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Long December	By : Estromale Category: +G through L > Hey, Arnold! Views: 4026 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Hey Arnold!, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 1-Long December
- 2-Under your Spell
- 1
- 2
Ok, this is second chapter, and longer. Be prepared for some major angst and a little disturbing information (if you're a Big Gino fan, that is). Oh, and this part of the fic I dedicate to every fic I've read where the main character is degenerated into this disgusting pig who rapes and is completely OOC. This, I think, is a little different way to look at rape, and I only say that because, as a guy, how I treat a subject I don't really know about bring criticism. Well...anyway, here.

It was like she still remembered it, although maybe a couple of things changed: she could still see herself walking out of class that spring day, her hands in her pockets, watching Sheena and Eugene prancing around, no doubt glad to be done with class as anyone else in P.S. 118. Maybe the air was a little less crisp, maybe she was wearing something different: did it really matter? She still saw herself the same way: a dumber, less intense version of Helga Pataki except with a particularly violent past, a bad rap, and a tendency to stick out like an unsightly acne problem. She was glad, then, that no one noticed as she rounded the corner, eager to snap up an ice-pop and go back home before the Jolly Olly man threw another one of his rude remarks about her weight at her. Maybe Harold was used to it, but it still made her feel horrible.
Rounding the park, she caught sight of the popular redhead of P.S. 118: Lila Sawyer, who looked nothing short of downtrodden at the moment. She was scuffing her white shoes, looking to the ground, occasionally giving a whimper.
This, of course, struck Patty as odd. Firstly, she had never seen Lila down in the dumps ever since the day the girl had entered P.S. 118; Second, and more important, she could see no reason Lila would be so distraught without someone to comfort her. As far as Patty was concerned, Lila was one of the “happy people,” and even Wolfgang might even be swayed by her charms. It being in her nature to comfort people if she possibly could, Patty sped up her pace to walk in stride with Lila. The girl didn’t look up, but she clearly acknowledged Patty’s presence. She sniffled, and Patty was a little panicked to see that Lila was crying. Seeing as how Patty hadn’t cried since third grade when someone called her a “fat hog,” and this was only before she punched said person out and got herself suspended, she swallowed nervously. “Lila?”
“Please,” the girl managed to say, “I don’t know if I can talk to anyone right now. I feel hurt…just ever so hurt.”
“Well what’s wrong?” Patty asked, her eyes showing their concern. “Is it so bad that you can’t even tell a complete stranger who’s only trying to make you feel better?”
Lila shook her head and sighed. “You must forgive me…I’m really in such a state, aren’t I? I know who you are…you’re Patty Smith, aren’t you? I think…you’re in the fifth grade?” Lila looked up, and Patty could clearly see tears glistening from the corners of her eyes. She hadn’t bothered to wipe them and, for a moment, Patty was a little awed at how pretty the freckled face girl looked, outside of that bravado of perfection and feeling nothing but kindness and goodwill in her body. That kind of attitude usually annoyed Patty.
“Yeah...sixth grade, actually,” Patty said, shrugging. “It’s no big deal, really…I only said I was a stranger because no one really notices me anyway...all the better for them, really.”
Lila sniffled. “That’s a horrible thing to say about yourself. Surely you give yourself a little more credit than that?”
Patty gave another shrug. “So what if I don’t? That won’t change anything.”
“I suppose not,” Lila replied, and shook her hair. “Look at me, blubbering like a kid who skinned his knees! I guess I’ll ask you to not let this be your first impression of me?”
“It happens. If you don’t mind me asking, what are you crying about?”
“Oh its silly, I suppose,” Lila said, wiping her eyes. “I liked a boy, and he’s just told me the time we spent together was a mistake. It…” At this, her voice got low and a little mournful, “hurt me, ever so much.”
“I could beat him up,” Patty said instantly, and Lila let out an abrupt laugh. Although Patty felt like grinning, she also found Lila’s tears just a little absurd.
“Oh no…he really is a sweet boy! Just…not interested in me, I guess.”
