Warning: Heads up! This chapter contains mentions of purging. It also includes depictions and references to anorexia. You've been warned.

It's crazy (that someone could change me)

Olga was able to get Helga's detention rescheduled for this week. Monday to be exact much to Helga's chagrin.

It was just as well. Beggars couldn't be choosers and Helga was begging Olga to help her. And surprisingly, Olga made it happen. She distantly thought to herself that she had to be nicer to Olga moving forward.

It couldn't hurt. Even if she pretty much felt like the whole thing was a big stinking waste of time. Olga still made good on her promise to Helga and made sure the younger Pataki was eating around the clock.

Or trying to at least.

Helga hadn't been easy Sunday into Monday and certainly not Monday morning. She practically screamed at Olga to leave her alone and now here she was running down the street scared to be late meeting Arnold. Heaviness would just make it worse. Helga couldn't stand to feel heavy. And she wouldn't. Not when meeting with Arnold and going to school. It was bad enough that she had to find a way again to get the boy off her back.

Phoebe and she were still not talking, or correction, Helga wasn't speaking to Phoebe and now avoiding her. The question was if she'd continue to lie to herself and blame Phoebe for the detention or if she'd finally be honest with herself and admit that she caused her problems. This was the longest the two have gone without speaking to each other.

Helga mumbled under her breath, skipping Phoebe's house and going right to the place she and Arnold met was a lot more of a walk than she anticipated and she was already running late. She should have thought about taking the bus to school if it was going to be this much of a trek but she was already halfway there.

She should have asked Olga to give her a ride to school. She ran down a few more blocks, her backpack thrashing side to side while she tried desperately to meet Arnold on time.

It was better walking with someone in the distance than simply meeting in the middle. Even if she wouldn't admit she missed having someone to walk with in the morning. She missed Phoebe.

She finally met at the corner and sighed in relief as she saw Arnold. "Football head." She panted a bit.

Arnold cocked his head, "Tough morning?"

Helga groaned, "You don't know the half of it." Arnold intertwined their hands.

"Well, you can tell me on the way." He smiled at her.

"Because of Olga this morning I had to practically sprint out the door and run like 10 blocks to meet you. And on top of that, I have detention today that got rescheduled. This day is going to blow."

"Try to think positive. Today's the last day of detention and Olga is leaving soon, right?" He took his other hand that wasn't intertwined and rubbed Helga's own comfortingly.

"Yeah, I thought so too. But apparently, she wants to stay longer, I was calling her bluff this weekend but she hasn't packed her bags! I think she's really going to stay. Criminy! Why does my life suck so much?"

"Your life doesn't suck. Far from it. Maybe this will be a good opportunity to get closer. You said it yourself, you want your family to take an interest in your life. This is one way to go about it."

Helga scowled. "Face it, Arnoldo, my life sucks. Just when I was getting some space from Olga, she pulls this."

"I think you're being a little dramatic here. If it really bothers you so much why don't you go and talk to her? Tell her how you feel," Helga snorted, "I'm sure she'll understand if you'd just talk to her." Arnold said.

The two made their way up the steps to the school. Arnold looked at his girlfriend, "It's the start of the school day. Try to be positive. You just might surprise yourself with how the day will go."

"Uh-huh." Helga rolled her eyes. Arnold walked the girl to her locker, clutching her elbow before leaving, "Give it a try, Helga."

She distantly thought to herself that Arnold would want a more positive girlfriend. A far cry from her. She felt her stomach begin to turn at the thought of Arnold dumping her. She threw her stuff in her locker and slammed it shut.

'Let the start of the world's worst day begin.' Helga thought to herself.

Helga's morning pretty much went about as well as she planned. Crummy. Mr. Simmons decided to split the class into boy-girl pairings and Helga unfortunately got stuck with Sid. Sid complained aloud that Helga didn't count as a real girl and Harold chimed in chanting. "Helga's not a girl."

That's when Sid and Stinky chimed in, chanting as well. The rest of the class, minus Arnold, Phoebe, Gerald, and Lila didn't join in on laughing. Helga bit her lip the entire time determined to not give in and cream all three boys at once. Silently she forced herself to take deep breaths and not react. If she'd react it'd just make the teasing worse.

"Why don't you just shut up Harold?" Arnold glared at Harold. "You're not that funny." Harold sobered up as did Sid and Stinky and the chanting stopped. Mostly because of how angry Arnold looked.

