack, regroup. You're still missing some chunks of that puzzle. Just—lay it out. Start with what you know. Try to show you're on the same page, that you care, that you're not judging, that you're not an asshole—
'No guy would be safe with you, Helga.'
…Show him he's wrong. And, please.
Don't fuck it up.
"Okay, so," she began evenly, wired and trying to keep it out of her voice. "Your parents disappeared in San Lorenzo…" She recalled his story with the hat, doing some quick mental math, "...When you were a baby. And for… years, you wondered if they'd ever come back, or even if they were alive or not, and… got sick thinking about them. Boxed up all their things, even your hat—just, everything that reminded you of them. And stuffed them in the attic. And didn't look back… Right?"
She tensed up, waiting for a response. Finally, he gave something like a curt nod, still turned away from her—still sweating out his nerves, but his movements eased off as he listened.
Okay, keep it up—just keep going…
"...And a few years ago," she resumed, slowing her delivery in a way she hoped demonstrated a non-judgmental, but no-nonsense call for clarity, "you got a chance to go to San Lorenzo—and you passed it up."
A restive pause. Taking a bracing breath, she wrapped it up.
"Did I get the picture?"
He let out a rough exhale like he'd been holding his breath, and that semblance of approaching calm he'd shown as she ran down the line broke, throwing his hands apart.
"Go on."
He'd all but blurted it out, nearly turning enough for her to catch a glimpse of his face over his shoulder. His voice stretched with emotion that went so much further than defensiveness and anger. The sound made her chest ache.
"Tell me I'm wrong. Tell me I did the wrong thing."
It was almost a plea.
Helga shook her head, with an anguish of her own.
…Fuck, Arnold.
Christ. Well-meaning, half-formed, and half-assed platitudes flitted through her thoughts; her stomach clenching and her heart wringing itself out for him. For how he felt, for not knowing how to answer that, for fear of failing him. Honestly, she had no idea what to say, but she knew she couldn't let the silence drag this time, and God, it was already starting to drag, fuck—and he wouldn't say it but he was opening up and dammit he was counting on her so oh my God for fucks sake Helga just say something—
"How the fuck should I know?"
She short-circuited for a moment, her thoughts incoherent but shuddering with dread before he'd even turned back with a wide-eyed look at her.
—Oh fuck me!
Gawking breathless with her hands falling open like a helpless idiot, Helga fucking prayed that he could tell just by her face—tell she was genuinely earnest, that she wasn't being flippant, that she sincerely gave a shit.
But when he finally breathed, his face dropped, and his stare wasn't what she'd feared to see, or expected, but…
His brow pinched with a perplexed, skeptical doubt—like he almost wanted to believe, but couldn't bring himself to buy it.
"...You just saying that?" he countered, that distrust roughening his tone as he searched her face for another trap.
Her pulse picked up, lifting a weak, wry half-smile in its wake. If there was anything she was a natural at, it was backing her charge; even when she was rattled to hell.
And, in this case, maybe honesty really was the best policy.
"The fuck would—" she started, slightly breathless, "how am I—"
She shook her head and threw her hands out, dropped pretense of what someone would be expected to say, and just—
Let it out.
"I don't—even know anything," she attested, truthfully, something comical and hopeless at the top of her tone. "I don't know anything about your parents, so…"
She gave a light scoff and shrugged, her eyes wide on his as she gestured at a loss.
"No. How the hell could I say?"
A bristly current tracked through him as his stare lingered, but that tension was starting to diffuse, ease off—with a wrongfooted, indecisive frown—but one that was considering, nonetheless.
I mean—I have a point, don't I? she said with her eyes.
Her hands dropped in her lap when he didn't reply, gaze idling to the jagged edges of what remained of one of the blown-in windows, observing how the sun glinted across the encrusted glass corners; it granted her a moment to think. She gave a light shake of her head, putting her hands out in appeal.
