Author's Note: As a Christmas present to you all, here's chapter five! This chapter is really the turning point in the story. If I wrote it right, you all should be at the edge of your seats! I was originally going to make this chapter much longer, but where I ended it seems like a good place to do so. Besides, I wanted to get a chapter out by today, since I am going to be out of town for the next four days. This means that chapter six probably won't be posted for at least a week. Sorry!

Personal Inscriptions:

LateOrliBloomer: Yeah, I agree. I don't even know what Alex was thinking, and I created him! I guess the glass ceiling had to do with Alex trying to rape Helga on the couch rather than on the bed, which would've been more easily visible. I have, indeed, read the book "Speak". In that book, Andy Evans was kind of an idiot as well. I mean, he raped the girl in the bushes. Anybody could've just walked by and caught him. I guess some rapists aren't too bright. The reason for the change in Helga's mom is explained in this chapter. And October 5th, according to the episode "The Journal" is the date that Arnold's parents left for the last time.

acosta perez jose ramiro: Thanks! And yep, you get what you wanted in this chapter!

xo Just Another Suicide xo: Yeah, everyone blaming Helga, that was some real injustice, there. And yep, the mother/daughter relationship is certainly better.

Dark Lady of the Sith: Yeah, reputation plays a big part, unfortunately.

Hellerick Ferlibay: Yep, this chapter is a whole lot brighter. Arnold's concern about Lila is explained below. Yeah, it would be cool if someone could explain Miriam's whole past…but you're right, that's not really the point of this particular story. And yeah, I pretty much have the rest of the story figured out. Still open to suggestion, though! And….arg….thanks again for pointing out my mistake. Again, I changed it. Oh yeah, and here is the Lila-Helga interaction you asked for. Thanks for the idea!

I'm Not Perfect

Chapter Five

As the week passed, things seemed to get slightly better. The rumors died down a bit, and Helga no longer heard whispers every time she walked through the hall. True, some people were still shunning her, but they were in the minority. A few people actually came up to her and apologized for the way they had treated her.

"Didn't I tell you?" Phoebe said to Helga on Friday morning. "High school is a constantly changing environment. Most people are more concerned now with the Homecoming Dance than anything else."

"Yeah, I guess you're right," Helga said as she looked into the mirror in her locker. Her nose was almost completely healed now, and she was getting her stitches out this afternoon. Most of her bruises had faded.

Phoebe shuffled her foot. "Speaking of Homecoming, were you planning on attending?"

Helga's stomach turned. Simply thinking of the dance made her feel sick. "Me? Are you kidding? Blowing all of my money to stand around in the school gym in some frilly dress? Puh-lease." But even to her own ears, her voice sounded shaky. Could Phoebe see beneath her façade? Did she know how Helga had tortured herself every night with images of Arnold and that girl, Christina, going to Homecoming together, dancing together, and...maybe even…..

The image was thrown back in her face again fifteen minutes later, when her biology teacher handed out the second ballots for Homecoming. The five boys and girls with the most votes, the "finalists" were listed. Helga stared at the ten names, growled, crumpled up her paper angrily, walked to the front of the room, and tossed it into the trashcan.

Across the school, Arnold sat in geometry class, gazing glumly at his own paper. On the left side of the paper were the names of five girls. Lila was among them. So were Mandy and Christina. The other two were popular girls who, he was pretty sure, were failing every class. Arnold gave an annoyed sigh. Then he looked at the right side of the paper. His eyes widened. Gerald was on the ballot, which he expected. So was Justin. But the last thing he expected was to see his own name at the bottom of the ballot. At least, he thought it was his own name. He frowned. They hadn't put his last name on the ballot, only his first name and last initial. Arnold S. That was weird. But he was pretty sure it was him. As far as he knew, he was the only Arnold S. in the freshman class.

What a selection. Justin and Lila as Homecoming King and Queen. Or Mandy and Gerald. Or worse, him and Christina. The thought made him shudder.

Abruptly he got out of his seat, walked to the front of the room, and threw his paper in the wastebasket.

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"What do you think?" the doctor asked, pulling out a mirror.

Helga gazed at her reflection, rubbing her lower lip with a smile. There was only a small pink line where her stitches had once been. "Nice job, Doc. Thanks."

The doctor nodded, turning to put the mirror away. "Your nose should be fully healed in a week or so. Keep taking the steroid that they gave you at the hospital. Take it until all the pills are gone. It's very important. Don't ever skip."

