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In kindergarten, Valentine’s Day is somewhat bewildering for Jughead. He gets off the school bus and finds Archie clutching a wilting tulip in his fist.
“Why do you have a flower?” he asks.
“It’s for Betty,” Archie replies.
Betty’s wearing a new pink dress and her hair is in braids with a bow tied at each end. She has two boxes in her grasp.
“This is for you,” Archie tells her, thrusting the tulip her way. It’s drooping where he’s been holding it too tight.
“Thank you Archie,” she says, polite as ever even when the grown-ups aren’t around to remind them of their manners. “Happy Valentine’s Day.”
Jughead watches as she hands him one of the boxes. It’s tied with a red ribbon which is quickly tossed aside. The breeze catches it and steals it away from the asphalt beneath their feet, and he thinks it’s a shame that Archie didn’t keep it. He tears the box a little at the corner - it’s cube-shaped, he remembers from their math lesson (six faces; eight vertices; twelve edges) - and Betty’s nose twitches. She’s polite enough not to say anything.
“I have one for you too Juggie,” she tells him, handing the second box over. “I helped make them with my mom.”
He thinks it might be a cupcake. He hopes it’s a cupcake. Betty and her mom made some for the Christmas party and they were the most delicious things he’s ever eaten.
Jughead doesn’t pull off the ribbon and tear the box. He holds it carefully in his hands and wonders why his mom hasn’t given him something to give to Betty. Thinking quickly, he remembers the Scooby Doo fruit snacks in his lunch bag and hands them to her.
She blinks at him for a couple seconds and Archie says,
“You’re supposed to give girls flowers or candy, not your lunch.”
Jughead swallows and feels bad. He didn’t know.
“Thank you,” Betty remembers. “But my mom doesn’t let me eat these.” She hands them back to him and he wonders whether it’s okay to share the cupcake - if that’s what it is. But maybe that’s wrong too. He’s almost glad she’s given him the Scooby Doo fruit snacks back because they’re his favourite, but there’s a tight feeling in his chest that won’t go away.
The bell rings and Jughead carries his box safely inside. He keeps it on his desk the whole day and when he gets home, he eats the pink-frosted cupcake in his bedroom under the covers.
It’s even better than the ones Betty’s mom made for Christmas.
The following year, Jughead is prepared. Flowers or candy, Archie had said.
He asks his mom if they can buy some of the red roses at the grocery store. When she says no, he resorts to picking the three yellow daffodils growing beside Toni Topaz’s grandfather’s trailer and keeps them in a jar of water in his room. (He’d learned in school that if flowers don’t have water, they’ll die and he’s pleased with himself for remembering this detail)
He arrives at school with the daffodils in his hand - he’s careful not to hold them too tight, but it’s rather windy and the petals are folding in the force of the breeze. Betty and Archie are already there, each clutching gifts in their hands.
In Archie’s is a box - much like the one Betty had given them both last year. It’s tied with a red ribbon again, and this time, it’s still in place.
“Hi Juggie,” she says when he reaches them.
In his haste to give her the flowers, Jughead forgets to say hi, and instead announces, “I got you these.”
She can’t take them from his outstretched hand because she’s holding an identical box to the one Archie has in her left and a large red heart-shaped box in her right. Her giggle drifts through the air.
“I made you this,” she tells him, handing the box tied with a red ribbon over and then takes the daffodils. “My mom helped.”
Jughead thinks it might be nice to have a mom who helps you bake cupcakes. Sometimes, his mom lets him help put the eggos in the toaster.
They walk to their classroom and he looks at the gifts in Betty’s hands. Archie’s gift for her is much bigger than his, but when they sit down, she raises her hand and asks the teacher if she can have a glass of water so her flowers won’t die.
A strange feeling fills his insides. He thinks he might be proud that Betty remembered the same facts about plants needing water to live. He thinks she must like her present.
