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The first time Cheryl sees her, she knows.
She will be the one to fuck up Toni’s life.
She watches her sway in.
Saunter.
Toni doesn’t just walk.
Her boots drag her feet but it’s not clumsy.
It’s sensual. Time can wait for her.
Cheryl can’t look away. She studies her listening to Veronica’s soporific welcome, smooth jaw jutting upwards as her dark eyes take notes; and no prisoners.
She wants to bite it.
She trails her eyes over Toni’s petite frame and feels herself swallow.
Cheryl almost wants to warn her. ‘Step away from here and go back, heartbreak and regret shall put thee asunder.’
In a way she does.
“No one invited Southside scum.”
Because she is scum. Cheryl sees her so clearly as nothing but that. And yet she craves her. Wants her. To feel her, sculpt her with her own hands. And then destroy her.
Like the god Cheryl Blossom is.
“Why don’t you come over here and say that to my face?”
Cheryl wants to do plenty to that face.
She spies a tendon in Toni’s neck jut through the skin in fury and her perfect teeth clench together behind red lips.
She’s going to have this girl.
She wants her.
She wants to ruin her.
And she wants to be disgusted with herself. No one knows she lusts for women too, but that is merely the jagged iceberg tip. The true horror of it all is that this girl is poor.
Southside scum.
Underprivileged.
Working class.
She’s not of her ilk.
And that should be the rub for Cheryl. It should not be ignored.
But Cheryl wants to be worshipped. To be adored. To receive what she’s owed.
This girl has been chosen. And Cheryl will make her grateful for it.
She should care that this girl is different.
She should care that this girl has a life.
She should care that she’s going to fuck it up.
Toni’s lips pout and her eyes flash.
Cheryl decides she doesn’t care at all.
She’s selfish like that.
……
Cheryl throws a party after the football game.
She pretends to be irked that the Southsiders have crashed it. But in reality it’s all part of her plan.
She arms herself with an acute raise in blood-alcohol level and counts the drinks that pass Toni’s lips until she knows it’s time.
Toni leaves her pack to find another drink and Cheryl is waiting, a bottle of schnapps in hand, in the doorway to an empty dining room.
Their eyes meet. Cheryl gives the bottle a shake, eyebrow quirked.
Here, kitty kitty.
The promise of free booze is enough to entice even the most reluctant of drunks, it seems.
Filthy freeloader, Cheryl thinks.
Suddenly, they are alone.
Cheryl shuts the door and the dullness in Toni’s eyes skips straight to intrigue, bypassing fear entirely.
Cheryl mourns the absence of the latter.
“New girl.” It’s an accusation. “What’s your name?”
Toni seems compelled to answer.
“Toni.” She rasps.
Cheryl wants to sharpen the blade of her own tongue on the gritty leather of that voice.
Toni reaches for the bottle and Cheryl pulls it back.
“Toni what?”
Toni remains unfazed.
“Topaz.”
Cheryl is both delighted and grateful for the alliteration. It will be easier to inscribe upon the gravestone of Toni’s self-esteem once she’s wreaked her selfish havoc.
“Yours?”
Cheryl doesn’t expect that.
She puts it down to the drunken courage of an ignorant street-tough.
She presses her red lips together and narrows her eyes, watching as Toni’s gaze sweeps over her bare legs.
Cheryl smirks. The riff-raff wants a taste of luxury. She’s almost disappointed that this will be so easy.
“My name… is Cheryl Blossom.” She affords, and steps a long leg in Toni’s direction, herding her back into a wall. “You’d do well to remember that.”
Toni isn’t uncomfortable.
“I just came in here for a drink.”
She reaches a slender hand for the bottle a second time and, once again, Cheryl evades her.
“And you’ll get one, when I say you can.”
She flicks her eyes over Toni’s face and feels like maybe she could free-up some time in her busy schedule to do this more often.
Tuesday afternoons: watch thick lashes touch tanned cheeks.
Friday mornings: feel soft, kitten breaths puff gently across her mouth.
Sunday evenings: escape the world and its evils by gazing upon the sweetest lips ever crafted.
Cheryl wants it.
It’s hers.
“Tell me,” She whispers, and places a pale hand on the wall next to Toni’s head, “Can you keep a secret, Toni?”
Toni’s gaze matches hers defiantly before taking distracted refuge upon Cheryl’s lips.
“To the grave.” Is her slurred rebuttal.
Cheryl is impressed.
She waits a beat and sighs as Toni’s inhale causes their breasts to meet.
“I think you’re prettiest little tragedy I’ve ever seen.” Cheryl practically moans it. Their noses touch. Toni’s pupils eclipse her eyes. “And that gorgeous little freckle above your lip is begging to be kissed, wouldn’t you agree?”
Said lip on Toni’s face smirks.
Cheryl wants to bite it off with her teeth.
She waits.
Toni nods.
“Do it.”
She leans down before the words are even finished and sucks the soft morsel into her mouth. They moan together and Cheryl feels her skin heat from beneath.
Toni’s hands rest gently upon her waist.
Cheryl senses the pure sin burning out from inside herself.
She pulls her mouth back to turn her head and dives back in, a soft tongue greeting hers.
She whimpers.
She’s taking this.
She’s not letting go.
Toni is hers.
Her hand slides down from the wall to grip pink hair and she tugs it hard. She wants it to hurt. The hand drops lower and brushes leather, and she freezes. Suddenly she is reminded of who this girl is.
A Serpent.
A Southsider.
A pauper.
She’s disgusting.
Unworthy.
She’s not her kind.
A slow peck from soft, wet lips pats Cheryl’s mouth encouragingly and Toni moans.
Cheryl can almost forgive herself.
She pulls back, watching Toni’s eyes open.
She wants it gone.
“Take off your jacket.”
Toni’s lips curl upwards.
Cheryl resents it.
“I don’t like it, take it off.”
She neglects to add any further explanation. Neglects to add that it reminds her that she wants to fuck a penniless untouchable. That she hates that. That she’s ashamed.
Toni bites onto her own lip in defiance and Cheryl looks to it.
She reasons that she will find any excuse to convince herself that this is ok so long as Toni does that.
Because she’s selfish.
“If you remove your jacket for me and leave it downstairs…” Cheryl pants and brushes their lips together, “I’ll take you upstairs and remove something for you.”
She watches Toni’s eyes trace her body. They seem to note the fact the she is wearing nothing but a dress and heels.
Leather shrugs from nimble shoulders and hits the ground.
Cheryl grins.
For now, she forgets.
……
Toni doesn’t mind keeping it a secret.
She understands that Cheryl is particular.
She doesn’t really give it much thought. The arrangement suits her fine.
Her satisfaction is still well fed.
Sometimes she sees Cheryl conducting the River Vixens in the gym and she thinks about how the resident HBIC likes to go down on her. Demands it. How she moans from between Toni’s thighs to the sound of a car radio. How she pulls Toni into her lap in the driver’s seat and watches her ride pale fingers. Toni is done time and time again but it never stops until Cheryl says so.
Weirdly, Toni finds she likes that.
She watches Cheryl in the rec room too. She notes how toned legs wrap around one another as she sits studying. Toni remembers how it feels to have them wrapped around her waist as Cheryl bucks beneath her, tanned fingers buried to the knuckle.
It’s casual and frequent.
Whenever Cheryl wants it.
Toni never gets to initiate.
But, Toni concedes that the arrangement suits her fine.
She’s used to having sex in the backs of cars; parked up in the corners of parking lots and the darkness of maple trees. And the upholstery of Cheryl’s convertible is more comfortable than any junkyard jalopy she’s fucked in before.
Cheryl’s silk bedsheets are also a welcome change for Toni but she’s only felt them against her naked body once.
She wants more.
More of that luxury.
From time to time she thinks about the reality of what they’re doing and gets a thrill.
The preppy Northside Queen herself, posterchild for money and tradition, wants her.
Toni finds contentment in that.
She watches Cheryl flirting with Reggie Mantle in the cafeteria and wonders if it will be her, little Toni Topaz, who brings about the fall of Cheryl Blossom’s reign.
She knows she has the power.
She has the secret.
She could do it.
One little word in establishment ears, and bang goes the dream.
But then Cheryl happens.
