PART TWO
Arnold Shortman wakes in increments, barely a few minutes at a time before exhaustion pulls him under and he's forced back into sleep. He fights it each time despite the pain he's in, terrified of returning to that nightmare he can only remember in hazy fragments.
Two days pass before he can stay awake for any significant length of time, and he spends each conscious moment replaying the memories of his ghostly excursions over and over in his mind because they keep trying to slip through his fingers like smoke.
Everything he'd undergone while he'd been in a—a coma could very well have just been a dream (and honestly, that's the likeliest, most logical explanation for it) but Arnold just can't shake the gut feeling that it wasn't. That what he experienced was real: every horrifying, heart-wrenching, and fantastical detail. So he fights to keep the memories from fading and by the time he's able to write it all down—using his left hand, since his right is broken—he has only a snapshot of events that's blurred in parts but it's enough.
This is what he manages to piece together: while Arnold was in a coma he was somehow able to project his consciousness into an apparition that could observe the world around him but could not be observed in turn, and he'd spent almost every moment over a 24 hour period following his childhood bully-turned-friend-turned-stranger, Helga G. Pataki.
Helga, whose mother is an alcoholic and father is a tyrant. Helga, who lives in a toxic home with a family who cares so little for her that she doesn't even trust them to mourn her if she died. Helga, who'd worried endlessly about Arnold and probably doesn't even know he's awake.
"I have to let her know I'm okay," Arnold begs his parents, but they're reluctant to step away from his bedside for a single moment, even if it means assuaging the guilt of the girl he saved because doing so would mean leaving him.
And Arnold understands, he really does. Even now they watch him like he's going to disappear if they let him out of their sight.
Arnold will never be able to forget the way they cried when they realized he was waking from his coma, or the feel of their trembling hands as they brushed the hair from his face and pressed kisses that smelled of salt and felt like benediction into his forehead.
But just as Arnold will never forget that, he'll also never forget the heartrending sound of Helga's crying, nor the way she looked like it cost her something each time she did. He can't forget the way she plucked flowers for him, shed tears for him, defended him, pleaded with the universe for him to wake up.
"Please," he asks again, imploring his parents to understand how desperately he needs them to do this for him. For her. "If our positions were reversed, wouldn't you want her parents to keep us informed?"
In the end, Arnold's dad resignedly agrees to deliver the news to the Pataki household himself, and Arnold wilts with relief.
He can't do much for Helga while he's stuck in a hospital bed but he can at least do this.
Sleep claims him the second his dad leaves the room, and for the first time in days Arnold doesn't resist it.
Arnold is discharged from the hospital three days later with strict instructions to finish his prescription and rest as much as possible.
He's out of his wheelchair and hobbling outside the moment they reach the exit, drawn by the smell of fresh air and the freedom it promises, and tension he hadn't realized he was carrying melts away at the first touch of sunlight on his skin.
"Finally. I felt like I was going crazy in there. I never want to step foot into a hospital again."
His mom laughs. "You realize we have to come back in two weeks for your check-up, right?"
"Please don't remind me!"
Despite Arnold's best efforts, he's flagging by the time they reach the boarding house. His broken arm and sprained ankle ache, his bruises refuse to let him forget they exist, and his head's throbbing fiercely enough to make his stomach churn. Arnold's dad has to help him up the porch steps and he's kind enough not to comment on the tears that small exertion wrings from him.
And then he's standing in front of the bright green door that he so desperately yearned to step through when he'd been stuck in that nightmarish void between life and death—the door that leads to family and safetyand home—and he tears up for other reasons entirely.
He pushes the door open and is met with the sight of the boarders—some old, some new—standing in the foyer with an assortment of balloons (he definitely spots a few birthday ones) and a lopsided cake.
"Welcome home, Arnold!" the boarders chorus, as harmonious as a room full of caterwauling cats, and Arnold finally loses the battle with his tear ducts and cries.
"I'm home," he whispers—a reassurance to everyone but himself most of all. And then he's being swarmed and his parents are berating the others for crowding him and despite the pain he's in and his bone-deep exhaustion, Arnold beams.
He's finally home.