Yep, Helga was already ready for the ground to open up and swallow her whole.

Helga wanted to die. She already felt like crap, did her classmate have to make it worse by being such idiots? She understood she was a bully but she was trying to fix her bullying ways. It was harder some days than others.

"Ready to go?" Arnold walked up to her desk after class was dismissed.

"Lead the way, Arnoldo." She was hesitant to eat after all of that. She wanted to curl into a ball and cry, not walk to the cafeteria with Arnold and shove food down her worthless throat.

Arnold caught the look in her eyes and placed a hand on her shoulder, "Ignore them. They don't matter. I've already told them to quit it."

"Yeah, well Arnoldo, I don't think they're going to listen to what you have to say. No offense."

"They're wrong you know. Don't let their words get to you, okay? If they do it again, I'll tell them that our friendship is done. They have no right to say that to you." Helga caught the upset look on his face, a rarity. It took a lot to upset Arnold and to know that Sid, Stinky, and Harold managed to do just that put knots in her stomach.

If he was upset about his friends calling her a couple of names, how would he feel about her telling him the truth about not eating? Or the fact that she threw up dinner last night?

How could he possibly want to stay in a relationship with the biggest liar at P.S. 118?

Helga walked into the cafeteria with Arnold and her heart was pounding.

"Um, uh I'll be right back." She ran to the bathroom. She felt her hands shaking and her mouth felt dry. She needed a couple of minutes to herself before she'd freak out.

Arnold nodded "I'll grab you something."

She forced herself to breathe in and out, in and out. She opened the door with shaking hands and raced to the farthest stall. Slamming the door shut she leaned against the stall wall. 'Criminy, I need to get it together. It's just food. It's not like I'm going to…' she gulped, 'die.'

"I'm not going to die. I just feel overwhelmed is all."

She spoke aloud.

"I'm not going to die."

She said again, closing her eyes. She felt the cold wall of the stall against her back.

"I'm not going to die," Helga repeated herself sliding down to the bathroom floor and wrapping her legs up to her chin. She completely ignored that she was sitting on probably the grossest part of the school.

"Everything is fine and Arnold still cares about me. I'm going to go out there and…eat."

"But not that much. Just enough to ease suspicion. Yeah! That'll work." She finished her thought aloud. That seemed to help calm her nerves. She started feeling more at ease.

She still wanted to sit and lay against the stall for a few more minutes before she forced herself back out there, still uneasy at the prospect of running into her classmates and dealing with their crap on top of feeling like crap.

"Helga?" She heard a voice call out, the door creaking and closing immediately after the person. 'CRIMINY, can this day get any worse?' Standing up Helga with wide eyes smoothed her dress and wiped her face. She knew who that was.

Stepping out of the stall she looked over at Phoebe who stood there with a concerned look on her face.

"Forgive me for intruding, I just walked in to use the bathroom. Why were you on the floor? Are you alright?"

Helga didn't dare look Phoebe in the eyes and nodded her head. "' Course."

"Do you want me to get the nurse? You look pale."

Helga gulped and turned to the stall. She leaned against the open door. "I'm fine."

"You look sick." Phoebe walked up to her. "Your skin has a green tinge to it and you look like you might pass out." She, against her judgment, leaned over and gently grabbed Helga's hand motioning her to sit on the toilet

"Helga, forgive my abruptness, but what is going on? These past few weeks you've not been acting like yourself and each day it seems to be getting worse."

"I think I might want to go to the nurse." Helga moved to get up but Phoebe blocked the stall door.

"Helga, I simply won't allow you to leave without talking to me first. I've known you for most of my life and I've never known you to keep, well, anything from me. Even ice cream."

"Move or I'll make you move." Helga scowled at the girl, giving her one warning. She felt like she was going to die but she wasn't going to freak out in front of Phoebe of all people. No way in hell was she going to let her guard down around her semi-ex-friend.

"Then I guess you'll have to move me." Phoebe crossed her arms and stared challengingly back at Helga.

"Fine." Helga moved to push past the girl and stopped. "This is stupid. Phoebe just move."

"Tell me what's going on, Helga. I can't help you if you don't tell me what's going on. Was it what our classmates were doing earlier that upset you? I thought Arnold took care of the situation and made sure they wouldn't do that again."

"It's not them." Even though it hurt her feelings what they did, it wasn't anywhere near enough to make her do this. This amount of self-loathe had nothing to do with Harold, Stinky, and Sid's idiotic shenanigans.