Toni’s washing her hands in the bathroom and sees a stall door open behind her in the mirror.
High heels on tile meets her ears before red hair meets her eyes and she figures she won’t even bother looking.
Arms encircle her waist and teeth nip at her ear as hips press into her backside, and a hand slides down to squeeze her between her legs. Toni rolls her eyes at the clandestine pantomime of it all.
Cheryl’s only brave when there’s no one around.
Toni can’t deny that it’s fun though.
“Pop’s parking lot. 10:30. Usual corner.”
Cheryl whispers it like she’s afraid of the very words.
Suddenly the warmth is gone from Toni’s back and the faucet next to her is running.
“I can’t do 10:30 tonight.”
It’s a lie. But it makes her feel defiant and she needs that.
Her peripheral allows her to see Cheryl adjusting her hair.
“You’ll be there.” Cheryl sighs, disinterested. They both know she’s right. “Don’t make me wait.”
She doesn’t make Cheryl wait.
In fact, Cheryl makes her wait. Half an hour. And she stays. She waits, alone with her bike.
She’s cold. She knows to leave her Serpent jacket at home.
And then Cheryl arrives as if time means nothing to her and Toni knows that her time means nothing to Cheryl. She bundles Toni into the back seat and Toni’s skirt is up over her hips and Cheryl kisses her with little reprieve, tanned fingers dragging nails over a pale back.
When they’re both finally finished Toni stares at the roof and hears Cheryl putting on her underwear and ponders the power she thinks she has.
Because, in reality, although Toni hates the Northside and the way it ruins Southside lives, she’s never been one to ruin lives herself.
Cheryl tosses her her bra.
She can’t bring herself to fuck up this girl’s life. As much as she’d love to.
She’s not selfish like that.
“Wipe the lipstick off your lips and wait five minutes before you leave.”
Toni rolls her eyes.
“I know the routine.”
She watches Cheryl pull out of the parking lot without so much as a passing glance and realises that although she has the secret.
Cheryl is the only one of them with the power.
Still, the arrangement suits her fine.
……
A troupe of Vixens storms the Blue and Gold like a military coup.
Toni only looks up from her computer when she hears a particular voice.
She sees Cheryl berating Jughead about the lateness of an article she’s written.
Her posture is rigid and authoritarian and her red hair is bouncing wildly on the back of her head in a ponytail. Toni knows what it smells like. She loves that smell.
Cheryl’s face is pulled taut as she bites the inside of her cheeks, jaw set tight. Toni can almost feel the skin under her lips as she has many times.
Cheryl whips a hand out from her crossed arms to silence Betty from across the room and Toni is in pure awe of the sheer control she has over people.
She realises in the back of her mind that she is one of them.
Toni watches the scene unfold over the edge of her screen and it isn’t until she catches her reflection in it that she realises she’s smiling.
Cheryl catches her eye and for a brief shutter of a lens in time the bitchy façade is gone and all Toni sees is pleasant surprise on pale features.
Soon enough, it returns.
“And what are you looking at, Serpent slut?”
Toni raises an eyebrow and scoffs a laugh.
“Some loud-mouth bitch.”
She knows she’ll be punished for that with a hickey to the neck and she can barely contain her excitement at the prospect.
Cheryl rolls her eyes.
“Fucking Southside trash. Vixens, we’re leaving before we catch fleas.”
Toni’s too proud to admit that the words anger her.
She knows the truth. But if she thinks about it too long she might start to wonder why the insults only affect her when they’re spat from Cheryl’s lips.
And that’s too much for her.
To her surprise, Toni is not punished. In fact, she is rewarded with a nude later that evening and a text simply stating:
‘Don’t shit yourself about the trash comment, ok? It was whatever.’
Toni sends one back.
Both a nude and a text. Cheryl takes this as an invitation to sext but Toni cuts it short, feigning that she can’t right now.
In truth, she finds herself wanting to talk to Cheryl about something other than, ‘your fucking gorgeous ass, Toni.’
Something more.
She doesn’t know why, but again, she shuts down her thoughts before she can come to that conclusion.
An incoming message helps the distraction.
‘Why were you smiling at me in the Blue and Gold earlier? You’re going to blow my cover.’
The fact that Cheryl seems only to be worrying about herself is not lost on Toni.
She knows the girl is selfish.
Toni does not have an honest reply. She isn’t even sure herself. She just knows that Cheryl is mad beautiful and commands a room like no one she’s ever met. She likes strong women and so, she guesses, that made her smile. And why does Cheryl care anyway?
She decides to send all this as her reply.
There’s a pause so long Toni assumes Cheryl has fallen asleep.
She turns over in her shitty trailer twin bed to do the same when Cheryl’s reply finally flashes on her screen.
‘Your smile is pretty.’
It’s not much and Toni can’t help but feel like a neglected dog begging gratefully for scraps but she knows that such words towards someone like her are priceless from someone like Cheryl Blossom.
She wonders briefly if perhaps she’s in too deep.
If maybe she’s already fucked.
She decides not to dwell on it.
Toni smiles prettily as she falls asleep.
……
Veronica is the first to notice that Cheryl’s nails are shorter.
She mentions it at the lunch table.
She wants to know what prompted Cheryl to file down her perfectly manicured talons weeks ago.
Cheryl lifts a pale hand and splays the fingers to proudly inspect the red lacquered nails. Of course she has no intention to tell the truth, a falsehood already lays in wake at the tip of her tongue. As she parts them she spies pink hair across the cafeteria through the gaps in her knuckles and she’s rendered speechless.
Toni is smiling, laughing along with her ramshackle cronies and Cheryl feels goosebumps prickle at her skin.
She briefly curses the fact that Toni has been born into poverty because were it not for the fact that they come, both literally and figuratively, from different sides of the tracks, that smile could greet her on the pillow every morning.
But she doesn’t want that.
She doesn’t want to be greeted by a Southside Serpent.
The very notion is alarming.
“Cheryl?”
She blinks, lowering her hand and presses her lips together in a mess of unspoken thoughts.
“Continuous breakage and chipping were weakening them, Veronica. I decided to file them down to save the hassle.”
They believe her. This time.
Cheryl uses this as a reminder that Veronica Lodge is an astute observer when it comes to details.
And a rich one at that.
A cold sickness grips at her stomach.
She absolutely cannot be found out.
“So are you excited for your date with Chuck tonight, Cheryl?”
Her nausea intensifies.
She clears her throat.
“Of course, Josie. We’d be quite the power couple, don’t you agree?”
Cheryl insists that Chuck drives her home as soon as the last drop of milkshake has passed her lips and by the time she has made it to her bedroom she’s messaged Toni to come over.
The response is immediate.
‘Fuck you, go fuck Chuck.’
Cheryl is shocked by the hostility.
It’s not like they’re dating.
She responds that she just wants to talk. Chuck’s company was asinine and she wants to see her.
She receives no reply.
However, twenty two minutes later a motorcycle rumbles to a stop outside of Thistlehouse.
They’re lying next to each other on the bed, both on their backs, fully clothed, enough space for a third person between them. Cheryl drifts her eyes over her ceiling and sighs.
“I have a reputation to uphold.”
She whispers it. It’s noncommittal. Just like them, it seems. She turns her face on the pillow to look at Toni and her eyes are shut. Cheryl thinks she looks lovely. She knows that she’s never seen Toni look anything less than that, in fact.
Toni nods silently.
“I know.”
She’s not wearing her jacket.
Even in her apparent jealous irritation, Cheryl notes that Toni has left her jacket at home. She knows Cheryl hates what it stands for.
Cheryl appreciates the thought.
She watches thick lashes open to reveal dark eyes. They look at her and gleam in the dim light of her bedroom.
She decides that she no longer wants to destroy Toni’s life.
But figures she already probably has.
“Is that why you went on the date with Chuck, Cheryl?”
Hearing Toni say her name is bittersweet. She wishes in a way that it only sounded like that from everyone’s lips. But more so she wishes that she had never even heard it at all. Nothing could live up to that.
She looks away.
“It’s not like we’re exclusive, Toni.”
In a way it answers Toni’s question. At least Cheryl thinks so. She doesn’t feel like she owes her an explanation.
They aren’t exclusive.
They’re just fucking. In secret.
For now.
