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God, you just get so afraid of yourself.
You never really feel like you’ve earned anger when it hits you— you’ll roll your eyes back in your head until you see stars before you say a word, ever the self-immolator.
Alice Cooper did not raise unruly girls, and her girls do not raise their voices.
—
The first time Cheryl snapped at you for being so fucking OCD, jesus , you went straight home and took about a million online quizzes for it.
In your head, you held onto that label for a little while, but, well.
It never quite fit. (Honestly, you couldn’t care less about stepping on sidewalk cracks or messy rooms— it’s never been the getting dirty that’s bothered you.
It’s just that it’s your space. Having power over yourself, even, hasn’t ever been a luxury, so god knows you dig in your nails when you get it.
-
Intrusive thoughts. Now there’s where Cheryl was right.
They started in Sunday school, too, and you already weren’t much of a crier, in those days. You’d just screw up your face when they hit— it was so much , at first.
They were always this slick-sweet little voice curling in your head, telling you to make a scene, to do awful things with your small, small hands. Something of Polly’s, Mother would call it, something sinful, insidious, and she’d praise the good Lord that you were born without it. If only she knew.
You’d get quiet and dig your nails into the part of your palm just over the big bone of your thumb, where it was thin and where the sting was so sharp and immediate that the inside of your head felt quiet by comparison.
Maybe that was where it started, because you can’t remember making the conscious decision to tear up your own hands when you were upset. It’s been so long you can’t really remember if it was supposed to be punishment or a distraction.
Veronica’s not the first one to tell you to stop breaking your own skin, but she’s the first one you really want to listen to.
The things you think about her, they’re not so different. There was a year or two when you and Polly first joined the swim team and you’d keep your eyes trained right on the concrete under your feet, because you didn’t trust yourself to even look at girls.
(It’s an instinct you haven’t really shaken, yet.)
But with Veronica, you think she wouldn’t run for the hills if you told her.
Veronica’s your favorite person; she’s brave as they come, and, you think, she looks at you the way you won’t let yourself look at anyone else.
Veronica’s your favorite person, and you don’t think you’ve ever been angrier with someone than you get with her.
—
Veronica Lodge is your favorite person, already, and she has got some fucking nerve .
Once, you read somewhere online that gay women actually give off a distinct pheromone in order to recognize one another.
The way Cheryl and Veronica switch between the tracks of circling you and circling each other without missing a beat, you’re inclined to believe it.
It’s a silent game, the one that you play.
You and Cheryl, you’ve had your antlers locked since kindergarten, when you were bristly little things underneath your hair ribbons, but Veronica fits in so seamlessly bulling up against you both that it’s like she’d always been there.
Veronica, asking you to trust her and kissing you so early in the year? Now that’s just cheating.
You can tell Cheryl thinks so, too.
—
“What’s wrong, Betts?”
You have a plan. Be a little callous, stop texting first for a few days, just until she has to really think about kissing you.
If Veronica Lodge is gonna play gay chicken, she needs to know the rules.
You huff out an exhale so it pushes the stray hair from your forehead.
“Nothing.”
Veronica frowns and drops one hand to your thigh, fingertips ghosting the hem of your skirt.
You had a plan.
“You can trust me, Betty.”
And God, in all Her mercy, why does Veronica’s voice have to be like that ?
“I know.”
Your voice ends up traitorously rough, and you’re really in uncharted waters, here, because you look her square in the eyes for a good several seconds. Might as well go for broke.
“Wanna come over?”
Veronica beams up at you, and her nails press into your skin just so before she lets go.
“I’d love to.”
Maybe, you think, her arm strung loosely through yours as you’re walking to the truck, she’s not playing at all.
—
There’s a truth about small towns Veronica doesn’t know— how could she — the only real pastime is leaving them.
Veronica Lodge doesn’t drive.
Unsurprising, really, but you never pass up a chance to rib her about it. It’s something you’ve got over her, one on a distressingly short list.
And then, one day, you’re waxing the heroine over bringing her coffee during lunch and reminding her that she has every resource available to teach her how to get it herself— you’ve really started rubbing off on her, you think, because in September she wouldn’t have batted an eye before calling Smithers.