"Then Helga, what is it?" The brunette had to know. The longest tiff in their relationship was caused by this and she wanted to get to the bottom of it. She spent part of the weekend trying to figure it out, much to Gerald's dismay.

Helga, already annoyed and now feeling her stomach start to burn again, sighed, and sighed caving partially. "I- I don't want to eat okay? Now get out of my way, Phoebe. I need to go to the nurse before I hurl."

"You're in the bathroom, if you need to vomit you are in the perfect place to do so."

"I am not throwing up in front of you. Especially not in here. Dating tall hair boy has started messing up your mind" 'There's too many witnesses. I need to split like now' She panicked.

"If you didn't want to eat, you'd be sitting at a lunch table waiting for Arnold to get back. You wouldn't be in here. Are you overwhelmed again?"

Helga bit her tongue, "Yes, okay? I am overwhelmed. Now, please, get out of my way or I'm going to hurl. I need space."

"Helga, I have given you plenty of space over the last few weeks."

"No, you haven't. You've been breathing down my neck, provoking me."

"Please, Helga. If you care about our friendship, just tell me what is wrong. Is it your family?"

"Criminy! No. it's not."

"Is it your stomach? Gerald mentioned Arnold told him you were feeling better."

"I -fine! You want to know what's wrong?" She lowered her voice, thinking on her feet without giving away too much, "My stomach burns a lot because it has too much acid crap in it. So I hack my lungs out and it helps me feel better. Okay?"

"You make yourself throw up?"

"No- but sometimes when the burning gets too much," Helga said carefully. It was a lie but not a complete one.

"Helga.."

"What? You gonna run and tell everyone?"

"No, I would never do that. I just. I just want to know why."

"I like the taste of vomit, brainiac. Why do you think I throw up?"

"Ice cream?" 'Seriously Phoebe, you're going to bring Arnold up at a time like this.' She thought to herself.

"Pheobe, I really don't want to have this conversation with you in the cafeteria bathroom."

"Well, Helga, I've tried to have this conversation with you multiple times in private spaces and you refused me that."

"My stomach. It hurts. Every time I eat. So I don't eat much. What do you want from me?" She lied.

"You should see a doctor Helga."

"I have seen one and she just gave me antacids. It's helping some."

"So were you in here to - " Helga wouldn't let Phoebe finish those words.

"No, I wasn't going to do that. I just needed time to myself."

"Because?"

"Because I felt like it, alright?!" Helga was really happy for Phoebe when she started dating Gerald but now she just wanted to scream. It was very clear how much influence dating the boy had on Phoebe. The old Phoebe would never have acted so boldly.

"Have you told Arnold?" Phoebe's curiosity was piqued. It would explain why the two were back on good terms and no longer bickering.

"No. And you're not going to say anything to him. Okay?" Helga was already irritated with all the questions and back and forth. Today was just not her day.

"Arnold loves you. Are you really going to lie to him about all of this?" Phoebe was concerned for Helga but also concerned the girl was making terrible choices that could erode everything.

"Yeah, yeah." Helga waved her hand. "And you're going to keep your mouth shut. I don't need any more meddling in my life. Like I said, I can handle it."

"Helga, it's not too late to ask for help. No one would look at you differently for doing so. It's dangerous to force yourself to vomit. You could rupture your esophagus. You could die!" Helga rolled her eyes at the brunette's dramatics. She wasn't going to die and definitely not anytime soon.

Helga ran a hand down her face. "I knew I shouldn't have said anything to you. You're just going to turn on me." Granted it was a lie she'd be turning Helga in on, but it would still get Helga in trouble and more eyes would be drawn to her situation.

"I'm not going to turn on you."

"Yes, you are. You're going to tell Arnold, Gerald-because he's your boyfriend- and then you're going to tell Olga." Helga replied matter-factly.

"Helga- you're going to tell Arnold and Olga and your parents. You need help. Besides, when you see a doctor again maybe they can find out why you're gastrointestinal track is giving you so much distress. Everyone will understand." Phoebe reached a hand out to place on Helga's arm but Helga flinched and took a step back.

Helga scowled, "I ain't doing it. And you are going to keep your mouth shut. I don't need any more meddling freaks bringing me down."

Phoebe took another step closer to Helga, "The only person bringing you down is yourself."

Helga raised her eyebrow, "What are you going to do? Fight me?"