Toni turns away from her on the bed, but doesn’t leave.
Cheryl’s glad.
Sure, they aren’t exclusive, but she drifts her eyes over a slender back as it rises and falls with slow breaths and reasons that she still wants Toni all to herself.
She guesses she’s just being selfish.
She’s ok with it.
……
She sees Toni talking to some idiot from photography club and it makes her blood boil.
His name is Curtis. Cheryl knows of him. He’s nice. Cheryl hates that. She tends to destroy purity.
They’re laughing together in the hallway and Cheryl eavesdrops on her way out of the bathroom. He seeks permission to touch her and when Toni consents, he gently places his hand on a clothed portion of her arm.
Cheryl is furious.
That’s hers.
She watches as they move into an awkward hug, embarrassed laughs break from them both as they pull back and Cheryl sees how happy Toni is to be receiving affection in public.
She tries not to feel shitty about it.
She reasons that it’s not her fault that she and Toni are born into two social classes that will never mix.
The shittiness goes away somewhat.
She overhears that he is looking forward to tonight and that if Toni is still happy to meet at 8, he’ll pick her up.
Cheryl feels regretful for all of two seconds before she decides what she must do.
She watches Curtis bid his goodbyes and as soon as Toni is alone Cheryl pulls her into the bathroom and blocks the door with her body.
Toni’s eyes soften as they see her but her smile drops and Cheryl knows she’s well on her way to damaging this girl.
Only now she wishes she could stop it.
“Thistlehouse, tonight. 8 o clock. Wear the bra I like.” She orders flippantly. She hopes Toni can’t see the desperate manipulation ticking away behind her eyes.
Toni frowns.
“No, Cheryl. I’m busy tonight.”
“Doing what?”
Toni attempts to respond before shaking her head, moving to the door.
“I don’t have to answer your questi-.”
Cheryl grabs her arm and they look at each other.
“-Going on a date with him?”
Toni’s jaw stiffens and her eyes narrow and Cheryl likes everything about it. Likes everything about that face.
“Yeah, Cheryl, actually. I am.”
Cheryl moves closer.
“Are you really sure about that, Toni?”
Her words are intended to plant seeds of doubt and Cheryl watches them harvest within seconds before her very eyes.
Toni swallows a last ditch attempt to redeem herself.
“If you can see other people, Cheryl, so can I. We’re not exclusive, remember?”
Cheryl clucks her tongue at the uninventiveness of using her own words back at her and lifts her hand from Toni’s arm to stroke her hair.
“People watch me, Toni. They follow every move I make. Every word I say. Every person at whom I glance. I mean something at this school. If I don’t maintain a seemingly regular dating life, people will begin to wonder. And when idiots begin to wonder, ideas are speculated and lies are born. And I can’t have that. It doesn’t mean anything to me to have Chuck buy me dinner or Reggie take me to the movies. It’s all for show.” She leans closer and Toni is transfixed. “Not like I am with you, Toni.” She bumps her nose to Toni’s softly. “But you, you lucky thing, run beneath the radar. You’re pardoned of that responsibility. If you’re not dating, no one will notice. You don’t need to maintain a façade with some fool like Curtis Cressly. Do you understand?”
Toni sucks in an uneasy breath and looks at Cheryl’s lips.
Cheryl licks them.
Toni swallows.
“You’re worried about lies, Cheryl, but you’re already living one.”
Cheryl hates that it’s true, so she ignores it and takes Toni’s soft cheek in her palm gently.
They both lean in for a kiss that pulls a sigh from each pair of lips and Cheryl dives in for a second, unable to resist.
She pulls back and wipes the greasy red evidence from Toni’s mouth with her thumb.
“8 o clock, Toni. I’ll be waiting. Choose wisely.” She whispers, “Choose what you really want.”
Curtis spends the evening alone; apologetic that Toni has suddenly become ‘sick.’
Cheryl asks her to stay the night at Thistlehouse for the first time.
Toni accepts, and wears the bra, and Cheryl awakes to that smile on the pillow.
It’s even better than she’d imagined.
……
Toni joins the River Vixens.
When Cheryl asks her why, she tells the truth.
“I want to be part of a legitimate extracurricular and I want to spend more time with you.”
Cheryl smiles at her in a way that makes Toni look differently at smiles from now on. It opens her face so far away from sarcasm or disingenuousness that Toni feels like anything that could take away that smile doesn’t deserve its place on this earth. It’s pure joy and Toni doesn’t possess the vocabulary to describe how complicated it makes her feel. She just knows she’s never seen anything like it and she feels unworthy to even stand in its presence.
She realises in that moment that she’s fallen.
And, more importantly, that she’s fucked.
Cheryl grants her a position on the squad without the formality of a try-out but Toni refuses. She wants to do this properly. To prove that she’s worthy.
She nails her routine with a rhythmic finesse she’s always possessed and she sees Cheryl staring at her Vixen’s shorts the entire time.
To save face Cheryl ‘reluctantly’ takes a vote with the squad and Toni is elated to see that all of the members are happy to accept her. Cheryl rolls her eyes back in her head, silences the group and moves swiftly on with practice.
When no one is looking she sends Toni a congratulatory wink.
Later, in the locker room showers after everyone has gone, it’s Toni whose eyes are rolling back in her head and Cheryl is smiling, hands working mercilessly between Toni’s legs as she murmurs into a tanned neck that those Vixens’ shorts of Toni’s will be the death of her.
She repeats over and over that Toni is hers and considering the way Cheryl talks about their dynamic it should probably register as a red flag but Toni ignores it.
Because she feels wanted. Wanted by Cheryl Blossom. And she wants Cheryl Blossom to want her.
But she thinks that maybe she’s just being selfish.
Toni sits on the bench next to Cheryl’s locker and watches Cheryl apply her lipstick in the mirror stuck to her door. She folds Cheryl’s practice shirt neatly and brings it to her nose. It smells like silk sheets and Toni wants to drown in the decadence.
“My god, TT. You are so pure.”
She looks up to see Cheryl watching her with a soft smile on her face and Toni melts, emboldened by her affections.
She runs her small hands over the HBIC emblazoned onto white cotton and swallows.
“I like you, Cheryl.”
She watches the contours of Cheryl’s profile slide into a smile and lets an iota of hope into her chest.
“Of course, you do, TT. Everyone does.”
Toni rolls her eyes. She’s not surprised but that doesn’t mean she isn’t dejected.
“Dammit, Cher. Take something seriously for once. Please?” She places Cheryl’s shirt on the bench with a tender carefulness and stands to her full height. “You know what I mean.”
Cheryl turns to her and snaps her lipstick shut.
“Yes, Toni. I do.”
Toni watches as Cheryl’s lips fight a grin and she can’t help but sigh at the beauty of it.
“I want to be with you, Cheryl. More than we are right now.”
She’s never been one to shy away from anything and although her dignity thrives on it, her heart wishes she would stop.
Cheryl’s eyes soften and she presses her perfect red lips together.
“I know, TT.” Her tone makes Toni believe that she truly does. Cheryl places her lipstick into her locker and shuts the door. When she turns back to Toni her demeanour has changed. “Still, you’re a Vixen now. We’ll get to be together more. You see?”
Toni hates when Cheryl evades her questions. She’s smarter than Toni and smarter than most. Toni doesn’t like it when she plays dumb.
“Cheryl that is not what I mean by being together and you know it, stop detracting.” She reaches up and places her little hands on Cheryl’s neck. Cheryl watches her with eyes that seem tired and Toni brings their faces closer together. “I like you, Cheryl. I really like you.” She repeats as she stares at Cheryl’s face. She wants her to know she’s never meant anything more fiercely in her life. “And I wanna be with you.”
Cheryl’s brain works a mile a minute inside her head and Toni sees it happening in the frantic back and forth of her gaze across Toni’s face.
Her pale hands sit possessively upon Toni’s hips and the fingers grip her tightly. Toni feels Cheryl pull her in closer and she knows she’ll never truly be out of Cheryl’s hold ever again.
“I know, Toni.” The words fill her with such paradoxical hope and dread each time she hears them. Cheryl glances at her lips and then returns her gaze to Toni’s eyes. “I like you too.”
She whispers it and in that moment Toni doesn’t care if she never amounts to anything in her life because nothing could feel better than hearing Cheryl Blossom tell her she likes her back.