"I mean, do you…want me to know?" she went out on a limb, looking back as he kept his gaze on her, guarded and pensive. "What do… you know about them…?"
He scrutinized her with a hard, indecipherable look, and Helga sighed.
Just when she was sure she'd blown it, like everything else, her eyes widened as he breathed in deep, like the tension in him stewing and building toward some kind of inevitable demise… only for it to blow out of him in a hard exhale, his shoulders dropping; sagging with… something, that she wouldn't call it relief.
Wiping his face, he let himself pool to the floor, his back to the glass as he sat beside her. Another exhale rent out of him in a hard sigh as he rubbed his eyes, girding himself to talk.
Taken aback by his shift, she stilled to bare witness.
"...Only what my grandparents have told me... mostly my Grandpa."
Arnold crossed his arms over his knees, staring absently at the glass-cluttered floor with a look she couldn't place.
"For the longest time, it was just—bedtime stories," he resumed, quietly. "Tall tales, where they were… jungle adventurers, circus acrobats, pilots," he gestured through the list lightly, "crime fighters, and, just—bigger than life… heroes, basically…" he trailed off.
His hand came up again, bracing the weight of his forehead against his knuckles.
"...I couldn't get enough of my Grandpa's stories about them, for so long. For years, and—" he closed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose as he frowned, "When I got old enough to know they were made up, or mostly made up—I didn't even care. I didn't know what was true, and it didn't matter, I…I just wanted more," he muttered, with a light shrug.
Helga slowly deflated for him, somehow knowing that despite the wall he was taking down to share with her, there would just be another wall beyond that—and likely another, and another. For now, she'd stay quiet and simply watch the writing on this one.
"Do you…" he started again, with a measured breath, "...remember that Parents Day tournament in fourth grade?"
How could she forget? she thought, cringing at the memory of her father's words;
'Some orphan boy and his ancestors—'
And her own, when she'd chased him down. A shade of mortification pinked her cheeks as she recalled what she'd thought was a decent apology on her Dad's behalf back then, but was glaringly offensive in retrospect—even to her. She returned a soft grunt in affirmation, finding the prospect of her speaking in response unpleasant and somehow crass, no matter what words were used.
"Anyway, that weekend, it got me…thinking about a lot, and I needed to… know, finally. Who they really were, and… what happened to them, so…"
He sighed, pushing back his hair with a hand that slightly trembled.
"What I know… is that they were both doctors, and scientists… and they really were in the jungle a lot—they helped people. That… Helpers for Humanity organization, who set up that contest? My… parents had worked for them."
Helga bit the inside of her lip. So that's why he had such a hard time saying their name, earlier…
"And one day, when I was really young, one of their old colleagues showed up, Eduardo, a friend of my Dad's. Begged them to come back… said some disease was wiping out whole villages in his home country; in remote mountain regions that hadn't seen outsiders since my parents flew in to treat them. Said they were their last hope. So… they went to San Lorenzo, flew off, and… never came back."
Dragging his eyes up to the lens, the wind stilled as he breathed out the rest.
"...They were never seen, or heard from again. No leads, and their plane was never found."
She stared, a dead weight dropping in her stomach. As the details of his share sank in, there was something in his voice, just below the surface, that she couldn't help but sit on. A thought percolated through her filter.
"... You're mad at them," she realized out loud.
She had half a mind to chide herself when his gaze went inward, and didn't speak. For being careless; to apologize, and take it back.
But the very thought stalled when his lips tugged in a smile—a bitter one, on the verge of a grim laugh that didn't break. When he finally replied, it was in a tone that was hard to hear from him.
"But I'm not supposed to be, right?"
Helga's mouth fell slowly open, her eyes widening as a lot of things began to click.
"I mean," he resumed, something like a chuckle stifling his breath, "of course I'm not. They were just trying to do the right thing, just trying to save—just thought they were gonna be gone for a little while, right?"
