Monday, September 18th 8:15 AM
Helga sauntered down the hall with her arm around her friend. Phoebe looked up and asked "Why did you say that to Arnold?" Helga, smiled wide and said "Because Phoebes, there is no greater pleasure in this or any other life, than making the boy uncomfortable. Come on you laughed a little." Phoebe cracked a small smile "At least you weren't threatening him, which is your usual modus operandi with men," Phoebe said. "Could he still be considered a man when he gets embarrassed when talking about his basement equipment?" Helga asked her friend. "I believe so, I'd imagine you'd be pretty upset should one of the boys asked about your latest menstrual cycle." Phoebe said. "Noted, do not ask Arnold about bleeding from his Emily Bronte." Helga said. Phoebe rolled her eyes.
After a beat of walking, Helga finally said, "What can I say Phoebe? I never know what to say to him." They had stopped at their lockers to grab their physics book. Phoebe checking her hair was still alright, turned to Helga and said, "Well Helga, you could try saying nothing at all if you have nothing nice to say." "Are you the guest minority Sesame Street character this week?" Helga asked. Her friend smiled at her "Fine, I guess I could try. It will suck since I'd have nothing to say at all at that point. It's just, awkward," Helga observed. Phoebe looked at her friend, expectedly. "It's just…. I don't know. I can't help but keep him at arms length. It's not like a see him a ton anyway. He has his life and I have mine." Helga closed her locker, and started heading towards her class. Phoebe followed and looked up at her friend. "Did you see what he was wearing today?" she said. Helga looked down a Phoebe. "No." Phoebe looked forward, "I know I did. Not sure where all those muscles came from, but damn…. I'm glad they're here. That shirt was pretty much painted on him," Phoebe said. Helga raised one eye brow and responded "Well now, you do check out other guys, I'm telling your boyfriend" Phoebe giggled and said, "Here I was thinking I was normal." Phoebe bumped her hip into Helga lightly, and looked up at her. "Come on, did you notice?" She asked again. "Of course I noticed!" Helga finally responded.
"How could I not notice, his arms are so freakin big, not to mention that chest I just want to eat ice cream off it. He looks like freakin Captain America!" Some people in the class looked on at Helga and Phoebe as her voice began to carry. Helga paid them no mind at all and continued. "I at least see him most days, and he's always been skinny, geeky, and weird, " Helga started. Phoebe lowered her glasses and looked at Helga. "OK, skinny and cute. Jesus, criminy! Now he looks like Chris freakin Evans in The Winter Soldier. I just….." Helga stopped, realizing Lila was staring at them. "What are you lookin at scarecrow?!" Helga directed at Lila. "He has a really nice ass too." Lila interjected. Helga and Phoebe both shocked to hear her speak like that. "What?" Lila asked. "Well Lila. Didn't know you looked into that kinda stuff" Phoebe, answered for them both. Lila the perfect red head, narrowed her hazelnut eyes and said "Well, I like a good personality, you don't want to date a piece of driftwood, no pun intended. But come on, a white guy with a great ass? Everyone takes notice." Helga snickered and started to laugh, as did Phoebe and Lila. "Jesus, Lila." Helga said.
Lila turned back to her desk and prepared her stationary. Helga, started to do that same. As, she got out her physics book and notebook she looked at the clock and realized class hadn't actually started. She decided to take the most of her time, and get out her pink notebook. She turned to a fresh page and began writing.
"This is an odd feeling, Arnold is a spaz. He's weird and only got weirder as we got older. I guess a few years of knowing someone is too long to also be ambivalent about them. Maybe there's a person I never met filling out those clothes. I wonder what his stomach looks like….."
Helga stopped, looked up, ripped the page out and threw it across the room. Landing perfectly in the trash. "Score!" yelled one of the guys in the front row. Helga didn't know his name, she also didn't care. She grabbed her writing notebook and started to proof read something she had been working on for a couple weeks. "Is that your latest?" Phoebe asked. "Yeah, this one's for the literary digest thing I showed you last week." She said. Phoebe looked at the title "The Culpable Complacency of Inner City School Funding." Phoebe asked, "what's this one about?" Helga looked up and said "I'm writing observations about inner city kids who deal with lowered school funding and the consequences of it. And that further investment into the depressed inner city schools is a tide that raises all the boats. I'm still working out the thesis." Phoebe eyes widened "Wow! Wait, I thought the literary magazine was for fiction." She said. "No, that one is online only. I submitted my story last night before passing out on my bed." Helga corrected Phoebe. "That's wonderful Helga! See? I told you you should put your stuff out there." Phoebe said. "Maybe, I'm still nervous, I'm waiting for the email from the editor to see if they'll accept it." Phoebe smiled "come on, of course they will. And if they don't fuck them!" Half the class looked over at this point. Helga laughed, seeing her friend show her rare rebellious attitude was her favorite part of their conversations. "You're absolutely right, fuck them!" Phoebe and giggled turning a light shade of red seeing everyone look at her.
