New chapter! Please enjoy!

I won't be the one to disappoint you anymore,
I know, I've said all this and that you've heard it all before,
The trick is getting you to think that all this was your idea.
And that this was everything you've ever wanted out of here,
Love's not a competition, but I'm winning.

From "Love's Not A Competition (But I'm Winning)" by the Kaiser Chiefs

Light slipped through the dusty off-white blinds, sweeping over her eyes, and she'd woken completely by the time it was caressing the rest of her. Still not quite ready to get out of bed, she pulled the warm itchy comforter over her head and relaxed in the false darkness it created.

Yesterday's events had penetrated her dreams like an ex-lover, following her no matter where she went to escape. It was as if her mind was hell-bent on driving her crazy by showing her every possible outcome that could have resulted from every possible action she could have taken. That had to be the case because the dreams certainly hadn't made her feel any better.

She was perfectly content with staying there all day -- forever, if need be -- just so she wouldn't have to face everyone. Not Phoebe, not Arnold, not Todd, not the head nurse, not Regina the candy striper who gave them their meds, not the guy who delivered the meals…hell, not even the other patients. Because they knew her secrets. Oh yes, she knew they did when she looked them in their judging eyes.

We're the ones who really need help; we're the truly crazy ones in this place. And who are you, sitting here claiming to be one of us? What makes you think you belong when you're just another loser who can't cope with reality? Inability to cope with the outside world does not a lunatic make. It just says you're stubborn and lazy, Geraldine.

Was she just pretending? Should she go home and face reality? Was she really being noble by pushing Arnold away? Last night, she had been so sure it was the right thing to do. He was the past, and he needed to get over her. She wasn't good for anyone, not even herself. And adding the fact that she was already in a failing marriage that she couldn't make work…well, couldn't he see that she wasn't relationship material? If she couldn't make Todd happy, how would she ever make anyone else happy?

Was she doing this because she was afraid of finding happiness? Dr. Bliss had posed the idea long ago that perhaps she kept intentionally setting herself up for failure because she feared change, and happiness was change to her. What if she became a different person because she had no reason to be miserable all of the time? What would she do if she discovered that she didn't like who she was?

What about Todd? Would they divorce like other couples? How would he go on living without her? He'd always insisted he really needed her, like air was needed to breathe. He wouldn't just let her walk away, not without some huge fight involved. Possibly something worse. And why did she feel so guilty about being away from him and about still having feelings for Arnold? Did she really love Todd, after all? Did she feel responsible for taking care of him just because she promised long ago that she'd always be there for him? Or did she feel she hadn't yet been served enough punishment for her sins?

Which one was it?

The door creaked open, and after pulling back the covers, she watched a large mass of strawberry-blonde frizz poke through; the cherry lips forming a grin when the eyes found their target. The ball of frizz and the petite body to which it was attached entered the rest of the way and waved cheerfully. "Good morning, Helga!"

Helga had discovered by accident a few days before that Gina was related to someone else with whom Helga had went to school when the bizarre woman had rather inelegantly tripped over her own two feet while presenting Helga with her Abilify and Effexor. Helga hadn't been able to squelch the wisecrack that had left her mouth -- "Geez, with moves like those, you'd think she was Eugene after a sex change!" -- and Gina had laughed it all off after asking her how she knew her cousin.

The blinds were drawn up, letting the room fill with bright light as the tiny woman chirped, "How are you this morning?"

Helga groaned loudly and let her head fall back against the inviting softness of her pillow. "What's so good about it?"

Gina clucked her tongue and shook her head. "It's a beautiful day outside! Mr. Sun is blessing everything with his rays of love!" she shouted joyously, while twirling about in the beams coming through the window. The dance ended just as quickly as it had begun, and she embraced herself.

Helga stuffed her face in her pillow in order to suppress another groan. Why the hell Gina wasn't locked up in this joint, too, was beyond her comprehension. "Yeah, it's easy to see that extreme perkiness to the point of idiocy is a staple in your family," she mumbled.

"What was that?" Gina asked cheerfully as she emptied the trash can in the bathroom.