He gestured with a brisk air of 'what can you do?' and shook his head, the line of his mouth stiffening with a bitten lip, something hard in his eyes when they looked ahead.
"And they were clearly good people, so," he flashed his palms out, "how could I possibly be upset?"
Her brow furrowed at the familiar sound in his voice—something she'd heard from herself all her life.
Self-contempt.
"I mean…Yeah. Wouldn't you have to be, just—unreasonable, and wrong, to… blame them, at all?"
Helga abhorred the sound, coming from him.
"Would you?" she countered, her reply coming out harder than intended.
Arnold went still.
He turned his head, just enough to properly drag his troubled gaze toward her as a quietness came over him in the lingering moment their eyes met. He looked down, a frown pinching his brow.
"...Funny thing is," he went on, the husk of his voice deepening, "for the longest time… I wasn't. Even when I… put everything away, and… didn't say anything to anyone. Even when Mr. Simons announced the contest."
His gaze sharpened at the floor.
"But after…?"
His throat bobbed, and when it did she couldn't shake the feeling like he was swallowing back words that had threatened to come up his throat. Whatever they were, he regathered himself, and kept them down. She trusted her gut when it warned it was better not to pry.
Or at least, not yet.
"I'd… already put them behind me, by the time the contest came up," he murmured, closing his eyes. "And I had to weigh what the right decision was, and…"
Arnold drew his hands back to his face, obscuring his profile from view as he rubbed at his brow.
"Growing up, for years, I… hoped, like the way they'd always just make it, at the end of my Grandpa's stories? That one day, after being lost all this time, they'd just, somehow, magically… come back?"
He heaved a sigh.
"And, that was easy. To just—turn a blind eye to everything; to the truth. For so long, I didn't want it… because, I mean… really, what were their prospects?"
Helga tremored around the responsive pang she felt rising in her chest at his disclosure. A kind of weightlessness stole over her as she felt herself invited to peer over the well's edge of his private pain and wants. He facepalmed, hiding his eyes as he led her.
"...When I put everything of theirs away in that box, it wasn't just that I was sick of wondering if they would ever be found, or come back… I didn't want to think about what it'd mean if they did." Arnold dropped his head back against the glass, his hands opening up. "And—I didn't want to think about what I… really wanted, or not?"
Helga's brow pinched in a small double-take. He wiped his hand across his mouth, his eyes again—his hands restive, unable to stay put.
"...If they were somehow still alive, then… wouldn't that mean they'd chosen not to come back? And… how could they be—good people, if that's…"
He let the sentence hang unfinished, a troubled ache in his voice as she mulled over the idea of them leaving him on purpose. A notion that lit a flame inside she tempted back.
No one chose their own parents. A fact she'd lamented more times than not herself, but the thought of her beloved being brought into the world by anything but goodness struck her as unacceptably ill-fitted and undeserving.
"And if my parents were good people," he gestured his counterpoint, the movements exacting and unsettled, "and doctors, and…experienced in jungle terrain, navigation, botany—survival skills… then even if they'd just gotten injured, or lost—then, realistically, the only reason they wouldn't have come back by now? Is…"
He trailed off before leveling the Fresnel lens ahead with a firm stare, and finished his sentence with a bluntness that she could tell cost him.
"...Because they died."
If he could feel her eyes boring through him, he made no indication, going statue-still. She watched the subtle movements around his eyes as he knit his brows and kept his gaze locked to those repeating glass patterns.
"...Did I want to find their bodies?"
Helga sucked in a swift breath.
Jesus, Arnold.
Fuck.
One moment he was too still, and the next he rose to his feet so abruptly she started. He threw out his hands with his next point, and she couldn't tell if he was making it to her or himself.
"And where would I even start? It's a whole damn country."
Helga's brows furrowed in thought as she returned the searching look he gave her with a small nod of affirmation and her patient silence. Whatever he sought in her gaze seemed to give him enough, before turning away wordlessly to resume pacing restlessly in place.
She chewed over his words.
