“I thought—“ I began, though Arnold cut me off.

“I didn’t I just…” his voice trailed off and we stared at one another in shock. “I decided to stay.”

“Clearly,” I stated as he offered me his hand while standing, our eyes still locked on one another’s desperate irises.

Hesitantly, I took his hand and he pulled me up to stand before him; our eyes at the same height of one another where we now stood mere inches apart, our noses practically touching.

“I’ll…I guess I’ll, I’ll see you around, Helga,” he said before smiling and turning around to leave me in the hallway completely dumbfounded and alone with Phoebe who was staring at Arnold in almost as much shock as I was.

“Was that…?” she asked though she didn’t have to finish the question.

“Arnold,” I cooed, my hands making their way to cover my heart in a sort-of swoon. “He’s here, he’s still here…” I muttered to myself while Phoebe reached over to touch to my shoulder to see if I was alright.

“Helga, are you alright?”

“Phoebe, do you hear that?” I asked, while staring off into space where Arnold had walked away.

“Hear what?” She asked while looking around herself in questioning to what I was referring to.

“Don’t you hear those bells? Hear how they chime?”

Phoebe scrunched her brows together in confusion though I didn’t care enough to look over at her. “What are you talking about, Helga?”

“It’s like my heart has started beating in perfect time once more, like I’ve been asleep since we graduated and now…”

“Now what? Helga, you’re worrying me…”

A beat filled my head, my heart beat, and with it the beat of a song I’d nearly plum forgot—the beat of the song of my heart.

“He touched me, he really TOUCHED me once again and my hand, it felt like a thousand pinpricks all throughout my body. Electricity. He reached for my hand and looked me straight into the eyes and touched me! Oh!” I swooned while spinning around once and beginning to walk forward without Phoebe and without a destination.

“Helga? Helga, wait up!” I could hear Phoebe squeak from behind me but I didn’t care, I was in my own universe, a universe that had felt lost up until now, up until seeing that marvelous, glorious footballhead once again.

“I can’t believe he bumped me,” I said while stopping mid-hallway and thinking out loud to myself. “Just like old times he bumped me and ran into me without a care in the world. Without care as to who might be around that corner—me. Me!”

I rounded the next corner in a daze, while going up to the water fountain and hitting the trigger that released the water in a thick stream ready for me to slurp. Doing so, I spoke through the water, “It was just a simple bump,” I leaned upwards to stop drinking from the fountain and wiped my mouth with my sleeve of my left arm and continued to walk on cloud nine down the hallway. “He knocked me off my feet, literally, and for a moment, just a moment, I was flying.”

“Well of course you were flying, Helga,” Phoebe chimed in, and to be honest, I’d forgotten she was even there. “You were flying through the air due to the velocity at which—“

But I cut her off again.

“Then I fell on the floor and all was lost until I looked up and saw those beautiful green eyes staring back at me; eyes which I haven’t seen for years until now. They were eyes that used to complete my very day and after not seeing them for years, I just can’t help myself but to drink them in and when he reached for my hand—oh! –when he reached for my hand, I nearly fell back over again. His one little touch had love knocking me out like a pillowcase full of bricks. Arnold, Arnold…Arnold…”

“Helga, I think you might need to come to the nurse’s station with me,” Phoebe said while grabbing my hand and yanking me to follow her. “You’re acting delirious...”

“Delirious shmerious, Pheebs, he touched me. He TOUCHED me… after all these years…”

“Come on, we’ll get you to the nurse’s and then you’ll be all back to normal, you’ll see.”

Normal. What WAS normal? Was it how I had been feeling before? Because if it was, I never wanted to be normal again. My life was so dull without Arnold around. Arnold, who’s head I’d love to punt, that glorious little runt had entered my life once again and I never wanted him to leave me again.

Per Phoebe’s request, I sat on the chair in the nurse’s office on campus and swung my feet back and forth while staring out at the window revealing a somehow-brighter world to me just outside these four walls. I could see it all, our whole lives together now that he was back.