"Nothing," Helga yawned and then stretched. She finally got up and began to make the bed out of habit. "So why are you so damn happy today, Gina? Did someone spike your coffee?"

She giggled, returning the trash can to its previous spot in the bathroom. "Oh, I don't like that stuff." Then she looked at Helga thoughtfully. "Why shouldn't I be happy? Is something bad going to happen today?"

Now it was Helga's turn to laugh. "Doesn't something bad happen every day in your family?" She walked past Gina and handed her the old wet towels.

Gina supplied her with some fresh ones. "Ah, no. That's poor Eugene. The rest of us are just a bit clumsy."

"Right," Helga scoffed. She picked up her hairbrush and yanked it through the tangles in her hair, not bothering to be gentle. A particularly nasty one made her grimace. "So what do you have for me?"

Gina brought her index finger to her lips and hummed, deep in thought. "Well, I need vitals, and then I've got your morning medicine here." She leaned into Helga's right ear and whispered, "You'd best take them today, Helga. I'm pretty sure Kathy knows you've been flushing them down the toilet."

Kathy was the much beloved head nurse who Helga gave so much trouble. "I don't care if she knows, really. It's not like they'll change anything in my life."

Gina appeared to mull that over and then shrugged. "Well, that may or may not be true. It doesn't matter much to me, but I know Kathy will tell Dr. Heyerdahl, and I also know you don't want that." She gave Helga a knowing look as she indicated for her to sit down.

Helga took a seat on the bed and watched Gina wrap the blood pressure cuff just a few inches above her elbow. "It's not like Phoebe will care," she fibbed. "She knows me like an old favorite book."

"If you say so." Gina pressed a button on the mobile machine and then pulled the thermometer from its spot on the cart. "Say, 'ah!'"

Helga reluctantly stuck out her tongue. "Aaahhh." The offending device went underneath and began its mission to track her temperature. She wasn't sure which one was worse -- the squeezing of the cuff around her arm or the constant beeping signaling that the blasted thing in her mouth was finished.

Gina turned off the thermometer and put it back in its placeholder. "Well, gee, you have a slight fever!"

Helga grunted in agreement. "Really now? That could be because I had a horrible evening and night."

The other woman frowned as she wrote something on Helga's chart. "That's not good. What happened?"

"I'm a screw up. That's all." She sighed and then chewed on her already ragged thumbnail. "What would you do if one day out of the blue you realize that you love two people, but obviously you can't have both? You've loved one for as long as you can remember, but that doesn't mean you love the other one any less."

"That's quite a predicament!" Gina hung the chart on a little hook on the cart and handed Helga a cup of water along with two small pills. Eyeing Helga, she asked, "Which one treats me like I want to be treated?"

Helga downed the water and threw the medicine in the trash. "Well, actually they both do."

"Which one treats me better?"

Helga knew what point Gina was trying to make and gave in. "The one you've known the longest." Her gaze went to the floor, avoiding contact. "That doesn't mean you deserve him though."

"Let him decide what he deserves," Gina replied and gently patted Helga's left shoulder. "Kick the other one to the curb," she snickered and then proceeded to push the cart back out into the hall. "All done here!"

"Great. Just in time for me to get a shower and miss group," Helga quipped as she made her way to the bathroom. Gina shook her head and smiled briefly before returning to her daily routine.

The water was almost too hot, but she didn't care. She rubbed her skin furiously with soap until she looked like she was suffering from sunburn and then let the suds sizzle downward to the drain.

Lila had told her to call back. Should she bother calling? Would he still want to talk to her?

Dammit, I'm doing a half-assed job of trying to keep him away. This is for his own good, remember? Look, happy endings don't happen to everyone. Sometimes the girl doesn't get the guy.

Or is that the other way around?

Someone knocked at the bathroom door. "I'm a little busy right now, if you couldn't tell!"

"That's fine," came Phoebe's voice from the other side. "It's not like I haven't seen 'the goods' before."

Helga bit back a laugh and tried to act insulted. "What makes you think I want you to see them now, darling? Are you trying to keep me from being an innocent woman?"

