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Tears are welling up in her eyes. All the feelings she’d been bottling up, everything she had worked so hard on to conceal; all her efforts were for nothing. Her walls were crumbling, shattering, breaking, and she was breaking down along with her walls.
They had all turned against her, and she didn’t know why. Veronica, Archie, Kevin. Betty sits against a wall at the Blue and Gold, shaking, and she tries to tell herself that she is not alone, she’s got Polly, her mother, her father, and- no. She can’t bring herself to think of him, not now.
She doesn’t notice the door to the Blue and Gold open, and she doesn’t notice a slim male figure, dark hair and his trademark-beanie, walking towards her. She doesn’t notice him until he is kneeling in front of her, worry apparent in his eyes.
Great, she thinks. Now she’s got to think about him, because he is here. Her breath hitches, and she tries to hide the fact that she has been crying, because Betty doesn’t cry, Betty isn’t supposed to. Betty isn’t supposed to cry, to break down. She is supposed to be perfect, and god forbid she was anything but.
“Betts…” he says, and he almost reaches out to comfort her. Almost. She uses her shirt to remove the tears. It doesn’t take long before he speaks again.
“Come on. I think you need a distraction from all of this.”
Jughead takes her hand, intertwining their fingers, and Betty feels comfort the moment his fingertips reaches out to touch her hand. Her heart flutters, and she wants to curse under her breath, because he still has the power to make her feel.
“I thought you didn’t like me anymore?” Betty half-heartedly jokes, but they both know it isn’t a joke, not really.
It had been a year since he’d broken up with her. Initially, he’d told her that it was because he didn’t like her anymore; Jughead ‘fell out of love’ (although they never said the word love). She knew that wasn’t the reason, because only a week prior she’d overheard Jughead tell Archie how afraid he was of losing her. Still, that didn’t stop her heart from breaking, shattering, into a thousand pieces.
Jughead halts, just for a moment, before he continues walking, his fingers still intertwined with hers.
“You’re sad Betts. I care about you, and you know that.” He answers seriously, no humour in his voice. He avoids her question, and she feels her heart swelling, exploding in her chest, because she knows he still likes her. But she doesn’t say anything, and just goes wherever he is leading her.
Jughead leads Betty to Pop’s, and they held hands until they were inside of the small chocklit shoppe. It was empty, mainly because of the ballgame that was going on at that time. The entire town usually went to ballgames (really, any sort of public event), which left Pop’s completely vacant.
“Wait here, I’m just going to get something, alright? I won’t be long.” he says, and she knows he’s speaking in earnest, so she orders two milkshakes and waits for him. Pop’s smiles, and keeps her company for a few minutes, and he tells her that if she wants, she can use the stereo. She smiles, and thanks him for his offer.
When he’s back (it takes a few minutes), she can’t help but smile, because he has got dirt on his nose, and god knows why he’s got dirt on his nose. She knows that he hasn’t noticed the dirt himself, so she tells him.
“You’ve got dirt on your nose, Jug”
“Oh? Well, you know me. Always going for that jock vibe, dirt just enhances it.” Jughead deadpans, but the corners of his mouth are twitching upwards, so she knows he’s joking.
She laughs, and she rubs his nose with her sleeve, and he just grins like a mischievous schoolboy. His hands are behind his back. He licks his lips, still grinning, making Betty forget why she was sad in the first place. She raises her eyebrow because his hands are behind his back.
“You got something behind your back?”
And, surprising her, he shows her what’s in his hands. She gasps, almost silently, but he hears it none-the less, and it makes him smile. A dozen roses, yellow with red tips. She knows she has seen them before, the roses, in front of a house not too far from Pop’s. And she can’t help but wonder if he stole them, but it doesn’t matter, because they’re beautiful, and his gesture is more than anything she could’ve asked for in that moment.
“I thought these might cheer you up a bit. I know you love flowers, so I thought- “
But she doesn’t let him finish, and she hugs him. They can feel each other’s heartbeats, and Jughead almost forgets how to breath. Betty’s heart swells again, and she adores him, god she adores him. Reluctantly, she lets go. Betty smiles at him, and her smile reaches her eyes. All Jughead can think about is how beautiful she looks when she smiles like that, because it is so rare, but so damn beautiful.
“Thank you.”
And after that, their conversation flows smoothly. It feels like when they’d just started dating, it feels liberating, and Betty feels like she can be herself again. She doesn’t cover her face when she laughs like she usually does, she doesn’t think before she speaks, she doesn’t put on her perfect façade. Even a few curse words slip out of her, which is uncharacteristic of her, but god, it feels so right. Betty feels free.
Pop had told the teens that he would be in the backroom, doing some paperwork, and that if someone came in (although that seemed highly unlikely) to tell him. When Pop was gone, Jughead grinned boyishly, and since he knew they could use the stereo, he goes to put on a song.
