To my friend, Miya 3

… … …

He hadn't meant to see.

Or hear.

But his legs rooted to the floorboards backstage, his gaze following no allegiance to his better judgment.

"I don't wanna go home. After. Ever."

She wasn't unkind to the girl. Her caustic tones hidden, the pair sat atop the finale props. He strained to catch any harshness in her shoulders, in the lines of her latticed back as they faced away. Any dry, sarcastic looseness, perhaps obscured by layers of lace.

"I know."

Where was this soft care that touched her voice at any other time?

Producing a small, pink ringed-booklet (his breath hitched) Helga pressed it to her hip, penning something in, the crown of flowers adorning her coiffed hair obscuring the slant of her profile. She tore out a page, passing it to her little companion.

"Text anytime."

The girl gave a short nod, auburn tresses stringy and limp. She curled inward, shrinking further.

"...What's the rest?"

Her breath blew out in a gust. "Something that sometimes helps."

The brunette spoke it out.

What words unsaid, I'll say,

And they won't be for you.

Ungiven care, I'll sow,

I'll reap behind my walls.

Before long, you'll watch your step,

My heart is not your ground.

Draw back your marks,

Your short horizons.

I will be seen.

And heard.

His tormentor placed her hand on the little girl's shoulder and gave it a squeeze.

Arnold didn't move.

"Does that help?"

Helga's little companion nodded again, stronger. She nodded back, softly.

"Good." She gave her shoulder another squeeze. "Let's jet, curtain's in five. Break a leg, kid."

His own legs were tree trunks at this point, immobile as ever as the pair split off, the skirts of Helga's dress drifting across the floor despite her trudging stomps. He started at last when the crowd's applause broke several curtains behind him. When had he stopped breathing?

He flinched when Gerald hissed his name from the next curtain, and cringed when Sid sassed him for leaving them a stagehand short if he was having second thoughts about performing instead. His legs, real and flesh again, strode to retrieve his prop sword, the reason he was there to begin with, and turned back on his heel. He yelped, narrowly avoiding a collision with Helga, palms out and cleavage bouncing against the soft floral collar of her costumed dress as she cursed and composed herself with a stormy scowl.

Eyes up, he commanded himself, ignoring the heat blooming up his neck.

Her brow raised, gaze boring bluntly into his, and he saw, really saw, her eyes for the first time. Baby blue with chipped, deeper and brighter tones, dark rimmed and submersible. Kind, thoughtful care through a brusque front. A poet buried in crudeness. Pain behind a mask of sarcasm.

And, he swallowed with difficulty, a soft, tender part of her she'd given him no permission to witness, but left a newfound eagerness to see more. His breath staggered, his lungs working through a foreign, dismaying ache within him.

The moment hung between them like a noose.

"...Hey."

She slowly stuck her finger out as their classmates snickered, and guided the tip of his sword aside. Which, he realized with utter mortification, had been pointed in the lower vicinity of her waist.

"Watch where you're pointing that thing, bucko."

He blanched.

Helga smirked wickedly, winking at his expense.

And he knew, somehow, as all his blood rushed back into his face with a force strong enough to burn, that from then on his heartbeat would always risk being her helpless plaything.