“First off, he’ll ask me out on a date,” I said and Phoebe shook her head.

“Please Helga, just remain quiet and we will figure out what’s gotten into you,” she said but her words meant nothing to me. I was planning our future, our lives together like they were going to be now that he was back in my spectrum.

I was ready.

“Then, I’ll get in my nicest clothes, hell, maybe I’ll even buy NICER clothes and primp myself in Rhonda Wellington Lloyd style—nothing but the best for Arnold.”

“Helga…”

And then we’ll sit in that ugly Packard of his and hold one another until he leans over and presses his full, luscious lips onto mine and we’ll kiss under the moonlight of the night as it bathes us in its glory…I thought, my thought process not stopping even though the nurse was inside the small room now taking my blood pressure and temperature.

Not like I’ll go all the way or anything, that’s tacky, but I certainly won’t object to going a base or two…I kept going, my mind a whirlwind of thoughts as the nurse confirmed that my temperature had climbed slightly, but not enough to give me a pass out of my next class.

“She’s just fine, Miss Heyerdahl. Perhaps she hit her head on her way down and is having some slight confusion.”

“With all due respect, ma’am, she isn’t confused,” Phoebe spoke for me as I continued to stare lovingly out the window. “In fact, if I may say so myself, she seems to be less confused and more delirious about a particular person she ran into in the hallway—an old elementary school crush.”

“Ahh, one of those, huh Miss Pataki?”

Soon, it won’t be long until our lives mesh together and he proposes to me, our lives full on the mend and ready for the future—a future Mrs. Shortman, I thought next, batting my eyes a few times before nodding to the nurse. ”We’ll need a proper band at the wedding though,” I said aloud and Phoebe turned to give the nurse a knowing look before crossing her arms.

“See? Delirious.”

“And to think of all those idiots that thought I was crazy, thought I was insane for loving such a weird-headed kid like that who never loved me back well HA to them and their nonsense. This is MY time, this time…”

The nurse sighed and turned to look at Phoebe once again. “Do you think she may just need to sleep it off?”

“They all thought a goody-goody like Arnold would never like someone like me, Helga G. Pataki, but boy were they wrong. BOY were they WRONG. YOU saw how he looked at me Pheebs… that was the look of love if I’ve ever seen it. He’s back, he’s back! Oh!” I swooned before falling back onto the paper-lined bed and Phoebe nodded her head.

“Perhaps a good nap is all she needs after all. Thanks Nurse Rudd,” she said before reaching for my hand and pulling me to my feet in pursuit of our dorm room which we shared together.

But I wasn’t paying any attention.

Just think of it, Helga, I thought, everyone will smile as I walk down that aisle and when Olga starts to cry I won’t see cause Arnold and I will be French-kissing, my wedding will be the talk of the town, the talk of a LIFETIME!

The words echoed in my head as we finally made our way to the dorms, Phoebe pulling me all the way until we reached our room, room 213.

And besides, Helga old girl, today’s just the start because one day it will be ‘till death do us part and even when we die, we’ll look down from up above and remember this day—the day that we both fell in love. Perhaps we’ll shed a tear and we’ll embrace each other as we reminisce over what just happened today—the day that we bumped into one another and he offered me his hand…

It wasn’t long before Phoebe helped me to lay in my lower bunk while pulling the covers over me. “Now Helga, if you need anything, you just give me a call on my cellphone, alright?”

“Alright Pheebs, but I’m telling you, I’m fine I’m just—“

“You’re in shock is what you’re in,” she answered while fluffing my pillow softly under my head. “It’s a lot to take in, I understand, but you can’t let a simple touch affect you in such a way. It was after all, just a touch.”

“A touch that symbolizes so much, Phoebe. More than you will ever understand. I could HEAR the bells, Pheebs.”

“The bells?”

“The bells,” I repeated with a smile before shutting my eyes and Phoebe sighed while patting my shoulder and exiting our room to leave me with my imaginings.

I’d heard them, the bells, the bells of our future ringing with that touch. Arnold was in town, in MY town, and he knew I existed once again.