In the days that follow, Arnold learns that recovering from a coma isn't nearly as effortless as the movies make it out to be. He spends an unnatural amount of time sleeping, and when he's not sleeping he's irritable from pain. His meds help with that to an extent, but they also make him drowsy and fuzzy-headed. He can't wait for his prescription to finish so he can feel like a functioning human being again.
Arnold's entire body hurts, and his head feels like an apple that's been dropped one too many times, but still he doesn't complain because he's alive and he knows from experience that there are worse things to be.
After two weeks of going stir-crazy at home his doctor deems him healthy enough to return to school, and it's with a pins-and-needle type of nervous anticipation that he walks into M.S. 118.
Nowhere in the world does gossip spread as fast as school, and Arnold is reminded of this when he steps through the doors and is immediately swarmed by students—most of whom he doesn't even know—congratulating him for not dying and asking all sorts of invasive questions, like how painful it is to get hit by a car or what it feels like to be in a coma.
Arnold's brain is working to think of a polite way to tell everyone to back the hell off when his friends materialize out of nowhere and do the work for him. Just, you know, not so politely.
"Freaking vultures," Gerald grouses, grabbing Arnold's bookbag despite his protests and slinging it over his own shoulder. "Next time someone questions you like that, just tell them to play in traffic and find out themselves."
"Sure thing, Gerald," Arnold says with humor. They all know he won't.
"I can't believe they're letting you come back so soon," Nadine says as they head for their homeroom. "I mean, you're still in a cast for goodness sake!"
Sid interjects with, "No, what I can't believe is that our boy was recovering from a coma and our teachers were still sending him work to finish! The modern education system really is just training for capitalist obedience and—"
"Okay, Michael Moore, we hear ya," Gerald interrupts, "but Arnold's brain is still recovering so don't go breaking it again just yet."
"Oh, right. Sorry, Arnold."
Nadine giggles, and Arnold just shakes his head at his ridiculous friends.
"And speaking of Michael Moore, have any of ya'll watched—"
Gerald's voice fades to the background as something inside him prompts him to look across the hall, and when he does, he's met with the blazing stare of Helga G. Pataki.
All the breath leaves him in a rush.
Helga's looking at him. Not through him, at him, and Arnold thinks this is what moths must feel like when they're drawn towards a flame they know will incinerate them if they get too close.
Arnold's skin grows warm as Helga's eyes rove over him head to toe, lingering on the cast on his arm before moving upwards to resettle on his face.
His lips part but no words leave him—his thoughts are in chaos and he can't wrangle them into even a semblance of coherency. They twist out of reach each time he tries.
Helga doesn't give him the opportunity to sort them out. Within one blink and the next she's gone, swallowed by the throng of students, and Arnold jerks forward instinctively, caught between wanting to follow her but also wanting nothing less.
"—old? Earth to Arnold? Hello? Is anybody home?"
Arnold blinks rapidly as he registers the hand waving in front of his face.
"Wha—oh. Sorry. Got lost in thought."
"I'll say," Gerald says, peering worriedly down at him. "You sure you're feeling up to being here today?"
Sid nods. "Seriously, Arnold, you're not looking too hot."
"I'm fine," Arnold insists, and rolls his eyes when that earns him a trio of skeptical looks. He starts walking and they scramble to follow after him.
"Seriously, guys, I'm good. I guess I'm just worried about falling behind in classes. Especially math. You know I was barely keeping up as it was…"
"Don't worry, Arnold! We'll all help!" Nadine says with a nod of determination.
"That's right! Don't even stress about it, man. We won't let you fail. And by 'we' I obviously mean me and Nadine 'cause Sid is doing worse than all of us put together."
"Hey!"
They all laugh, and the lightheartedness continues until the first bell rings and they rush to reach homeroom before the late bell goes off.
And if Arnold zones out every once in a while, lost in girl-shaped thoughts, well, no one calls him out on it.
A week passes before Arnold can no longer deny the truth staring him in the face: Helga is avoiding him.
At first, he chalks it up to them being in separate homerooms. It's not as if they share many classes together, either. But each time he so much as glances in Helga's direction the girl practically vanishes into thin air and she never seems to be in any of her usual haunts, either.
