Helga had always been fiercely competitive, especially when it came to Lila. For as long as she could remember, Lila had been the epitome of perfection in the eyes of their classmates and teachers alike—kind, sweet, and effortlessly talented. No matter what Helga did, Lila seemed to outshine her without even trying, and it drove Helga up the wall.
This time, though, things would be different. The talent show was her chance to finally prove to everyone, including herself, that she was more than just a scowling face and a sharp tongue. Helga had a depth that no one ever bothered to see, and she was determined to reveal it on her terms.
In the weeks leading up to the show, Helga had thrown herself into her poem. Every line, every word was meticulously chosen to capture the complex emotions she kept locked away. She would write late into the night, crossing out verses and rewriting stanzas until the poem felt just right. It wasn't just about winning—it was about expressing something real, something that had been eating away at her for years.
But as much as she wanted to pour her heart into the poem, Helga also knew she had to be careful. Her feelings for Arnold were something she had kept hidden, even from herself at times. She couldn't let anyone know the truth, least of all him. So she crafted the poem to be vague, universal in its theme of unrequited love, something anyone could relate to.
Despite her best efforts, the days leading up to the talent show were filled with a gnawing anxiety that she couldn't shake. Helga was used to being tough, to hiding her vulnerabilities behind layers of sarcasm and bravado, but this poem was different. It was personal in a way that nothing she had ever shared before was. The thought of standing on that stage, exposing even a fraction of her true self, was terrifying.
The morning of the talent show, Helga could barely eat. She sat at the breakfast table, pushing her food around her plate as Big Bob and Miriam went about their usual morning routine, oblivious to the turmoil churning inside her. By the time she arrived at school, the nervous energy had reached a boiling point. She avoided talking to anyone, not even bothering to exchange her usual barbs with Harold or Sid. Her mind was too focused on what lay ahead.
In the moments before her performance, Helga stood backstage, peeking through the curtains at the crowd gathering in the auditorium. She could see Lila chatting with her friends, probably planning to dazzle the audience with some charming song or dance routine. The thought of Lila effortlessly winning over the crowd again made Helga's blood boil. She clenched her fists, reminding herself why she was doing this. This was her moment, and she wouldn't let anyone take it from her.
Finally, her name was called. Helga took a deep breath, squaring her shoulders as she stepped out onto the stage. The bright lights blinded her for a moment, but she forced herself to focus. She couldn't afford to let her nerves get the best of her now. As she reached the center of the stage, she could feel the weight of the audience's eyes on her, a mixture of curiosity and expectation.
Helga glanced down at the paper in her hand, the one containing all the words she had agonized over. It felt heavier than it should have, as if the emotions trapped within the lines were fighting to be free. Her heart pounded in her chest, each beat echoing in her ears. She could feel the familiar urge to put up her walls, to protect herself from whatever vulnerability she was about to expose.
But she couldn't back out now. She wouldn't let Lila or anyone else see her falter. Taking one final, steadying breath, Helga raised the microphone to her lips, and with a voice that trembled only slightly, she began to read.
As the words left her mouth, she could feel the tension in the room shift. The poem was doing exactly what she had intended—drawing the audience in, making them feel the intensity of the emotions she had so carefully hidden beneath the surface. For the first time, Helga felt like they might actually understand her, even if only for a moment.
But then, as she reached the climax of the poem, something inside her cracked. The carefully constructed walls she had built around her feelings for Arnold began to crumble. The raw, unfiltered emotions she had tried so hard to keep at bay surged forward, overwhelming her senses. Before she knew it, she was no longer in control. The poem was no longer just words on a page—it was a confession.
"And every day, I long to tell him," she whispered, her voice thick with emotion. The words flowed out before she could stop them, carried by a wave of longing she could no longer suppress. "To say what I feel, to let him know—"
And then it happened. Arnold's name slipped from her lips, unbidden and unstoppable, as if it had been waiting for this moment all along.
For a split second, time seemed to freeze. Helga's world narrowed to the thundering pulse in her ears and the widening eyes of her classmates staring back at her. The auditorium, once a buzzing hive of excitement and chatter, had fallen into an eerie silence. It was as if the very air had been sucked out of the room, leaving only the heavy, suffocating weight of Helga's slip-up.
Her heart stopped, then started again with a painful jolt as the full gravity of her mistake hit her. She looked out into the audience, her gaze sweeping over a sea of stunned faces. Rhonda was sitting in the front row, her usual composure shattered, her perfectly groomed eyebrows arched in disbelief. Next to her, Stinky's mouth hung open in shock, his long, lanky frame slumped as if he had just been struck by lightning. Eugene, poor clumsy Eugene, stumbled backward in his seat, almost tipping over, his wide eyes fixed on Helga as though he couldn't quite believe what he'd just heard.