The door opened, and she heard Phoebe huff from behind the shower curtain. "Aren't you a little too late for that, my dear?"

"Touché, Pheebs." She continued to lather her hair, sighing in relief as the shampoo somewhat cooled her aching scalp. "So what brings you here?"

"Oh, I don't know," Phoebe answered briskly. "Several things, I think. The first one is that I've been told that you aren't taking your medicine."

"And that surprises you?"

"Helga—"

She peeled back the curtain a bit so she could see her old friend. "You should remember that I never took that junk the first time it was given to me, years ago." Letting go of the greasy plastic material, she placed her head underneath the spray of water and worked the soap out of her hair. "Seriously, Phoebe, it's the same now as it was then – what good will that stuff do for me if my life stays this way?"

"As long as you're taking the necessary steps to change it, Helga, the meds are just there to help you get through it."

"Spare me!" she snapped. "Even if I split myself from Todd, I'll still be the same old Helga with the same old shitty problems. What makes you think that I'll just magically change because of some stupid little pill?"

"I never said that making changes in your life will change who you are, nor did I say that I want you to change. The pills are just there to help stabilize you." Phoebe sighed bitterly. "Whether or not you want to admit it, your mind is a mess. You have some debilitating illnesses that need care."

"Oh yeah!" she yelled angrily. "And downing some pills will make it all better!" She switched the water off, threw back the curtain, and reached for a towel. "I think I've been doing just fine all these years without that crap."

Phoebe folded her arms in front of her chest and smirked. "Yes, you've been doing a wonderful job of carving yourself up like a Thanksgiving turkey and hanging from ceiling fans. What else do you do for fun?"

Helga froze in her tracks and stared at the old scars which ran up and down her pale arms. Gritting her teeth in disgust, she spat, "I don't need medicine because there's nothing wrong with me. I'm not the one with the problems – everyone else is!"

God, that sounds fucking ridiculous. I may as well be the poster child for crazy.

Hanging her head in shame, she whispered, "I don't want to take pills. Taking pills means admitting that I can't cope with life." She looked up at Phoebe dejectedly. "It means that Dad is right, that I'm a failure." She chewed her bottom lips frantically, tears welling up in her eyes. "I don't want to be another Miriam, Pheebs. I can't fail!"

The tiny Asian woman gathered Helga in her arms and hugged her tightly. "This won't make you a failure, Helga. Can't you see?" She placed her hand under Helga's chin and tilted her head up so she could see Helga's face. "If you don't do something to help yourself before you completely break, then you'll have failed yourself. I'm trying to keep that from happening." Phoebe smiled gently, casting a motherly appearance upon her face. "I've always loved you like a sister. I want things to be better for you."

Helga pulled herself from Phoebe's grip and blushed uneasily. It wasn't every day that people were declaring their love for her, and even when they did, she still felt silly and unsure like she was unworthy of the words. "I…I don't know what to say, Phoebe. I feel like I've been a pretty cruddy friend to you, so I don't know why you'd think of me in that way." Hiding her reddened face behind her hands, she mumbled, "You and Arnold deserve much better than me. Even Todd deserves someone better."

Her hands were grabbed into a trembling smaller pair, and two almond-shaped eyes glared at her. "Don't say that! The things that man has put you through…I don't care what kind of childhood he had!" Phoebe grasped her shoulders and shook her roughly. "You had a terrible childhood, and you aren't abusing anyone!!"

Helga cocked an eyebrow and gawked at her. "I'm not abusing anyone? What do you call the bullying I did as a kid? What do you call what I'm doing now??"

Phoebe bit her lip and looked at the floor. They both stood in awkward silence for a while, occasionally glancing at each other. Helga was the first to speak, unnerved by the too-quiet room. "So what's the second thing you're pissed off about?"

Phoebe sighed but continued staring at the yellowish bathroom tile. "Arnold's really distraught. Why did you send him away?"

