Chapter Text
Cheryl Blossom didn’t do feelings. She didn’t know how to handle them. Her parents, her mother in particular, had been clear about the inherent weakness of human emotion. From a young age, Cheryl had been taught to shut down her feelings and shut up. Particularly if those feelings were of the deviant nature as her mother so kindly put it.
After her parents found out about Heather…. Well, it became clear that expressing any feelings was dangerous in addition to being weak. Her mother simply would not stand for Cheryl to have any feelings towards other girls. It wasn’t proper for a Blossom. But that didn’t stop Cheryl from having those feelings. She just needed an outlet. So she wrote letters.
Five letters. To five girls. Each of the girls Cheryl had loved. Heather, her best friend and first love. Holly, a girl from camp. Josie, her friend with the beautiful voice and even more beautiful appearance. Veronica, the beautiful new girl from New York. Toni, the Southside Serpent who had stood off with her when the snakes came to Riverdale.
She kept her letters safely tucked away in the back of her closet. They were one of the few things she had saved before burning down the mansion at Thornhill. There they sat. Neatly enveloped and addressed. Never to be sent. Just there to remind her that her feelings were real. That she wasn’t loveless. Cheryl knew the contents of each one.
Dearest Heather,
You were my best friend for so many years. For that, I will always love you. More than that, I love you who you are to me. You were my first kiss, the first girl I ever truly fell for. I remember everything about you. I miss everything about you. I wish to God that my horrid mother had never found us. I want to you know that I love you, there’s not a day that I don’t regret what happened.
Love, Cheryl
It had been written two months after Heather had mysteriously disappeared. Cheryl had cried nearly every night and had eventually written it all out onto paper in her signature red ink. The letter was placed into an envelope and sealed away. And with it, Cheryl’s feelings had been sealed off as well.
The next letter had been written for Holly a girl from camp. Cheryl now doubted the attraction had been altogether genuine but as a 14 year old girl trying desperately to defy her mother, the night they shared by the lakeside had meant a lot at the time.
Enclosed in the following envelope were three drawings of Josie. Cheryl couldn’t stand not being able to capture such beauty on her pad of paper. Perhaps her infatuation had become problematic when she had left a pig’s heart for her friend to find. But ultimately, her feelings had been shut off when she had placed her remaining drawings into an envelope neatly addressed to the McCoy residence.
Veronica Lodge had, of course, merited a letter. The beautiful New York girl who had moved to Riverdale. It was impossible not to be entranced.
Dear Veronica,
You captured my attention from the second you set your high heels in Riverdale High. Perhaps it’s because I saw so much of myself in you, but I have loved you at first sight. I know I have been less than kind to you at times, I simply could not accept my own feelings until it was too late. Our constant conflict has been a source of entertainment but also a source of joy. I cannot express to you the value of out confrontation. I know that, despite our similar upbringing and status, you will never truly reciprocate my feelings. Nonetheless, I love you, Veronica. And I wish you loved me too. Quite frankly, you picked the wrong ginger.
Love, Cheryl
Lastly, and most regrettably in Cheryl’s opinion, was Toni Topaz. When Southside High had been shut down, a handful of the Serpents had been sent to Riverdale High. From the moment Cheryl had laid eyes on the girl back at the drag race, she had known there was no turning back. She hadn’t been able to clear the image of the pink haired serpent from her mind. And when the girl had finally joined Riverdale High, and the River Vixens, Cheryl simply could not contain herself any further.
Dear Toni,
I hate you. But I love you. You’re a Serpent and I’m a Blossom, and that should make you untouchable. But it doesn’t. Everytime I see you I simply cannot stop wondering what it would be like if you were mine. Mine to have, to hold, to kiss, to touch, and more importantly, to love. I wish you were easier to hate. Yet you constantly counter my verbal warfare and my general malicious front with your own sarcasm and wit. There is nothing about you that I can bring myself to dislike aside from the symbol on your back. In another life, I would make you mine and cherish you beyond the ability of any other on this Earth. Or maybe this life. If not for your family and mine.
Love, Cheryl
These letters were currently stored in her closet, largely ignored. But since her recent emancipation, Cheryl was beginning to ponder the validity of her own feelings and was returning more and more frequently to the letters themselves. She was not entirely sure about her own sexuality, that is she knew she liked girls and perhaps boys too, but she was even less sure about the sexuality of the subjects of her affection. However, she did know that Veronica had recently broken up with Archie. And while Josie was happily dating Reggie, Toni was still just as single as she had been the day she arrived at Riverdale High. Cheryl’s focus had centered more and more on her letters, constantly vacillating be the Lodge heiress and the confident serpent.
But every time she did so, she could hear her mother’s words.
Loveless. Deviant. Wrong.
Cheryl could not bring herself to make any move. So she continued to ignore the letters sitting in the back of her closet, never sending them. And never considering what would happen if they were to be sent.