Welp. Read this if you want. Haaaaaaaa…
Pumpkin.
Don't own that which is copyrighted.
Helga was curled up underneath the covers of her temporary bed, one of higher quality than the bed she had at home. The blonde tossed and turned in the plush down, unable to find any semblance of comfort. Her mind was too preoccupied by the turmoil of earlier today.
Why had he approached her?
Why had he wanted to play with her?
Why did he fall from a balcony and ;and right next to her side?
Was it a sign?
Could it be fate?
Helga still wasn't sure if she believed in fate. Sure, she brought it up in her poems all the time, practically claiming destiny had her and Arnold as its OTP. But poetry was fantasy.
She might not be entirely sane but the blonde wasn't delusional.
Arnold's sudden advances only further catalyzed her internal war. His sweetness made it near impossible for her to give up on him and yet it was that same sweetness that mollified her so- to a point far beyond what she was comfortable with.
Helga wasn't about to let all her shields down- not even for her football-headed dope. The girl rolled over again with a groan. It's not like she even had a chance with him anyway and her obsession with him had long since gotten out of hand; any sane person would call it quits.
But while Helga certainly wasn't delusional, she wouldn't exactly consider herself sane.
All the blonde was doing was going in circles. This wasn't helping her fall asleep.
Hours passed by and there was no way Helga was going to fall asleep now. A huge storm was roaring outside and rocking the boat back and forth violently. The movement wasn't enough to wake someone but it was enough to prevent one from falling asleep.
Growling, Helga heaved herself out of bed and stumbled to her cabin room's door. Her pajamas, a thin, oversized t-shirt and basketball shorts, weren't doing much to protect the blonde from the night chill. As the boat swayed, the girl too was flung from one side of the hall to the other as she worked her way towards the staircase leading to the deck. One particularly strong wave forced Helga against a cabin door and knocked the wind out of her.
The young girl only let out a light "oof" refusing to acknowledge the pain. She desperately needed fresh air, to feel the rain and forget. Stubbornly continuing on, the blonde failed to notice the door she'd tackled cracking open.
Sleep just wouldn't come to the boy; instead leaving him bogged down by his thoughts. His dream scared him, not only because of Helga's death but his selfishness in her time of need. Arnold loved the girl and yet his own ego had blatantly gotten in his way of protecting her; he was infuriated with himself- disgusted and downhearted. He had wanted to help her.
Even though she'd never (admit she) need(ed) it.
Resolved, Arnold decided that, regardless of what it was, the next time that girl needed help he'd force her to accept his.
A sudden bang against his door, accompanied by a quiet "oof", startled the blonde. The voice was one familiar to him, so recognizable, he couldn't possibly not realize who it was now.
Helga.
He rolled quickly out of his bed and stumbled over to the door. Gripping the doorframe for stability, Arnold struggled with the handle. Finally managing to pop the door open, the blonde fell into the hallway. The tumultuous rocking of the boat didn't cease, only strengthening as the boy struggled to his feet. He needed to see her.
Just see her alive.
Gritting his teeth, he staggered out onto the deck. Frothy water violently spilled over the edges of the ship as it shook as though it were a pinball bouncing off flashing, multicolored bumpers.
Directly ahead was Helga, her wiry, thin arms gripping the railing tightly as she stood at the front of the hull. The wind chaotically tossed her blonde hair into a whirlwind, dancing to the unheard song of the storm with sharp twists and violent twirls. Arnold must've been insane because even as she braced herself against the edge of a ship in the middle of a perilous storm and risked her well-being for no reason the boy could discern, he still found the girl in front of him breathtakingly beautiful.
The cacophonous howl of the storm drowned out all sound as he slowly crept towards her. Arnold didn't know what he was trying to do, he just wanted to be closer. Pausing, his green eyes flickered over to a stray life vest bound to the hull. Better safe than sorry, he figured, slipping it free and squeezing his head through the neck hole. However as the blonde looked back at Helga, he decided on a better use.
The closer Arnold drew to the girl, the more he realized she was teetering.
And suddenly he wasn't so concerned with caution. Already upon her with his next breath, Arnold ripped the bright orange life vest off his head and slammed it down over hers.
It'd been nice, watching the storm, an entity even more chaotic than her own mind. She needed that.
A wave of sympathetic kinship washed over her- as well as a wave of freezing cold water- and in her relaxed state she began to lean forward to rest more of her weight against the bars.
That had been her mistake.
In the next moment, the blonde felt something sturdy slam over her head and push down against her shoulders. Assuming it was water, Helga's brilliant first response was to let go of the railing and flail her arms with the kind of furious desperation one only sees when facing death. And what a stroke of genius it was, because not a second later a new rush of water hit the girl hard and began to carry her off the boat.
As Helga felt death looming, she couldn't shake the feeling that she was missing a crucial bit of irony in this. It was when she finally noticed the life preserver that was suddenly on her that it hit her.
She was going to die because of a life vest.
Now that was ironic.
The ocean angrily tugged at her as Helga took what she assumed would be her last breath- of air, no doubt she'd be breathing in gallons of seawater soon enough. Her life was over and while it hadn't exactly been stellar, it could've been a lot worse. She'd had Arnold, what more could she really ask for?
Warmth enveloped one of her wrists. A new force was pulling on her, struggling to drag Helga back over the boat against the will of the water. The blonde's icy blue eyes shot open in surprise and saw him.
At the edge of the boat, a drenched Arnold was desperately gripping her pale, bony arm, every muscle and tendon in his being straining to fight mother nature and keep her with him. The girl was too stunned to help, she was currently living one of her fantasies, albeit a slightly dangerous one, but there was her hero, her knight, trying so hard for her.
In what Helga could only assume was an extremely warped emotional response to her own peril, she was happy. She was also back on the boat, in Arnold''s arms. It was something straight out of a romance novel, one of those really cheesy ones where the plot was so blatantly obvious and the characters were completely unoriginal and the writing was subpar at best. If it wasn't Arnold, the blonde girl would've been gagging at the stereotypical nature of it all.
But it was Arnold and as such Helga could do nothing but sit and stare.
Even as a violent wave tore him from her and cast him from the boast, the bully could only stare.