"Yeah, yeah, I won't." Helga hopped down from the counter and made her way out into the waiting room of the small medical clinic. The theme song for "Wrestlemania: The Movie" broke the silence of the waiting room, and the receptionist glared at her. Helga smiled sheepishly and took her cell phone, the culprit of the malicious noise, out of her pocket. She slid out of the waiting room and walked into the parking lot, pressing the "send" button to answer the call. "Hello?"

"Oh, honey," said her mother. "There's an accident on Maple Street., and they have just the whole area blocked off. I can't get to the clinic from here. Do you think you could just take a shortcut through Radisson Avenue, and I'll pick you up at the supermarket? Oh, I'm sorry, dear. I know it's a long walk."

"No problem," Helga assured her. It wouldn't be a particularly long walk, maybe three or four blocks, but Radisson Avenue wasn't exactly the nicest part of town. The apartment buildings were small and crammed together. Most were in bad need of a paint job. Trash was strewn about the cracked sidewalk and blew around her legs as she made her way down the street. Helga gave a grunt of disgust as she kicked a rusted metal can out of her path. She paused at a yellow brick apartment, staring up at the slightly open window. Hard to believe that popular, kind, straight A's Lila lived in this very building.

Crash! A noise from inside made her jump slightly. Thud! Bash! Bam-bam-bam! She frowned. What was going on in there? It sounded like a demolition. Lila's father suddenly stumbled into the room of the open window Helga was looking into. He took a shaky step forward, picked up a plate, and threw it against the wall. Helga gasped as she watched the plate hit the wall and shatter. She gasped again upon taking a closer look at Lila's father. He was clad in only a pair of torn jeans, his red hair uncombed and wild, his face dirty and unshaven. But what shocked her most were his eyes. They were wide, bloodshot, and wild.

The front door suddenly banged open. Lila slammed the door behind her and sat down on the stoop, sobbing.

Bewildered, Helga took a few soft steps toward the emotionally disheveled girl. "Lila?..."

"Helga!" Lila jumped, pulling her tearstained face from her hands. Her eyes darted back and forth between the girl standing in front of her, and the open window. Reality began to dawn on her as she realized what Helga must have seen.

"Your dad…" Helga sat down next to Lila. They both startled at another crash from inside the house.

"He….has a problem, doesn't he?" Helga said softly. She may have been slightly naïve, but she wasn't stupid. A man who stumbled around the house half naked throwing things around for no apparent reason was either insane or intoxicated.

There was no point in denying it, Lila thought as she slowly nodded. Thud! She winced.

They sat in silence for a few moments, listening to things being broken inside the house. Helga sighed. So, she thought, little Miss Perfect Lila had a stoner for a father. Hard to believe, but she supposed it could happen to anyone. Most of her earlier life had been affected by her own mother's addiction. She knew the pain Lila was going through.

An idea suddenly came to her. Helga reached into her pocket and found her purple gel pen. In vain she searched her pockets for a piece of paper, then turned to Lila and said, "Give me your hand."

Lila looked surprised, but complied. Helga scrawled seven numbers on the smooth, pale palm. "It's the number of the place Miriam stayed at a couple of years ago. Probably saved her life. It's not for everybody. You have to be really committed. It's a five month long treatment facility. And they're not miracle workers over there. They cure the addiction, not the person. Miriam still isn't exactly Supermom. But," she smiled, thinking of the past two years, and especially the last week, "things are a lot better."

Lila was silent, staring at her palm.

Helga leaned over and put her hand on her shoulder. "Are you going to be, you know, safe? Do you want to stay at my house for a bit?"

Lila shook her head. "I'll be fine," she assured Helga. "I'm ever so certain that his rampage won't last more than twenty minutes. He'll run out of things to break, then go and fall asleep somewhere, if he hasn't already."

Helga realized that Lila was right-she no longer heard crashes from inside the apartment. Slowly, Helga stood. "Well, I guess I have to go then. Mom's waiting. Um, good luck with everything, Lila."

She was a good distance away before she heard the whispered reply, "Thank you, Helga. Ever so much."

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"The District Attorney decided not to file attempted murder," was Justin's latest lunch feed. He had been so kind as to give a daily news feed about Alex to all the kids at the "popular" lunch table. Arnold, admittedly, was as curious as everyone else. He was disappointed to find out that Alex wouldn't be charged with the heaviest sentence possible. He kept that to himself, though. Ever since his confrontation with Justin last Friday, he had gone back to his old ways of keeping his mouth shut at lunch (except to eat) and ignoring the conversation of the popular kids.