Cheryl’s lips press softly against her forehead, warm and soft, and Toni closes her eyes.
“And I want to be with you too, Toni. You neglected little kitten. And we can be.”
Toni knows what’s coming but her heart speeds in her chest all the same.
“We can be, Toni. So long as no one knows.”
Lips touch Toni’s in what she interprets to be a meaningful kiss and when she opens her eyes Cheryl is smiling that smile that makes Toni forget that bad shit even exists in the world.
“Just us, TT. We’re the only ones who need to know about it. We’re the only ones who matter.”
Toni briefly wonders why they need to hide if no one else matters but she neglects to voice her thoughts. The girl she likes likes her back and for now, that’s what she wants the most.
“Ok, Cheryl.” She concedes, “Just us.”
She hopes it won’t always be like this.
She knows deep down it will.
……
Cheryl ignores her in the hallways.
She texts her throughout the day. Constantly. About how good Toni looks, how pretty she is, how she can’t wait to kiss her later in the back of her car and how her shirt makes her cleavage look oh so inviting. She tells her she wants her, that she can’t wait to have her later. That Toni is hers.
Toni replies. Also, constantly. She asks how Cheryl’s day is going, how she’s feeling, how she saw her looking stressed at Vixen’s practice and wanted to hug it all away. She tells her she cares about her, that she can’t wait to hear all about her news later. That she is Cheryl’s.
Then they meet in secret as usual and Cheryl pours affection on her. She touches her and kisses her and soothes her muscles with wandering fingers. She murmurs her lips against the skin of Toni’s cheek and holds her tight to her body and tells her so softly, so sweetly into her ear, that this is about more than sex now. That this is about more than Toni’s pretty face and toned glutes. That this is about connection and fondness, TT. She strokes her hair and worships her lips and body, and she lets Toni give it all back to her ten-fold.
It’s the main reason Toni gets up in the morning, to hear promises muttered into her neck and feel a firm hold on her waist.
And she laps it up like the starved stray that she is. She forgets that she’s been frozen out all day and suddenly she doesn’t mind that it will all happen again tomorrow either.
But still, Cheryl ignores her in the hallways.
She breezes past her, followed by her entourage of Vixens or, on most occasions, flanked on either side by members of the core four or Josie or Kevin. Toni watches her and often feels her face slipping into a picture of adoration. She controls it quickly. She knows that despite the fact that Cheryl refuses to look at her, she still knows Toni is looking at her. And if Toni comes anywhere near close to exposing them in public she knows Cheryl will chastise her for it. Tell her they need to dial it back. Cancel on their date, schedule a rendezvous for just sex and then ask her to cool it. Toni knows she’s being controlled through a manipulatively skilled blend of starvation and binges of affection but the realisation of that fact doesn’t make her any less hungry for it.
Jughead always nods her way, mostly Betty does too. On occasion even Josie and Veronica have been known to lend a wave. But Cheryl never even turns her head. Not an inch. Toni convinces herself that it’s all an act but sometimes Cheryl is so believable she’s not even sure Cheryl wants to look at her. Toni feels invisible. Unseen. All other eyes can bestow welcomes and acknowledgements upon her but when Cheryl juts out her chin and strides past her like she’s not even there she feels as if she really isn’t. Often the only way Toni knows that Cheryl really is aware of her presence is due to the offhand insults she hears muttered from red lips about Southside scum.
It’s in those moments as she stares into brown eyes that don’t even see her that Toni realises in the deepest recesses of her mind that she has substituted her Serpent skin for a Vixen’s shirt and yet she’ll still never be good enough for Cheryl Blossom to acknowledge in public.
She’s been through too tough of an upbringing, though, to not be an optimist and she pushes away the hopelessness in favour of the memory that tonight, Cheryl will look at her and it will be with soft eyes and a smile that no one else sees.
Cheryl kisses her so slowly. That’s how Toni knows something has changed. Months ago it was rough and needy but now it’s nothing short of a dream.
Toni’s wrists are pinned to the bed by Cheryl’s hands. The grip on them is firm and hungry but not enough to keep her there if she doesn’t want it. But she does, very much. Because Cheryl is kissing her so slowly. Her tongue drags languidly around Toni’s and rolls in such relaxed undulations against it that Toni feels every soft, tactile, minute bump on its surface. Her lips are leisurely and comfortable against Toni’s own and pull plumply and wetly in just the right way to make Toni meld her moans with Cheryl’s. When Cheryl moves away to worship her mouth to Toni’s neck she murmurs against the skin how the bra that Toni is wearing, Cheryl’s favourite, makes her chest look delicious and how she can barely focus in school knowing it’s all for her. Toni is simply happy to be involved. To be seen.
“You’re amazing, Cheryl.”
She feels Cheryl smirk against her skin.
“I know I am.”
If Cheryl’s knee was not pressed firmly into Toni’s to spread her jean-clad legs across the bed and Cheryl’s hips were not thrusting a slow grinding rhythm against her thigh then Toni knows she would care more about the fact that Cheryl never replies to her praises with ‘So are you.’ But Cheryl is grinding down onto her and is running her hands along Toni’s arms to squeeze her breasts and once again Toni finds herself not caring that Cheryl never shares a compliment.
Toni figures that her words don’t always need to be said back to her, as much as she would like them to be, and decides that she should stop being so selfish and let Cheryl feel adored.
She encircles her newly freed arms around Cheryl’s back and just holds her, nothing more. She nuzzles her nose gently into red hair and Cheryl stops the amorous journey of her mouth and her hands to return the embrace. She pushes her face into Toni’s neck and relaxes against her and they simply hold each other.
A kiss is pressed to Toni’s neck so slowly.
Toni knows something has changed.
She decides the time is right.
She arms herself with a smile, eyes shut.
“Would you like to meet my grandpa, Cheryl?” She whispers into a pale hairline, “I’d love him to meet my girlfriend.”
Cheryl stiffens against her. Toni’s smile falters.
“TT, you know I can’t.”
Toni rubs a gentle hand over the bend of Cheryl’s back.
“Just me, you and him, Cher. Just a dinner or something small-”
“-Toni, no. I can’t risk being found out.”
Cheryl’s interruption is cold but Toni has enough warmth inside her for the both of them.
“No one has to know, Cheryl. I promise. I just want to introduce you to my family. We could do it in secret on the Southside and-”
Cheryl sits up and turns her back to Toni. She watches Cheryl’s head drop, long red waves pushed back from a face she can’t see and pale arms shake stiffly by her sides.
“I’m not going to the Southside.” Cheryl whispers tensely. Toni hears a quiver in her voice and a sniff, and her heart hurts. “I’m never going to the Southside. I’m sorry, Toni. Please don’t ruin this.”
Toni hears the true disgust in Cheryl’s voice and knows she should be angered but it is eclipsed by the real sorrow and regret that accompanies it.
She sits, leaning forward to rest her chin on Cheryl’s slender shoulder and rubs a soothing hand over a shuddering back.
“I didn’t mean to make you cry.” She whispers softly and presses a kiss to the fabric of Cheryl’s shirt.
Cheryl turns to look at her. Her hair is curling messily about her head and her white skin rouges blotchily in patches as tears stream down her face from swollen eyes. She kisses Toni and Toni tastes salt and desperation and she knows that she doesn’t have to kiss a messy crying girl. She knows she doesn’t have to care about someone who sees her as lesser. She knows she doesn’t have to pull Cheryl into her chest and comfort her until the tears subside. But she also knows that she will do it anyway. She knows that she wants to. Knows she’d do anything for Cheryl. Because she knows that although she’ll be ignored tomorrow in school, Toni knows something has changed.
She’s in love.
……
Cheryl sits on her bed leaning her back against goose-down pillows and her silken nightdress presses buttery soft kisses to her skin. Her feet, stretching from the ends of her long, bare legs, rub small lines back and forth over her expensively woven bedsheets and she feels safe and cocooned in her world of comforted luxury.
She smiles. A soft smile. She’s so focused in her admiration that she is barely aware it is creeping slowly onto her face and her lips curl gently at the edges. Her eyes are sincere. Attentive. As if she’s peering nostalgically at a flurry of old photographs passing in front of her gaze. Loving, one might say.