"I don't know," she said softly. "Last night I had a really good reason, you know?" she laughed anxiously and toyed with a strand of hair. "I don't know what I'm doing anymore, Phoebe. I love Arnold – you know I do, but I…I don't know. I'm married, and well, I'm not sure if I'm ready to leave yet. I know it sounds crazy, but I can't help caring for Todd. He wasn't always like this. There were better times." She exhaled sharply. "I don't think I can be 'just friends' with Arnold if I'm still madly in love with him. It's better for him if he just stays away from me."

"Oh, bullshit! You were perfectly capable of being friends with him back in elementary and high school."

"That's different. I was able to do it then because I was expecting to be more than friends with him eventually."

Phoebe nearly screamed in frustration. "Alright! Nevermind what you want! Can you be friends with him because it's what he wants? Can you do it for him?"

"I guess I can. If it's what he wants."

"Good. Please give him a call. It'll put his mind at ease."

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The phone was out to destroy her; she was sure of it.

First, she had to wait a good hour after lunch before she could use it because someone was already gabbing away. Then each time she tried to dial Arnold's number, she would end up with the cafeteria. After about fifteen minutes of that, one of the nurses had figured out that there was something wrong within the system, so she had to wait for a tech to come fix it. At some point, it was in working order again, but she was busy being assimilated into group therapy. She had sprinted to the phone after group was done and was nearly beaten to it again, but she had snarled at whoever the hell was in her way, sending them running in the opposite direction.

Currently she was listening to the familiar ringing over the line, drumming her fingers nervously against the hem of her skirt.

After the sixth ring, someone picked up. "Hello?"

She let out the breath she hadn't realized she was holding. "Oh, thank God it's you, Arnold. I think I would have hung up if Lila answered again."

"Well, that's certainly nice to know."

She chuckled lightly. "Sorry. She was rather, uh, assertive the other night. I'm not used to that. She kind of scared me, actually."

"She had a reason to be. She was worried about me."

The rapid movement of fingers was no longer comforting, so she began to pick at various scabs on her legs. "I'm really sorry about that. I just…I don't know what I'm doing right now. Phoebe told me that you want to be friends, and suddenly in my mind, I'm hearing wedding bells. It's like that old Billy Joel song; I don't know why I go to extremes."

She heard a tiny sigh come from his end. "Yeah, Phoebe enlightened me. Look, Helga, if friends are all we can be, then I'll settle for that. I don't know why you'd want to stay with that guy, but I do know that I don't want to leave you alone with him again."

"Always my knight in shining armor, huh?" She smiled.

"Someone has to be."

She picked at a big scab on her right knee, one that Todd had given her a few weeks back when he'd pushed her on her knees and dragged her by her hair across the harsh fibers of the carpet in order to closely inspect how dirty it was. "I don't know what to do, Arnold. I can't leave him by himself. I don't know what he'd do." To me or himself.

"Who cares what he'd do? If he comes after you, I'll hurt him. If he hurts himself? Well, that's one less asshole in the world."

She ripped a small piece off and shivered. Fresh blood rushed to fill the naked area she'd left behind. "You don't understand. He had a horrible childhood, too. He was orphaned by parents who didn't want him and taken in by relatives who wanted him in…other ways."

"That doesn't excuse it!"

The rugged layer of protective flesh flew easily from her index finger to the carpet in front of her, and she went back to picking at the rest with renewed vigor. "Not everyone can have the nice little family you have, Arnold. Some of us are stuck with what we're given."

"And some of us try to make the best out of what we have," he challenged. She didn't know what to say in return, so she continued attacking her knee. After a while, Arnold spoke up. "I'm sorry, Helga. I…I'll just try to make the best out of this, too. I don't want to lose you, not when I've got you back."

"You shouldn't have to make the best out of anything. That's what I was trying to do, Arnold," she explained. "You deserve a wonderful wife who can give you what you want, who can be there when you need her to be there. You shouldn't wait around on me. I don't know if I can ever be what you want. I don't know if I can even be what I want, at this point. I haven't worked in a long time, outside of housework. I never finished college, and that wasn't even Todd's fault. I can't handle being on my own."

"You wouldn't have to be alone, Helga," he stressed. "I'm here for you."