Betty laughs.
“What song are you going to play?” she says, and she knows that they have the same taste in music, so whatever song he puts on, she’s going to like it.
“It’s a surprise. Trust me, you’ll recognize this one.” Jughead puts on the song, and Betty listens, but just scrunches her eyebrows, still not sure what song it is. Jughead grins, and skips to the part that he knows she’ll recognize.
“Hey, hey
Marry me, Archie”
Betty laughs wholeheartedly at the song he’s put on, and he laughs along with her. They used to annoy Archie with that song, with ‘Archie, Marry Me’, back when everything was simple and easy.
Betty grabs his hand, and she dances, and motions for him to do the same.
“Bets, you more than anyone know that I look like an orangutan walking when I try to dance.” He deadpans, and but she just shakes her head, and pulls him towards her. Jughead scratches the back of his head, and Betty reaches for the hand that he’s got on the back of his head. She takes it, now both of his hands in hers.
“Jughead… I don’t know if I’ve told you, but dancing helps clear my head… also… it would mean a lot to me if you danced with me… I don’t want to dance alone… I don’t want to feel alone.” Her voice broke when she uttered the word ‘alone’. Because really, that was the feeling she’d felt earlier before Jughead had found her.
But Jughead doesn’t say anything, just nods and squeezes her hands softly, and then smiles a little.
“You know… I’m practically Johnny Castle. I’ll sweep you off your feet Cooper, get prepared to be amazed.” And Jughead does a silly tap-dance, and she laughs again, her worries fading away. Just like her curses, it’s so uncharacteristic of Jughead to dance; but in that moment, it feels right.
And they dance. And they laugh. And she can feel the tension in the air, but the tension isn’t uncomfortable. If anything, it’s more than comfortable.
He spins her around, and she’s twirling. He stops spinning her around when the song changes, mostly because the new song doesn’t fit their current moves, but also because he wants to hold her close. Betty is out of breath, and so is Jughead. Her palm is on his chest, and she can feel his heartbeat underneath her fingertips. Her heart skips a beat when she notices that he’s glancing at her. And she can’t help but melt under his gaze, but what she doesn’t know is that he is melting under hers too.
“… And we’re just two poor kids
from a really rich city”
They are moving closer, and she feels his nose on hers, and he’s so close she can almost taste it, him, and god how she misses the taste of Jughead.
Ding, ding, ding
The sound of Pop’s doors. Betty and Jughead jump apart, both flustered. When she is flustered, her cheeks and ears turn pink. When he is flustered, his nose and cheeks turn red. Still pink, Betty quickly goes to the backroom and tells Pop that there are customers, just like he’d told her when he went to the backroom. Jughead looks out of the windows, and he notices that the parking lot is slowly filling up. He also notices that it’s raining outside, and he scrunches his nose because he hates rain. The game must be over, because it doesn’t take long before Pop’s is buzzing with noise.
They both know that Betty isn’t in the mood for large amounts of people, but before Jughead says anything, she asks “Walk me home?” with a shy smile on her mouth.
“This early? Are you really that eager to get rid of me?” Jughead says sardonically, and Betty lets out a small laugh. It’s far from early; it’s nearly ten o’clock, and her curfew is eleven o’clock.
“Unlike you, I have a curfew. But no, I’m not that eager to get rid of you just yet. I just needed an excuse to get out of here, it’s so loud I can’t think clearly.”
“Oh. Right. But… Betty, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but it’s raining. And I didn’t bring a raincoat or an umbrella.”
“I don’t mind. I like the rain.” Jughead knows that she likes the rain. Although Jughead doesn’t like the rain, he likes Betty, because anything she touches turns golden, like rays of sunlight. So, he decides to ‘like’ (or rather, tolerate) the rain temporarily, for Betty.
The rain is now pouring down outside, but they don’t care, and she leads him outside. The atmosphere from earlier in the evening stays with them as soon as they step outside of the busy chocklit shoppe.
They continue playing, joking, flirting, dancing, and Betty feels alive. And although Jughead is supposed to walk her directly home, he doesn’t. They walk the long route, just to be with each other a little longer.
He is laughing at a joke she says about him and dancing, and when he sees the lamppost he runs up to it and clings himself to it, and starts humming on ‘Singing in the rain’, and Betty laughs. It’s so uncharacteristic of him, of them, and that’s okay. He’s weird, but that’s okay, because she is kind of crooked too; and it’s okay. She hums along with him. It’s cold, but it’s worth it, because Betty doesn’t want the fun to end. She wants the night to go on forever, just like this, the two of them happily dancing and joking around.