She’s got her head caged in her forearms, too tired to mince words like usual, and after a beat she raises her head and looks you dead in the eyes.
Her gaze is flat and determined, and you know what it entails.
“You should teach me, then.”
And, well, you honest to god can’t think of anything you’d rather do.
-
There’s one road you always like to drive, winding off into the hills, where the sun drips down in heavy gold over the horizon and you’ll even hear frogs, in the fall.
It’s a dry winter, though, and the air is slicing thin through your half-rolled windows while you teach Veronica Lodge how to drive stick.
It’s the first thing you think you’ve seen her really fail at.
Like, really fail at.
She starts off so cautiously she might as well be idling, and you just do a few wide loops over the gravel off a turnoff.
The second she gets bolder about it, though, you end up about a foot and a half from the mottled trunk of a big, withered sycamore by the time she realizes she’s frantically driving her foot down on the gas and not the brake.
You switch, after that.
From the corner of your eye, you can see her slumping defeatedly against the passenger seat. She’s got this skittish tinge to her eyes, though, that you recognize only marginally.
Veronica’s scared of you.
She doesn’t trust you not to double back on any moment of weakness.
You pause on a long inhale and close your eyes for as long as you’ll let yourself while driving. Think of Hiram Lodge, and wish you could fill up all Veronica’s old, scarred-over cracks with gold.
It’s such a mundane thing, and you ache with something dark over how hard it is for her to trust, these days.
Even more so because you know exactly what it’s like to toe the line between fear and hating yourself for your fear.
You let out your breath.
“Ronnie, you know I won’t tell anyone, right?”
Her eyebrows quirk upward, and it’s more than worth the risk of taking your eyes off the road again to see the wavering smile on her face.
“I know.”
—
It’s right at the crux of the game when things start to go wrong, too.
You’re still not used to having Veronica so thoroughly in your space— standing all drawn-up and dark in the quiet plush of your room and the neon sluggishness of Friday nights.
Not that it’s not great.
Seeing Veronica relax is a gift unto itself— watching her stretch, languid and quasi-feline, on your bed— it feels intimate so suddenly you have to hold your breath.
Veronica Lodge, in your bed, with her dark eyes and your borrowed shirt riding up the length of her stomach—you blink, forcefully, and scratch at that thin little plane of skin on your palm.
(You’re doing better— Veronica’s helping you to do better— but it’s still a reflex.)
She grins up at you, not coy in the slightest, and you sit.
—
You like to think Veronica feels most comfortable with you— you’ve never seen her sprawl anywhere else the way she does when it’s just you, never seen her take up any more room than she needs to cleanly maneuver, and you wonder if you make her feel less selfish.
-
You told her once, idly watching her paint her nails against your sink after practice.
You know how Hiram Lodge is. You know how it gets when her mother’s not around, how she’ll hole up in her bedroom for hours and work herself up and text you relentlessly until you remind her to sleep.
You’d asked if she always kept the polish bottle on her person, and maybe it was the tone, or something Hiram said to her in the way he always patronizes, placid and without looking up, as though any argument would be disturbing the peace. Expecting deference and never asking for it.
She just stopped for a long moment, and you saw the knuckles she had braced against the counter start to pale.
God, everyone in this town needs therapy.
“Hey, I didn’t mean—“
“It’s okay.” Her smile was thin in the reflection of the vanity, eyes unconvinced. “I just kind of need it to feel normal, y’know?”
“Yeah.”
The two of you don’t really talk about your parents— not outright, anyway, but you nudged at her foot while you were both sitting against the wall, waiting for her hands to dry and sinking your fingers into the carpet listlessly, pulling at strands.
“You’re not selfish, Ronnie.”
High-maintenance would be closer, but you know what that title implies. What it makes her feel every time she hears it— and you know she’s heard it a lot.
And it really got her, you could tell— she just sort of blinked and sagged against the wall, put her head to your shoulder and stayed there long after her nails were dry.
You like to think you know Veronica, and you wonder how long she spends feeling guilty and saying nothing.
