Work Text:
Here is a place
for broken things, and for things to be broken,
where shards of glasses tickle on bleeding feet,
wound after wound refusing to heal
with every fresh insult
to the little patches that are yet to break.
Betty Cooper stared directly at the ocean-blue eyes of the boy she was in love with through the thick, seemingly unbreakable glass. Slowly, she raised her hand flat against the surface of the glass, quietly urging it to break or disappear for she desperately wanted to touch his forlorn face as he sat on the other side of the god-forsaken barrier. She felt her heart break a million different ways in the split second that a tear escaped to his beautiful, dejected face. A permanent shadow cast on his profile, dark-rims encircled his perpetually tired eyes.
A moment passed where they just sat opposite each other, quiet; a thousand unspoken words pouring out of each other’s eyes. Both pleading with two very different reasons.
“Betty—” he croaked through the intercom, barely above whisper. “Please, don’t let me hold you back. You don’t have to keep coming here. Live your life, and be happy. You can even forget about me if—”
“Stop it, Jughead! Stop making these decisions for me. This is my life, and I’d decide whatever the hell I want with it,” Betty hadn’t meant to sound angry, but she was tired of this endless cycle: Jughead pushing her away — assuming that he knew what’s best for her — and she stubbornly clinging to the love they have for each other.
“Please, Jug. How many times are we going to keep pushing each other away?” she tried again, voice soft.
He averted his eyes, and Betty knew Jughead was struggling to keep up the stoic façade. He raised his eyes to bore a stare into her, and with a cold, steady voice, he said, “Until it sticks.”
“No,” she heard herself whisper to the intercom. And again, with more resolve: “No, no, no! Don’t do this to me, Jughead. I need you,” Betty whispered, feeling the tears escape from her eyes; stream after stream and she had no wish to stop them. She saw the effect they had on him, she saw the hesitation — she saw love and despair rolled into one.
“Betty, I want you to look at me and tell me that you are going to be okay. Because I can’t see you like this. I look at you, and see you crumbling to pieces right before my eyes. And I want to hold you, hold you tight until your broken pieces are all in the right places. But I can’t, Betty. I can’t. I am a goddamn mess, and I’m afraid that the more I hold on to you, you’ll just break apart and fall right through my fingers.”
Betty felt like she was drowning in the sea of despair, and she couldn’t tell him enough of her woes. She just looked at Jughead hard, and willed him to understand: “save me, save me. I beg of you, save me.”
She saw a shadow darken his eyes; he understood. Of course, he did, much like in the other times when nobody but him understood her.
“I wish I could give you more of me. I do. But I am not whole, Betty. I am a crumbling piece of shit who’s probably going to rot in this hellhole. I can’t put you through this,” he said while raising an arm gesturing to himself and then the tiny box of room that served as his confinement. “You’ve been through so much on your own, and I can’t add any more on your plate. You deserve better. You deserve so much more.”
Betty thought that the way this conversation had been going, he might as well have just impaled daggers to her heart, and that would still have been better.
She opened her mouth to say something, but a middle-aged man in pale-olive police uniform came out of the door from the far end of the sidewall, signaling them that the visiting hour is over. Jughead made an attempt to nod at the officer before he looked back at her again.
Betty felt panic rise from the pit of her stomach all the way to her throat, and she stood up quite suddenly, knocking down her chair as she frantically tapped the glass; weeping as she called out his name. But he couldn’t hear her. He stood up, eyes cast down as he turned his back to her. A silent shaking of his shoulders indicated that he, too, may be weeping. But she couldn’t confirm. Because from that moment, he didn’t cast a second glance back at her.
.
.
.
It was a particularly cold day in January when Betty climbed down the steps of the dilapidated one story building of the town’s juvenile detention center office. She looked at the high walls of the community, separating her from the inmates inside (minors that have committed some sort of illegal activity); high walls that separated her from Jughead Jones — quite literally and figuratively. She felt that familiar clenching in her chest, and the rush of air out of her lungs. She took a couple of deep, deliberate breaths, closing her eyes as she tried to calm herself.
She felt suffocated, almost like she was drowning; like being surrounded by water as she stood in the dark, deep waters and not moving at all. Betty has never known loneliness as profound and as encompassing.
It has already been a week since she last saw him. He told her to let him go then, but she found it hard to do as he had asked. The day after their last confrontation, Betty came back, only half-expecting him to meet her. It turned out that Jughead Jones remained true to his words. He refused to see her then, and the day after, and the day after that. Day after day, she came back, hoping that Jughead changed his mind, and that he would let her see him, but he never did.
