Chapter Text
It’s the last day of June, the first sweltering hot day where eighty degrees creeps to ninety before noon. Betty feels the trickles of her sweat running down her neck from her hairline and smells her own body odor, rather pungently. Unless the smell is Veronica, but the cost of making that claim isn’t worth pursuing.
Their new apartment, for all its Veronica Lodge approved charm and quality, has one drawback: no central air conditioning. Betty has learned that there are incongruities with Veronica’s wealth that take years of study and interpretation to make sense. For example, Veronica can afford to rent a beautiful two bedroom walk-up on the Upper East Side because in her mother’s eyes, it’s a necessity. However, paying movers for “two recently graduated college students with only enough to fill a dorm room” was an extravagance.
Betty tries not to get involved with these distinctions because most of the time, she’s the one reaping the benefits. She never suspects or predicts Veronica’s generosity. But currently, Betty is convinced she’s living in a sauna, especially after moving Veronica’s entire shoe collection (and the contents of her own bookshelves) into the top floor of the walk up. How she fit all those in “just a college dorm room” was the mystery of the century.
“Is that everything?” she asks, mopping up as much of the damp from her brow as the sleeve of her t-shirt will absorb.
“We need to install the air conditioning unit, but it’s so heavy, I think I’m going to die,” Veronica whines, deliberately pouting in Kevin’s direction.
Kevin, just as sweat drenched as either of them, challenges Veronica with a defiantly stoic face. “If I do this right now, you are paying for my drinks for the next month,” he retorts. So few people have the confidence to stand up to Veronica, but Betty knew it was what Veronica secretly loved most about him. Veronica and Kevin had met in the Columbia University bookstore, squabbling over the last copy of the textbook for their political philosophy class. They ended up sharing the copy for the first week’s reading and becoming study partners thereafter.
“I’ll help,” Toni mumbles, lifting herself up off the floor, where she had dramatically flopped several loads before the end.
Betty and Veronica work to angle one of the couches haphazardly towards the window where Toni and Kevin begin shimmying the air conditioning unit into place. Veronica flops down and Betty follows suit.
She feels her phone buzz beneath her and ignores it. She has no interest in fielding texts from her mother about how moving day went or how the job hunt is going or yet another patronizing article about the power of diet, exercise, and positive thinking.
Yet, it could be an email from her dreaded job hunt. Chances are low that she will even get an interview for any of the positions she actually wants. Eventually, Alice could summon her back to Riverdale to play out some hellish fate as a staff writer for the Register and go-to babysitter for Junie and Dag. You could paint the bedroom, couldn’t you? Dr. Lauder had asked, calmly inserting herself into one of Betty’s latest session rants about her childhood powder pink room. Betty had rolled her eyes. Not if I wanted to continue living in it.
Still, it helped her stop the anxious spiral about not being gainfully employed anytime soon to think about paint shades: turquoise, peach, blue gray.
The other potential was him, finally texting her back after more or less standing her up that morning for moving help. Strangely, the thought of fielding this situation makes Betty much less anxious than anything remotely concerning her mother. Toni always reassures her that is a good thing. Relationships don’t need to cause you psychological turmoil.
Her phone buzzes again as Toni lets out a string of curses, which spikes Betty’s fear that they will drop the AC unit and kill a pedestrian, but she knows better than to interject. Veronica, with fewer reservations about irking Toni, springs from her place on the couch to hover.
Betty fishes into the couch cushions and pulls out her phone, and finds herself both surprised and annoyed to see Sweet Pea’s name.
hey, sorry just woke up.
show last night went crazy late.
still need help moving??
It’s 3PM. She knows he means well, he probably was up most of the night. And it’s not like he swore he would be here. It’s not like he’s her boyfriend.
No worries! We actually just finished up. Unless you are a pro at organizing shoes or installing AC units. Kevin and Toni are on the verge of killing an innocent pedestrian.
Just as Betty hits send, Kevin yells, “SHE’S IN!” Toni hooks up the power. The immediate rush of air hits Betty’s face and she forgets every ounce of frustration. She doesn’t look down at the phone as it buzzes again. For a blissful minute, they all crowd around the flow.
“You are my heroes,” Betty says in thanks to Kevin and Toni. “For everything today. But mostly for this.”
Toni meets her with a tired and wistful half smile. This would be their first night apart (other than summers) since assigned to one another as roommates freshman year. Betty and Toni had been skeptical about each other at first; Betty’s insecurities about not being cool enough for NYU made Toni seem terrifying. Toni’s first impression of Betty, she shared years later, was that she looked like a stuck up American Girl doll. But they’d grown to live in perfect symbiosis. Betty encouraged Toni from amatuer photographer to visual editor of the NYU student magazine. Toni dragged Betty to concerts and bar shows and shifted Betty’s wardrobe at least slightly away from pastel cardigans.
