I can't come over tonight, sorry - Helga
Arnold read the text and sighed, throwing his phone onto the bed. He flopped down onto his bed and looked up at the sky, watching the clouds go by.
Annie had been texting him non-stop throughout the day. Wanting to talk. Then insulting him. Then apologizing, then getting angry again. Then there were the messages, doing the same, only verbally. She'd even had her friends calling him, leaving him messages saying things like, "You'll never do better than Annie", and "Why are you being so cruel? She loves you!" or, his favourite so far, "I can't believe you'd choose a dumpy four eyed nerd over Annie!". It was doing his head in. He'd blocked her friends numbers on his phone, but then they started calling the land line. Then there were the internet messages.
"Hey, man," he heard someone say. He looked towards the door of his room to see Gerald standing there.
"Hey," he said, sitting up and smiling at his friend.
"Still getting it from all directions, huh?" he asked, flopping down on the couch. Arnold nodded. "Yeah, they started in on Phoebe an hour ago. She's turned off her phone. They're blocked from getting to her accounts, but there's a hate page against her already. Phoebe's parents have gone to the police and the principal with it all. They screen-capped it and printed it off."
"It's alot of work and energy to be wasting on one person, and over what?" Arnold asked, looking at the sky again. "Why do I always end up with these kinds of girls?"
"Because you like seeing the best in people, to the point you ignore their flaws," Gerald said.
Arnold sighed. "Next time you see me doing that, remind me of this time. And slap me."
Gerald laughed. It had been awkward when Arnold had shown up on his doorstep the other day to apologize. But he was glad that he had. Phoebe had gone over and he had apologised to her, but she said it wasn't him who needed to apologise. Still, he'd felt absolutely awful. How had he never overheard her talking badly of Phoebe? Phoebe. Who was one of the nicest, shyest, quietest girls in the school.
In any case, they had made up, and then hours later the onslaught started.
"I wouldn't worry about it too much," he said. "I heard something interesting about Rhonda, which will be around school in a couple of days no doubt, so it will blow over pretty fast."
"Except with Annie and her friends," Arnold pointed out.
"Well, I'm gonna quote Helga on that: There are seven and something billion people in the world. They're twelve people. And we only need to -"
"Put up with them for a couple of years," Arnold joined in, helping Gerald finish the sentence. They both had a laugh. Helga had used it on Carrie once, when she was trying to get under Helga's skin.
"Your so unimportant outside this school, if you died tomorrow, no-one besides friends and family would miss you or even care." Helga had told her. "Good luck in the real world. Your gonna need it."
Carrie had become cautious around Helga, until she became captain, though even then, she wouldn't take Helga on alone. Helga was good at hitting nerves. It was one of the reasons she was left alone for the most part. It wasn't her fists people were scared of. It was her tongue. It was sharp and when it cut, it cut deep. She knew her power, and she didn't use it except as a last resort. If you took her on, you made sure you had yes people with you to lift you back up.
"And isn't she right?" Gerald asked.
"Yeah," Arnold conceded. Arnold was quiet for a while. "She's pretty smart."
"Phoebe swears Helga is the only real competition in the school she has," Gerald told him. "She even suspects that if Helga tried, she'd outdo her by a long shot."
...
...
Torvald left practice that day feeling exhausted. Everyone suspected it was just a case of Coach Wittenberg needing to get away from his wife. Something major was going down with the cheerleaders, and whatever it was, it was chasing the coach away from his wife.
"Where's Helga today?" Harold asked, jogging over.
"With Arnold, I think," he said, feeling a pang of jealousy. He should be with her - studying - not running around the field with a ball.
"Well, since your new to her life, I think I should let you know now," Harold said, stopping and taking a deep breath. Torvald watched as Harold's body tensed. "Helga and i go to Wrestlemania every year together and it's coming up."
"Really?" Torvald asked, raising his eyebrows. "I didn't realise she was into wrestling."
"Oh yeah, yells and curses with the best of them," Harold said, smiling. "Your lucky, and I don't mean that sarcastically. Helga's an awesome girl, and if I didn't have Patty, I'd date her, just for that alone!"
"Okay," Torvald said, nodding. "So you wanna take her then?"
"Well, I've been talking to Patty, and she's decided she'd like to come along this year, and I know your a fan," Harold told him. "So I thought, why don't you join us? Helga was fine about Patty, so she'll be stoked to have you come along, I'm sure."
"I'll think about it, thanks," he said, smiling to Harold. He watched as Harold seemed to relax.