“If that’s the case…why bother crying about it, Lila? You’re young…only in fourth grade, right? As far as I know, you’ll have your whole life to find some guy to treat you all right, and even if you don’t, it won’t be so bad. I mean come on, you’re young!”
Lila nodded. “You’re right, and I know you’re right…I just feel so…so very unwanted now, I sse. se. I usually don’t feel this way in front of people if I can help it. I’m sorry.”
Patty smiled thinly. “Well, to be fair, I did sort of sneak up on you. Listen…if you want, you can come over to my house and have some tea or something? It isn’t much, but it always manages to calm me down.”Lila looked up at her smi smiled. “You know, I think I’d like that, just ever so much.”
_

“I remember that!” Arnold exclaimed. “Well, not that, but the next day, when I told Lila I liked her-liked her, she had gotten over me!”
Patty took a casual puff of the cigarette and nodded. “Well I guess I had a part in it, but you really have to give her credit…see, Lila is a lot more resilient than people giver her credit for.”
Arnold looked troubled. “What do you mean?”
In response, Patty looked away, quietly snuffing out the cigarette ash and placing her hands in her lap. “It isn’t easy to keep a smile on your face when the world is determined to fuck you up.”
_

Eight grader Patty Smith stared in disbelief at her best friend. Patty wasn’t prone to showing this emotion, not even with her on-again, off-again boyfriend Harold Berman. “Y…you can’t be serious.”
Lila shook her head. Her hair had been out of pigtails since she’d entered sixth grade, and she had made sure to maintain it so that it gave off a glossy glow as she moved her head. Today, however, she was without the general smile and warmth behind her eyes. Instead, she only offered a sad smile, her eyes holding with it a subdued sadness. She stared back at her friend, no longer shuffling her feet in awkward moments like she used to. Patty had made sure that Lila had to face down whatever problem came her way.
“I don’t have much of a choice, do I, Patty?” Lila said softly, fiddling with her hair. “My father simply isn’t that well off these days…n’t n’t suppose he ever was. He’s working…”
“I know where he’s working!” Big Patty shot back. “He’s working for Big Gino’s father, right? Which means that now Big Gino owns you!”
“No one owns me Patty!” Lila said angrily, but it sounded weak. “I took your advice, didn’t I? Do you see me with Arnold? No! I’m sorry that I can’t even show the truth of my situation to you, my best friend! What other choice have I?”
“You didn’t refuse Arnold because of me…it was for you!” Patty said, a little angry but still deadpan. “And I’m not asking you to give me the play acting everyone’s used to…I’m asking you not to be Gino’s property, Lila! When Sid was working for Gino, he had to…well, it wasn’t bad for him, but you’re a girl and Gino’s hitting puberty! What do you think he’ll want?”
“Don’t think about that!” Lila said, who was now starting to pale. “You always think the worst about everyone, even yourself! I’d never become anyone…anybody’s…well, you know!”
“I know all right,” Patty said darkly, “And you will too, mark my words. Not every guy is like Arnold! Heck, Harold is already looking twice at Rhonda now that he’s losing that fat of his! You think he’d stay with me if he actually looked good?”
Lila flushed. “You’re a very negative person, Patty! It just figures you’d use Harold as a way to invite these thoughts into your head!”
“Fine!” Patty thundered, as she had never before. “Do what you want! GO! But when you come back in here, with all the things I’ve just said happening to you, remember I warned you first, and I sure as hell won’t be doting on you! I’m your friend, but I sure as hell am not your keeper!”
“How thankful I am for that!” Lila said, getting to her feet. “Just…”
“…Ever so thankful, I know!”
Lila clenched her fists. “GOOD BYE!” -

“It…it didn’t happen, did it?” Arnold said cautiously.
Patty stared off into space, saying nothing for a full minute. “You remember when Big Gino was absent for a whole two weeks and when he came back he was in a cast?”
“Yes, but…wait a minute, you don’t mean…”
“Oh yes, Arnold. He did exactly what I said he would,” Patty said. “But he found out that Lila doesn’t need to tell all her friends what happened to her…just one.”