Of course, Betty had wanted to live with Veronica since high school, but neither one had been willing to sacrifice their school commute while Betty was at NYU and Veronica at Columbia. Betty had almost pitched the idea of Toni living with them, but Veronica and Toni could be attached at the hip in some moments and barely speaking at others. Betty didn’t want to be the diffuser every minute of every day.
“Of course, Betty,” Toni reaches down to squeeze her hand lightly. Betty mirrors Toni’s sad smile, but drops her hand and turns when she hears another buzz from the phone beside her.
Ha, can’t say i’d be much help there. What u doing later?
She perches on the couch and poises to reply, but she’s not sure what to say.
The more she spends time with Sweet Pea, the more she sees him as someone she could be with. She finds it refreshing that he’s not always nice in the way that Betty was raised to be nice , but he is kind. He gives her space when she needs it, and doesn’t press into her mental health unless she brings it up, and when she does, he’s never uncomfortable. Space also sometimes means that she initiates more, so she feels like she should tell him that she’s free.
But even with the slow pace, she feels the weight building to define their relationship, and lately she can’t muster the energy to evaluate how she feels. There have been excuses: final papers, job applications, apartment searches, graduation parties, moving…
Besides, Sweet Pea was definitely not putting any pressure on her about it. Not showing up to help a girl move? Hardly a sign that he was desperate to make things more intense or serious.
She wants to know because she’s Betty Cooper. She’s never been a casual dating girl.
Kevin interrupts her half-formed text by flopping down onto the seat next to her. “Listen V, I don’t mean to nag, but you did say you would compensate us with food.”
“Kevin, I love you for all your help, but also, please don’t get sweat stains on my couch. I’m ordering pizza literally right now,” Veronica scolds.
He rolls his eyes with patented Kevin Keller dramatic flair and whines, “Betty is sweaty, too.”
“Betty pays me rent,” Veronica retorts, and Kevin slides down off the sofa and onto the rug.
Betty doesn’t argue that she is only paying a very small fraction of her rent share, but as Veronica declared many times during their apartment search, “Elizabeth, I refuse to live below my means or without you. This way, I can have both.”
Instead, she opens her mouth to demand at least one half with pepperoni when her phone buzzes again, this time repeatedly. She’s still undecided about seeing Sweet Pea tonight, so she reaches out to decline the call for now.
Instead, the screen reads Jughead Jones. Her heart starts to hammer as if someone is demanding to be let out of her chest. She tries to open her mouth and excuse herself. The words “I’ve got to take this,” form in her mind but can’t make their way out of her mouth. Kevin requests supreme and Toni stays perched in front of the AC unit, so Betty slips down the hallway to her own room. Plopping down onto her mattress, she slides a trembling finger to answer.
“Hey Jug.” She sounds breathless and realizes she had been holding in air since she saw his name on the screen.
“Hey Betts,” he greets, and the sound of his voice is a time warp.
She is sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, and he is ordering her a vanilla milkshake with extra whipped cream and two cherries in the neon glow of their favorite booth at Pop’s. He is pitching her a story for the newspaper that, as usual, borders on conspiracy theory.
“Uh, are you busy? I can call back.”
He is soft and broken in the back of FP’s truck, in the trashed Sunnyside trailer kitchen, the ghost of his fingers on her arm, her neck, her thigh. He is always tapping on her bedroom window; she is always watching him drive away, just a blurry set of tail lights dipping out of sight.
“No, not busy. Veronica and I just moved in together, but we are finished.” A thrum of nervous energy emboldens her to add, “At least, I hope we’re finished, because I can’t handle another giant box of shoes.”
His laugh is just like she remembers, though she didn’t recall that it made her so lightheaded.
“I can imagine. But, cohabitation, that’s a big step. What does Alice think?”
She doesn’t know how to handle his casualness. As if he calls her every month, or every week. But her reply comes easily, like they’re sitting at their high school lunch table.
“I’m sure she’s picking out a housewarming gift as we speak. Probably some sage bundles.”
His laughs softly, and she echoes it. She places a hand on her cheek as if to anchor herself. She feels light enough to float away.
“So, uh, I called because I have news. I’m… also moving. To New York. Well, to the city.”
If she was light before, now she’s hovering a foot off the ground. “You’re moving here? When?” She curses the temperature and her exhaustion and his damn voice for how little she is keeping her cool.
“In about two weeks. Joaquin and I found a place in Brooklyn. He’s got this really cool job doing some kind of recording and sound editing and I’m… well, I’m not totally sure yet, but I’m looking into some writing fellowships.” The more he talks, the more nervous he sounds, like he’s not sure how much he should be sharing.
“Jug, that’s great!” Her tone is too bright, almost hollow, and when he doesn’t respond right away, she knows that he heard it, too. “I’m excited, I’m just… I can’t believe this is happening.”
She can practically hear his shrug over the phone. “This was always the dream.”
Betty’s fingers curl into her palms but her nails aren’t long enough to press in. She keeps them clipped short now.