His rejection the first time had shattered her heart. Betty went home and went directly to her room, not even hearing her mother, Alice, as she called after her. She curled on her knees, and let the steady stream of hot, anguished tears fall from her eyes, all the while convincing herself that it was going to be alright. That she and Jughead can walk their relationship back together. That night, she cried herself to sleep.
The second time, it left her a little bit hollow; and the void inside her had deepened each time, turning the sting of rejection a little more dull with every passing refusal.
So, today — on the seventh day, in the chilly twilight of the afternoon, just as she was about to set out on her now regular walk to the juvie, she caught a glance of herself in her vanity mirror. Betty stopped on her tracks, and looked hard at herself in the mirror. She found that she was faceless. She searched inside and found… an absence — a vast void of nothingness, a black hole devouring everything that fell within its orbit, until Betty herself became nothing. A hollow, hardened lump of nothingness.
Still, she trudged on. She was not about to give up. After all, she was Betty Cooper. Maybe, for Jughead Jones, the seventh time would be the charm.
At the end of the day, it was not.
Betty heaved another deep breath, as she reached the landing of the steps, snow tickling on the soles of her fleece-lined boots. She was always cold; and she found that she could not be covered enough to get warm, no matter how many layers of clothing she adds on. She started her walk home, and once in a while she noticed the barren trees lining the streets as she went. Everything was bare, empty, and covered in snow. She almost laughed wistfully at how similar she thought she felt.
.
.
.
It was that familiar feeling of free-falling; it went on and on until she thought she might not reach the bottom of it. But suddenly, without overture she was back on her feet and everywhere she looked there was fire. No one else was there, until she felt another presence. She turned, and she was looking at a pair of hauntingly menacing green eyes. His face was hooded, so Betty didn’t recognize who he was. He was pointing a gun at someone; not her, though — he was pointing at someone beside her. Slowly, she turned her head towards the direction to which the gun was pointing, and a gasp escaped her mouth as recognition finally settled in her. The hooded man was pointing a gun at Jughead Jones—
She woke up screaming, gathering the edge of her duvet to her chest, and she wailed and wailed uncontrollably. It was the same fucking nightmare everyday, for weeks now.
She thought she was done having these nightmares when the case about the Black Hood was put to rest. She was having them a few months ago, when the Black Hood was still on the loose, and she was constantly on the edge of jumping out of her skin because of the horrendous mental torture that he put her through. When the Black Hood was shot by Sheriff Keller, she thought that finally — she can have a peace of mind; that the world will be back to its pastel colors, and she can have late night shenanigans again with her friends at Pop’s.
The world did not go back to the way it was, however, and she did not go back to the way she used to be.
When Jughead refused to see her, she felt unmoored, untethered… she felt as though she was aimlessly drifting through a vast ocean and she didn’t know how or where to dock. He had become her anchor in the few months that they have been together. Maybe it was wrong of her to put that much dependence on another person, but it was such a natural thing to do, and so she did. It was fine at first, even when both of them were walking on different paths, she always had him to fall back to. Their relationship might not have always been smooth and happy — no, far from that; it went through countless of rough patches, it was marred with fractured communication and sheer fundamental differences — yet, they would always find a way to make things work. But now, he completely pushed her out of his life, and he refused to be part of her life. His love was the only thing keeping her together. Now, even that was taken away from her.
She was still clutching at her chest, rocking herself back and forth when she heard a familiar scuffling of feet coming from her parents’ bedroom. Any minute now, her mother would bang her door, run towards her, wrap her arms around her, and will start comforting her, whispering words like: it’s alright, baby, I got you. Sshhh… you’re fine, you’re alright. Everything’s okay. This is how it always goes down each night. It was like a routine, the same scene played round the clock like a broken record, always on the dot.
Her mother would continue to rock her, the effort is there — and Betty was thankful for it — but it didn’t help. After a few minutes, she would will herself to be reduced to quiet sobs, let her mother believe that she was calm until she would be tucked in bed. She would close her eyes, slow her breathing, and wait until her mother assume that she was asleep and leave her room. Except that Betty would not fall back into sleep. Falling back to sleep always terrified her, if it meant seeing the same nightmare. So, she would lay down awake, staring blankly at her ceiling until the early light of day becomes visible through the blinds of her window.
Her waking hours were no different. Her reality not better than her nightmares, really. Constantly, her thoughts were flooded with voices that clashed to drown each other out. It was never quiet.
That’s all she ever wanted really — quiet. But it never came to her.
Everyday, she would walk down their neighborhood and stop at the age-old playground, and sit by the swings. She would just sit there, staring at nothing in particular with her big, glassy eyes.
She would think of the snow, but the cold nipped at her resolve, she would dream of summer, but the heat consumed her now non-existent zeal. So, Betty would dream of the cold, dark ocean and imagine it swallowing her as she sinks underneath. In the arms of the ocean, she would find deliverance.
