Transference: the redirection of feelings and desires and especially of those unconsciously retained from childhood toward a new object

Part Three:

Young and Human

Phoebe sighed. "I'm not trying to be mean, Helga. I just want to help."

"I never asked for your help."

"She was just trying to be a good friend, Helga or do you even know what that means anymore?"

Helga looked up sharply. Her eyes narrowed. "What's he doing here?"

Gerald smirked. "This was supposed to be a date but Phoebe said you needed help and I'm tired of hearing those words. Between Phoebe and Arnold, I've heard those words to last me a lifetime."

"Gerald." Phoebe admonished.

"I didn't ask for any of this." Helga mumbled. "You guys can leave or I can leave but I'm done talking."

"Really?" Gerald said. "Then it's my turn. I know about your thing with Arnold and before you look at Phoebe, Arnold is my best friend. He tells me everything. And besides, at this point who doesn't know about you and Arnold? I mean, even before Lila spilled her guts at her going away party. You've been making moon eyes at my main man Arnold since we met!"

Phoebe cut him off. "Rambling, Gerald."

"Right, my point is. Despite my advice, he tried to be your friend but you kept putting all these expectations on him. They are just as high as the ones you have of Phoebe by the way. Despite this, they still want to be your friend."

Helga clinched her fist. "I hope there is a point to this Gerald 'cause you are close to having a homemade nose job."

Gerald sighed and grabbed her fist. He unclenched it. Shocked by his actions, the girls remained motionless and let him continue. "We all wanted, and still want to be your friend, Helga. No matter how awful you treated us all, you were invited to the football games, the parties and our wacky escapades. I'm sorry he didn't love you back but that doesn't mean he, and we, don't care about you."

Phoebe placed her hands on theirs. "He's right, Helga."

She pulled her hands away from theirs. "I have to get out of here."

=P=

March 10th. Freshman year. Would she ever forget that day? Or the days (weeks?)leading up to it? He was so unlike himself- starting with the missing blue hat. He'd joined the football team last term. She watched him be loud and rowdy with the rest of the team. He got drunk at Rhonda's New Year's Party- then again during the Valentine's Dance.

"Someone spiked the punch." He said when she questioned him about it.

"You didn't have to drink it."

"It taste good." He slurred. Defiant. Careless. Un-Arnold-like.

The day before the dance, he caught her in the hall. "Let's go downtown." He said to her.

"Why?"

"New game at the arcade. Gerald has a Bio exam then he has to pick up Timberly and I know Phoebe has cello practice. Just me and you, Helga."He was smiling and tempting her.

"So you want to skip?"

"Yeah...?"

"That's not like you." And had it'd been anyone else? She probably would have skipped.

He shrugged and walked off. She watched him talk to Sid and they disappeared around the corner opposite from his last class of the day. The day after the dance, Arnold called around noon. He was breathless yet his voice was several tones deeper than usual. Want to take a walk with me? She tried to pretend that she couldn't but he only gave her a time and hung up.

"Want to know what I learned?" He said once they finally reached the park.

The air was cool and she remembered touching the grass trying to calm her heart because he was so close to her. He didn't wait for her answer.

"I learned that the world isn't black and white."

"You're a little late." She said, inhaling his cologne.

"Bear with me, okay? I don't have your way with words." He said meeting her eyes.

She remembered that his sweater was a deep green- like his eyes. They were clear, bright and looked as if he hadn't been drinking the night before. He tried to tame his hair by running his hands through it then began again.

"I always saw the world as good or bad, right or wrong. I gave advice based on these things. It's how I rationalized my parents leaving- it was for the greater good. And even when I crushed on girls," She remembered his blush but he continued, "once I found a flaw it was over. maybe that's why I was drawn to you. You were shades of gray. I tried to understand you when we were younger...and I couldn't."

"I didn't let you." She whispered to him.

He sighed then took his hands in hers, "I know what I meant to you that day in the rain. I was kind to you but I can't be what you want me to be. I have shades of grey too, Helga."

"I know that!"

"Do you? There is so much waiting for you out there so many people who will notice you just like I did. I watch you pull away from me when I have a bad day or when I'm not myself..."

"I can change that."

"But I don't think I can love you the way you love me or the way you want me to love you."

He was hugging her because tears were sliding down her cheeks. She remembered the cab right back to her place, the faint scent of the fresh air and his cologne as he half carried her up the stairs to her room.