Her throat tightens, but she clears it enough to choke out, “Well, I guess I’ll be seeing you soon.” She wishes her nails were long enough just to ensure that she wasn’t dreaming.
“Maybe I should ask now if anything has changed. You haven’t dyed your hair or pierced your eyebrow, right?”
He’s making a passive reference to when she chopped her hair to her chin a few years ago. She remembers his text: I almost didn’t recognize you. She had wanted to say that was the point. She had wanted to say I’ve just wondered if I can change. She doesn’t even remember what she actually said. Maybe nothing at all.
“No, god, imagine what Veronica would say to an eyebrow piercing. What about you? Has your hat fallen apart or anything?”
“Nah. Still a weirdo. But I’ll see you soon. I’ll be in touch.”
“Bye Jug. I--” I’ve missed you. “I’ll text you.”
“See you soon, Betty.”
Flopping back on her mattress, she tries to imagine relaying the news. She’s not ready to announce it to the trio in the living room, who would demand far more emotional analysis of the situation than she was in any place to give. Plus, Kevin knew nothing of Jughead, and Toni’s knowledge was limited to some drunk babbling near the end of freshman year. Betty winces thinking about Toni rinsing vomit off her jumpsuit in their dorm bathrooms. Granted, she doesn’t even remember the scene herself, but has heard Toni drag it out enough times to her embarrassment.
“Who’s Jughead?” Toni asks Betty the morning after the party, as she throws her a bottle of ibuprofen from the top of her suitcase. Toni is already packed for summer vacation; the party had been the magazine’s graduation party for all the senior editors.
Betty’s mouth gets drier, if even possible. She swigs from the glass of water Toni left at her bedside, swallowing the tablets. Toni perches on the edge of her bed with an amused, cocked eyebrow, but a gravity to her tone that tells Betty much was revealed.
“Sounds like I already told you.” Even if her stomach weren’t already churning and her head already throbbing, Betty thinks she still might feel sick.
“Not exactly. I was pulling you out of the shower and you said, ‘I love you. I don’t know what I would do without you. You’re my girl jughead.’ Obviously, I was like, what the fuck is a jughead? But you said, that Jughead was a person. Or Jughead was your person. Then you mumbled a lot of things I couldn’t really understand and passed out as soon as we got here. By the way, I undressed you and put you in pajamas. I think your shorts are on backwards.”
Betty feels for the tag; she’s right. “I’m so, so sorry you had to do all that. I’m an idiot.”
“Well, you almost puked in the Uber, so it could have been worse. That shit is expensive. But don’t evade. I did some social media stalking, which was surprisingly overdue, and I’m guessing Jughead is the dark and broody one?”
There was never a reason to keep this part of herself from Toni. She trusted Toni, but she didn’t trust herself to have this conversation and then drive home to Riverdale in the next 36 hours and suffer through an entire summer of the emotions that would rise to the top.
So Betty starts, “You know that Veronica is my best friend. But she hasn’t always been in my life. My best friend growing up was my next door neighbor, Archie. And there was Jughead, we were like, the band of three musketeers. And Jughead was the only person who really... got me. He could understand me better than anyone I’ve ever met. And even though you and I are so different, I feel that with you, too. You get me, Toni.”
Toni pulls Betty into a hug. “I love you, Betty. But what did any of that have to do with me cleaning vomit off you?”
“It’s something Veronica would never do, but Jughead would have,” Betty giggles softly, slipping into the rare indulgence of imagining how he would have held held her hair back. He would have carried her, mostly asleep, to her room. He wouldn’t have undressed her, but probably would have picked out some pajamas and turned around while she dressed, before tucking her into bed. He would have left the water and pills by her bed.
Toni’s lips curl into a soft smirk. “I hope I get to meet him someday.”
A fondness at the thought of Toni meeting Jughead softens her pounding heartbeat enough to stand and return to the living room.
But Toni isn’t there. Maybe she went to get pizza, Betty reasons. The room looks slightly tidier; the couch that Veronica and Kevin sit on, scrolling through their phones, has been straightened, and boxes lined against the wall.
Hearing her, Veronica glances up from her phone with a probing look. Kevin asks, “Where the hell did you go?”
Betty fixes Veronica with a hard glare, silently willing her not to react, before sitting down next to Kevin and softening her face.
“Um, it was Jughead.”
Veronica’s eyes widen but she only glances up at Betty from her phone, tensed.
“What is Jughead? Is that one of the literary magazines you applied to?” Kevin asks.
“No, just an old friend.” Betty manages as casually as she can, but her pulse is skyrocketing again.
“Mmmmm, ‘friend’ as in flame?”