(You’d spend all day singing Veronica’s praises, if you were sure the game was over. You’re trying to find out.)
-
You’re sharing an earbud splitter, listening to one of Veronica’s playlists, because of course you are, and of course Veronica’s out to nonverbally laud her mature and developed taste in music.
And you’ve been friends long enough that it’s okay for you to have noticed, right (?)— Veronica always does this thing when she finds a new artist.
You stay down when she sits up against the backboard, just watching, and it’s another thing you always feel especially grateful to see— Veronica Lodge, actually nervous.
She’ll start talking with her hands, like a bird, and get all inarticulate. Unpolished.
Real .
“Okay, so this band’s from Canada, and I went to see them right after this album dropped, and they were so dreamy , Betts, and this one starts off a little weird but you have to listen to Not My Baby on .75 speed, it’s like a whole other song—”
You’re sort of just looking over to her hazily— the song’s already halfway over, and she stops when she notices. Laughs, a little skittering.
“What?”
And, well. You think you’re done playing, for a while. Cheryl can manage.
“Nothing. It’s just cute.”
Veronica groans and sinks back onto the comforter, nuzzling sheepishly into one of your pillows.
Sheepish is not a word you can say you were expecting to ascribe to Veronica Lodge. You’re a little dizzy.
She sweeps her hair out of her face and looks up at you, after a moment, with these fathomless eyes.
It’s too long, it’s too much to chalk up.
“ You’re cute.”
It’s awkward in the best way, and you sit up, losing an earbud. She’s still on her side, curled towards you.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” she husks, dropping that abyssal gaze to your mouth.
You blink, and want to ask her about that kiss in the gym, finally. Finally, you think you’d get a real answer.
And god, Cheryl’s really going to beat you both in one fell swoop, huh.
The songs ends and rolls sleepily over to the next. Neither of you move.
(You are better at not moving than Veronica. She looks like she’s jonesing for something, like she’s got more than enough frenetic energy for the both of you, and you’re content to watch.
You could watch Veronica without poise all day, you think, and then surreptitiously bite one nail
into your palm.)
She’s looking up at you with her wine-dark lips parted to match blown pupils. It’s a little less like you don’t need to move, and a little more like you can’t.
And then she speaks, and sweet Jesus , it’s good that you’re fine not moving, because you may just be stationary forever—
“Do you know Archie Andrews?”
(Boy, do you.)
—
Truly, you’d been hoping to avoid talking about Archie for a good, long while. Maybe he’d feature briefly in your deathbed speech.
“Yeah.”
—
You’d say you wonder what Veronica sees in Archie, but, well, you saw it too, right?
It’s hard to tell, honestly, if you really liked him.
(For one, you’re pretty sure you’re just solidly gay.)
You’d never liked a boy before, not really, and god knows you haven’t since— the smooth graph of your life blinks out right where he is and continues on the other side just as smoothly. Like he’s a removable discontinuity, no asymptote or anything.
Not that you could just erase Archie from your childhood; it’s just, you can’t really afford to factor him into any decision regarding your domain. You figured that out a while ago.
Maybe you were just relieved to feel normal, to get at a ghost of that suburban high.
He’s a strange bird, Archie Andrews, and in that way he and Veronica don’t make much sense. It would, maybe, to just about everyone else, but everyone else doesn’t know Veronica.
You know Veronica, and you know Archie, better than just about anyone else, and they’re like gods of two religions, all old-soul and divine in a way that’s decidedly not Christian. Not quite opposing, but unable to really overlap— they just happen to be neighbors in holy grounds, for now.
Veronica Lodge is your favorite person— honestly, you’d let this town burn so long as she was out safe— and you know Riverdale is not for her.
She’s touching down briefly, in the middle of some universal migration, and you’re all caught in her talons.
And Archie— Archie is Riverdale.
Not even Cheryl, scrambling for footing on the scrying bones of generation after generation as she is, would deny that.
—
This all is certainly not to explain your sudden surliness when you watch them start to orbit hesitantly.
Of course not.
You just don’t get it, that’s all.