"Helga I'm not going to fight you. Don't be ridiculous."

Helga pushed past Phoebe and walked out of the stall. "If my stomach gives me any more issues, I'll see someone. And you'll keep your mouth shut about all of this. And in the meantime, we can pretend this never happened and can stay away from each other. Deal?"

"No deal. You're my best friend, Helga. Why don't you trust me?"

"Pfft, Well what are you going to agree to?" Helga ignored Phoebe's question.

"Considering how dangerous this situation can get, I'll consider keeping quiet if you make sure you don't *ahem* force yourself to vomit. If I get even the slightest inclination that you are forcing yourself to vomit, I'll call Olga and notify Arnold."

"Fine." Helga spat out. "But you're not forcing me to eat like pink boy," She shuddered in disgust, "My stomach hurts enough as it is, and with the antacids, I'm eating enough to keep something in my stomach so I think it'll turn around soon."

"Helga…"

"My stomach is on fire. Can I please go sit down and take an antiacid?" She butted in, determined to leave the room. "Or do you need to watch me do that too?"

Helga walked out without saying another word. She watched Arnold sitting at their table talking to Gerald. She groaned, she thought she could finally get away from Phoebe.

She walked up to the two best friends and sat her bookbag next to Arnold. Phoebe trailed over to them a few minutes later, looking at Helga and then turning her attention to Arnold. Helga watched the two greet each other with paranoia. Her anxiety now felt like it was going to unravel her. She wished the ground would open her up again and swallow her whole.

Gerald looked over at her and nodded his head, "Pataki."

"Tall hair boy."

"Feeling better, huh?"

Helga raised her eyebrow, "Like it's any of your business." She rolled her eyes, knowing she needed to be kinder and less hostile, "I'm feeling better."

Arnold looked over and smiled at her. "I got you this." He took the sandwich off the tray along with Helga's favorite (although she wouldn't admit it) pudding.

Helga looked down at the food and thanked the boy before leaning over and whispering, "Hey football head, why don't we share it?"

She reached into her bag and grabbed an antiacid popping it in her mouth. "Don't think I can finish all of the pudding by myself." She moved the pudding in between them. She leaned on the table, placing her elbow on the table, and placing her chin in her hand. She gestured towards the blonde boy.

Arnold smiled at her. Taking a spoon, he handed it over to Helga. "Ladies first."

Helga smiled taking a bite of the pudding.

It was her last day of detention and she was ecstatic. She didn't have to think any longer about how she was going to get through this lame fest. She was finally in the home stretch.

And thankfully the teacher she had Thursday wasn't the same teacher she had this time.

No, this time it was Mr. Simmons. Which meant it was going to be a free-for-all.
He had the students work on their homework quietly and if they didn't have any assignments to do, he'd have them write lines on why they were in detention in the first place.

Helga was just happy that this detention would be a breeze.

She raised her hand, "Can I go to the bathroom?"

Mr. Simmons gave her the bathroom pass with prompt instructions to return timely. She almost rolled her eyes and soldered on but she nodded her head and walked out.

She needed to get rid of the excess food in her stomach and she also needed to make sure she did it when Phoebe wasn't around which was why detention was perfect for her today.

She ate too much during lunch trying to appease Arnold and okay, make him happy. When he saw her plates were completely clean he smiled so brightly, that Helga thought it was blinding.

She loved to see that smile. It gave her hope things would be okay.

Helga stopped at her locker for her toothbrush and toothpaste before making her way discreetly to the bathroom. She watched Phoebe leave with Gerald before she parted ways with Arnold to go to detention.

Sighing she sat her items on the sink and went into the stall of the bathroom. Taking a deep breath she braced herself against the toilet as she forced a finger down her throat. Slamming it hard against her gag reflex. In disgust, she watched the partially digested food rise and fought to keep her eyes open as she gagged particularly hard against the porcelain, her stomach heaving.

Coughing more and trying to get her body under control once more, Helga allowed herself to continue vomiting until there was nothing left in her stomach. She heaved hard a few times, fighting for control of her stomach again.

Wiping her eyes, she flushed the toilet and walked to the sink to wash her hands.

She looked in the mirror and noticed her eyes were slightly red-rimmed and she looked, still, a bit queasy. When she dried her hands, she took a deep breath and began brushing her teeth in the sink like a loser.

'I have got to stop this,' Helga thought desperately.