Before they catch their respective school buses home, she opens the box of chocolates Archie has gotten her and gives him one. He pops it into his mouth and thinks next year, if he can, he’ll get Betty flowers and candy.
When they’re ten, Betty doesn’t have help from her mom in baking the Valentines cupcakes.
“They’re different this year,” she tells them both excitedly. “Have a look!”
Jughead is careful when he opens the box. He doesn’t want to tear it and he doesn’t want to lose the ribbon either. It’s not red like he’s become accustomed to, but grey. Archie’s is blue.
The cake is covered in a white frosting and there’s a grey blob in the centre with a shakily piped ‘J’ over the top.
“Oh no!” she cries, disappointed. “It’s a mess.”
“No it’s not,” he replies. “I can tell it’s a…” he hasn’t thought this through. “A ‘J’. For Jughead.”
“It’s supposed to be a crown.”
He automatically fumbles on top of his head for the grey beanie and suddenly feels strange. There’s a blockage high in his throat making it hard to swallow. “I think it looks great,” he manages.
Archie has a football with an equally shaky ‘A’ piped in blue over the top. He says, “Thanks Betty,” and heads off with Reggie Mantle and Chuck Clayton. She opens her mouth like she’s going to say something or call after him, but then closes it again.
At lunch, Jughead opens the brown bag his dad has packed for him. It contains a peanut butter sandwich without the jelly. There’s nothing else in there.
For the first time, he eats the cupcake Betty has made him before he gets home. It doesn’t taste quite as good as the previous years but he tells her, when she asks how it tastes,
“Best cupcake ever.”
She grins proudly and says, “Thank you Juggie.” And then she looks across at Archie two tables over, laughing with Reggie about something and adds, “I hope Archie likes his too.”
In their first year of junior high, someone forgets to tell Jughead and Betty that Valentines gifts aren’t a thing any more. He has a paper round now and he uses some of the money he earns to buy chocolates in a gold box. They look fancy, he thinks, like the kind of chocolates he imagines people on the northside will eat.
They have math together first period and Jughead takes his seat. Cheryl Blossom sees the box tucked under his arm and laughs. She alerts Josie McCoy and she laughs too, and Jughead feels the tips of his ears flame beneath his beanie.
Betty is carefully balancing the cupcake boxes on her textbook when she enters the room. She looks around and must register the fact that nobody else has the kind of gift display on their desk like they used to back in elementary school.
It’s awkward when they exchange gifts. They both thank each other and then Betty takes the second box over to Archie, who’s sitting at the back of the room. She has to pass Cheryl and Josie, and Jughead thinks he might be able to detect nerves in her voice when she says,
“Happy Valentine’s Day Arch.”
“Uh...thanks.”
He watches Betty hand over the box but she gets nothing in return.
“Sorry Betty,” Archie says, like he’s embarrassed. Jughead thinks it’s for a reason other than his lack of gift. “I didn’t get you anything.”
“That’s okay,” she says brightly. Too brightly, he thinks, to be genuine.
She heads back to her seat and Cheryl says something to Josie and they laugh again. He feels so bad for her that he considers stealing a flower from one of the beds out front so he can leave it in her locker and pass it off as being from Archie.
In the end, he doesn’t do that.
He opens the cupcake box at lunch and discovers that the frosting is chocolate. Its piped with a white ‘J’ - steadier this year - with a tiny blob to the side. He thinks it’s supposed to be a heart. Closing the box again, he decides to stow it away in his locker to eat later. It’s the last Valentines cupcake Betty ever gives him or Archie.
The following year, when Jughead sees her empty hands, he keeps the stuffed cat he’d bought for her in his bag. He gives it to Hot Dog to play with when he gets home.
“So,” Betty starts awkwardly. “Are you going to the Valentine’s Day dance?”
Jughead can think of nothing worse than shuffling his fifteen-year-old body with its limbs that feel weirdly detached from his brain, like they operate of their own accord - clumsy and cumbersome, across the gymnasium floor.