God, Kevin, unable to drop anything. Not ten minutes after Betty had first met Kevin, he’d demanded to hear her romantic history. When she hadn’t given him anything, he’d begun assuming that every man in her past life was an ex until Archie attended Veronica’s New Year’s party last year. Kevin had greeted him with, “You must be the heartbreaker that Betty won’t tell me about.” Archie had furrowed his brows in patented Archie confusion and responded with all too much earnestness, “Really? That was a long time ago. And if we’re getting technical, Veronica broke up with me.” Kevin was so stressed from the fumble that he and Toni spent the rest of the party getting high in Veronica’s bathroom.
“Just a friend. He’s uh, moving to New York actually, so you’ll get to meet him.”
Veronica abruptly stands and leaves the room. “Just going to go find our plates. For the pizza.”
Betty knows this is a cue to follow, but she waits to make her exit less obvious.
After another beat, Kevin asks, “What the hell kind of name is Jughead?”
Betty rolls her eyes and chooses the lesser of the current evils. “I’m going to help Veronica.” She marches into the kitchen, where Veronica is perched against the counter, opening a bag of tortilla chips, not even feigning a hunt for plates.
Kevin calls from the living room, “Y’all think you’re cute because you’re best friends and have known each other for a long ass time but I am born and bred to smell boy drama!”
Veronica, with the volume of a whisper but the forcefulness reminiscent of her student council days hisses, “We don’t have time to unpack this right now but B… Oh my GOD.”
Betty can’t help but let her reserve collapse, thankful for her best friend’s knowledge of her life, the lack of explanation necessary. “V… I don’t even know what I’m feeling right now.”
Kevin calls from the living room again, “Is Jughead spelled like it sounds? Damn, this boy doesn’t even have a Facebook?” They both grin despite themselves. The idea of Kevin and Jughead actually meeting already seems like a comedy routine.
The front door swings open and Toni calls, “Pizza’s here!”
They temporarily abandon their plates and conversation.
After collapsing into coma-like sleep once Kevin and Toni depart, Betty and Veronica don’t speak about Jughead again. Rousing mid-morning, Betty tries for twenty minutes to reassemble Veronica’s mammoth espresso machine when Veronica enters, bearing coffees from down the street. “God, I really don’t want to unpack all this.”
“Where are we even going to put it all?” Betty abandons the spread of confusing parts and the poorly translated Italian manual for an iced Americano.
“My mom agreed to put in a big order with her designer friend as a graduation gift, which should cover the rest of the furnishings for the living and dining room.”
Betty wonders why movers couldn’t have been part of the graduation gift, but she isn’t about to turn down designer furniture. So instead, she says, “V, I cannot possibly be more indebted to you and your mom.”
“It’s not a debt, Betty. You’re basically a member of the Lodge Ladies. What about your room? Anything you need? I’m down to do an IKEA run…”
Betty thinks of the graduation check her dad slipped her during their post-commencement dinner. She’d been saving it in case her pending job applications fell through. But she did desperately need a cheap bed frame and dresser, and she didn’t need to spend all of it.
“That’s all the way in Brooklyn, Ron, how are we gonna lug all those boxes back here?”
Veronica rolls her eyes. “Betty, honestly, what to you think Hermione has a staff for? I’ll see if we can borrow Smithers! After all, the sooner we get our house settled, the sooner we can throw a raging housewarming party!”
Veronica dials her mom while Betty leans back against the counter and enjoys her coffee, thankful for a little more distraction before their inevitable conversation about Jughead’s news.
The night before, as Kevin, Toni, and Veronica bantered about the latest season of Real Housewives, Betty disappeared into thoughts she’d been shoving as far back as her heart could handle for the last four years. She scrolled through their old messages; a litany of Happy Birthdays, Merry Christmas’, Happy New Years, and mostly from Jughead’s end, a variety of literary jokes or memes he knew she would appreciate. She had sent him a photo of the twins on their fourth birthday. He’d sent her a picture of FP getting his three year sobriety coin.
Two years ago, over winter break, he’d sent, Any chance you’re in Riverdale? Spending a couple days with Archie and Fred. Wanna hit up Pop’s?
Her reply: Doing Christmas in Mexico with V and Hermione... My parents just filed for divorce so Riverdale didn’t feel like the right place to spend the holidays. I’m really sad we missed each other. Give Archie and Fred my best xo.
She could remember getting the text, already conflicted about her holiday plans. She had been so grateful to Veronica for the invitation; a beach Christmas sounded so entirely different from their usual snow-blanketed upstate New York holiday that maybe she could forget that the Cooper family Christmas would never be the same.
It was a classic Veronica move; something she herself had done in high school when her parents had divorced; a cabin getaway weekend, just the girls. But Hiram and Hermione’s divorce had been a decidedly positive event in the Lodge women’s lives, an emancipation from their years of devotion to an embezzler and liar. Hermione had become a flourishing investor independently, earning a profile on “The Women of Wall Street” five years in a row.