A sarcastic titter left her mouth as she plucked another piece of scab from her knee and flicked it away. "Do you remember when I told you that I didn't think I could live without you?" Without waiting for a reply, she went on. "Well, I found out the cold hard truth when I went away to college. I couldn't live without you...I can't…I can't live without someone to love. I was hollow on the inside; I felt so empty without you there to fill me up."

"If I had it all to do over again, we'd have stayed together, somehow."

"You know that wasn't possible. We did the right thing at the time."

"At what cost?" he shouted irritably. There was the sound of something slamming against a hard surface on his end, probably his fist. "It's not fair, Helga! You were supposed to wait for me! It's supposed to be me who comes home to you! That's supposed to be my baby!"

The leftover scab was effortlessly ripped from her knee despite her leg's protests and hurled at the wall. "Don't you think that goes through my mind every day?!" she cried in anguish. "If I could do it all over again – I think of that constantly! And you know what? I still couldn't change a damn thing even if I wanted to!"

"You wouldn't want to?" he asked in disbelief.

"That's not what I meant. I…fuck, you know what I mean," she offered impatiently and then tried to change the subject. "Will you still come to see me here? Bob and Miriam don't know I'm in here, and I doubt they'd be overly joyous about visiting. I sure as hell don't want Olga up here, and Todd's not allowed to see me right now. It gets old watching everyone else happily receive company and remember that I have none," she said miserably.

"You couldn't keep me away if you tried." They both shared a laugh. "I'll be there tonight…provided I can stay the whole time this time?" he teased.

"Don't push your luck, bucko!" she taunted in a childish sing-songy voice, similar to the same way she said it as a little girl. She rubbed at her sore knee. "Arnold?"

"Yeah?"

"You're asking a lot of me by doing this. Don't make me regret it, please?" she asked hopefully. "I'm a little too old to keep getting hurt all the time. A heart can hold only so much pain, you know?"

"I know," he said sincerely.

"I can't wait till later. You don't know how much I missed you last night. Next time I march off like that, will you come knock some sense into me?"

"Looking forward to it!" he exclaimed merrily. "Love you!"

Before she could chastise him for saying those words, the line clicked several times and hummed, so instead she chose to sigh contentedly and then giggled gleefully as she pounded her knees in excitement. Maybe life didn't always have to be so bad.

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Far across the city in an old 1940s-style home with its peeling light blue paint and white trim, on white Berber carpet in the middle of an unfinished nursery sat a shaking man. After running his right hand through some rather shaggy blond hair, he balled it into a fist and proceeded to pound it against the floor in frustration and grief.

He stared up at the ceiling and raged. "Why the hell, Helga?? Why the hell?!" Photographs spilled from the box on his lap, and he ran his fingers over them. Their years in college together, happier times. Helga really went the distance to make him happy back then, and he more than willing returned the favor tenfold. He wore a soft smile as he remembered the first time they had slept together. He had been exhausted after spending the entire evening writing a paper on the commercialization of sex for his Cultural Studies class -- due the next day, of course -- and had fallen asleep only to wake up hours later to Helga in a very pink, very sheer teddy snuggled under the covers next to him. Every time he thought of it, the same dopey grin became plastered on his face.

God, how sexy she'd been in those days! Why was she letting herself go? He hadn't married a cow, for Christ's sakes! She was pregnant now, but still…she had to be eating more than the recommended amount. There was no way that was all baby fat.

Yeah, it was certainly time to start cutting out certain shit from her diet.

Didn't she realize he was doing all of this for her own good? Dammit, she used to understand. He just wanted to take care of her so she could take good care of him in return. What had happened to her? Why couldn't she see that now?

He reached into the box and felt his way to the slick metal at the bottom, letting his fingers slide around to grip the firm shaft of the Ruger. The knowledge that it had yet to be found was comforting.

He didn't want to be alone again. He couldn't be alone. He was going to make Helga understand how much he loved her or, by God, he was going to take her with him. He didn't want to die alone either.

She'd see things his way, he told himself. Helga loved him, and she just had to have a little reminder. That's all. Everything would be fine.