She’s looking at Toni.
She’s standing at the foot of the bed, lithe little arms spread out by her sides as she wobbles a line of footsteps along the edge of Cheryl’s floorboards. She’s demonstrating her inability to pass a sobriety test even whilst tee-total. According to her it’s impossible for someone with such small feet to balance their body weight like that even without the interference of alcohol. ‘The dynamics of it just don’t add up, Cher.’
Cheryl watches her stumble to the side and delights in the sound of Toni’s lilting chuckle. She is wearing one of Cheryl’s oxford shirts that is far too large for her, fastened at the front by a single button, and it gapes slightly as she traverses her steps to reveal naked caramel skin beneath it. Cheryl has touched it what feels like hundreds of times with her mouth and hands and she itches to touch it again and to feel it pressed to hers because recently she hasn’t been able to conceive of what her future and life would be like if she couldn’t hold that small, warm body close to her. She decides that it wouldn’t be much of a future and life at all.
She drifts her eyes to Toni’s hair that has been pulled messily into a ponytail and notes how beautifully the runaway curls frame her face and fall into her eyes. They bounce against the skin of her slender neck that is littered with hickeys and smudges of red lipstick and Cheryl knows that despite her hatred for tired clichés; Toni has fallen from heaven and Cheryl has fallen for her.
Cheryl Blossom is in love.
The prospect scares her not. She is happy to be marching with the Cult of Aphrodite once again. She’s been longing, since her pure inception into the notion of love with dear Heather, to bask in its warm waters anew, to feel accepted and appreciated and adored. But her first love, and her first lover, were different. Aside from the difficult nature of the semantics of her sexuality and the social implications of which she desperately hoped – and still hopes - to avoid, Heather was upper class. She was educated and well-bred and moneyed. The true worry; the true, creeping, suffocating, menacing fear for Cheryl, is that Toni is simply not those things. Even if Cheryl was willing to let the world know she worshipped at the alters of more than one gender, she could never let loose the fact that she had feelings for one of the proletariat. For one of the moneyless, dirt poor, poverty stricken under-classes. Southside stock. A Serpent. In the world that Cheryl knows, Toni is not even fit to be staff. Not good enough even to serve her food and yet Cheryl finds Toni still nourishes her life in ways no meal ever could. Her heart, she knows, is well-fed.
Her eyes fall to a discarded Pop’s bag on the floor.
She recalls how Toni arrived with her favourite; one strawberry milkshake, extra malt, one swirl of cream, two cherries and two straws, easy on the syrup. Nothing for herself. Nothing else at all. Just one milkshake, for Cheryl, and for no other reason than she knows it is Cheryl’s favourite.
Not worthy to serve her food and yet she does. Not worthy to be in her life and yet she is.
Not deserving of the pain Cheryl will cause her and yet heading straight for it.
Cheryl Blossom knows she is fucking up Toni’s life.
She smiles wider as she remembers how the bag was passed to her with a shrug and a peck to the cheek. How they had shared it together between tranquil, intimate murmurs of conversation and slow, saccharine strawberry kisses and she realises, with a deep settling nausea, that no one has ever cared for her like this in her life. She doubts with true sincerity that anyone ever will again.
Toni Topaz possesses a love like an artist’s masterwork. It cannot be bought, nor valued by anything so mundane as money. It cannot be replicated. It cannot be forgotten. It cannot be viewed as anything other than the truest, authentic feeling of human capability. It is priceless and beautiful and coveted and, like any other tragically legendary masterpiece, it is doomed to suffer darkness, never to see the light of day, nor famed appreciation, until long after the origin of its creation is dead. Toni Topaz has a gift within her heart, a beauty in her soul, an exceptional generosity that could touch the lives of so many and yet she keeps it. She holds. She stores it. And she paints within the frame of her life’s devotion: only Cheryl Blossom.
Cheryl knows she will always be the one to own it.
She fears she will be the one to destroy it too.
And no one will ever be able to provide it for her again.
Her eyes find Toni’s face once more and she sees her sweeping faded pink hair behind her ear, the most sincerely genuine display of sheer happiness radiating from that smile.
She is beautiful, Cheryl concludes. And she loves her. And she knows buried deep in her selfish soul that Toni loves her too.
“Come here.”
It’s a command, as is most of the fodder that leaves Cheryl’s red lips, but rather than barked with the usual stiffened superiority, this time it is gentle; a whisper, a request of longing.
Toni follows the order, as she does every time, as if Cheryl is a siren on the rocks and crawls across the pressed linens of Cheryl’s bed to meet her.
The shirt she is wearing gapes open as she moves and Cheryl finds that instead of the exposed invitation of the swell of Toni’s breasts, she is focused entirely on looking into her eyes, compelling her nearer and lost in their admiration for her.
Toni finds a familiar seat on Cheryl’s lap and they move slowly, winding around each other and never once break their gaze.
Cheryl feels the smooth shape of a tanned backside and thighs press firmly onto her legs and reaches one hand around to squeeze her fingers into it, the skin of a distinctly feminine hip bulging deliciously around the pressure of her forearm. She snakes her other arm around the entire width of Toni’s back and curls her fingers around her ribs, pulling her in tight to her body.
She’s staring up at her face, transfixed on the love that is reflecting back at her and feels two small hands clutching tenderly to the sides of her head.
They rest flush against one another, pressed tightly as one and completely immersed in nothing but the existence and beauty of the other.
The air is silent and still. Cheryl feels nothing but Toni’s weight and Toni’s breath and Toni’s gaze and Toni’s love. There is warmth and slow inhales and peace.
Cheryl wants to stay like this forever.
Cheryl wants to be selfish.
“I love you, Cheryl.”
The words prickle at Cheryl’s scalp like needles and she feels a tide engulf her chest. The air leaves her lungs and she closes her eyes and allows the overwhelming sincerity of Toni’s admission to rush over her and beat at her face until all that is left is the retreating tide and the tickle of foam and the surging, quiet in and out and in and out of Toni’s measured breathing.
Toni loves her.
Toni loves her.
Cheryl feels complete.
Because she feels the same way. And she wants to feel the same way. She wants to say it back. When they are alone like this, when they strip themselves down to nothing but naked skin and raw emotion, then they are not their past and they are not their day-to-day personas. They are she and her. They are the same. They are equal. They wear no slogans or responsibilities or expectations and stereotypes. And when Toni drapes Cheryl’s clothing around her perfect little frame Cheryl can convince herself, she can dispel reality, and believe for that short beautiful moment she is just like Cheryl. That they are the same. Equals.
But they are not.
And Cheryl knows this.
If she utters the words aloud to herself, and to Toni, her belief system will shatter and the world will be misaligned and her mind contains too much chaos already to face such a revelation.
She feels a sweet kiss tickle at her forehead and finally understands what it is to truly feel warmth.
“I love you, Cher.”
A forehead rests solidly against her own and she grips her hands tighter into the best, most gorgeous mistake on her lap and tilts her head upward. She places her own reciprocal kiss to Toni’s pure head and drags her nose blindly between Toni’s eyes, and lets her parted lips scuff bumps down over the bridge of her nose and Cheryl breathes contented breaths against dark skin.
It is the most perfect moment of her life.
She feels the contours of Toni’s face with an indulgent slowness, eyes closed, her features drifting aimlessly over Toni’s as she memorises their position. She spends timeless minutes rubbing exploratory paths along Toni’s cheek with the tip of her nose and brushes her mouth to Toni’s upper lip and presses their skin as closely as she can to try to display the fact that she loves her too in a wordless act of demonstration.
Toni closes the space between their mouths in the most passionate kiss Cheryl has ever borrowed time for and seems to understand. She cups Cheryl’s cheeks as she pulls away and Cheryl opens her eyes to look at her.
This girl is hers.
Rather than an expression of possession as before, now, now Cheryl utters it inside her mind as a question of sheer wonderment.
This girl is hers.
“You feel the same way don’t you, Cher? I can feel it.” Toni whispers and Cheryl can do nothing but stare back at her and hope that she can see it in her eyes.
Small hands wrap around her shoulders as she is pulled into a cherished embrace and lips press against her ear.