Also, he doesn’t own a suit (or even a shirt and tie for that matter)
“No,” he replies, wondering how he can better time visits to his locker so he’s not reminded so overtly that Betty smells like vanilla and strawberries. “Are you?”
“Of course.” She tightens her ponytail and looks across at Archie in his letterman jacket. Jughead can see the hope in her eyes and he hopes that finally , his old best friend will ask her to a dance.
“Well…” he wants to say have fun . “See you,” he says instead, and shuts his locker.
He doesn’t know if Archie asked Betty to the dance, but the following day, she sits with Kevin Keller at lunch and sighs as she stabs her lettuce leaf with a plastic fork. Archie is laughing with Reggie and there is nothing to suggest anything has happened.
Jughead doesn’t know how he feels, although suspects he might be secretly pleased. Feeling guilty, he shoves his sandwich into his mouth and forces himself to look away.
Jughead has thirty dollars to his name. This year, he has a girlfriend and that girlfriend is Betty .
He wants to make up for the Valentine’s Day when he tried to give her Scooby Doo fruit snacks, and the one where he picked the trailer park’s only three flowering daffodils, and the one where he gave away her stuffed cat. He wants to make up for last year too, where - he’d later discovered - despite several hints, Archie had not asked her to the Valentine’s dance.
Instead, he’d made out with Valerie Brown until they’d been separated by a chaperone.
He invites Betty over to the trailer with its eviction notice slapped on the front door. He tidies away the general mess and then vacuums the carpets because she’s always polite enough to remove her shoes and what he doesn’t want is for her to step on something that’ll hurt her. He doesn’t know what exactly, just knows that he never wants anything to hurt her.
(He has, after all, done enough of that already)
There’s a penne bolognese that Toni had helped him with baking in the oven. The ingredients had cost a little over ten dollars, which means he’d had enough for the (admittedly very small) bunch of flowers currently waiting in a pint glass and the packet of cookie dough in the refrigerator. Since actually dating Betty, he’s discovered that yes, she does like chocolates, but for some inexplicable reason, she prefers eating raw dough straight from the packet. He’ll never question it.
He’s told himself that since everything with the Black Hood and the Serpent dance and the man he knows his dad buried somewhere, he’ll never question anything to do with her ever again.
(He’ll just love her harder instead)
His dad is out for the evening - had left with a wink and a warning, “be safe Jughead” - and when he opens the door to her, they’re alone.
Betty is wearing a pink dress and a pink trench coat. Jughead remembers what happened the last time she wore said coat, and a grin stretches across his lips before he can rein it in.
“What?” she asks, tilting her head.
He shakes his, still grinning. “You look beautiful.”
She kisses him, arms looping around his neck to pull him closer. “It smells delicious Jug.”
You smell delicious, he thinks, breathing in that strawberry and vanilla scent he’ll never not love. The one time she’d spent the night, sleeping in his t-shirt in his bed in his arms, the sheets had smelled like her for almost a whole week afterward.
She sits at the table like he instructs and her eyes are soft when she takes in the lit tea lights.
“I hope it’s okay,” he tells her, setting down the plate of pasta. Toni had reminded him about a side salad and the mixed leaves sit in a bowl in the centre of the table. They have to use forks to serve it, but Betty says nothing about the distinct lack of proper utensils.
“It looks great.”
“You haven’t tasted it yet,” he jokes, but she slips her hand over his and squeezes.
“Thank you,” she whispers.
His heart pinches at how beautiful she is, lit softly by the flickering candles and the oddly perfect ceiling light.
They eat and it isn’t terrible. He definitely hasn’t seasoned the meat enough, nor boiled the pasta long enough (it’s a little more than al dente) but Betty eats all of her portion and says,
“You were sweet to make this.”
Although it’s likely the worst pasta she’s had in her life, Jughead accepts the compliment and kisses her across the table. Her fingers stroke around his ears and when they pull apart, she’s looking at him in such a way that it’s a little difficult to breathe.