He lets go of the lamppost, and he reaches for her hand. But, unlike earlier today, she doesn’t just feel her heart tingle when they touch. She feels warm, despite the cold weather, and she almost forgets that it’s cold and raining.
“Your mom is going to get furious when she finds out I let you get soaked. I don’t think she likes the idea of you going all rebellious on her.” Jughead jokes, and Betty laughs a little. Jughead doesn’t know, but Alice Cooper has a soft spot for Jughead. If there is one thing Betty is grateful for when it comes to her mother, it’s the fact that Alice accepts Jughead, respects him even.
They walk in silence, and it’s a comfortable silence. Suddenly, they’re just a few minutes away from Betty’s house. Betty knows she needs to ask him. She needs to know. And so, she asks him.
“You didn’t answer my question earlier.” She doesn’t feel the pouring rain on her skin anymore. All she feels is him, his touch, and his eyes on her. And she feels her heart jump, jump, jump.
“What?” Jughead knows what she is talking about, but he wants to make sure they’re thinking about the same thing. They halt, and they just look at each other, never breaking eye contact.
“Do you still like me?” Betty says, and she feels vulnerable. There are so many other questions she wants to ask him. Why did you leave? What happened, Jughead? How are you? But she settles for the one she asks, because she needs to know. And Jughead just looks at her, and he opens his mouth, as if he were about to talk, but closes it again. Jughead bites his lip, which is a bad habit he has picked up from her.
“I- no. I don’t.”
She doesn’t allow herself to feel. She can’t, because if she does, she knows she’ll break down again. She looks away.
“Oh.” It’s the only thing she manages to utter, almost breathless, because she can’t allow herself to think either. She can’t allow herself to speak, because she’ll shatter. And her heart deflates, like a balloon that has been pinched, it is deflating fast, quick, and it’s out of control. But then Jughead tells her something that has been on his mind since that day.
Jughead takes off his beanie.
“I don’t just like you, Betty. I love you.” And just like that, his heart is on his sleeve.
Betty feels loved, and she feels ready to love. Her heart swells once more. And it swells, god does it swell, and she can nearly taste her heart in her throat, it’s so suffocating that she almost can’t breathe. But it’s a good kind of suffocating. And she’s now breathless for an entirely different reason than before, she’s breathless because she doesn’t know how to react, what to do. She is breathless because she feels loved. And she looks at him once more, because he always knows what to do. His eyes are flickering between her eyes and her lips, and she now knows what to do.
Betty kisses Jughead, soft and sweet, just like their first kiss. And she touches his face, and she can feel that he is shaking, afraid of rejection, afraid that she’ll run. She doesn’t run. He kisses her back, and Betty just whispers four words back. She doesn’t say ‘I love you too’, because she doesn’t think it feels real when you say it like that. Jughead knows this; and his heart is swelling too.
“I love you, Jughead.”
He lets out the breath he didn’t know he was holding, and his shoulders relax. They intertwine their fingers, and his thumb brushes across her scars, and there’s an unspoken conversation between them that only they can understand.
Betty is about to kiss him again, when a voice cuts them off. Betty feels annoyed, but she puts on a smile, like she always does. She feels relieved (and sort of terrified) when it’s Veronica. Jughead doesn’t stop looking annoyed because of the interruption, and Betty finds it endearing, although she doesn’t say it out loud.
“Oh my god Betty, there you are, we have been looking all over for- oh. Jughead. Hi.” Veronicas voice interrupts their moment, but it’s sort of okay (but also a bit annoying), because they’re together and happy.
“You’re back together.” Archie says, and it isn’t a question, so Jughead and Betty just nod. Archie’s lips seem thinner for a moment, and he coughs, looking away from them. Veronica squeals, and Kevin squeals as well, and Betty just chuckles under her breath.
“Ok, this-” Veronica gestures towards the couple “talk can wait a second or two because… Betty, we are so sorry.”
“I’m sorry”
“Yeah, I’m sorry for treating you that way.”
And they tell her why they’re sorry, they give her many reasons, and Betty just nods. Jughead doesn’t nod, he’s got a sour look on his face from their excuses, but he doesn’t say anything.
But what Veronica, Kevin and Archie tell her doesn’t matter anymore. Because Jughead is holding her hand, fingers intertwined, and her heart just swells. He loves her, and she loves him, and that’s all that matters.
“Okay, so. Oh my god. You’re back together. I need details. Now.” Veronica claps her hands together, and looks at them both. Betty looks at Jughead. He bites his lip, and hums on ‘Archie, Marry me’. Betty bursts out laughing, and Jughead joins her, leaving the others confused and annoyed. And they don’t tell their friends about how they got back together.
Because sometimes, stories about smudges of mud and a boy with a dozen roses in his hands is just for them. For Betty and Jughead.