Betty had started avoiding her friends recently. She found that it took too much effort from her to even muster a smile for them. She hated seeing the looks on their faces: the infuriating pity and worry that never seem to leave their expressions whenever they see her. She hated when she sees them and everything seemed normal in their lives. It was as if nothing changed. She, on the other hand, she felt like she jumped on the other side of something she has yet to put her finger on.
It takes a lot of effort from her to even get dressed in the morning and follow the usual course of her day. It was just too tiring, and she was always, always exhausted. Living was getting too fucking exhausting.
And then it clicked — the realization finally collapsing on her like a tidal wave, and it terrified her.
She scrambled for her phone, and texted her mother, “Mom, can you pick me up? I think I need help.”
.
.
.
You are still and I am still,
a mile and a lifetime away
Fly to me where the ocean is real.
I am no stranger to tragedy,
but I know how good you are,
I know how good you are.
Sometimes, it felt as if Jughead was talking to her through her memories; telling her to take care of herself, and to let go — to say goodbye.
She missed him. But more than anything, she realized that she missed herself. She desperately wanted things to be alright again. She wanted to feel. She wanted to be alive.
It was as if she has been asleep for so long, and she wanted to wake up — really wake up. She thought: each morning people get up, probably even before their alarm clocks start ringing, but life never truly begins until you yourself start to wake up consciously.
At last, she recognized that fact that something was wrong with (and in) her, and that she needed help. For weeks, her mother was suggesting she sought professional help. She was sick. She knew that now. Perhaps, even longer than she cared to admit.
She agreed at the suggestion of her parents that she be sent to a psychiatric institution in New York City — away from Riverdale, the town that held the ghosts that are haunting her. Far from the painful memories, far from the people she loved.
“Don’t worry, darling. Your dad and I will visit you every weekend,” her mother was telling her, cupping her face, as she folded some of her clothes in a medium-sized travel bag.
“Yeah…” she replied simply, for she could not think of anything else to say. She gave her mother a small smile, indicating that she appreciated it.
“You’ll be back here in no time. You just have to concentrate on getting better. I don’t wanna lose you, Betty” Alice said, ache in her voice evident.
Betty looked at her mother, and saw her eyes glistening with unshed tears, and her heart broke. She had been too lost in her own misery that she forgot that the people who loved her probably are hurting too.
She had to start her journey towards healing. She realized that she had to start walking the path where she falls back into her own self, independent of anyone else. She had to start living for herself. She had been too wound up with the idea of saving her town, protecting the people she loved — and it ultimately cost her her mind.
“Mom, can I go visit Jughead tomorrow? Before we leave for New York?” she saw how her mother hesitated, but there must be something in the way Betty uttered it that her mother only nodded in agreement.
She had to see him again, even for the last time. It had already been over a month since she last saw him.
They started the following day early. They were busy packing all her stuff to the family minivan, getting ready for the trip towards the city. Betty heaved a sigh as she took a long hard look at her house, a typical all-american house.
Everyone was gathered and huddled around her. Veronica, her best friend, was wrapped around the arms of Archie (her oldest, and other best friend), tears freely rolling down her face. She was telling her that she’d come running to her in New York to bug her, and that she will be awaiting her return. Betty almost laughed when she saw that Archie was softly sobbing too, her bulky log of a friend, was crying for her, and her heart melted at the affection these people have for her. She was loved. Kevin was also there giving her his biggest, and warmest bear hug, whispering, “I’ll keep tabs on all the gossip in town, and update you as soon as possible.” She almost rolled her eyes; instead she laughed and returned his bear hug.
Every single person she loved was there, everyone, except one. She tried to cast away the familiar ache in her chest at the thought of him.
Few minutes later, she was ascending the steps toward the juvie office, hoping that she be able to see Jughead.
He was already sitting on the other side of the great barrier as she slowly stepped into the visiting room. Something told her that he knew she was going away. Someone must have tipped him already, Archie most likely. She walked towards the intercom as if in a trance, and she couldn’t tear her eyes off of him.
She missed him. She missed him a lot.
He looked different — bones jutted out sharply on his face giving him a gaunt look that was not there as she remembered. The shadows under his eyes were more prominent than they used to (and they were already bad to begin with). He was more pallid and he looked thinner than he used to be. Still, he was the most beautiful human being she has ever beheld.
“Hey,” she muttered.
“Hey,” he replied.
For what seemed like an eternity, they just sat there looking at each other, drinking each other as if it was the last time that they will ever see each other. She wanted to hold him, be held in his arms… she wanted to press her lips to his, and feel warmth course through her veins the way his kisses used to make her feel; she wanted his touch all over her skin, and feel it burn alive the way it used to.