It isn't until Arnold musters up the courage to talk to her after their shared history class, and Helga notices him approaching and bolts, that it clicks.
Arnold drags his fingers through his hair with a sigh.
She isn't going to make it easy for him.
Ruefully, Arnold supposes she wouldn't be Helga G. Pataki if she did.
Arnold searches "astral projection during coma" on Internet Explorer one night and loses himself in endless stories from others who claim to have had out-of-body experiences in comatose states.
For hours he searches for accounts similar to his but finds none, though some come close, and in the end he's left him with more questions than he started with.
The one thing he does take away from his research binge is that astral bodies—which is the correct term for what's he's been referring to as his ghost form—tend to be drawn towards what those in the community sometimes call lodestars andother times call beacons. They can be objects, events, places, or people that exist as a significant feature or concept in the dreamer's waking life.
Which confuses Arnold, because there's no denying he'd been drawn towards Helga, but how can someone he hasn't spoken a word to in years be important to him in any way?
They were friends once, sure, and Arnold regrets the loss of that friendship the same as he does countless others. Helga is no more special than anyone else.
And sure, he'd put more effort into preserving their friendship than he admittedly did for most of the old crew—something that became nigh impossible after Phoebe transferred out and Mr. Pataki's business went under and Helga became even more withdrawn. But Helga had done so much for him and his parents in San Lorenzo, so isn't it a given that they'd become close?
And alright, so maybe at the time their growing distance had pained him to a disproportionate degree and he'd been miserable because of it for far longer than he cares to admit.
And okay, Arnold did sort of continue to keep tabs on Helga even after they stopped being friends, which he can't exactly say he did for anyone else, and it is perhaps a bit suspicious that he knows her favorite spots to study and catnap, and what lunch menu items she either turns her nose up at or secretly enjoys…
But thinking about it gives him a bellyache so he shoves those thoughts into a box and stuffs it in a dusty corner of his mind to be examined later, when he has the energy for it.
Something tells him that he just isn't ready to deal with whatever revelations lay inside, so he does his best to forget it exists.
He'll leave it for his future self to worry about.
After another week of being avoided so skillfully that he resorts to pinching himself just to check that he hasn't reverted to his astral form, Arnold decides that drastic measures are needed.
It's a Saturday, and one glance at the date on his calendar gives him enough of a clue to guess where Helga is. He makes quick work of getting dressed—or as quick as one can be with a broken arm—and wolfs down the breakfast already laid out for him in the dining room.
"Where are you headed today, son?" his dad asks as he struggles to get the sleeve of his coat over his cast.
"Just seeing a…a friend," Arnold says, fumbling over the word. It feels ill-fitting in his mouth, but he isn't sure what else to call someone he was once friends with but no longer is. Someone who he thinks he'd like to start calling a friend again.
His dad raises a brow at his hesitance but doesn't push him for details. He's great like that.
"Well, alright. Just make sure you're home in time for dinner—your mom's making curry tonight."
"I will. Later, Dad. Love ya."
"Love you more, kid."
Arnold shivers as he steps outside, wrapping his scarf more tightly around himself to ward against the harsh bite of the wind. He briefly considers going back inside to layer up but decides against it, worried that he'll talk himself out of the harebrained plan he's concocted. So he firms his resolve instead, zips up what feels less like a coat and more like battle armor, and heads out into the capricious city.
He arrives at Vitello's Flower Shop sooner than he's ready for, and has to muzzle the part of his brain that's yelling at him to abort this terrible mission before he can step a single foot inside the shop.
The chimes on the door tinkle as he enters, but Ms. Angelo is too busy attending customers to notice. Arnold shoves down his guilty conscience and common sense as he sneaks past her and into the backroom.
It's with baited breath that he follows the path he feels he merely dreamt up, and when his eyes fall on that impossible ivy-covered door that he should not have known existed, he finds himself swaying where he stands—dizzy with with the rush of emotions surging through him, too many at once to single any individual out.
This is the proof Arnold needed to cement his belief into reality—a token to finally silence the voice in his head that insisted he was crazy for believing that what he experienced was anything more than an outlandish dream.
Now there's evidence right before his eyes—real, tangible proof of a supernatural occurrence and his own unimpaired sanity—but it doesn't bring him the sharp relief he thought it would.