The world didn't end, did it? Dr. Bliss echoed in her head once he was gone. It didn't end but she felt her whole world change. She went into her secret compartment and slept with the shrine that night. Why did it have to change?

=P=

Miriam was sitting in the kitchen when Helga finally came home after the Baskin Robbins incident. She ended up at the park after Gerald's heartfelt speech. Nothing he said to her was new, she'd heard it from Dr. Bliss during several sessions but hearing it from Gerald? Well, it was unexpected at best.

"Guess what I got today." Miriam said once Helga sat at the counter. Without waiting for Helga's answer, she pulled out a shiny brass pin from her apron pocket and slid it across the counter.

Helga turned it around in her hands and finally looked at it. "One year. Congrats mom."

"You never call me…"

"Today is special."

"Well," Miriam said smiling. "It is. I was thinking we celebrate this weekend. I called Olga and she said she'd fly out. Oh Helga," Miriam paused and looked at Helga. Then, "I know this has been hard for you."

"I'm tough."

"But you're only 15. You're still my little girl."

"Oh Miriam…" Helga did not want to cry or think about her childhood but…

"Let me talk, Helga." Her mother, however, was more decisive- forceful -something she learned in rehab. The same something that gave her the courage to finally leave Big Bob just weeks ago. "I can't make up for the past, or thank you, Olga and your friend for that final push into rehab but I hope we can still build a relationship, a healthy one, for the both of us."

Arnold. It was Arnold that convinced Helga to talk to her sister about Miriam. You told me that they listen to everything she says right? Use that to your advantage. I'd give anything to have my mom back Helga and you have a chance to get yours back.

And if it doesn't work? She'd asked him.

He'd pulled out the box full of private investigator reports, plane tickets to the San Lorenzo jungle, maps and old pictures and let her look through it. Then at least you tried.

His parents showed up a week later. She called Olga the day after. It all seemed connected somehow. They'd both get their families fixed. They'd help each other through it and they'd fall in love, go to college together, travel the world…

"Helga dear, are you all right?"

"Huh? Yeah."

"So dinner Saturday?"

Helga nodded. She took the cup of coffee her mother offered her then, "If you're not doing anything earlier that Saturday, I was thinking of painting my room."

"Oh! I love those pink hearts you have now. Olga and I put up the wall paper before you were born."

"We can save a piece. I was thinking it's time for a change."

=P=

Helga was covered in paint when she reached the boarding house. Arnold was sitting outside eating an ice cream cone. She felt nine again watching him sit on his stoop wishing she could be the ice cream cone. He stood when he saw her.

"Want to know what I learned?"

His face was guarded. He remembered. "What?"

"Change is a necessary thing. I think you taught me that but watching my mother. A year into sobriety... I don't have to be angry or scared anymore."

"That's great news." He said, the ice cream melting all over his hands. "For you and your mother."

Helga nodded. "It is. But we both have a long journey ahead of us."

"I still want to be your friend, Helga." He said to her, his voice deep and sincere.

"I don't think I'm ready to be your friend yet." She sighed. "You're a great person, Arnold. but you're human and you're allowed to make mistakes."

"And you're a great person too, Helga. You're allowed to be happy, to love someone and to be angry and sad."

"Hey Arnold." She called to him after a prolonged absence forced him to mumble something about cleaning the ice cream on his hands inside the boarding house.

He turned around. "Yeah?"

"Do you ever think we ever had a chance?"

"I think I could've loved you. I enjoyed getting to know you Helga but your feelings overwhelmed me. They still do."

"Imagine how I felt."

They laughed. Nervous tension in the air then,

"Good luck, Arnold."

"Good luck, Helga."

Helga watched him go inside the boarding house then she pulled out her cell phone and started the walk home, "Hello, is Dr. Bliss still there? Great, I want to make an appointment. To see her, of course! What kind of secretary are you sheesh?"

Author's Note: Done! I promise this story wasn't to crap all over Helga and Arnold. I kind of wrote this story because I wanted to explore (armed with only three college psychology classes from a few years ago) how her "thing" with Arnold would affect her life. I think they could be a great couple after they worked out their issues (some of which he addressed briefly). I'd actually love to write about Arnold but I feel like I totally ruin that because while I totally love Rhonda and Helga and writing about them, Arnold is really my favorite character on this show. And I've rambled on long enough.

Thanks for reading! I promise I'll answer all issues and questions about the story soon.