"Okay, well, see you around," he said, waving and heading back in the direction he came from. Torvald watched Harold leave for a moment, before heading to the showers. He'd have a shower, text Helga, and maybe take her out tonight.
...
...
Helga ignored her phone. The house had gone quiet. Her parents had retreated to their room, Olga to her's and Helga to her own. The silence in the house was deafening. Usually there was noise going on. Bob's TV shows blaring, Miriam pottering around the house or in the kitchen, Olga playing the piano, or also in the kitchen with Miriam cooking, baking, whatever. but tonight, nothing.
When her phone went off, it gave her a fright, and she sat up and grabbed it quickly, stopping the noise as soon as possible. She wasn't sure why, but she didn't want to disturb the silence in the house.
I've finished practice, want to go out somewhere? - T
Helga stared at the text for a while, before answering.
Sure, at home, come get me?
She got up and grabbed a hoodie and slipped her shoes on. It was chilly tonight, or maybe it just seemed that way to her after the news she'd had . . .
Be there in 5
"Great," she whispered. She crept out of her room and down the stairs. Grabbing a set of house keys she wrote a quick note saying she needed to get some air and think, then she slipped out the door and sat on the stoop waiting for him. He took ten mintues, not that she was counting. She jumped up and hopped in as soon as the car had slowed.
"You okay?" he asked, looking over at her.
"Yeah, I'm fine," she lied, throwing him a smile. "So what are we going to do?"
"What do you want to do?" he asked, pulling away from the curb.
"Can we just hang out? Maybe at your place?" she asked.
Torvald looked over at her. Something was off. She wasn't looking at him.
"Did something happen at Arnold's?" he asked. Helga shook his head.
"I never got there," she admitted. "I had to go home for an emergency."
"Why, what happened?" he asked her. Helga shook her head.
"I don't want to talk about it right now," she said quietly.
Torvald wanted to press on, but decided to respect her decision. Maybe if he just let her think about it on her own for a bit, she'd open up.
The rest of the drive was quiet, and when they went into the house he called out for his mom. He didn't hear anything and went to look at the corkboard in the kitchen.
Your uncle's in A&E. Sliced his foot open. Gone to help your aunt.
"You want some pizza?" he called out, walking into the lounge where Helga had curled up in a corner on the couch.
"Yes," came a watery reply. Shit, was she crying? Torvald didn't do girl's crying.
"Um, okay," he said, going to make an order. When he was finished he saw Helga had managed to pull herself together. "So you want to watch a horror or a comedy?"
Helga just burst into tears, which freaked Torvald out a bit.
"What's wrong?" he asked, sitting down next to her awkwardly.
"My sister's dying!" she wailed, then dropped her upper body against his. He sat still for a moment, stunned, then slowly wrapped his arms around her sobbing frame.
...
...
"Torvald," he heard his mom calling. He opened his eyes to see his mother looking at him with concern. His neck felt stiff and he had pins and needles in his arm. And hair in his face. Looking down he saw Helga's blonde head laying on his chest. He must have laid down a bit to get comfortable and fallen asleep.
"What's going on?" she asked, looking down at Helga's sleeping form.
"Uh, she got some bad news," he said. "She was crying."
The look of concern on his mother's face didn't subside.
"You need to wake her up," his mother told him. "It's getting really late. She needs to go home."
He nodded and sat up a bit, and shook Helga's shoulder. She lifted her head a bit and took a dazed look around. "Huh?"
"I need to get you home," he told her, sitting up more, meaning Helga had to push herself up.
"What? Home?" she asked. She blinked a couple of times and looked around again. "Oh. Yeah. Sorry."
They went out to his car and Torvald turned on some music.
"Are you feeling better?" he asked. Helga shook his head. "Yeah, sorry, dumb question I guess."
"She's going to die," Helga said. "They gave her a few weeks to a few months. It's been there a while apparently. But she ignored all the symptoms thinking it was jsut migraines, and so did two of the general practitioners she saw. Dad is going to look into that. See if he can sue."
"His daughters dying, and he's thinking about money?" Torvald asked, confused.
"He's thinking of anything to take his mind off the fact that his daughter is going to be dead in a little while," Helga said defensively.
"Oh, right, I get that," he said, watching the road ahead. It went quiet again. As they pulled up to the Pataki house she turned to him and leaned in. He looked at her and felt her lips against his. Then she pulled away and left his car, slamming the door behind her. He sat there for a moment, before suddenly his door opened, and before he knew what was happening Helga was on his lap kissing him for all she was worth. Against his better judgement he kissed her back, placing his hands on her waist and moving them up her shirt...