Chapter Two: "They Can't Replace the Life You Waste"

She awoke to very bright, very harsh florescent lights and snapped her eyes shut again with a hiss of displeasure. Rubbing the crust from her eyes, she vaguely remembered where she was. She remembered Todd, the record skipping, the swarm of people rushing around her to collect the pieces, and the guy that was so familiar.

He said something about a Phoebe somebody. Something about contacting her for a solution.

Oh dear God. No!

She opened her eyes again and glanced around the small white room, taking everything in slowly. Yes, her mind did not falter. She was in a mental hospital. "Loony bin" for the unpolitically correct, of course.

"Shit," she said aloud. Phoebe? The name rolled around and around in the haze that was currently her mind. Didn't she use to know someone named Phoebe?

No way could it be the same Phoebe. Seriously, how many other women out there could have the same name? Tons, that was what! Just a coincidence, really!

Her heart was pounding. It was just a coincidence, right? She looked down at the small metal bed she had slept in the previous night. Just a vinyl bed and a ratty old blanket. No pillow, not even a sheet. She sighed.

She looked down at the small metal bed she had slept in the previous night. Just a vinyl bed and a ratty old blanket. No pillow, not even a sheet. She sighed.

So this was it? Todd had just decided to shove her in an institution so he wouldn't have to see her ugly, bruised face anymore? She had to call someone...her mother, her sister...hell, the Pope would do. She just had to get out of there! She hated mental hospitals, ever since the last time.

She heard a metal "clink," like the sound a door makes when the locks are opening. Sure enough, the door was opening, and a petite Asian-looking woman slid through the crack. The woman was smiling.

Helga looked at the floor, doing something - anything! - so she wouldn't have to look at the woman in front of her.

"Helga?" The woman came closer within touching distance and then hugged her. "It is you."

Shivering nervously from the unusual contact, Helga grimaced and withdrew from the embrace. "Do I know you?" She looked up in time to see Phoebe frown in...anger? No, not anger...hurt. Definitely an emotion that Helga was not used to seeing, only feeling.

The lady sighed sadly. "It's me, Helga. Phoebe." She searched Helga's eyes for recognition, causing Helga to drop her gaze to the floor in shame. Part of her knew, but it was such old, fleeting thought...well, she wasn't sure.

"I don't know." Helga whispered and bit her lip in frustration. "Maybe. I can't remember. I can't really even remember yesterday." That's a lie, her mind told her. A downright lie. She shrugged.

Phoebe nodded and smiled, but it was such a tiny smile. A smile of confusion and dejection, Helga noted. "Well Helga, I suppose it shouldn't surprise me. From what Gerald reported, last night must have been...uh...sudden for you, yes?"

Helga shook her head. "No, I knew what I was doing."

The frown came back. "What were you doing, Helga?"
Helga sighed again. "I was escaping."

There was another time, she remembered, that she had tried to escape, but in a different way. She had been only sixteen years-old. Sweet sixteen.

She hadn't eaten for a while, she was sure. Days...maybe weeks even. Had to be by now.

Steering clear of the cafeteria with all its enticing aromas, she opted for the gym. Probably a stupid mistake, yes, because she hadn't eaten and her mind was a spinning mess, but how was she to know that Gerald and Arnold would be playing basketball?

Well, doi! They only played every day before they left to eat!

She sighed and sat down on a row of bleachers where she was certain she couldn't be spotted.

Another big mistake. Phoebe plopped down beside her. "Hey, Phoebe."

A crack of gum. "Where have you been lately, Helga? We never see you in the cafeteria anymore."

"Working on extra credit."

Another crack of gum. "Bullshit."

Helga stared at her former best friend for what felt like an eternity. Had Phoebe just said what she thought she had heard? Had they fallen out of contact for so long now that Phoebe had changed without her knowing? "What?"

"You're lying. You don't need extra credit."

Helga groaned and looked down. "Look, Phoebe, I've been busy, okay? Just leave me alone."

"No, I won't. Everyone's worried about you. We haven't seen you eat lunch in two weeks."

Had it been that long? "Don't worry. I eat at home. I hate the food here."

Phoebe groaned in irritation and shrugged, having given up. "If you say so. At least I tried."

Helga looked up and glared at Phoebe, who in return, cracked her gum again. "What do you mean?"

Phoebe stood up and looked at the gym floor. Out of curiosity, Helga looked in the same direction and gasped. Gerald was on his way up...with Arnold in tow.

Helga stood up quickly and tried to get past Phoebe, but as she moved down a row, she felt a tug at her wrist, making her wince. Boy, did that hurt! Was Phoebe working out? It felt like a bone had snapped! "Phoebe-"

"Don't even say it," Phoebe said in a low growl. "Sit down. We all need to talk to you."