“Don’t worry, ok? Don’t bug out. Don’t even think. It’s just us. It’s you and me here. Just know I know.” Toni breathes like a prayer, “Just know that I know, Cheryl. I love you. I don’t want anything else. I just want you. And you have me, Cher. All of me.”
Cheryl cries.
It is silent and breathless and most of her tears are lost to the bend of Toni’s shoulder.
Whether they are tears of joy or regret she cannot tell.
But she is in love with a girl who loves her.
And no one can ever know, because of who they are.
The dynamics just don’t add up.
……
Cheryl sighs contentedly.
Her body hums gently in the aftermath of an evening of pleasure. She slots Toni’s leg between hers with the heel of her foot and pulls her tiny body into her own as tightly as she can.
She has never been so happy.
They hold each other with a sustained strength that is unrelenting. Their arms overlap in their embrace and when Cheryl drifts her fingertips over the skin of Toni’s back she feels slender fingers returning the same affection to her own.
She presses a kiss to Toni’s eyebrow and watches her smile.
“I love you, Cheryl.”
Cheryl smiles in return and leans to kiss Toni’s lips.
Weeks have gone by since she first heard the words said to her and Cheryl still has not been able to echo them back.
She’s not sure she ever will.
She sees the hopeful expectation in Toni’s eyes as she waits for Cheryl’s response that never comes and it seems as if Toni’s optimism still holds strong.
Cheryl dreads the day she notices it is starting to die.
She lays her head on the pillow and touches her nose to Toni’s. They gaze at each other in silence. A pale hand strokes at pink hair and a darker one strokes at red.
Cheryl has never understood the novelty of staring into someone’s eyes until now. Toni’s may not hold the profound secrets of existence but they do they provide a reprieve from the world in which she can lose herself.
She sees within them the definition of ‘unconditional’.
She regrets that her eyes do not provide the same.
She watches Toni’s eyes drop to her swollen lips and feels the hand in her hair press warmly to her cheek. Her mouth is caught in a sweet, tugging kiss and she sighs again.
She feels loved.
She feels seen and appreciated and adored.
She notes that this is all she’s ever wanted.
She wonders why this devotional love is not as important to her as the adoration of her peers and of society.
Toni kisses her again. A thumb strokes Cheryl’s cheek and tranquillity flows through her veins.
She wants to while away her life with Toni in her arms.
But, alas, she wants to do it in secret.
She convinces herself that it stems beyond class and sexuality. It is also because Toni is pure and loving and wholesome and perfect. Cheryl wants to keep her and protect her from everything and everyone.
Her smart mind knows herself and it knows that this is a thinly veiled disguise for her inherent selfishness.
She ignores it and closes her eyes.
“I’ve gotta go, Cher.”
Lips brush her cheek as the words are croaked remorsefully.
Chery frowns and holds on to her tighter.
“No you don’t. Mother doesn’t return home for another hour, you know that.”
Toni attempts to shift from her arms and Cheryl pulls her back with a grunt.
“Cheryl, I have work.”
Cheryl feels her stomach churn.
Her arms loosen around her and she watches Toni slip from them, her bare back facing her as she sits at the edge of the bed.
“Don’t go.” She pleads.
Toni bends to retrieve her clothes.
“I don’t wanna leave you and go to work, Cher. But it’s a responsibility. I have to.”
Cheryl rolls onto her back with a frustrated sigh and stares at the ceiling.
“Gross, TT. Call in sick.”
Toni lifts her hips to pull on her underwear and scoffs.
“I can’t, Cheryl. I need this job. I need the money.”
Cheryl scoffs this time and rolls her eyes.
“You’re seventeen years old. Who needs a job at our age?”
She watches Toni freeze out of the corner of her eye and she turns to look at her. Toni stares at her as if she doesn’t even know who she is. Cheryl suddenly feels cold.
As she waits for her to speak she realises in that moment that Toni cannot even communicate her response. There is nothing that she could say that could make Cheryl understand. Toni knows this and Cheryl knows this. She knows she will never understand what it is like to live as Toni has to.
The part of her that wants to hold Toni forever hates this.
However, the selfish part of her, the stronger part, is glad of it and refuses to even try to understand.
Cheryl Blossom does not have that life and nor does she ever want to be familiar with it.
Toni turns away again and hooks her bra around her back.
“If you need money,” Cheryl begins and turns onto her side to rest her head on her hand, “I could just give you some. It’s not like I have to worry about it running out.” She laughs at her words but Toni does not. Cheryl reaches out a hand and scratches her clipped nails affectionately into Toni’s shoulder. “I could pay you for your services.”
Cheryl laughs again and, again, Toni is quiet.
“Cher, I know you meant that as a joke, but that’s not funny to me.” She murmurs. It’s solemn. Cheryl’s smile falters as Toni glances at her, “Do you know the number of women I’ve known who’ve had to resort to that just to feed their kids from time to time? That’s what it’s like for us on the Souths-” Toni stops herself, “…where I’m from.”
Cheryl chooses to disregard the fact that she has programmed the girl she loves, and who loves her, to consider the name of her home to be a dirty word that cannot be said in her presence. Still, a large part of her is glad of it. Instead she finds herself noticing how starkly different their realities are.
She hates to remember it. It makes her sick.
“Well what do you even need the money for, Toni?”
Toni shakes her head and tugs her jeans up her toned legs.
“It pays for all types of shit, Cher. My phone, my bike, my food, my clothes, my school shit. Tons of stuff.”
Cheryl hums and stretches her lips to a smirk, shifting on the bed.
“Well then how about I just pay for it all as a gift or something? Then you can hand in your resignation at that shit-fest and spend your evenings doing something actually worthwhile like having sex with me-”
Toni turns to her quickly and kills Cheryl’s smirk with one look.
Cheryl has never seen anyone look so disappointed and when she considers the state of her upbringing, it is no mean feat.
“I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt here, Cher,” Toni’s voice restrains her anger with a willpower that Cheryl will never possess, “by assuming that you’re trying to be nice. But I’m not looking for a fucking Sugar Mama, nor do I want charity from you. My job is worthwhile. Do I hate it? Of course I do. Do I hate that I can’t dedicate time to my schoolwork and that I have to do it on a dirty bar in between customers? Do I hate that I get 3 hours sleep on a school night because I don’t leave the bar until 3am? Do I fucking hate gross fucking men staring at my tits because I’m told I have to wear low-cut shirts to keep my job and worrying that tonight will be the night that I’m gonna walk home by myself and there’s gonna be one or fucking five of them waiting in the parking lot for me after closing? Do I hate that I can’t stay here with you and live a normal seventeen year old’s life? Yes, Cheryl. I fucking do. But it is worthwhile. Because as well as all that stupid shit that it pays for it also pays for my bills. It pays for the rent on my uncle’s trailer. It pays for my grandpa’s trailer. His bills. His medical prescriptions. It pays for the shit that Welfare doesn’t stretch far enough to cover. That shit-fest pays to keep my lights on. And if I do miss work because my grandpa is sick, or my uncle locks me out, or my girlfriend wants me to stay with her, then I go hungry. Or I go without heating. I go without, Cheryl. I’m not like you, OK? And I don’t wish my life on you at all, I love that you won’t ever have to live like me, but you’ve gotta understand sometimes that my life is different from yours.”
Cheryl pushes herself into a sitting position and holds the bedsheet to her chest. She feels physically sick. She registers briefly that it should be because Toni’s life is one long hardship but she finds that it is not. It is the fact that she will never be free to expose her relationship because Toni’s life is so awful.
She’s selfish. She knows it.
The damn word ‘Welfare’ echoes around her head and makes her skin crawl.
“Please don’t talk about that.” She says quietly. Her jaw is set firmly and the reminder of their situation has made her angry now. “I’ve asked you not to talk about that type of thing, Toni.”
Toni tugs her sweater over her head and sighs.
“Cher, come on. I’m just trying to give you some perspective on my situation. I know you don’t like to hear about it but it’s my life.”
Cheryl refuses to look at her.
She’s Southside Scum.
Cheryl can’t run from that truth. And she can’t stand it either.
She may love her, and God does it hurt her heart to acknowledge, but Toni is trash on the sidewalks on Riverdale’s own shameful hell and Cheryl just can’t stand it.