“I got you flowers,” he says, rising because he’s forgotten to give her them. Betty smiles as he shakes off the excess water droplets and hands them to her.
“They’re beautiful,” she says - and means it. “I got you something too.”
She hands him a box tied with a red ribbon. There’s a cupcakes sitting inside with white frosting and a heart shaped out of red fondant. It has a white ‘J’ piped perfectly next to an ‘& B’ and, save maybe for the typewriter at Christmas, it is quite literally the most perfect gift anyone has ever given him.
Later, Jughead tells her he loves her as she unbuttons his shirt on the couch. His hands reach for her zipper and she kisses him as he pulls it down, his hands stroking across her bare skin.
Maybe it’s cheesy - them making love for the first time on Valentine’s Day.
He doesn’t care.
They go to different colleges. It’s a miracle he goes at all after everything, but they’re spending Valentine’s Day in different states. Betty’s in the middle of writing an assignment; he can’t get off work at the bar he’s taken a job at in order to put a little extra cash to the side. His rainy day money.
He spends fifty dollars of it on sending a bouquet of roses to Betty’s dorm. He’ll spend another fifty on a train to Boston when they both have the weekend free.
She calls him mid-afternoon to thank him for the flowers and asks if he’ll be in for a long night at work.
“Probably,” he sighs, wishing - in a moment of weakness - that he’d followed her to New England. “Date night.”
“Right.”
He sighs again. “I love you Betts.”
Jughead can sense that smile she does stretching up to her eyes when she replies, “I love you too.”
Work is, as expected, horrendously busy and by the time he leaves, it’s close to one in the morning. His eyes are drooping but when he reaches his hallway, he sees her. She’s leaning against his door, wearing that pink trench coat and a beaming smile despite how tired she must be, and she does a little half-run to meet him.
“What are you doing here?” he asks after her lips leave his momentarily. She kisses him again and then again.
“I missed you.”
She’s still in his arms and he sets her down to make sure she really is here. “God I missed you,” he breathes, feeling like a kid on Christmas morning; like she’s his present.
“Happy Valentine’s Juggie,” she hums contentedly, lacing their fingers together.
Inside his room, she takes off her coat and her dress without any preamble, settling herself under his sheets. He hands her a t-shirt and she slips off her bra before pulling it over her head.
Once he’s joined her, she curls up against his chest and promptly falls asleep. For a long time, Jughead just watches her, combing through her hair with his fingertips until his eyes finally close too.
In the morning, she hands him a box. The ribbon is white and the cupcake’s frosting is purple. “NYU colours,” she explains, and he kisses her soundly.
They share the cake for breakfast, tucked up in his bed, and when she kisses her way down his chest afterwards, he can feel the sugar from her lips. He slides his tongue into her mouth and tastes the frosting all over again.
“Okay baby,” Betty says, “What colour frosting?”
Jughead’s caught in two minds: watching his girl bake cupcakes with their daughter is, quite possibly, one of the cutest things he’s ever seen. On the other hand, they’re baking because tomorrow is Valentine’s Day and Lila would like to give her friend a gift. The fact that her friend is a boy is not lost on him.
“They’re five, Jug,” Betty had said in that tone she uses when what she means is just let her have this .
He knows that. He also knows that when they were five, Betty had given him a cupcake on Valentine’s Day and...well...here they are.
“Asher likes blue best,” Lila says.
“Then blue it is.”
Later, once their daughter is in bed, Betty boxes the cupcake and ties the handle with a dark blue ribbon.
“You make one for me?” Jughead asks.
“Of course,” she replies. “A whole batch actually.”
“You spoil me,” he mumbles into her neck, wrapping his arms around her as she sinks back against his chest. Her hand reaches up and behind her to stroke his cheek and he catches her fingers, bringing them to his lips.
Their son is born the following year. February 14th.
Valentine’s Day.