DEAR FOOTBALL HEAD
A letter from Helga G Pataki.
DISCLAIMER: I don't own 'Hey Arnold', hence why this story is on FFNET.
This is an old (very, very old) drabble I wrote one day. Just FYI: there is no happy ending.
Dear Football Head,
A nightmare of my own creation, that's what this is, karma coming back to bite me in the butt. Not a very fetching opening to start a letter, but somehow, for us, it works.
I mean, what did I really expect?
A heartfelt declaration that you loved me too?
A lifetime of me and you?
A time when my love for you could finally be requited and out in the open, supported and accepted by my family and our peers?
Yeah, and Abner has wings.
The entirety of my formative years had been dedicated to tormenting you. The whole of it. Sure, we got along here and there, and sure, I helped you out once in a while, but those moments were few and far between. I asked you once, you know? What you thought of me when we were younger, and your first response had been to flinch, no doubt remembering all the spitballs I launched at the back of your head and all the mind games I played from the time we were three until we were thirteen.
I don't blame you. If I had been subjected to the same prolonged form of psychological torture, I would've flinched too.
And then came the passive-aggressive comments and overall ignorance of your presence once we reached highschool. Oh god, I think that might have been worse. But I was mad at you, okay? I was mad that you still didn't figure out my love for you, which in hindsight was a bit of a dumb notion on my part. I mean, when were you supposed to figure that out? While on the ground when you fell after I shoved you? Or were you to have an epiphany of your love for me while I launched the fourteenth spitball at your nape during English class? Or maybe I was expecting you to realize it after the umpteenth time you tried to greet me in the hallway only for me to completely ignore your existence?
In hindsight, how were you supposed to know? You're amazing and perfect and all, but you're not psychic. I think at that point I was just so deep into my delusion of you to even figure that out, and I was never, ever going to tell you myself. That would've required making myself vulnerable. You've met my family, you've glimpsed into my life, you know we Patakis don't do vulnerable.
Okay, sure, maybe I did tell you back at that rooftop when you backed me into a corner, but I took it back. We both did. That didn't count. Doesn't. Still doesn't, now.
And so with all of that torment our whole schooling career, was it even really a surprise when you shot me down after I did finally tell you (properly, this time)? You were nice and all about it, but it didn't really change the fact that you said, point blank, "Thank you for telling me but I don't feel the same way, Helga, how could I?"
Yeah, how could you?
How. Could. You?
It was really never going to happen, and while it hurt like a sonofabitch, I only had myself to blame.
And now, the ultimate payback for all I have ever put you through is finally here, I have to watch you get hitched to the perfect girl for you. Your new wife is beautiful, by the way, gorgeous and lovely and kind, just like the girls you used to chase, but better. So much better. Because I can see it in her eyes every time she looks at you that she loves you too. You two will be very happy together.
And so this is it, football head. The first and final time I will ever write to you. I just wanted to say that I'm happy you're happy. Okay no, I'm not, but I will be, someday. Thank you for inviting me to your wedding, though if you had asked before sending out the pretty cards I would have said not to bother. I'll be crushed for a while. I'll long for you a while longer than that. But Helga G Pataki will endure, as always.
I hope you like the present. I saw the light blue stones on the cufflinks and thought of you and that cap you used to wear. Then I bought your wife a necklace or something too because I've been told that it's rude to only give the groom a present on their wedding day. By the time you read this and open your present hopefully I'll be long gone, off to someplace to think and lick my wounds and all that, and I'm not planning to return for a while.
Burn this letter if you want, I don't care.
Bye Arnold.
(Love) Helga.