Arnold tried to speak, but it was as if someone had let the air out of him, and Patty noticed how his hands were trembling. “If…if I ever see him…”
“Don’t bother,” Patty said, a thrill of danger going through “I “I took care of him enough. Though its funny that you react the way you do…you forgot how tough Gino is, didn’t you? You might have friends in the Drama department, but you couldn’t take on Big Gino. Heck, I was surprised I had the guts to do what I did. Not that it mattered.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that beating up Gino didn’t chase away what he did and no amount of beating him up would change that.”

The two teenagers stared at each other, and both of them, they knew, were products of shame. She was just in the door of Patty’s home, the red haired girl was more visibly full of shame: there was an ugly bruise on her cheek, her knees a scratchy red, her skirt was torn and her shirt rumpled and very badly dirtied. Her face was stained with tears and dirt, and blood trickled from the right side of her lip. All in all, Lila looked worse for wear, but she could not beat the look of pain and anguish that was in Patty’s eyes. Lila, for the moment, said nothing, only walked with a very noticeable limp, settling on the shabby couch in Patty’s apartment house. Outside, sirens wailed and the cries of a child could be heard: the usual street symphony, but Patty couldn’t help but wonder if it was an omen for the kind of scream she wished she could release right now…already a lump, whose size she had not foreseen, formed in her throat. There were no words that needed to be expressed between the two of them. Patty headed downstairs to her dirt basement and retrieved the first aid kit. She was just reaching the foot of the stairs when she heard the quiet sobs of her best friend pierce through her with a far greater effect than any neighborhood kid would ever have on her. She rushed into the living room but Lila held up her hand, coughing unsteadily and spitting out a little of the blood.
“Please don’t,” she murmured, kicking off her dirty sneakers. “I know, you were right and I was wrong, but I couldn’t bear it if you were to feel sorry for me. I deserve all of this…it comes with thinking that people aren’t nearly as bad as you, or anyone else, says. The boys…they spoiled me…made me think they were all like that…”
“Lila,” Patty said in a whisper. She edged a little closer. The tears in Patty’s eyes wouldn’t stop falling now…they were like miniscule diamond, and she couldn’t recall ever letting them loose so easily. It bothered her, but she didn’t bother to think about it.
“It’s just…it hurt me, Patty. It HURT. Why would he keep doing that? Why would he keep hitting me? I was bleeding…I still am, I think. I l hul hurt, and I…I feel numb all over…”
“Come here Lila,” Patty said softly, holding her arms out at a few inches away from Lila. Patty was shocked when Lila pulled back with force.
“You keep going on about how ugly you are,” Lila said with malice, her eyes darkening. “You have no idea how it feels, do you? You think that smiling and primping and maintaining myself is easy? Do you?” Patty backed up a little. “WELL, DO YOU?!” Patty shook her head.“Liar! You’ve hated yourself all this time because of how you look…well, look at me!” Lila raised her hands, and then angrily punched the wall. Patty gasped as she saw a trickle of blood forming between Lila’s thumb and pointer. “It doesn’t hurt, Patty! I could bang my head against the wall and it wouldn’t! You know what hurts?”
At this, Lila seized Patty by the collar, her eyes blazing. “I’ll TELL you what hurts: Having your insides ripped apart, in both senses! Watching yourself become the most degraded girl in the neighborhood, no matter how hard you tried to be good and wonderful! Gino was laughing at me!”
Patty’s hand trembled. “I’ll…I’lkillkill…”
“Why bother?” Lila screamed. “I’d laugh too! There’s little Miss Perfect, getting exactly what she deserved! There’s little miss ray of sunshine, being dragged through the mud so she can feel like the scum she is! Of course Gino laughed…can you blame him? I put myself on a pedestal and behind doors…I had to be good, and how easy was it to have that taken away with just one act? Imagine…deflowering the most prissy and chaste girl in the school. How privileged he must have felt!”