Monday, September 18th 12:15 PM
Their civics class was finishing up, and it was getting close to lunch. Helga was hungry, not satisfied by the half a bowl of stale cereal. She cut a few people in line wanting to get something to eat. A younger girl said "Hey? What the hell?" "What? Something you want to say?" Helga said at the girl. She quickly wilted, and mumbled "nothing." Grabbing a cheeseburger and a salad instead of fries, she looked for Phoebe. She spotted her friend sitting next to Gerald. Who of course had Arnold by his side. She hesitated going over there. She didn't want another run in with Arnold and her friend was enjoying the attention the formerly tall hair boy was giving her. Walking towards the exit to the field she decided to eat outside and work on her piece for the magazine a little more. She didn't want to make a third wheel situation even worse by offering to be a fourth.
She ate her lunch under the shade of one of the trees. It was a calm weather day. Warm, but not too dry. She liked the mild September days. The leaves had started turning, but the weather was still decent enough to be outside. She needed clarity. This morning's usual train wreck, made her forget about the fiction site she had submitted some of her latest work to. She liked the story enough. She just never believed that her writing was good enough. Writing had always centered her. She was able to express on the page what she never cold anywhere else. Somehow Phoebe had got into her head that she should submit her writing somewhere. "No idea what the hell I was thinking." She wondered out loud.
She looked into the tree, seeing the greens and noticing the start of the changing process in some of the leaves. She looked at her tray and started to eat. She opened her book and started going through the notes she had made for her paper. A light breeze blew by, she felt the wind on her arms and looked up into the clear blue sky, a small smile sneaking onto her face.
As she finished her salad, she was interrupted by her phone chiming. She looked down and realized Phoebe had texted, looking for her. She opened the application and typed Figured I'd give you and your gross boyfriend some time to be alone…With Arnold. Seriously? Who can't take a hint? Helga smiled to herself. She went back to her home screen and noticed she had an email. Her throat went dry. She felt foreboding in her stomach. She didn't want to open her email. As she clicked on the icon, she saw the email from the editor's email address come up. She, took a deep breath. As she exhaled, she looked down at her phone. The email read:
"Dear Miss Pataki,
While we enjoyed this, your first submission to our publication. We are afraid we must decline to publish this story. We believe …."
All she could do is read the first line, then she read it again. She had no conception of how much time had passed as she reread the first line of the email over and over. She felt the dread in her stomach come up to her throat . She couldn't speak, she sat there frozen unable to stop looking at her phone. She started to breath as she started to feel that she was out of air. She scrunched her face up, and kept her eyes closed. As she opened them she looked at the email again:
"Dear Miss Pataki,
While we enjoyed this, your first submission to our publication. We are afraid we must decline to publish this story. We believe …."
Making sure it was real she put her phone away. Her jaw tightened. "Well I don't really know what I expected." She thought to herself. "The story was pretty bad, I knew I shouldn't have bothered." She thought. She inhaled deep and exhaled again. She thought to herself over and over "Why did I even bother, I knew my stories sucked. What the fuck was I thinking." She continued to look up at the sky. She couldn't understand why the weight of this disappointment seemed so heavy. For her life overflowed with disappointment. "Why one more would make any kind of difference? It's not like I didn't expect this. Maybe writing wasn't the way to go." Helga thought, still looking at the sky.
She didn't feel the tears welling up in her eyes until they started to fall down her face. She hated crying, she thought it was week. She bowed her head into her forearm and started to lightly sob. She couldn't believe she had felt this way. She continued to sob. She felt as if she were the only person in the city. She felt so alone.
"Helga?" She heard a familiar overly earnest voice. She looked up and saw Arnold going down on one knee to match her eye level. "Helga, what's wrong? Are you alright?" Helga had wiped her eye as he knelt down. "Nothing Football Head, northing's wrong!" She snapped. She felt pathetic letting anyone see her like that. "Helga, I saw you crying a second ago. Come on, you can tell me." Arnold wouldn't break eye contact with her. She saw nothing but genuine concern in his emerald green eyes. She couldn't stop looking at his eyes. A moment passed with no answer coming from Helga. Finally Helga snapped out of it. "Nothing is wrong Arnold! You can go be concerned with someone else now." She had no desire to explain to Arnold how she had failed, and how pathetic she was for letting it get to her.
She got up and gathered her stuff. "Why don't you mind your own damn business, and find another couple to bother." She yelled at him. "Wait, Helga! It's alright, you don't have to be angry." He said. She walked away in anger. She looked over her shoulder a moment seeing him standing there a little confused, but with considerable concern on his face. She wouldn't stop walking. She just needed to be alone.
