8th grade
She was gone all summer.
Olga had a baby. I can just see Helga with a baby; hopefully it isn't anything like that dream I had. At least I know babies don't come from storks now. Phoebe brought in pictures on her phone that Helga had sent her. Apparently the baby looked like Bob causing Olga to cry for two whole weeks.
She was gone from Rhonda's New Year's Eve party. Her family was spending the winter break with Olga for the baby's first Christmas. I told Gerald I wasn't feeling so great and left; I didn't go home though. I went to Mighty Pete. I didn't want a kiss for midnight, not if it didn't mean anything. I think of the times Helga has kissed me. I knew they meant something when she did; I had tried to ask her after the play. She brushed me off. The same when we did that Babewatch episode. And then there was the kiss on the roof at FTI. I had known how she felt. I had known for a long time. I knew it was her journal- I don't even know the exact moment I knew, maybe I always knew but was just too wrapped up in Ruth. I knew she was Cecile. I can't believe I asked her who she was. God, I was so dense. I was terrible at letting her know I knew; that I liked her back. I took a slip of paper out of my wallet from behind my school ID, a small folded up photocopy- a page from a pink journal I still had on my shelf. It was well read, and starting to fall apart at the folds. I didn't need to open it to know what it said, but I wanted to see the writing anyway:
Your eyes: like two green jellybeans
Are pools I want to bathe in
My head doth swoon, and yet
I want to beat your face in*
I wake up to Gerald sitting over the back end of a chair staring me down. "Mmm, mmm, mmm," I move my hand and knock over a pile of empty Yahoo soda bottles from the previous night, "your grandpa called for you this morning, I covered for you. My man Fuzzy Slippers had a feeling I could find you here." I take a quick peek in my wallet; the poem isn't there. I jump up and start searching through the bottles and cushions in the room. "Looking for this?" Gerald waves the folded paper in my face. "You figured it out, didn't you? You know who she is."
"I do, and I can't tell you." I hold my hand out hoping he will give it back.
"No worries man," he hands it back, "but I already know."
"What? How?"
"When she was away at boarding school man, she gave a whole box of those pink journals to Phoebe. They weren't up in her closet yet, Phoebe didn't know we had one so she told me that Helga had left them there for safe-keeping. It was about a week after she left that I found out."
"Please don't tell anyone, not even Phoebe." I don't even wait for a response, "Especially Phoebe. I want to talk to her first."
"Cool man," he says as he gives me our secret handshake. I know we're good. He looks around the room, "You got it bad though. I'll help you clean up here, then we gotta get you home."
I found out she was on the lacrosse team at her school. We had a day where we didn't overlap on our practices, so I would take the bus downtown once a week and watch her practice through the fence around her school. Who else do you think has been stalking you night and day? I guess it was time for me to watch her from afar.
I was gone all summer.
Olga had a baby. Olga keeps crying because she thinks it looks like Bob. I kinda like the kid; but I think he looks like me, not Bob. I took so many pictures of that kid I had to clear out my phone twice. I made sure to send a bunch to Phoebs.
I spent all of winter break with my family; Bob rented a cabin in Tahoe, so we could all be together for the baby's first Christmas. I missed Rhonda's New Year's Eve party, but after last year I didn't really know if I was up for going.
Bob has really been laying into me about Miriam. I can hardly get a moment alone. Olga is talking about moving back to the area though, and that should take some of the attention off of me. Plus, as much as Olga annoys me… I love my nephew.
I bury myself in my writing. Not just about Arnold, but mostly. It is the only time my family leaves me alone. I really enjoy it though. There are more emotions I can attend to in my writing than my love/hate relationship with Arnold, and right now, I have a whole slew of emotions to deal with. Who came up with this puberty thing anyway?
I can't get to any of his practices. I can barely get to his games; I still watch from under the bleachers, but Phoebe goes with me. Who else do you think has been stalking you night and day? I do sit on his fire escape in the middle of the night when I should be at Phoebe's and write letters to him; letters I will never send- letters he will never see.
*This is one of the poems Helga write before losing her journal and Arnold and Gerald find it. I don't know how they couldn't figure out it was her from this.
[episode "The Little Pink Book"]