How can it, when he now has undeniable proof that everything he learned about Helga—all that terrible knowledge that keeps him up at night—is true?
A father who treats her very existence like an inconvenience, a mother too lost in a bottle to care, and a sister who apparently left and never looked back.
A girl who'll only cry when no one's watching because she doesn't have anyone she trusts enough to be vulnerable with. A girl who keeps cutting herself on the shards of a broken family and a broken home, and tends to her own wounds in dark corners and desolate crawlspaces because no one else will. Who bleeds everywhere, all the time, and no one ever notices.
Those thoughts drive Arnold forward. He pushes the door open and climbs the stairs two at a time, spurred on by a sudden anxiousness to see the girl whose eyes have been haunting him for weeks. He isn't even sure she'll be there—is hinging everything on instinct and hope—but he braces himself for the sight of her all the same.
Arnold enters the greenhouse and there's no hesitance to his steps as he moves through the byzantine grounds though there should be. It feels like he's being drawn towards a specific location (lodestar, something deep within him hums) and he should probably question it but he doesn't. Not even when he turns a bend and finds the exact person he's been searching for, as if he'd known exactly where she'd be.
Helga's sitting on the ground with her back pressed against a raised garden bed overflowing with flowers, dirt speckled over her tatty clothes and smudged across her face.
Arnold observes her for a suspended moment—observes the bob of her throat as her head tilts towards the glass ceiling, and the shake of her hair as she releases it from its bun, and the way the sunlight dances along her skin and casts it aglow—and feels breathless for reasons he can't fathom.
He shakes his head to clear it and cautiously makes his way towards her, and he hasn't even closed half the distance between them when her eyes flutter open and land on him.
And there it is again: that breathless feeling.
Helga's eyes widen and she jolts forward, paying no heed to the gardening gloves that topple off her knee and to the ground.
"Arnold?" She hastily swipes at her cheek but only succeeds in smearing the dirt already there—something she belatedly comes to realize because she drops her hand and curls it into a fist.
Arnold wisely doesn't comment and gives an awkward wave.
"Hey, Helga."
"Don't 'hey, Helga' me! What the hell are you doing here?"
The question stumps Arnold, and he inwardly groans at his lack of foresight.
"Um. I was in the neighborhood?"
Helga looks at him like she can't believe he actually said that.
Arnold understands—he can't believe it, either.
"You were in the neighborhood."
"Yes?"
Her eyes narrow in that way he knows means she's gearing up to argue, so Arnold hastily lowers himself next to her before she can drive him away. He ends up overbalancing in his eagerness—which he considers a stroke of luck because Helga quickly switches gears and focuses on steadying him instead.
"Be careful! Are you trying to break your other arm, too?" she snaps at him, snatching her hand back once he's safely seated.
"Thanks, Helga."
"If you're really grateful you'll tell me how the hell you found this place."
Of course she wouldn't let it go.
Arnold wracks his brain for something to say.
"Would you believe me if I told you I discovered it in a dream?"
Helga looks at him like she wants to sock him, and he can't help but grin a little at her refusal to even entertain the truth.
It had been so long since their friendship dissolved that he'd almost forgotten how amusing it was to rile her up.
"Are you stalking me?" she presses, voice low with suspicion.
"N-no, of course not!" Arnold denies, feeling a twinge of guilt when the accusation hits a little too close to home. He tries his best to look as unstalkerish as possible, abruptly recalling that Helga had always had this uncanny ability to read him like an open book.
"Anyways," Arnold hastily deflects, "how have you been?"
Helga's eyes narrow further. "Are you seriously not going to explain how you managed to find your way to a place you're not even permitted to be in on the one day of the week I manage to be here? And after two freaking weeks of trying to talk to me?"
"So you were avoiding me!"
"Of course I was," Helga grits out. "It was pretty damn obvious what you wanted to say to me with those hangdog eyes you kept throwing my way. I thought I was making it clear that I didn't want to hear any of it but apparently you're too slow on the uptake to get the memo."
It's Arnold's turn to glare at her, stung by the harshness of her words.
"So you avoided me because you thought you knew what I wanted to talk to you about? Real mature, Helga."