Even with the impending distraction of the Lodges’ lavish beachside home, Betty knew it was a charade to keep her mind off her family. She’d gotten Jughead’s text while they checked in at JFK and allowed herself, for the first time in years, to long for him. Her heart ached at the thought of tucking into a booth with Jughead and pouring her stress out over milkshakes and chili fries and endless cups of coffee. Betty closed her eyes and pictured Jughead reaching for her hand over the table. Reminding her that he watched his family splinter apart, too. Reminding her that he never needed grand gestures or elaborate schemes to show how much he knew her, how much he cared. She first typed: I wish I was there more than anything. She erased it. Explained the situation. I’m really sad. I really miss you. Erased again. I’m really sad we missed each other.
She sent the message, still simmering in the emotions that she usually stops up in the dam of her heart. I’m really sad we keep missing each other.
“Alright,” Veronica returns to the kitchen, interrupting Betty’s reverie. “Smithers is coming in twenty, and though Betty Cooper pajamas are second to none, you might want to change before he gets here.”
They are deep within the maze of IKEA bedroom sets before Veronica blurts, “Alright B, I know the J-word is a big time fiasco to get into, but you gotta tell me what you’re thinking. I’ve been trying to hold off but I’m dying here. What did he say? What did you say?”
Betty, less comfortable with having such a personal conversation while another couple examines the same bedroom set, fiddles with the tag hanging off of the dresser. Probably because Betty’s facial expressions are Veronica’s third language, she shoots the couple a withering look and announces, “Honey, I don’t think this bed seems sturdy enough for our voracious lovemaking.” Veronica bounces onto the display bed.
Betty shakes with silent laughter as the couple send each other glances of panic and steer themselves towards the next display. “You’re never one for subtlety, V.” She continues to stand back, drumming her fingers on the tag she’s been holding.
“Betty. The dresser is $175. Stop fidgeting and give me the damage. I know you’ve got an emotional play by play of the situation so let’s hear it.” Veronica crosses her legs and perks up with her most serious prep school posture.
Betty rolls her eyes but bites down a grateful smile. She drops the tag, but moves to nervously fiddle with the the fringed throw pillows. “He was so normal. He joked about you and I moving in together, how my mom still can’t stand you, the usual. And then he just told me he’s moving here, like I should have been ready for it.”
Veronica’s eyebrows twitch, confused. “Should you have been ready for it? You two haven’t physically seen each other since we graduated.”
“That was the weird part. I was freaking out, could hardly breathe, and yet it felt like no time has passed and it’s the last week of school and he’s telling me… god, you know. It’s not like I never imagined this could happen, but I also stopped believing it would. And now that it is… I don’t know. It’s pretty overwhelming.”
Veronica lets the silence settle, waiting patiently for everything still unsaid.
“I’ve missed him, our friendship, so much. I think I’m excited to have that back, I’m just scared of everything else.”
Veronica taps the spot next to her on the bed. “Betty, we haven’t talked about Jughead for years. I’m not sure I know what ‘everything else’ means anymore.”
Betty knows that Veronica isn’t trying to be frustrating. All of the anxiety mounting in her chest since the phone call wants to come screaming out, but Veronica was right. They haven’t talked about Jug in a long time, there was too much to unpack all at once. Betty had decided to move on. To become her best self. To do all the trite shit you’re supposed to do when you go to college.
She falls onto the bed next to Veronica. “I don’t know what it means anymore either. It’s been four years. I can’t really expect anything from him. I just hope we can be close, like we used to be.”
Betty can hear the smirk on Veronica’s face as she responds. “Betty, ‘Close like we used to be’ is the biggest euphemism I’ve ever heard. ‘Friends’ is the worst descriptor that you, one of the budding editorial forces of American journalism, could possibly use in this situation.”
“Okay, sure. But I’ve moved on, too. I mean, there’s Sweet Pea. We’ve been in this will-they-or-won’t-they limbo for months.”
Veronica sighs, and Betty braces for the speech she knows is coming. “You and Jughead have been in a weird will-they-or-won’t they limbo since we were sixteen. And no shade to Sweets, but three months is way too long for someone to decide they want Betty Cooper to be a permanent fixture in their life. I knew it after you gave me a fifteen minute tour of Riverdale High. I don’t know how quickly Jughead knew it, but by the time I came onto the scene, he was ten years ahead of me. So, I’m biased. And I have very patiently reserved judgement on Sweet Pea, but let’s be honest, B. He’s basically a poor man’s Jughead. His nickname isn’t even as iconic.”
Betty stifles a laugh. It’s not like she never noticed the physical similarities. But Sweets was also distinctly not Jughead. “Oh come on. He is not. Sweet Pea hasn’t seen more than ten movies in his life, much less argues insufferably about why Pulp Fiction is the best film of all time. He’s also taller, more sociable, and in a band.”
Unimpressed, Veronica plows on. “We both know that you are not more attracted to Sweet Pea than Jughead, and if we are talking talent and common interests, need I remind you about the time I had a Bachelor viewing party and you and Jughead decamped to the library, where we all thought you were finally hooking up and instead had just been discussing the best true crime podcasts and imagining, all too delightedly, if there were a gruesome murder in Riverdale?”