True. Searching all, if not the most remote regions of some country out in Central America was too daunting a task to entertain, even when he hadn't turned his back on blind optimism.
And he had a point.
Did he want his parents to be good like he'd always been told—and dead? Or did he want them to be alive and well, but with the caveat that they'd not only be total scumbags, but that everything he'd been brought up to believe about them was, in essence, a lie?
Tough call.
And as for Arnold? At the end of the day, of course he'd choose for them to live, even if they were assholes. He was above that—he'd always been. She was sure he still was.
But there was a difference between choosing and wanting. And even if some of your deeper feelings went dark and butted heads with your scruples, most people could stand to be secretly on the fence—especially for parents who'd left you behind when you were too young to even remember them.
But, she thought with a sinking heart, Arnold wasn't like most.
Either way, any way she sliced it, he was right. His parents were too capable to never be found again if they were still alive.
…Unless, of course, she entertained a third possibility she loathed on his behalf to consider, and Helga's stomach clenched at the thought—and at the idea that he'd likely thought of it, too, even if he wouldn't say it out loud.
"You know… later that night, on the last day of school, I asked one last question about them," he continued, pointing a finger for emphasis. "I figured my Grandpa would have already told me if it were the case, but… I still—wanted to ask. I wanted to know if the villagers had ever said whether they'd seen my parents at all, before they'd disappeared? …And you know what my Grandpa said?"
He paused to look down at her with a body that hung deceptively loose with skeptical disdain, the corner of his mouth tugged in a sour half-smile.
"He said that he asked Eduardo the same question, and Eduardo? Said that he didn't even know where the villages were—and that it was only a secret my parents knew."
From the face he pulled as he shared this revelation, she figured he'd thought the same thing she was when he first heard it.
The fuck—?
"...I didn't get it," he shook his head, gesturing with growing frustration as he divulged his thoughts. "How could he even know about them, know they were dying out, if he didn't even know where they lived?"
Helga's brow arched, her features pinching with baffled distaste.
…Something smelled like bullshit.
"I still don't get it," he said, his mouth a hard, angry frown as he shook his head again. "I wanted them out of my mind, but once I started thinking about it, I realized there were a lot of things I didn't get."
No shit, she thought, nodding back.
"Like... if those villagers already trusted Eduardo enough to—at least communicate with him, then...why couldn't he connect them with other doctors—from his own country? Or from Helpers for Humanity? Hell, why didn't my parents connect them to any of their colleagues before they quit? To anyone?"
He threw his hands out, voice raised.
"Why did they act like it could've only been them?"
He turned away, picking up steam as he revved up and paced around the lens.
"Did they really think that the villagers would just let their whole...culture—just get wiped out, if it weren't my parents? What kind of desperate people make that kind of choice?"
Arnold emerged from behind the cut-glass distortions, the lines of his creased brow sharp with a look that went inward. He hesitated, his voice a bitter mix of quiet and more guarded feelings.
"And why... didn't they weigh that—against staying with me...?"
There was a pause before his features twisted in a sardonic half-smirk.
"I mean—Christ," he scoffed, shaking his head as he looked at her, "the day they left, was just two days before my second birthday?"
She pulled a face, bringing her closed hand to her mouth in thought as she shook her head back. Every time he searched her face as she listened, it seemed to break apart that dam in him that kept everything held back, piece by piece.
And as the rush of those words chasing freedom grew, so did his spite and intensity.
"And they weren't just going off to fly in some medicine, like they were the only ones that could... but they were risking exposing themselves to something so deadly and contagious that was wiping out whole villages? By themselves, with no backup—even from Helpers, or the scientific community? Something that they could have brought back? To our country, to my grandparents—to their infant son?"
Helga grimaced, her stomach in knots at the sight of him; agitated and torn with emotion and bandaged limbs and blood-stained clothes, his salted scarecrow locks disheveled as he bared a face to her she knew he'd never bared to anyone else.