Helga nodded nonchalantly and sat back down. When she looked up again, she saw three concerned faces looking down on her. "What?"

All three grinned, making Helga wary of what they were going to do. Phoebe grabbed her wrist again, though lightly that time, and pulled her to her feet. "Come on. We're getting lunch, my treat." Helga could almost scream! How could they do this to her? Why did they even care? Weeks had passed, and no one had even said "boo" to her, meaning they didn't care whether she went through with her plan or not. Just when she felt that closure was near...damn, there they were, waiting to spoil her escape.

She snatched her hand back from Phoebe, sat down again, and sneered at the three. "I don't want lunch. I'm not hungry. I'm going to stay here, and you will all leave me the hell alone."

Suddenly, Arnold was towering over her. "We know what you're up to, Helga, and we won't let you destroy yourself this way."

"So?"

Arnold smiled. God, such a smile could melt a thousand icy hearts into love puddles...

Boy, she had to write that down later! If there was a later.

"So you have two choices," Phoebe replied.

She crossed her arms and looked up at them in defiance. "Being?"

Arnold answered that time. "You either eat with us...or we take you to see Dr. Bliss and have her put you in the hospital."

She shrank back in fear. No! They couldn't! Only her parents could, right? Right?

Phoebe must have seen the terror in her eyes because she relaxed a bit and even began to comfort her. "Oh Helga, you have to understand that we care for you. You can't do this to yourself."

She laughed, and the three stared at her in confusion. "Oh, I can't, can I? Please ask yourselves when the last time was that we four sat down and had a conversation." The three hung their heads. "Exactly my point. You three are not my friends. I have no friends."

Phoebe was actually weeping. "Oh Helga!"

Helga stood and shook her head. "Don't say it. Just get out of my way, and stay out of my life. What do you care if I choose to end this hurt? This pain!" Instead of waiting for them to move, she climbed down the bleachers, using them as steps. "No one will miss me when I'm gone anyway."

Wrong choice of words. Suddenly, they were climbing the bleachers after her. How could she have let that slip, damn it? Maybe she really didn't want to die.

Yeah, right. Hadn't she told herself that no one needed her, that no one loved her? That no one could love her.

Bad bad BAD mistake. Soon, hands grabbed her by the shoulders, the wrists...whatever they could find, and she was marched to Dr. Bliss' office. The long march of impending doom.

She hated her life. Big Bob had yelled and yelled. Yelled for hours, and then for hours more. In the end, Dr. Bliss and her "friends" had won though. As Dr. Bliss phoned Highline Mental Health, Bob took turns yelling at her friends and then at Helga, herself. He simply refused to believe that a Pataki could be weak. He went on to question if she was really a Pataki or not.

Well, fuck him. She couldn't care less. Maybe life would be better if she had other parents out there who actually gave a rat's ass about her. Not that she would tell him that though.

The worst part was when Bob turned on Arnold, calling him "orphan boy" again and "wondering aloud" if "Alfred" was the one who needed help mentally. She watched silently as Bob berated Arnold, as Arnold listened patiently, as Dr. Bliss talked on her cell phone, as Phoebe and Gerald held each other for support, as her mother sat there like some statue taking it all in but never sticking up for her daughter, and Helga realized she could take no more. She stood up, walked over to the wall, and pounded her head against it while screeching. The noise stopped, and everyone looked at her.

Bob was the first to talk, of course. "Olga, what in the hell are you doing?"

"Helga, really," her mother said weakly.

Dr. Bliss and her friends gawked at her as if she had suddenly grown three heads and started spitting out wooden nickels.

She could feel the anger boiling in her stomach, and she welcomed it. Maybe some things did need to be said before she left. Yes, perhaps, after all. Something to make them understand, something to make her understand.

"I HATE YOU ALL!"

The whole room stared at her like she'd lost her mind. Maybe she had.

She glared at Dr. Bliss and her former friends. "Why, for Christ's sake, do you care about me now? Sending me to the fucking hospital? Sure! That's really going to work! Those places are for people that really care about life. Get a clue! I DON'T!" she screamed. Then she turned to her parents, and for a minuscule amount of time, she actually felt sorry for them. They looked concerned for once, but yet...yet.

They looked like they feared for their lives.

She nodded, smiling to herself. Good. Let them. "You two couldn't care less about anything I do. I can't take anymore of that 'Patakis are strong' shit that you feed me, Bob! When Olga was depressed, you two ran around here like idiots trying to find ways to make her happy, but when I'm depressed, do you even bother to check up on me? No! You wait until this shit happens, and then you do your best to make me feel guilty for feeling 'less than perfect.' Then you pretend you care, and the next day everything's back to normal. Miriam's drunk off her special 'smoothies,' and Bob's screaming his head off at me to fix him some fucking breakfast because the stupid broad is drunk again, making me YET AGAIN late for my first class." Pointing at Bob, she shouted, "And that reminds me! You...YOU DON' T EVEN KNOW WHAT MY NAME IS! For the last fucking time, it's Helga, NOT Olga!" That said, she stomped upstairs to her bedroom.