Helga scoffs. "Oh please, Arnoldo. So you weren't going to ask about my emotional wellbeing after seeing you try to take on a car and lose? So you weren't concerned that I might be feeling guilty because you almost died saving me?"
Helga's eyes flash with dark triumph at Arnold's silence.
"Yeah, exactly. I know you, Arnold. You always have to be someone's knight-in-shining-armor and I'm telling you right now, I don't need it. Go focus your self-serving hero complex on someone who'll thank you for it, because I sure as hell won't."
Helga's words prod at a wound he hadn't known himself to have, and his lips part but he can't think of anything past the hurt that's building in him.
Is that really what Helga, who's always been able to see right to the core of him, truly thinks of him? That he's some obnoxious white knight with a hero complex who only helps others for self-gratification?
Is that how Arnold comes across to other people, too?
Arnold isn't sure what expression he's making, but whatever it is causes Helga to waver and look away.
"I didn't mean it the way it sounded," she mutters after an uncomfortable lull, picking at a scab through the tears on your distressed jeans. "It's not a bad thing or anything, okay? I just…I don't want that from you. I don't need it," she reiterates.
Arnold decides to pack the last minute of his life into a box to work through later, and shoves it into a corner of his mind that's crowded with dozens of other dusty boxes that he's stowed away with similar intentions.
Just one more burden to process when he has the time and energy to do so.
Just one more worry to ignore until he no longer can.
"Alright," Arnold mutters. And then, because if there's one thing Helga's right about it's that he is stubborn, he says, "You know you're not to blame for my injuries, right?"
Helga bristles like a cat being doused in ice water.
"What did I just—"
"I don't care if you don't want to hear it; I'm telling you anyway," Arnold interrupts.
He needs Helga to hear the words, because despite what she says Arnold knows she felt guilt—had seen with his own eyes the way it sunk its teeth into her and ate.
"Helga, it wasn't your fault. It was my decision to push you out of the way, and you know what? I'd do it again in a heartbeat if it meant saving you."
The quiet of the greenhouse swells as he watches her grimace, some internal battle showing itself on the austere lines of her face until she turns away and a curtain of hair obstructs his view.
"Do you feel better now that you've gotten that out of your system?"
"I'm serious, Helga. It's not your—"
"Criminy," she groans, raising a hand to silence him. "You're so goddamn stubborn. I freaking heard you the first time. To summarize: it's not my fault you got flattened by a punch buggy of all things—"
"I didn't—"
"—because you were just being your typical heroic self and barreled into danger without thought like you always do. Well, guess what, bucko? I already knew all that. You're grossly overestimating any guilt you think I have because newsflash—I don't have any. So get over yourself, Shortman, and while you're at it, go bother someone else."
And this is how Arnold realizes something else about Helga: she's a phenomenal actor.
Even after having witnessed the truth for himself he almost falls for her act, it's that convincing.
That realization helps to ease some of the guilt he's been carrying over not noticing her family's neglect when they'd been friends. Emphasis on some—the rest, he knows, he'll carry with him for the rest of his life.
"Well, as long as you know," Arnold sighs, deciding to give it up for now so as not to upset her further. That's the last thing he wants, especially today of all days.
Helga gives him a skeptical look and scoffs when Arnold mimes zipping his lips.
"Well, what do ya know, miracles do happen."
"Hey, Helga?"
She looks askance at him. "What now, Arnoldo?"
"Why did we stop being friends?"
She falters. "Huh?"
"I mean, after San Lorenzo we got pretty close, didn't we? And then halfway into fifth grade we just…stopped."
"Yeah, well, that's middle school for ya."
"I know, but…"
"Arnold, why are you bringing this up now?"
"It's just…I guess this whole incident has made me realize how much I've missed you."
His face warms as he speaks the thought that's been pestering him for a while now.
While Arnold isn't the most self-aware of guys, he likes to think he knows himself pretty well. Truth is, he did have an ulterior motive for approaching Helga. She needs someone in her corner, and Arnold wants to be that someone. The problem is that Arnold is just a thirteen year old kid and there's only so much he cando to help, especially when he can't even tell anyone because they'll question how he knows what he knows, and who would believe that such a fantastical tale could be true?