Even the teachers, who usually kept their expressions neutral and encouraging, were caught off guard. Mr. Simmons, who always prided himself on understanding his students, looked like he had just been hit with a revelation too big to process. His hands hovered awkwardly over his grading sheet, frozen mid-motion. Ms. Slovak's stern face softened into something close to sympathy, which only made Helga's stomach churn more violently.
Heat flooded her cheeks, rising so fast that she could almost feel the blood rushing to her face, turning her skin a deep crimson. She was certain that if someone touched her, they would be burned by the sheer intensity of her humiliation. Her entire body felt like it was on fire, and she had nowhere to hide, no mask to slip behind to protect herself from the onslaught of emotions crashing over her like a tidal wave.
"Uh, I mean..." Helga stammered, her voice faltering as she desperately searched for a way out. The words tangled in her throat, refusing to cooperate. She tried to play it off, to make it seem like a simple mistake, but it was useless. The moment the name "Arnold" had escaped her lips, the damage had been done, and no amount of backtracking could undo it. The entire school now knew her most closely guarded secret, the one she had fought so hard to keep buried beneath layers of sarcasm and bravado.
The pity in Rhonda's eyes was like a dagger to her chest. Rhonda Lloyd, who had always been the queen of the social scene, now looked at Helga with an expression that made Helga's skin crawl. It wasn't mockery or disdain—those, she could have handled. She was used to the teasing, the sideways comments, and the occasional snickers behind her back. But this was different. This was worse. Pity was something she had never wanted, something she had always worked to avoid. It was a sign of weakness, and Helga Pataki was anything but weak.
Rhonda exchanged a glance with Nadine, who was sitting beside her. The unspoken communication between them was clear: they knew. They all knew. And in that moment, Helga could see the wheels turning in their heads, the gears grinding as they processed this new piece of information. Rumors were already beginning to form, stories that would spread like wildfire through the halls of P.S. 118. By the end of the day, everyone would be talking about how Helga G. Pataki, the toughest girl in school, had just outed herself in front of everyone.
Helga's eyes darted across the room, catching glimpses of her classmates' reactions. Phoebe, her best friend, looked horrified on Helga's behalf, her small hands clasped together in her lap as she sat frozen in her seat. Sid and Harold were whispering to each other, their eyes flicking back and forth between Helga and Arnold, who sat somewhere in the crowd, completely oblivious to the turmoil he had inadvertently caused.
Helga's breath hitched in her throat, panic setting in. She couldn't stay here, not with all those eyes on her, dissecting her every move, her every word. She needed to get away, to escape before the reality of what she had just done fully sank in. The walls of the auditorium seemed to close in on her, the room shrinking until it was suffocating, and she felt like she was drowning in a sea of judgmental stares.
Without thinking, Helga turned on her heel and bolted off the stage. She could hear the stunned murmurs starting to ripple through the crowd, the whispers growing louder as she ran. The sound of her footsteps echoed through the auditorium, a rapid, frantic rhythm that matched the pounding of her heart. She didn't dare look back. She didn't want to see the looks on their faces, the pity, the surprise, the dawning realization of what her words had meant.
Helga burst through the backstage door, the cool air of the empty hallway hitting her like a slap to the face. But it wasn't enough to cool the fire raging inside her. She ran down the corridor, her footsteps slapping against the linoleum floor, the sound bouncing off the walls in an eerie, hollow way. Every step she took felt like it was dragging her deeper into her own nightmare, one she couldn't wake up from.
She didn't know where she was going. She just needed to get away, to find somewhere she could be alone, where she could fall apart without anyone seeing her. Her vision blurred as tears threatened to spill over, but she blinked them back furiously. She wouldn't cry. Not now. Not when they were all probably laughing at her, making plans to spread her humiliation far and wide.
Finally, she reached a quiet corner of the school, far from the bustling auditorium, far from the prying eyes of her classmates. Helga leaned against the wall, gasping for breath, her chest heaving as she tried to calm herself down. But no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't shake the image of their faces, the realization that her secret was out, that everything she had tried to hide was now laid bare for everyone to see.
Helga slid down the wall, hugging her knees to her chest, and for the first time in a long while, she allowed herself to cry. The tears came slowly at first, then faster, until she was sobbing quietly, her face buried in her arms. She had been so careful, so determined to keep her feelings locked away, and now, with one careless slip, it was all over.