“You’re right, Toni. I don’t like to hear about it. If you know that, why would you hurt me by talking about it?”
“What? Cheryl, c’mon. You know I’m not trying to hurt you.” Toni takes a seat on the bed. Cheryl knows she’s going to be late. Her paycheque will be docked as a result.
She’s fucking up Toni’s life.
“Cher,” She breaths, gazing at her face, “It’s not my fault.”
Cheryl swallows and crosses her arms.
“Yes, Toni. Well it’s not my fault either that you were born-”
She feels weight shift from the bed and stops.
Toni is stood, her eyes looking at the floor. She’s frowning.
“Born what, Cher? A girl? Poor? Scum? On the Southside? All of the above?”
Cheryl watches as Toni bends to lift her bag and swings it onto her shoulder.
She feels desperate and angry and guilty and scared but she pushes it down and takes a shaking breath.
“You know, Toni. Most people would do anything to be with me.”
She’s placing blame in all the wrong places, assigning it to everyone but her.
She knows it’s wrong.
Toni sighs.
She’s too good to her.
“Cheryl, I’m doing everything to be with you. Why can’t you see that?”
Cheryl knows she’s right.
……
Cheryl throws a party after the football game.
Toni pretends not to be irked that the Serpents have to crash it just for her to be present. In reality she knows it’s all part of Cheryl’s plan.
Everything is always part of Cheryl’s plan.
Toni is gripping the cup in her hand with a papery weakness. It’s only for show, she’s not drinking tonight. Her choice. Because she knows Cheryl is.
She plans to wait upstairs towards the end of the night until everyone has gone and use her sobriety to clean up Thistlehouse; hold Cheryl’s hair back as she vomits into the toilet bowl, put her to bed with a glass of water and kiss to the head, and make her breakfast in the morning.
It’s so domestic and sappy that she hardly recognises herself.
The saddest part is she was excited for it.
Not now.
The drink almost slips from her fingers.
No, not now.
Now, she wishes she’d never fucking come to this bullshit at all.
She wishes she’d never even come to the first party here.
It would’ve saved her a ton of heartache.
She peers across the room at the bodies jumping in and out of time with the beat of the music pounding through the house and feels empty.
Cheryl is in the centre - where else would she be – and Toni watches as she turns in Moose Mason’s arms. She threads the pale hands that know Toni’s body better than anyone around his neck and bumps her hips to his.
Toni wants to look away but if she does, she may be able to convince herself that this isn’t happening and as much as it physically hurts her to see, she refuses to deny this is real.
Cheryl leads, and Moose keenly follows, as they lean in to press their lips together.
Toni feels helpless.
She notes how their jaws open to deepen the kiss and finally looks away. The skin of her arms feels hot beneath her jacket. Her back is sweating. Her neck is burning. Her head feels full and she needs to get outside. She needs to cool down. She needs to leave.
So she does.
She watches as Cheryl catches her eye over Moose’s shoulder and holds her gaze for a moment.
This ends tonight, she decides.
She mouths, ‘Outside. Now.’ And watches Cheryl’s eyes flash.
When the soles of her boots crunch on gravel she lets out a deep breath and watches it mist in the cold air. She sucks it back in and releases another.
This ends tonight.
“Well, fancy seeing you here.” She hears drawled from behind her.
The voice soothes her tense shoulders and she hates that it still has an effect on her.
She turns and immediately her back is against the stone wall of the house, a pale hand wraps possessively around her jaw as a perfect body presses into hers to hold her there.
“Did you miss me, Kitten?” Cheryl murmurs it against her lips and catches any attempt at a reply in a silencing kiss. Toni melts for a mere second before she tenses again and Cheryl pulls back with a smack of their lips. A hand is trailing Toni’s backside to bring her closer and the other holds strong to her face. “God you look so utterly pretty tonight, TT. I’ve been thinking about doing this for hours. I can’t wait any longer, get in my car.”
Toni slips her hand between them and tries to push her off.
“Cheryl-”
Cheryl drags Toni’s lip between her teeth.
“Fuck me, Toni.”
Toni swallows, turning her head.
“No, Cheryl. You’re drunk.”
Cheryl growls.
“Fine, I’ll fuck you first, as per usual. I don’t care.”
She pulls Toni closer, away from the wall, and Toni wrenches herself from her grasp, stepping backwards.
Cheryl frowns.
“I said no, Cheryl. I don’t want it.” Toni pants and wipes at her mouth with the back of her hand. “Jesus, you never respect boundaries do you?”
She watches Cheryl’s eyes turn hard and hopes to God that she doesn’t feel rejected. She knows Cheryl struggles with rejection. Even now, she still cares.
God she’s been fucked up.
“Fucking boring, TT. Bravo. Be like that, fine. But don’t hang around here and murder everyone else’s vibe too.”
Toni takes a deep breath in through her nose and notices that she isn’t shocked by Cheryl’s reaction. She reasons that that is not normal. Not healthy.
She lifts a hand to rub at the skin of her neck where a residual tingle from Cheryl’s hand still resides.
She watches her stony, pale features and thinks.
When she looks at Cheryl, she wants her to feel loved. Toni wants to hold her. She wants to live out all number of romantic clichés. She wants to kiss her and caress her and feel her and worship her. She wants to play with her hair, stroke it. Hold her face tenderly in her palm and tell her how goddamn wonderful she thinks she is. She likes to make her feel loved.
When Cheryl looks at her, Toni feels like prey. She feels like a possession. Cheryl wants to have her and keep her all to herself. When she touches Toni it is with firm, hungry hands. She bites her and fondles her and bruises her. She runs her hands through her pink hair and pulls it. As hard as she can. She puts her pale fingers to her jaw or her throat and holds hard. She likes to hurt her. And Toni consents to it. She wants it. She likes it.
Because that is the true fucking shame of the realisation: Toni likes it. She likes to be hurt by Cheryl Blossom. She lets her.
Because that’s what Cheryl Blossom does, Toni’s figured out.
She hurts people.
She fucks them up.
She watches Cheryl cross her arms over her chest and tap her red sole impatiently against the ground beneath it.
“You don’t get to treat me like this, Cheryl.” She whispers.
Cheryl stops.
“God Lord, Toni. I thought you’d called me out here for a hook up, don’t get all-”
“You’re hurting me, Cheryl.”
Cheryl’s arms drop to her sides. She looks surprised. Concerned.
“TT, I don’t-”
“-Seriously, Cheryl? Making out with Moose. In front of me?”
Cheryl’s shoulders slump and she presses her lips together.
She looks towards the ground and Toni hopes she feels some semblance of guilt.
“Toni… I had to. I rejected Moose twice already tonight and Archie and Veronica were beginning to get suspicious I…” She looks sad. Toni hates it. “…Toni, it’s all for show. You know that. I just did it to keep everybody off my back and off our scent. I don’t want him. I don’t want any of them, TT. It’s just a necessity. I don’t feel anything for them.” She takes a step forward and Toni’s cowardly feet stay put. “TT…” Cheryl whispers, rubbing at her own cold arms, “I only have feelings for you. I want you.”
Toni tries to calm her breathing. The well-bred cadence to Cheryl’s educated words serves as such potent Nepenthe to her woes but this time she must remember that she shouldn’t relax into that voice and forget. She should acknowledge that she’s been hurt.
She should be a little selfish.
“You have a choice, Cheryl. Ultimately, deep down, you may not wanna face it but you do have a choice. You think it isn’t fucking shitty for me to have to see you do all this? You think you have it bad ‘pretending’ to date footballers? I have to watch it, Cher. And it hurts.”
Tears well in Toni’s eyes and she curses herself for breaking so early.
Cheryl’s brow creases and her eyes soften.
“No, TT. Please don’t cry.”
It almost sounds like she’s begging.
Toni is sure it’s less about seeing Toni upset and more about having to face her own guilt.
“Cheryl you are the best thing in my life. Ever.”
Cheryl’s lips twitch upwards slightly and she reaches out to push Toni’s hair behind her ear.
“You’re the best thing in mine, TT.”
For once, Toni believes her.
She swallows, blinking away her tears.
“You get to do all of this and still live your normal life. Undetected. You get the best of both worlds, Cheryl. But I have to sit in this shit in secret. The best thing in my life and I can’t even have it. Not really. It’s like it doesn’t really exist.”