"Who does that? Who in their right mind does that? Why did they think it had to be them? It's bullshit!"
A foreboding lump rose in her throat, oddly feeling like more of a witness than a confidant, and it wasn't long until he wasn't even ranting at her anymore as the rest of that dam broke apart.
"And—who was I supposed to talk to about this?"
His voice went strangely tight; cracked.
"No one ever shamed me, or told me how I should feel, but I knew...I knew it wouldn't be okay for me to just—have these thoughts? And what if I told my grandparents, and they never even considered them? What if I... made them look at their own kid like that...?"
He shook his head with a self-hating shudder, and when their gazes nearly met he wrenched his screwed-up face away, recoiling. He couldn't even look at her anymore.
…No, she realized, scrutinizing him as she chewed her lip.
He couldn't stand to be seen.
But it was well too late, and the rest burst out of him with a force he couldn't hold back even if he tried.
"Everything I ever knew was from them! How could I even talk about this, without betraying them? Throwing all their stories, their noble views of my parents and how they had no choice—right back in their faces? About their own, long missing—probably dead son?"
Arnold's fists broke open with frenzied gesticulation, seeking a plea that belonged nowhere.
"And even if they could take it, what the hell could they even say to me?"
Scattered glass scraped against the metal floor under his soles as he turned harshly toward a half-blown window.
"You think they could talk about that?!"
Helga gasped and threw up her guard as his body coiled back to strike.
"FUCK!"
Sound shattered in her ears as he kicked through the glass.
Followed by nothing, save for his panting breath and the distant crash of waves. She lowered her arms, eyes blown wide and her mouth dropping open at him in a rapt, unblinking spell.
There he stood, caught in the light; an injured young man with his head in his hands, and cascaded glass shards pooled all around him, over his shoes and in the folds of his jeans.
Silence swallowed the air between them, leaving her hardly enough left to breathe.
…Criminy, Shortman.
Honestly, she'd… never imagined.
She'd always known it was something, but she'd never dipped so far in her mind. Things 'getting harder at home,' maybe with his grandparents or the boarders. Or maybe one of his elaborate, hair-brained ventures helping others going so dark and awry, it caused a shift in him that only worsened over the years. Something private, surely. Something bad, but…
Not this bad.
And let alone how she couldn't begin—or trust—to express how much she suffered knowing his pain…in the limited time they had, how was she supposed to be there the way he needed?
In truth, she felt a kind of familiar, uncanny feeling as she related to him, at least on the surface. She'd spent a bulk portion of her life rejecting her parents back, snubbing them and offhandedly griping to those who'd listen that she had a blowhard dad and a useless mom. But no. As neglectful and devaluing and harmful as they'd been, that was an entirely different burden.
It was nothing like this.
He'd had no help.
And, as Helga thought back on all these years of unwittingly circling around this storm living inside him, taxing his true nature and taking its toll, she had every doubt she was qualified to give it.
Seriously, what did years of therapy and even helping other kids that weren't unlike her gonna do?
Jack shit, is what.
Christ, if he'd wanted to spill with no strings attached, he'd have been better off confessing to a goddamn priest! At least he wouldn't have to carry the end of their broken friendship with him afterward if he'd done that.
God.
You're such a selfish bitch to push this, goddammit, and to leave him with nothing after.
Fuck.
"...So, no," he finally breathed out, from behind his hands, shaking. "I… didn't enter the contest. And I didn't talk to anyone about it, until Gerald—he figured it out, finally remembered why San Lorenzo sounded so familiar. Figured out why I was, so…"
He trailed off, turning his profile out of view with his back to her, hand on his hip as the other wiped across his face, heaving a sigh.
He shook his head.
"And I know you're not just being quiet, hearing all this—I know you're thinking, and what anyone would think, what I think, and—"
"You. Never," she cut off without even thinking, outrage shaking her voice, "have to feel bad complaining about your parents to me, Arnold."