That wasn't the only thing he was ignoring. He sneaked a look across the table at Lila and was immediately filled with guilt. He had been avoiding her ever since his birthday party. It was just too awkward to try to have a normal conversation with the unresolved incident of the almost-kiss hanging between them. He didn't know why either of them had acted as they did, and he didn't want to think about it. Which, he admitted, was selfish of him. He should at least ask her how she was doing, especially after she had opened up to him. Arnold still worried about her a lot, though she did seem to be looking better lately. She no longer seemed so sad, and her smiles were more abundant.

As Homecoming grew closer, the excitement of the students, especially the freshman class, could be felt like a tidal wave. The conversation on almost everyone's lips was about who was going with who, what kind of music the DJ would play, and oh my god my dress is gorgeous, and I wonder who will be voted King and Queen?

Arnold, when he was perfectly honest with himself, didn't give an inkling about the dance. He would wear the same black suit he wore to every formal occasion, and he really didn't care what music they played or who got the title for King and Queen, as long as it wasn't him. The last thing he wanted was a dance with Christina in front of the whole school. He wondered if it was possible to refuse the title. Of course, Christina would probably kill him if he did such a thing. Maybe he'd get lucky and she'd stay in the bathroom during the dance, chatting with other girls and fixing her hair all night.

The Thursday before Homecoming, Justin had the final report on Alex. "His lawyer worked out a plea bargain with the District Attorney," he said. "Alex pleaded guilty to assault, and the judge sentenced him to six weeks in a juvenile detention center. His lawyer said that with good behavior, he could be out in thirty days."

Thirty days, Arnold thought bitterly. He only hoped that Helga hadn't heard the news. No doubt she would be infuriated and, though she wouldn't show it, devastated.

"Thirty days!" Christina wailed. "He shouldn't even, like, be in jail at all!"

Arnold took a swallow of milk. Gerald owed him, big time, for him agreeing to take this girl to a dance. Arnold took out his geography book (he was getting a lot of reading done at lunch these days) and tried to tune out the conversation. But for some reason, their words got through his wall. Maybe it was because they were especially venomous today. Shouldn't Lila be pulling on Justin's sleeve by now, begging him to change the subject?

No. Because the seat next to Justin was empty. Arnold's brow furrowed. Was Lila absent today? He had seen her earlier, in geography class. Maybe she had skipped lunch for some reason. He frowned and hoped she was okay.

Without Lila around to tame the conversation, it seemed as if all hell was going to break loose.

"I want to kill that Helga girl," Mandy said. "Who does she think she is, anyway?"

"It simply doesn't make sense," Rhonda broke in. "All of us met Alex at Arnold's party, right? Did he seem even remotely like a bad guy?"

"No way!" Mandy exclaimed. "Christina and I have known those guys for years. Trust us, they have girls falling all over them. They don't need to rape anyone. That girl was probably just accusing Alex to get attention."

"Totally," Christina agreed. "Because she'd never get any attention otherwise. I mean, how many friends does she have? She is, like, one of the most unpopular girls in school, if not the most."

Arnold's fists clenched.

"Probably because of the way she looks," Rhonda added. "I mean, have you seen the way she dresses? Old t-shirts, and those tacky button-up vests that went out of style, like, five years ago. Oh, yes, and those jeans. She can barely button them up around the middle. Heeelllllooo, Jenny Craig, anyone?"

Most of the table exploded into laughter. Gerald didn't laugh. He was doing algebra homework, pretending not to listen to the conversation. At one point, he looked up at Arnold with a guilty expression and shrugged helplessly.

Arnold glared at him. Gerald had prestige in the popular group. Wasn't he going to say anything on Helga's behalf?

Gerald ducked his head down. Apparently not.

"Oh, yeah," Mandy said. "She makes her reflection cry. Too bad she doesn't wear makeup; she could use it."

Justin frowned at her. "Are you sure about that? I don't think all the Maybelline in the world could fix that ugly mug."

More laughter.

"Well, maybe she could improve her reputation if she wasn't so bitchy," declared Rhonda. "It's like that girl has constant PMS! She's always yelling at everyone and stomping around. She punches people in the face for looking at her the wrong way. I swear, she's like a guy or something."

Mandy gasped. "You think she's a dyke?"

"Wouldn't be surprised," said Christina. "It would be, like, the perfect explanation for why she's whining so much about Alex trying to rape her. A guy tried to hit on her, and she freaked out."