She watches Cheryl frown.
“Toni, of course it exists.”
Toni shakes her head.
“Cheryl, I could handle the secrecy for a while. But this, the guys, the fake shit. I can’t do it anymore. I’m not sure I was ever ok with it; I just went along with it for you. But, I don’t wanna be like that anymore. I can’t do it.”
Cheryl looks panicked. Desperate. Tears stream down her face and reflect their path along her pale cheekbones in the glint of the porchlight.
“Toni.” She breathes, “You don’t understand. If people know. If people know about us, about me…” She drops her voice to a whisper, “…about my sexuality. Everything will change. I’m not ready, Toni. Don’t make me do this, I can’t, it’s not fair to force me.”
Toni blames the defensive anger directed at her on the desperation Cheryl must be feeling and wants to wrap her arms around her and promise her it’s ok.
But it’s not.
It’s fucking not.
“I’m not forcing you to come out, Cheryl. I’ve never forced you to do anything. I never would.”
Toni’s anger is rising now. Her nostrils flare.
“But do you really think it would be that bad? You think your friends and your life would change that much, Cheryl? Everyone knows that I’m bi and no one gives a fuck.”
Cheryl sighs in frustration.
“Toni, it’s different for me. I matter-”
“-And there it is.”
Toni’s voice is defeated. She should leave. She should go home. She should wait until tomorrow to talk this out because she’s tired. But she figures she’ll always be tired. She’ll always be exhausting herself by trying to be good enough for Cheryl.
She never will be.
Cheryl is stunned into silence at the interruption.
“That’s the real reason isn’t it, Cher? You matter.” She waits. They both know what’s coming. “…And I don’t.”
Cheryl looks pained with the guilt of a reluctant sinner at confession.
Toni gives her the beat of a few breaths to prove her wrong and when no defence is offered she feels a hopelessness clutching at her chest.
Cheryl simply stares at her with longing eyes.
“Liking girls isn’t all of it, Cheryl.” Toni sighs it. A delicate nail into the coffin. “The fact that I’m a girl isn’t the real problem is it?”
Again, she gives Cheryl a chance to reply. To salvage this. To apologise and repent and keep this alive.
Cheryl blinks tears down her cheeks and her smudged red lips press together in a tight quiver.
Toni wants to scream.
“You hate that I’m Southside Scum.”
The words pull a shocked gasp from Cheryl and Toni is angered by the offense Cheryl takes to them.
“Toni, don’t say tha-”
“Why NOT, Cher?”
She watches Cheryl flinch at the rise in her voice and frowns.
“Why are they dirty words when I say them, but you can use them all you want? You can fucking say them to me and my friends in the hallway and laugh about it. Call me trash. Serpent slut. Working class scum.”
Each insult cuts a flinch across Cheryl’s tear stricken face and she lets out a quiet sob.
“Toni, please.”
Toni wipes a traitorous tear from her own cheek.
“They’re your words, Cher. And I don’t care what you say, I know you mean them. We can have this. We can have this relationship between us. I can feel love like I’ve never felt before and I can listen to you call me pretty every day when we’re alone, and then fucking shun me at school because I’m ‘poor trailer trash’, but I know that you still mean those things you say. I know you still see me as something shameful. Your dirty little Southside secret, Cheryl. I don’t even wear my Serpent jacket anymore. That’s my identity, Cheryl. And I stripped it off and hid it in a fucking closet for you. I’ve changed so much of who I am, just to stay in the same fucking place. You know what that feels like? To be so in love with you and know it’s not going anywhere. To know that we could be something, together, out in the open, I could be good enough for you, if it wasn’t for who I was? For what I was born into?”
Cheryl’s crossed arms fidget in their nest across her stomach and she steps closer. Toni takes a retaliatory step backward and watches Cheryl’s eyes sadden further.
“Toni, please. Don’t overthink this too much. I want to be with you, I just…”
Toni watches Cheryl use her mouth to chew on a red lip instead of finishing her sentence and she brings a little balled fist to her eyes to rub at the tears there. Her makeup will be soiled but she couldn’t give a fuck.
“You can’t even explain yourself, Cher.” She whispers. Yet another soft fixture in the coffin lid. “You don’t have an explanation. You don’t want people to know you’re dating a trailer-kid on Welfare. It doesn’t fit with your image. I’m not ‘your people.’ It’s…”
“Selfish.”
Cheryl finishes for her.
Toni offers no response. Cheryl’s not the only one who’ll be left behind on Judgement Day for her sins. Toni is not without greed. She had selfishly hoped that things would one day be better.
She wipes her wet eyes and takes a deep breath.
Cheryl doesn’t merit one last try but Toni’s damned if she won’t still give it to her.
“Cheryl. I love you.”
Toni has never uttered words with more sincerity in her life.
Cheryl seems to notice this and her red lips part as relentless tears drip past their curved bow.
“TT, I…” She’s floundering. For the first time Toni doesn’t feel the need to assist. “…I know, Toni. And god, I…”
The words are soft. Destitute.
The coffin is shut.
Toni sighs.
“I may not be perfect, Cher. I may be Southside Scum. I may not deserve a whole lot in life…” She takes in a deep breath through her nose and lets it out slowly through puffed cheeks as tears fall once more. She looks to Cheryl and her heart remains broken as her faith in love. “But I think I deserve someone who can tell me they love me back.” She sniffs and watches Cheryl’s knuckles turning white in the strength of her grip on her own arms. “Or maybe I’m just being selfish too.”
Cheryl sobs again.
“God, no, TT.” She shakes her head and red hair strokes her pale shoulders. “You’re not like that.”
Toni watches her push her hair from her face and straighten her spine and the dim glow of the porch light bounces from pale, wet cheeks that she wishes she could kiss. She knows that a love this potent is only felt once.
Maybe, she reasons, when her heart is healed and her self-esteem doesn’t lay in shrapnel tatters she can at least try to say those three words to someone this strongly again.
And maybe they’ll say it back.
Cheryl Blossom has fucked up her life.
A pale hand reaches out for her.
“Come along, TT.” Cheryl sniffs. “Come back inside and join the party. You can take my bed if you’d like. We can resume this in the morning.”
Toni shakes her head.
Not for the first time, Toni finds herself dejected in the knowledge that Cheryl just doesn’t understand.
This ends tonight.
“No, Cher. I’m not coming back inside.”
Cheryl’s eyes flash with panic.
Toni briefly registers that at Cheryl’s first party, the conception of Toni’s downfall, Cheryl had wanted her to look like that. Fearful. Desperate. Begging. However, Toni takes no pleasure in it. She’s not like Cheryl.
She never will be.
She watches Cheryl swallow.
“Toni, stop this. Please. This is merely a hurdle for us, please come back inside.”
Gravel crunches beneath Toni’s boots.
Backwards.
One after the other.
“We aren’t ready, Cher. You’re not ready. I can’t do this anymore. Maybe we aren’t meant to be.” She takes one last look at the girl she loves and bites onto her lip as a briny tear passes over it. “I love you, Cheryl Blossom.”
She turns away and hears her named sobbed croakily behind her. She figures the pain in her chest that is taking her breath away will subside eventually. She’s given it to herself. She deserves a little penance.
She’s arranged for the greatest experience of human connection she’ll ever compact into a relationship, however toxic and poorly-timed, to disappear from her life.
It hurts.
She’s hurting.
But she knows it was right. She’ll learn not to regret it.
The arrangement suits her fine.
……
The last time Cheryl sees her, she knows.
She has been the one to fuck up Toni’s life.
She watches her trudge away.
Broken.
Toni doesn’t just walk.
Her boots drag her feet but it’s not sensual.
It’s heart-breaking. She’s walking away from her.
Cheryl can’t look away.
Her chest aches. Her head hurts. Her face burns with tears and she feels a smack of desperation that is nothing short of agonising grief. A hollowness scalds a gripping, frantic strain to her insides.
She’s driven away the greatest love she’ll know.
Perhaps the only love she’ll know.
She’s fucked up her own life too.
She’s fucked it all up.
She wanted to destroy her and now she has.
It dawns on her that the reality is, of the two of them: Cheryl is the real trash.
She’s unworthy.
She’s a coward.
She’s selfish.