But she can’t — she can’t.
Instead, she said, “So, I am going away to New York, Jug.” I miss you
He took a moment before he replied, “Yeah, Archie told me,” she heard the pain in his voice, and she summoned every ounce of strength she had to not break down. After all, she was on her way to healing, she told herself.
As she allayed the forces inside her that seemed to be waging some sort of war in her chest, Jughead said, “I am so sorry, Betty” he said it with so much regret and tenderness, she totally lost it.
She let her tears tumble freely through her cheeks, and she sobbed uncontrollably. She saw him raise his hand flat against the surface of the glass separating them, as if he wanted to touch her — hold her.
“I’m sorry I am such a loser, a goddamn shipwreck. I was on a spiral, and I thought of how unfair life has been to me, and decided to just fuck it, and take the cards that life dealt me with. I was a fool, Betty. I know that now. I hope one day you can forgive me for all the hurt I put you through,” he said it tearfully, and she couldn’t bear it any longer.
She started to stand, but Jughead was quick to add, “I’ve been thinking — we could possibly live a hundred lives, but I wouldn’t know what to do with them. I realized, I’d rather have this one life, and make the best of it,” he paused to take a deep breath, and added, “I promise I am going to get better, be a better man. I have demons inside of me that I have allowed to roam freely for a time. But I know better now. When I get out of here, I’ll cut all my ties from the Serpents, and start over. If by then, you’ll still be willing to look at me, I’ll come for you, Betty. I’ll do everything to win you back.”
She searched his eyes and heard what he was not telling her. He loved her, that much was not changed. But everything else has changed.
“I am not the same person, Jug. I am broken. I still love you. But I have to start loving myself again. I have given so much of myself to you that I forgot to leave some for myself. When you pushed me away, you took a huge part of me with you, leaving me feeling like this hollow flesh, and I didn’t know what to do with myself. I never want to feel that way again.”
He said nothing, so she added, “Maybe we should learn to live separately this time, you know. It could be good for both of us. Maybe we should learn how to become our own selves again, independent of each other. One day, if we really are meant to be together, we will find each other again. Hopefully, next time, as better persons than we are now. Because at this point, God knows we might just destroy each other.”
She heard a noise behind her, and saw her mother standing by the door behind signalling that it was time for her to go.
She touched the glass one last time, and said, “Goodbye, Juggie.”
Jughead gave her a small smile, tears streaming down his face, and with strained voice, he replied, “Goodbye, Betts.”
.
.
.
Betty spent two months in the psychiatric wards. She had been on a couple of medications, and had gone through various therapy sessions. It wasn’t always easy; there were times when she would close back in on herself, and be back to square one. But she went on. After two months of therapy, her doctors decided that she can continue her therapy on an outpatient basis, and just come for monthly consults, while taking her medications.
Two months in, and she’s feeling a lot better, a lot lighter, and more… herself.
If there was one thing she learned about healing, it was that it does not happen overnight, it was not a sudden retraction of curtains and pouring of light inside. It is a gradual, painstaking process. She has been keeping a journal since the start of her therapy to monitor her progression or regression.
On one entry she said: healing is gradual; a painstaking process that requires you to remain true to your goal. You have to want to heal. Otherwise, you will never get to it. And you have to want to do it for yourself, not for anyone else. One day, when you are not even thinking of it, you will realize that without fanfare, all the weight and darkness you’ve held inside are long out of your doors. You wouldn’t even know when it happened, you just feel light inside, and the world is not such a bad place to be after all.
She came back to Riverdale, feeling like a renewed person. The dark clouds that have been hovering over her a few months ago vanished, and she was feeling a lot chipper and upbeat, and actually look it.
The first place she visited when she arrived was Pop’s. She was greeted by the jovial owner of the diner, devoid of any judgment and she started to proceed to her usual booth.
However, she stopped on her tracks when she realized that someone was already sitting in the booth: a boy wearing a basquiat-crown beanie on his head, one stray forelock perpetually hanging over his eyes. He was wearing his old gray shirt, and a faded jean sherpa jacket over it. He looked the same, but somehow still different. He was looking up at her, mouth agape, as if he could not believe his eyes. She saw his laptop before him, and assumed he probably picked up on his writing again.
She approached the booth, and said with the brightest beam she could muster, “Hey!”
“Hey,” he muttered after a moment, his eyes sparkling.
We were there, as so many of our lives before us had been. We found each other, again and again. Two soul shards that would not let the other go. From when we were first life-forged and into our next billion lives, I knew. I knew it. We will always find each other.
Fin.