As she lay down on her bed, she flipped on the TV and smiled, quite certain that little episode would change their minds. Hell, maybe they'd all even start to care more. Maybe even Arnold would ask her out. Maybe everyone cared more than she thought.

She was in a loony bin, and no one cared. They'd left her in there to rot.

Three weeks she had been in there, and no one had visited her! Where the hell was everybody?

Sighing, she flipped through the three channels on the TV in the Rec room that didn't show snow. Two more minutes till Visiting Hour. Maybe someone would come today.

Yeah, and pigs would fly through the fucking window at any second.

She sighed again and picked up the nearest magazine, which she groaned at after noticing the title. Preteen Miss. Whee.

The heavy doors blocking off the ward from the rest of the hospital buzzed and began to slowly open. She didn't bother looking back. No one was coming. Ever.

"Helga Pataki, you have a visitor," the intercom announced, causing her to jump slightly. A visitor? Her?

Eh, it was probably just Phoebe coming to apologize for going along with the stupid plan to put her in there. She smiled, preparing to hear an apology, and suddenly a hand was on her shoulder. "Phoebe-"

"Phoebe? Were you expecting her?" a male voice - Arnold's pleasant baritone - asked.

"Arnold!"

He smiled, and she felt her heart racing beneath her breast like it was trying to run away from everything. She sure wished she could. "Are you glad to see me?" he asked, stirring her out of her thoughts.

She hid her face behind the magazine so he couldn't tell she was blushing. "No, just surprised is all. I don't get visitors."

He looked shocked. "Why? Restriction?"

"No," she replied bitterly, "just people that don't care."

He looked away. "I'm sorry, Helga. I do care. I just thought that someone...well, at least your parents would be here every night."

She laughed bitterly, and he glared at her. "Sorry, Arnoldo, but just because I have parents doesn't mean that they care about me." Then sighing dejectedly, she whined, "Where's Phoebe? Why hasn't she been here?"

"She's studying for the PSAT."

She looked down, trying to will herself to stop crying. Phoebe didn't care. "Great. She can't even give up one night just to come here. They're not the SATs, for Christ's sake!" The tears did start to fall then.

"Helga, don't cry," Arnold said soothingly, grabbing her hand. "We aren't sure what to say to you. I'm sorry," he said with regret in his voice, "I know that sounds ridiculous, but it's true. We don't know anyone that's tried to actually kill themselves. We aren't sure how to handle...how to handle-"

Angrily, she cut him off and yanked her hand away. "How to handle me, you mean," she hissed. She knew why he had come. He came to keep from feeling guilty about what she was doing. He didn't want to feel guilty when she died. No one wanted to feel guilty when she died. She rose from her chair. "That's all anyone cares about, isn't it? How you'll feel about yourselves when...when I'm g-gone," she managed to choke out. Never had she felt such hurt. It was too much, too much to keep hidden away. How much longer could she live in pain?

He stood too and shouted, "That's not true, Helga! You know it isn't! Everyone cares about you. Your friends, even your parents, I'm sure, in some way care."

"Even you?" she retaliated. A small part of her wished - hoped - in some way that he loved her, if only a little.

She watched as her wish slowly fizzled as he threw a piece of paper at her and walked away. "Read it," he called over his shoulder, waiting patiently at the security clearance door. She watched as the nurses buzzed him out, and then he was gone.

Tears fell freely down her cheeks, staining her black T-shirt darker. Black, like her thoughts, her mood.

She walked to her tiny room that she shared with a girl who talked to herself. She turned on the light, first checking the room to make sure that her roommate was away. When she didn't see her anywhere, she jumped on her bed and unfolded the tiny note. Soon, she was shocked by what Arnold had written for her.

You think I've forgotten after all these years, but I haven't. That kiss still plays in my mind, over and over. I keep waiting for that girl to show up again some day, the one who introduced herself to me that night. The one who loves me and wouldn't want to hurt me. So please get better, Helga. It'll hurt me if something happens to you.

Did he really care, after all?

She laid back on the bed's comforter and pulled her pillow over her head, trying to stifle her cries, but it didn't work. It was all too much for her to hold in, by herself. Out of frustration, out of anger, out of hurt, out of joy, out of love…she stared up at the sky, shaking violently, and let herself sob loudly. For lost chances. For new hope. For the woman she would become.

For the little girl, full of happiness and bright dreams, she had once been so vey long ago.