Monday, September 18th 2:15 PM
Later that afternoon, she had felt the rejection a little less that at lunch. She was finishing with her final class. Phoebe had met her at the door. Helga saw her and she came to hey, and they made their way down the hall toward the exit. "So, what's on the agenda tonight?" Helga asked Phoebe. "Um, I kind of have an evening with Gerald planned." Phoebe said. "Oh," Helga responded. A moment passed as they approached the door. "I suppose we could reschedule and you and I could do something." Phoebe suggested. "What? No, don't do that on my account," Helga said letting a few moments pass, while she stood next to her friend. "Besides, as much enjoyment I would get out of being the reason he's walking around with blue balls tomorrow I think I would also be responsible for the guy he punches in the face because he's sexually frustrated," Helga said. Phoebe giggled turning a little red. "So what are you going to do?" As Helga thought about it she saw Gerald approaching with Arnold at his back. He was almost like his pet at this point. "God what a loser." She thought to herself.
"Hey baby" Gerald said to Phoebe, grabbing around her waist and kissing her. "Hello Gerald" Phoebe said brightly. "You ready for your surprise?" Gerald asked. "You gonna slip her the old dick in the bottom of the popcorn tub there Geraldo?" Helga asked as she looked away, attempting to look angelic. Gerald squinted at her "Nah lady, you get salt in your pee hole and it hurts. Not into it." Helga got a laugh out of that. "I was thinking, maybe we can hit up the NASA engineering show you talked about." Gerald directed at Phoebe. Looking up at him, her face lit up. "Oh my goodness, really?" Phoebe said. "Yes sweetheart, I know you were excited about it…" Gerald started when Phoebe jumped up and threw her arms around his neck, kissing him. "I would love that." She said, her body being supported by Gerald, so that she could remain eye level. "Then it is done." He said smiling back at her.
Helga seeing this smiled a little. She thought "I can't say much for her taste in men, but he makes her happy." The smile got bigger as she tilted her head to the side and realized Arnold looking down at his feet looking for something to keep his attention and not see the happy couple in front of him. She shook her head slightly at him, "what is it with him. It's just kissing." She wondered if Arnold was a virgin. Gerald put Phoebe back on her feet. "Arnold!" she said, "Will you come with me a moment?" Phoebe grabbed his wrist and led them away from Gerald and Helga a moment. "What's that about? Think he's banging her behind your back?" Helga asked Gerald. "Gerald looked over at her, puzzled, "Yeah sure Helga, that's exactly what's happening." Helga said after a moment, "You never know, she could be planning to leave you right now, and run away with him." Gerald guffawed and said, "You're right, my straight edged best friend is gonna run off with my lady behind my back. Please…." Helga continued, "I don't know, they look they're arguing. Maybe they're bickering over the situation, and he's pressuring her to break it off with you. Wouldn't surprise me, you're both pretty boring but he's at least hot." She had not planned to say that last part. Her eyes widened hoping Gerald didn't catch that last part. "Sorry Pataki I couldn't hear you, what did you say?", Gerald said. Helga, didn't respond right away, "She'll probably leave you after you spent a bunch of money on her too," Helga said deflecting the question. "That's not what you said," Gerald said. "Did you say he was hot?" Gerald asked grinning at her. "I said Phoebe is gonna leave you." Responded Helga. A little red she turned on her heel and started walking out of the building.
Phoebe caught her on her way to her car. "Helga! You didn't wait," Phoebe said. "Well there's only so much whisper face you can make with Football Head before I get bored," Helga Said. "Well they're coming back, so you and Arnold can exchange numbers," Phoebe casually mentioned. "Wait, why would I need his number?" Helga asked. "Well that would be because the two of you are going to hangout casually tonight," Phoebe mentioned. "Why would I be doing that?" Helga asked. "Well I am busy, so is Gerald and I think you need someone to hang out with," Phoebe looked her in the eye and smiled. "Are you out of your fucking mind? I don't need anyone to hang out with, I'm good all by my damn self!" Helga insisted. Indignant, she started to open her door. "Just because I don't have some boy toy doesn't mean I'm lonely! Nor does it mean I need you to find me friends." Helga began. Phoebe cut her off getting up close to her to speak in a lower tone, "listen Helga, it's O.K. to have friends. It's really for Arnold. He's been spending too much time alone since Gerald and I started dating into the school year. I feel a little bad, however Gerald feels awful to leave his friend to his own thoughts. Apparently the thoughts in that football head can get pretty dark." Phoebe pleaded. "Why would I want to do anything for your idiot boyfriend?" Helga asked. Phoebe responded "because knowing Gerald's mind isn't worrying about his friend and how lonely he can get would make my evening even better! Please Helga?" Phoebe pleaded again. "You're really gonna make me do this aren't you?" She said. "It would make the evening perfect." Phoebe looked at her best friend with a large expectant smile. "Fine! Jesus Christ." Helga finally said. "You owe me big for this." She said towards Phoebe as Gerald and Arnold approached.
"What's your number Football Head?" Helga asked. Arnold and Helga added each other to their phones contacts. "I have some stuff I need to do when I get home and then we'll go do…. something. Deal?" Helga asked. "Yeah, sure. Sounds… great." Arnold said. She narrowed her eyes at Phoebe, and got in her car to leave. "This is gonna suck." She thought to herself.