Helga goes home from her appointment. Dr. Bliss encourages Helga to talk more to Arnold because she believes that Arnold is able to help her calm down. She tells Helga that in order to be happy she needs to get rid of all her anger. Initially, Helga had thought about laughing, her life and her family made her angry every single day. Telling her not to be angry is the same thing as telling Eugene not to be happy. It was just something that was never done. The probability of it happening was the same as Helga asking Arnold for help when she is a clear state of mind. Dr. Bliss had told Helga that since Arnold was such a good influence on her, Helga should ask him for help. What he would do is stand near her when she is about to get angry and help settle her down. Helga was supposed to go up to him and ask for his help. The only problem being that Helga was way too nervous to talk to him at all.
Helga knew that she needed to officially get over Arnold. She knew it, she didn't need Phoebe or anyone else to tell her, because she wanted it as much as they did. She pined after Arnold for so long that she really didn't give anyone else a chance. As much as she wanted to believe that Brad could count, she knew that whole relationship was a fluke. To Helga, its seems as though, every attempt that she makes for happiness in her life just goes to waste, which just leads to more and more anger. Although Helga could understand why Dr. Bliss wanted her to talk more to Arnold, she didn't think it would help the fact that she desperately wanted to avoid him at all costs. Arnold was the only person who never made her mad. Sure she pretended that she was angry at him all the time, but it was never genuine. She could never actually hate Arnold. All Dr. Bliss was trying to tell her was that Arnold may just be a good influence on her. She wasn't saying that Helga should worship him again, just that she should keep him as a friend because whether she showed it to him or not, he brought out the best in her.
As much as Helga wanted to forget about her love for Arnold, she knew that it was not going to be easy. She even knew that the mere thought of it may just break her heart forever. That is what made this next part, really hard.
It was about nine-thirty/ten o'clock at night when Helga was checking her social networking sites. Lately she had been mentioned in the statuses in about half her friends over the Rhonda argument in the parking lot. When she was scrolling through she saw that Arnold was upset with the boarders and his crazy grandparents. He wanted to get out of the house desperately but knew that he couldn't. Helga picks up her phone and texts him to see if he's okay. He tells her that he's just upset that due to his grandparents' ages he has to be the one to take care of the boarding house and its tenants. She tells him about how unfair it is that he has to do that and explains what she thinks he must be feeling but inside she knows how it feels being the one to take care of everything. She was the one who convinced her mother to go to Rehab and she is the one who has to help control her father's anger even when she can't control her own. She constantly feels like the adult in the house especially since it became just her and her dad. A couple of weeks ago Miriam had come home and luckily for Helga she brought Olga along with her.
She doesn't share this with Arnold, who texts back, telling her that she is exactly right. He then goes on to explain how he misses his parents, how he has so much and yet it seems like nothing, and how sometimes he just wishes that he had a girlfriend to get his mind off of it. He says this unknowingly, forgetting that he was talking to Helga. Although he didn't mean to be insensitive, Helga can't help but feel a pain in her chest. She goes on to explain how any girl would be lucky to have a guy like him, because after all, he is one of the sweetest and cutest guys in their grade. He thanks her and calls her sweet, making sure that she knows that he really appreciates what she is doing for him. After a slight hesitation Helga asks him about the girl that he likes. She knows that it isn't her but she can't help but hope with her entire soul that there is still a chance. He takes a while to respond and her hopes rise, wondering if the reason he has been taking so long to respond is because maybe, just maybe, he is too afraid to tell her his own feelings.
When her phone finally vibrates she picks it up slowly and opens the text she opens her eyes slowly and sees just two letters, initials, but not her initials. She tells him that whoever the girl is, she is very lucky. He doesn't respond so Helga sends another text telling him to go for it and ask her out. She explains that he will never know if she likes him back if he doesn't try first. She hopes that somehow she read the message wrong and he was really talking about her, but she also knew that it wasn't. After she sends the message she starts to cry. She wants to go over to him and tell him that there are better girls right in front of him. She wants to slap him across the face to bring him to his senses. Instead she sits in her room staring at her phone realizing that this may be the only way that she can actually get over him. Arnold texts back sharing his problems about being too afraid to say anything because it has never really worked out in the past. She tells him that he is insane because no girl in their right mind would reject him. Tears fall down from her face when she apprehends that she is telling the boy that she has been in love with for the majority of her life, to go out and date some other girl. She heard from people in school that it is better to put others first because it will make you feel better inside. She knows now that it is all a lie. It may be okay to help others, but sometimes in doing so, you hurt yourself, and this is the kind of pain that no one could ever want.