Betty isn’t even sure she believes the words flying out of her mouth. It’s mostly that Veronica knew exactly how to hit her, in the center of a sacred, happy moment.
“We’re not the same people as we were in high school, Ron. I’ve changed. Sweets is someone I met in my new life who knows this Betty Cooper. I’m not little miss Xanax or the girl who had a panic attack after her valedictorian speech.”
Veronica throws her arms down with a soft smack against the mattress and lifts herself off the bed. Betty knows this means the bullshit meter has broken. “Betty, don’t throw Xanax under the bus, that bitch has been good to you. But more importantly, do I need to remind you what you said to me after homecoming, at Pop’s?”
Betty turns her face into the pillow and mumbles. Veronica reaches over and lifts the pillow off her face. “What was that?”
“I said, you saw what I didn’t.”
“Actually,” Veronica corrects, reaching down to help Betty to her feet, “you said ‘V, I’m an idiot. Thank you for seeing what I couldn’t see. Now, are we buying this bed or what?”
________________________________
Homecoming, Sophomore Year
There is a crease in Betty’s forehead that she gets while editing his articles. Usually, Jughead makes background objections about her comma splices and groans as she slashes his adverbs, but he’s so delighted by the concentration dimple that he doesn’t interject. Perhaps this is why, when Veronica Lodge’s heels announce her entrance into the Blue and Gold office, Jughead snaps up, trying to look like he was doing something more productive than gazing at Betty Cooper. Luckily, pretending that he hadn’t just been staring at Betty is a act he’s well versed in; he’d done the same thing twice when he’d been called on in Chemistry that morning.
“Hello, future journalists of America. Betty, are you in the trenches? Cheryl decided we need to have an emergency homecoming committee meeting right… well, now.”
Jughead wonders if school dances exist purely to drag Betty away from the few sacred, uninterrupted time slots he gets with her.
Betty looks up, clearly a overwhelmed by the news. “What? I can’t come now! We have an issue coming out tomorrow!”
Jughead’s not sure why she is suddenly stressed, when ten minutes ago they were gleefully launching old scraps of notepaper across the room at one another like a snowless snowball fight. He looks down to his laptop, and as an excuse to ignore Veronica, starts piecing together the layout. He didn’t mean to put them in a time crunch. He’d just been thinking about how tight her shoulders had been when she walked into Chem that morning and wanted to make her laugh.
“Whoa, B, it’s fine! I’ll cover for you. Whatever last minute overhaul the witch wants, I’ll keep us working together.” Betty nods and returns to skimming his article. Veronica continues, “I don’t mean to stress you out, but could we talk outside for a second?”
Betty says, “Fine V, just give me one minute.”
“I actually wanted to talk to Jughead.”
Jughead and Betty look at her with the same furrowed-brow confusion. Ever awaiting the approval of Betty (as his editor, of course), he gets up only once she shrugs.
“Yeah, uh, okay.” He follows Veronica out of the office, perplexed.
Veronica closes the door behind them. “So, Archie asked me to homecoming. And I said yes.”
“Okay…” He’s still not sure why this warrants a private audience. “Are you worried that Betty’s still hung up on Archie? It’s been like, almost two months and she seems fine to me. Honestly, she’s probably going to be happy that at least he’s not in a super inappropriate relationship with his music teacher anymore.”
Granted, maybe Jughead just wanted Betty to seem fine. It seemed almost too good to be true that Betty’s Archie spell had been broken, but he was all too ready to believe it.
“Don’t joke about the Grundy debacle, Jones. My point is that no one likes to be a third wheel and…” Veronica’s tone turns to an unfamiliar pleading. “I was wondering if you would ask Betty to homecoming?”
He emits an involuntary bark of laughter. Veronica, misunderstanding his reaction, launches into her talking points. “Listen, I know you and Betty are ‘just friends,’ and I’m not saying you need to get married and have three children. I also get the vibe that you’re not really a school dance guy but I figured with Betty at least you two can sit back and do your little banter thing where you make fun of the rest of us. But mostly, I think it will make Betty feel less awkward again, after what happened at the Back to School dance.”
Jughead nods respectfully through each of Veronica’s points. Really, he’d laughed because after all the build up, he thought she was going to ask him something taxing and difficult. Granted, he wasn’t a school dance guy. The first and last dance he’d ever gone to was a middle school mixer, where he and Archie had spent the entire time running away from Ethel, who was trying to kiss him. But for Betty? He’d probably go to the DMV with her if she asked. The problem would only be that now he would have to do the asking.
“Okay. I’ll do it.”
Veronica’s eyes brighten immediately. “Really? Oh my gosh, thank you Jughead! Wait--” She pauses, focusing on him with the discerning eye that he’s come to associate with Veronica. “Oh my God. Jughead Jones, you like our Betty Cooper!”
“What?” His tone is overly incredulous. Fuck. “That’s not what I said.” Fuck.