He snapped back to look at her, a deer in headlights as her eyes flashed.
"I mean, of all people…criminy," she trailed off, shaking her head with offended disbelief, despite herself.
However wide-eyed he stared at her, unable to look away and whatever emotional tells clearly went through him as they held that contact, she could quickly sense the mask he reformed over his features, holding something of himself back. It left behind an understanding, yet calculating look, that slowly shifted and went inward—unkindly, and she felt a shiver of discomfort take place as she intuited at least a fraction of his retreat.
Even though he knew—was reminded of her, and believed that—he had no doubt her view of him had still changed; and for the time being, she could say nothing to counter it.
Maybe not in the way he thought, but it had.
They held a weighted silence between them that didn't break until he spoke again.
"...There was a third option, you know? With my parents..."
His worn admission pricked her ears at the unbidden thoughts she had earlier. Her stomach squirmed.
"...When my Grandpa finally told me the truth about them, I thought… 'what if they just needed to be saved?'"
The corners of his mouth tugged with the ghost of a wry smile as he shrugged.
"Sounds easy, right? Optimistic…Of course I thought that."
The way that look of his lingered on her before it drained away, and he averted his gaze to the glass-scattered floor… it almost felt invitational; like bait. And after a moment, she was sure she'd put her finger on it.
A part of him was waiting for her to throw his old voice back in his face. A call to adjust his perspective, to vouch for optimism—and look on the bright side.
Maybe even hoped for it.
"But, after a while… I stopped."
She wondered, with a steadying breath, if holding out that hope for his parents was where that persistent need for optimism came from. And that each tenacious clutch to positivity was, in some way, a form of bargaining.
"...Because how could I start? I…"
Right. No leads, she recalled. And, 'it's a whole damn country'. Either way.
He wasn't bargaining anymore.
"Like I said—if they never died, then with their skills, they would have made it to civilization eventually," he gestured out his hands listlessly, "So… if they needed saving… That means they'd need to be… held against their will… So," he paused with a rough, clarifying sniff. "Captured. Right?"
The look he gave her when his burning gaze flagged its way up to hers, his mouth reduced to a hard, simple line as he bit his hidden lips behind his teeth… Bracing herself against the chills she already felt, she tried to give one back, just as wordlessly, that told him he could tell her. "…I'd heard about some of the… things that happen down in San Lorenzo—in the underground. So, if they were captives, all these years, then they were—are, also, probably… being…"
He didn't finish. Couldn't. But, as an emptiness ate her guts, Helga completed his sentence in a dark thought:
Tortured.
Or worse.
"...And then, when I realized that I preferred that they'd rather be dead, than that, I…"
He sucked in a shivery breath.
"...In my mind, I let them die. And I shoved them away; I shoved them down. I'd already put their stuff away, but that's when I truly stopped thinking about them," his voice went soft, distant. "And I refused to think about that again… until Gerald, had…"
God, she bit her lip back when it threatened to quiver, blinking back her stinging eyes. She'd had her suspicions—but confirmation that he really had wondered—how seriously he'd considered it.
It was just—
"He didn't even need to say much… for me to start questioning that again, and—to…"
Despite that expression he had again, like he felt examined, he kept going. He still couldn't stop. More and more pieces slid into place on that old, reformed puzzle she had of him—all shapes he provided without her having to pull teeth. Instead, she winced; watching him pull out his own.
"But what could I do about it? I'd missed the contest, and it's not like we can just go. Even if we could afford that, I doubt my grandparents would agree to, because… " he trailed off, shaking his head. There was a movement to his eyes like he was scanning across all those reasons, and she could sense why. "...And I still couldn't talk to them, about…"
He sighed; facepalmed.
"I've had to just live with it," he said, his voice deadened. "And I didn't talk, I—didn't tell Gerald…"
He shook his head again.
"God, that look on his face. I…"
Helga released a tapped-out sigh at the end of a long, tense pause.
"...So that was your summer…"