"You wanna know something?" Justin said, so quietly that they all had to lean forward to hear him. "I don't give a shit about whether or not Alex tried to rape her. That whining, fat, ugly, dykey bitch deserves to be raped."

Arnold had learned about aneurysms in health class. It was when a vessel in your brain exploded. If you had one, you died instantly. Millions of lives were altered in a single second.

That's what was happening to him now. An explosion, somewhere deep inside his brain. A breaking point. Only he didn't die, because he wasn't having an aneurysm.

Arnold snapped his book shut.

All around him, the people at the table were still laughing.

He stood up and grabbed his half empty milk carton. He walked around to the other side of the table where Justin was sitting. His footsteps were slow, deliberate. There was nothing now but the explosion. The red hot blood exploding from his brain and leaking into his veins. Pulsating through his body, into his heart and lungs.

Justin turned around to look at Arnold. He was still grinning.

Arnold threw his milk carton at Justin.

The world stopped. Justin just barely had enough time to close his eyes before the warm white substance doused him. Everyone at the table, as well as nearby tables, gawked and gasped.

Justin opened his eyes. He was dripping with milk. His face, his carefully styled hair, and his designer clothes were bathed in it. His eyes were wide, his mouth formed into a small o.

Then, time sped up. Justin opened his mouth. He threw up his arms. "Hey, man, what the hell…" His expression was one of anger. He had no idea what he was up against.

"I can't believe you." Arnold's voice was very quiet, almost a whisper. It was low and very deliberate, cold and sharp at the same time, like a knife cutting through a block of ice. It made nearly everyone who was watching the scene shiver.

"How can you just sit there and say such horrible things about a girl you barely know? What makes any of you think that you have the right to judge her? Because you're more 'popular'?" Arnold's voice grew in loudness. Every eye in the cafeteria was on him now.

"You know, I've tried to get along with all of you. I tried to look the other way when you insulted other people. I tried to find the best in all of you. But this," he waved his arms up dramatically, "all this…this crosses the line! You," he said, pointing at Rhonda, "ditched your best friend of eleven years just because she wasn't "cool" enough for you."

A few people in the cafeteria turned to look at Nadine, who nodded sadly in confirmation to what Arnold was saying.

"And then, you think that just because a guy is cool, and rich, and popular, that he shouldn't be punished for a crime. Alex will be out of jail in six weeks. What if he tries to rape another girl when he gets out? What if it's one of you?" he pointed to Mandy and Christina. "Maybe you don't know this, but pretty, popular girls can get raped too. What if a guy tried to rape you? What if you decided to bring justice by pressing charges? You know what your reward would be for being so brave? You'd be shunned by everyone in school who takes the attacker's side. Can you imagine how that must feel? Do you have any idea what Helga has been through? First, some jerk nearly rapes her. Then, almost everyone is school decides it's her fault, and subjects her to social torture!"

He paused. "And now…now, I have to sit here and listen to all of you verbally bash the life out of a girl who didn't do anything wrong! Just because she's not one of you, you automatically assume she's non-human. Do any of you know the first thing about Helga Pataki? I may not be her best friend…I may not know everything about her…but I do know that everything you are saying about her is not true! If you even got to know her a little, you would know how intelligent, funny, and creative she is. She's not perfect, but no one is, and especially not you guys! Helga does not deserve any of the shit she's been through! She's a great person and I…I…" he stopped, out of breath, fumbling for the right words. How could he convince these kids that they were completely wrong about Helga?

"I'm taking her to Homecoming!" he finished, blurting out the first thing that came to mind.

Across the cafeteria, two blue eyes widened in surprise. Helga was sure she must have gone deaf. But no-the gasps and excited whispers around her confirmed what Arnold had just said.

In one swift motion, Arnold turned, walked, pushed open the door, and exited the cafeteria. The slam of the door behind him echoed throughout the silent lunchroom.

Finally, a sound broke the noise. A small Japanese girl on the far left side of the cafeteria had begun to clap her hands. Other people joined, in then more, then more. The popular kids slunk down in their seats.

The cafeteria exploded. Nearly everyone was on their feet, clapping. Screams and whistles filled the air. Someone shouted the name of the courageous boy, and it became a chant.

"Ar-nold! Ar-nold! Ar-nold! Ar-nold!"

Cheering loudest of all was a tall, lanky girl with a pink ribbon tied at the end of her braid.