“I knew it!” Veronica exclaims, stabbing him in the sternum with her deep red manicure. “Mr. Palmer called on you in Chemistry this morning and you were just staring at her with these heartsick puppy eyes! Jughead Jones, you are a soft little cookie for Betty Cooper!”
So much for well practiced gazing. A soft little cookie? Humiliating. How many people were watching him pine across the classroom? Had Betty noticed?
Jughead grabs her upper arm and puts a finger to his mouth, glancing around them to check if any students were in the hall. “Please, Veronica.”
She presses a single finger to her own devious, knowing smile, remembering that they are still only a door away from Betty. “I won’t say anything else. But if you will really do it, I think it could be good for all of us. Especially Betty.”
Maybe it’s because Veronica has beaten down his emotional barriers in a matter of minutes, but Jughead knows he won’t get this empathetic of an audience from anyone else on the subject.
“I’m not even sure she’ll want to go with me. We’re just friends.”
Veronica’s expression softens, taking pity on the complete mush of his Betty Cooper owned heart.
“Jughead, you and I both know that Betty will do anything for her friends. I think she needs to see that you don’t have to be just her friend. You should walk right back in there and ask. Don’t wait. Just do it.” With that, Veronica opens the door to the Blue and Gold and pivots to walk down the hallway.
Jughead doesn’t ask right away. He doesn’t want it to seem like he’s asking because he was obviously prompted by Veronica. Instead, when Betty asks what Veronica wanted, he breaks the news about Archie asking Veronica to homecoming. He tells Betty that she wanted to know what color ties Archie has so she can coordinate her dress. He has no idea where this lie comes from, he is only relieved that Betty at least seems to buy it, or perhaps is too distracted by the newspaper to investigate his honesty. They finish the edits to the paper and in their new publication night tradition, they head to Pop’s for dinner.
She didn’t seem bothered by Archie and Veronica going to homecoming, but she’s quieter than normal as they order their usuals. Most nights, he can barely get a word in edgewise with her, especially on publication day when she is bubbling over, speculating about what kind of response they’ll receive on the latest issue of the Blue and Gold. He notices that she’s biting her bottom lip more than usual.
“You alright, Betts?” He reaches out and touches her arm, not tenderly, just concerned. The gesture feels more charged than usual, and he blames Veronica.
“Yeah, sorry Jug. I’ve been a little off all day. Polly has been avoiding me at school and has barely been around at home this week and… anyway, it’s nothing.” She looks down at her arm, where his hand hovers nearby. She doesn’t make eye contact, which means she’s definitely not fine but doesn’t want to talk about it.
“What do you think about homecoming?” As soon as the words come out of his mouth, he practically winces. So smooth, Jones. The diner suddenly feels unbearably hot. He wants to take his hat off but god knows what his hair would look like.
Betty laughs at his expression and raises her eyebrows with amusement and wariness. “Well, it’s a long-standing ritual, wherein there is a football game, which I am not really looking forward to because I’m behind on the River Vixens choreography so Cheryl is going to chew me out and stick me in the back, probably.”
Jughead fiddles with the salt and pepper shakers for something to do with his hands. Breathe, dude. Clear your throat. Think about all of the syllables before you say them. “What about the dance part?”
He can’t read her expression because his vision feels a little blurry and he thinks his heart is beating so loudly that she can hear it too. He needs to just do it. Just ask. “What I mean is, do you want to go? With me?”
Any trace of tension or anxiety left in Betty’s expression melts. Her green eyes study him in a way he’s never been looked at before, and her lips are already forming her answer. “Yes. Yes, I would.”
In the week leading up to Homecoming, very little changes, but the volume of Jughead’s daily life feels like it got turned up to twice its’ usual level. Colors are more saturated and vibrant, like the turquoise of Betty’s sweater on Monday. Lunches outside on the lawn are particularly sunny, and Veronica’s eyes shine as she looks from Jughead to Betty. He shares his chips with Betty, which isn’t out of the ordinary, but he feels her smile travel all the way down to his toes. When they pitch their story ideas for the homecoming edition of the Blue and Gold, their debate over topics gets so animated that the detention monitor pokes his head in to ask them to lower their voices. During their Chemistry Lab on Wednesday, Betty breaks a test tube in her hand and cuts her palm. He helps her wash and dress the wound, and what were once just their regular hands, hands that had helped each other climb into Archie’s tree house or swatted his arm when he teased her a little too hard, apparently possess nerve endings Jughead had been suppressing for years. He looks up after securing the bandage and Betty’s green eyes gaze back with an intensity that makes him temporarily forget to breathe. He thinks maybe Betty holds her breath, too. On Thursday, she comes by the Blue and Gold office in her cheer uniform, claiming to look for something, but as she leaves empty handed, she twirls her ponytail and smiles in a way that makes him wonder. Either way, he doesn’t get any more writing done. Instead, that night he goes to the football game for the first time since the very beginning of the year when he went to make up with Archie. Cheryl does place her in the back, but she is no less magnificent to him.