“Stop it.” Patty said it slowly and quietly, and even her tears gave off an air of noble understanding. “You can’t beat yourself up for this…you are who you are because you’re special.”
“Oh, I suppose so! Tell me…how does someone like you spout off the same garbage Simmons used to tell us? I’m sure I’m real special…I sure as hell am not smart! Had I been, I would have learned my lesson that day Helga and the others made me a laughingstock. I’m a lie, Patty…nothing but a lie and a facsimile of a girl and now I have nothing!”
Patty advanced to Lila with a look of such anger Lila tripped over her own feet, startled. “Don’t. You. Dare. You get up and stay still and let me dress your damn wounds. You think you’re the first girl to be defiled like this? No way. You think you deserve to be in pain and hurting. Yeah, you do, but you shut up about how you’re a fake and how you’re nothing! Everyone needs that happy person somewhere; people like you are always short in stock! You think we humans serve any other purpose than that? I warned you, Lila, oh yeah, but I lied when I said I wouldn’t dote on you, and you knew that, otherwise you wouldn’t be here right now.”
Lila didn’t say anything; she only stumbled as she moved to her feet. Patty walked over and took hold of her hands, and Lila collapsed into Patty’s arms. They both sat hard on the floor.“Ow,” moaned Lila, sniffling, then burying her face in Patty’s shirt, her body still racked with sobs.
“There, there,” Patty said softly, running her hands gently through Lila’s red hair, her body quivering a little under Lila’s weight. Lila flung her arms around Patty now, holding fast to the chubby girl’s waist, and hugging her.
“Why?” Lila asked through her tears. “Why would you bother to do this? After how many times I left you alone to hang out with Arnold and the others…after how I never told everyone how you’re my best friend because it would look weird, a sixth grader and an eighth grader…”
“You can’t escape the general social order,” Patty said jokingly, then froze up a little as she felt Lila’s soft breath on her neck, warm and tickling. Her skin prickled and Patty felt her lips go dry. God, she though, not now…I can’t have my stupid hormones waking up now!
“Why don’t you hold me, Patty?” Lila asked, lifting her face from Patty’s shirt. “I feel a little unsteady.”
“Um…ok,” Patty said cautiously, and saw a flare of…something…in Lila’s eyes. It looked like more shame, but more fear shame than pain shame. She let hands fall around Lila’s hips, hugging her close to her heart, and feeling it flip flop in her stomach.
“I…we…” Patty stammered, and fell silent when saw the longing in Lila’s eyes. It’s how it happens in my dreams, Patty thought stupidly. I don’t want to scare her, I don’t want to hurt her, I just want…want to feel her next to me…“We can’t,” Patty said hoarsely, and was overruled by Lila’s moist lips touching her own. The kiss seemed to last several minutes, the exchange of the chapped but soft lips of Lila’s against Patty’s, rubbing gently and opening with a kind of burning hunger. With a start, Patty felt Lila’s fumbling hands atop her head.
“What are you doing?” Patty asked, feeling the blue cloth fall carelessly to the floor.
“Your hair,” Lila said, and there was a look of shy fascination. “I want to se it undone. Its always been in that ribbon, like Helga's.” Lila raised her hand to smooth out Patty’s hair, and grinned. “Beautiful. It’s glossy and fine…it suits you.”
“I…”
“Shh,” Lila said softly, and embraced Patty once more. “I…I have to go back. Dad…he needs to know what happened to me. But…Patty...it’s you, did you know? I knew the day I made you stop smoking those dreadful cigarettes. I could pretend Arnold was the one…but it wasn’t him. It was the one person I kept running away from and treated the worse. I was afraid you’d take me over, make me just another bad lesson for you.”
Patty blushed. “I couldn’t…I would never…”
“I know.” Lila reached over and was only an inch away from Patty’s face, her eyelids fluttering. “Crush me.”With that, Lila turned, and then looked back. “Walk me home?” Patty nodded dumbly and, without thinking, took Lila’s hand and walked her out of the house.
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Long December