Even he still struggles to believe it.
So Arnold decided that if he couldn't immediately help her in any substantive way, the least he could do was be a friend she could turn to if she ever needed it—even if all he really had to offer was a patient ear and a place to stay.
It was a simple thought that snowballed, and without realizing it, Arnold began spending more time than he cares to admit remembering how things used to be between them.
For months after San Lorenzo, he and Helga had practically been attached at the hip. Arnold remembers long hours spent in his too-warm bedroom, sometimes talking, other times just existing together in companionable silence.
He remembers rowdy dinners with a ragtag family that Helga seemed to fit right in with, and exciting escapades throughout a city that never stagnated or slept.
He also remembers how astonishingly easy it had been to talk to her, about everything and nothing, and how comfortable it had been to be himself with her because for all that she mercilessly teased him, she never really judged.
Arnold really has missed her.
Funny how it takes almost dying for him to realize it.
"Missed being friends with you, I mean," he hastily amends while Helga does her best impersonation of a fish. At that her mouth snaps shut, and she buries her face in her hands and screams.
It's Arnold's turn to gape.
"Um. Helga?"
She mumbles something into her palms that Arnold can't understand, and just when he thinks she's reached the peak of bizarreness she suddenly thrusts her middle finger up at the ceiling with a shout of "And screw you, too!" before turning to look at Arnold with manic eyes.
"Fine!" she snarls. "Freaking. Fine. Ugh, I give up. You win. Criminy."
Arnold is so, so lost.
"Uh, what are you giving up? And what am I winning, exactly?"
"The abandonment of my senses, the capitulation of my sanity, and the cessation of my carefully crafted insouciance," she snaps at him. "I should have known this would happen—you're an indelible stain I can't get rid of no matter how hard I try."
When Arnold merely stares blankly at her, she rolls her eyes like he's the insensible one and pushes herself to her feet.
"I won't avoid you if you try talking to me at school again, but that's all I'm promising. Now go away—I've reached my threshold for patience and these plants aren't going to prune themselves."
She holds a hand out, expectant, and Arnold instinctively takes it despite his confusion. A jolt of electricity shocks him the moment their hands touch, and Helga must feel it too because she shivers and tightens her grip before helping him up.
Once he's standing, she wordlessly turns her back on him and begins fussing with the flowers in the garden bed, clearly done with not only the conversation, but him.
Arnold doesn't take it to heart. The more time he spends with her, the more it feels like he's climbing onto a bike he hasn't ridden in years—at first clumsy and off-balance until muscle-memory kicks in. Arnold had once known how to filter the shrapnel from her words to get to the frangibly honest core, and he'll learn to do so again until the time comes that she no longer feels the need to arm herself against him.
A coil of anticipation unfurls inside of him at that oddly mesmerizing thought.
"Okay. Well, see you on Monday then, I guess."
And with that, Arnold turns and begins his trek towards the exit. He's barely taken a few steps when he suddenly remembers what had brought him here in the first place, and he spins on his heel and blurts out, "Oh, and by the way? Happy birthday, Helga."
Helga's back goes ramrod straight.
"Thanks," she utters after a heavy pause, still not looking at him, and figuring that all he's going to get from her, he continues on his way.
He almost jumps out of his skin when he's harshly tugged back just as he reaches the door.
"Here," Helga says gruffly, shoving something soft into his hand. And then she scampers off without so much as a backwards glance, leaving Arnold to stare first at her retreating back and then the sunset-hued primrose she left him with.
She's so weird, Arnold thinks with a shake of his head.
He twirls the vibrant flower between his fingers as he descends the stairs, wondering what it means in the language of flowers, if it means anything at all.
At home, Arnold discovers that primroses represent everlasting and undying love and concludes that Helga had only given him the flower in thanks for remembering her birthday and not because she'd meant anything by it.
That knowledge does nothing to quell the fluttering sensation in his stomach or the way he can't quite stop checking the time, hyperaware of the hours that stretch between now and a Monday that feels impossibly far away. He tosses and turns in bed, unable to banish the visions of Helga that keep intruding in his mind until finally he falls asleep just before dawn.
...