Friday comes, and he gets ready after school with Archie. Jughead has been staying over at the Andrews house frequently after his mom and Jellybean left in July. His dad has been drinking again, and after the night Fred ran into FP in late August, drunk at the grocery store, Jughead had more often than not been opting for the air mattress on Archie’s bedroom floor than returning to their trailer that was either empty and trashed or home to the whiskey-sweat, video game goblin version of his father. It was better than his alternative, a sleeping bag in the projector room of the Twilight.
Jughead wears his only suit coat and a dark shirt. Archie tries multiple times to get him to take his beanie off, but he only manages to bargain Jughead into wearing a tie. Archie finally gets up the courage to ask, “You and Betty, huh?”
You and Betty? He relishes the question, the idea that this evening is something more than two friends trying to make a social obligation more bearable. He straightens the tie and lets the smallest of smug smiles settle on his face, remembering how she hadn’t hesitated with her answer. Remembering the four times that week that he’d stolen glances at her and found her already looking at him.
“Jug, seriously, are you blushing?” Archie’s eyes are lit with a devilish fire, and he leans over to pluck the beanie off his head.
He ducks out of Archie’s grasp and is saved by the chime of the doorbell. Archie releases Jughead in order to run his fingers through his hair and few more times. Jughead tries to move at a reasonable pace downstairs, but he almost trips over his feet halfway down because he’s practically jogging.
He opens the door to Betty as his stomach does an entire Olympic tumbling routine. Betty looks like a princess from one of Jellybean’s picture books, blonde hair soft and pinned back on one side, an icy blue dress that shimmers in the porch light, and the most beautiful collar bones he’s ever seen. He suddenly remembers their technical name he’d forgotten last year on their biology final; clavicle. Neither of them say anything, but he must be smiling like an idiot, because she smiles back, and Jughead’s heart thunders with equal parts fear and elation.
They walk the few blocks to school, and she links her arm in his the whole way. He’s not sure if they’ve even spoken to each other. He’s not sure his feet are touching the ground. The first sentence that registers all night is Cheryl, taking their tickets and saying, “Betty, I never knew you were this desperate.” Betty’s voice drops an octave to say, “Cheryl, I’m surprised to see you working the ticket table. Did Satan stand you up?” As they enter the gym, his hand reaches down to grasp hers and her fingers automatically slide between his. An electric current shivers down his arm and ends somewhere in the pit of his stomach.
They talk to Polly and Jason, to Archie and Veronica, to Moose and Midge. When they are finally alone on the edges of the dance floor, Betty breaks the silence.
“So what kind of coverage do you think we need for the paper?” she smirks; he knows she’s joking, trying to relieve the tension.
“Hmm, what about ‘Reporting Team Discovers They Prefer Researching True Crime Over High School Ritual Awkwardness’?”
“Or ‘Reggie Mantle Predictably Spikes Punch; Drinks Most of it Himself?”
“Election Tampering Suspected at Cheryl Blossom’s Homecoming Queen Ballot Box!”
They are both laughing, relieved that even in the dim lighting and dressed up clothes, they are still the same.
The music shifts to a song he vaguely recognizes. Betty boldly steps forward, wrapping her arms loosely around his waist.
“What about ‘Your Editors Grace the Dance Floor With Their Presence?”
Jughead slips his arms around her as well, surprised at the sudden ease between them and flying on sky rocketing levels of adrenaline. “I think ‘grace’ might be too strong of a word, but we can talk about it in revision.”
As Betty leads them closer to the center of the floor, Jughead has no idea what he’s just gotten himself into. Mercifully, Betty sets one of his arms on her shoulder, wraps an arm around his back, and reclasps their hands.
He’s not sure how long they dance, but he feels her head rest against him and thinks again; clavicle.
At some point, they leave and head to Pop’s with Archie and Veronica, but for the first time in his life, he has no memory of what they eat, only the warm feeling of Betty tucked into his side. When he slides his hand to rest at the juncture of her neck and shoulder, Archie’s eyebrows almost fly off his face. Jughead knows he may endure a lifetime of teasing from Archie, but he also knows that he is now addicted to her skin under his hands and he’ll pay for it however he needs to.
While she and Veronica whisper, he stares at the dregs of her milkshake and wonders if she tastes like vanilla.
The moment of that night that he remembers with utmost clarity is on Betty’s doorstep, when she hugs him tightly and murmurs in his ear, “Thank you for going with me, Juggie.” It is when she pulls back and they stand with their foreheads resting against each others, and Jughead savors the moment when he knows he is about to kiss Betty Cooper for the first time.
It is the moment when fate tears their bodies apart, when Alice Cooper opens the door, her face tear-stained and panicked.
It is the words, “Polly and Jason. There’s been an accident. It was FP. Jughead, it’s your father.”