Veronica’s not breaking the rules— actually, it’s a real power play, and you and Cheryl’d never pull it off— but you’re hurt all the same.
For the first time, you have just about nothing to keep you in the game.
—
Still, though, you don’t realize just how fucked you are until it’s Cheryl that has to pull you up.
-
You’re feeling thoroughly impaled by the floodlights, tonight.
Veronica’s over by the bench, leaning up to plant the dark bow of her lips to Archie’s cheek, and you’re not doing so hot, feeling listless— until Cheryl sidles up to you, at least.
“You look a little lonesome there, Betty Cooper. Girlfriend trouble?”
Outwardly, it’s a barb, it’s Cheryl still riffing on your tryout the way she does best, nipping at your heels and hoping you yelp.
But, well.
It’s a weird night, the kind that calls for armistice.
You don’t say anything. No matter the words, speaking would be less of an invitation than silence.
Her nails are long and cool and noticeable on the skin of your back, but not digging in.
It’s probably the closest you’ve been to Cheryl— if not ever, than at least in a few years; her perfume is dizzying, but not sick-sweet— and you both sink into it for a few measured breaths.
You can tell she’s feeling for it, pushing with her palm when she wants you to exhale. You saw Jason do it for her a few times, and when you realize that there’s this wry twist in your stomach.
Maybe you can really, properly talk sometime. When no one’s watching.
Her voice is this thick, floaty lull you’ve never heard from a Blossom before.
“Back on in five, Betts,” she murmurs, low and musical, and then spins on one heel and marches back over to Josie.
Later, you realize it’s the first time she called you Betts.
-
Veronica watches Cheryl return to her roost somewhat suspiciously. Usually you wouldn’t protest her warding off just about everyone else, but right now the score is decidedly in Cheryl’s favor.
“What was that about?”
You listen for a note of apology in her voice and don’t catch it. There’s a slow, simmering anger in your belly, and for once you feel like letting it stay there.
“Nothing.”
—
Veronica Lodge is your favorite person, and you aren’t hers.
Veronica Lodge blinds you— god, she’s so fucking pretty — and blind, she robs you in the same breath, clean and unapologetic. God knows you’ve got to be some kind of masochist— maybe you really do like the dark, sap-slow feeling of wanting without respite. Otherwise you’d have found someone softer, a little more like you.
But when it comes from Veronica, hurting is sugar-sweet.
This all, you’re running mercilessly in your own skull the moment the game’s over— your head’s swimming with white noise, and, you think, you’re really not in the mood to go to Pop’s.
So, you don’t.
Anger, you’re finding, is simple.
-
There’s a pained edge to Veronica’s voice when you’re making for your truck, a little dead-eyed. You register the thin, rushed hammer of her heels on the concrete, and then she’s catching your elbow as you’re rounding the flatbed.
“You sure you don’t wanna come, Betts?”
You sigh and bask in how exasperated it sounds. “Yeah. Not really in the mood.”
She wrings her hands for a moment, looking up at you— you feel weary and overgrown, leaning down to her like this, and you dig your keys into the skin of your palm when she reaches up to throw her arms around your neck.
It’d be funnier, her having to launch up to meet you, even in heels— you’d snort, and she’d curl her fingers, harsh into your shoulder, in retaliation— but you’re feeling especially sullen up against her, and you just sort of sigh into her hair. Even drifting your eyes shut, you can feel Archie’s eyes on you from across the dark, empty sea of the lot.
“Call me, okay?”
You consider not replying, but god, you’re not a barbarian .
“Okay.”
—
Actually, it’s Veronica who calls you.
—
You’re still not really in the mood for this, but goddammit if you don’t always, always want to talk to Veronica. You put it on speaker.
“Hey.”
And it’s not an apology, it’s not something angry and confused. It’s exactly what you both need, and you know she knows because there’s no other reason for her to ask.
“Can you come pick me up?”
—
Veronica’s heels are dangling from one hand when you pull up, and she looks a little like a crow, feathers pulled backward by the too-strong wind.
“Thanks,” she says, sincere and honey-quiet, and then, when she shuts the door, “I don’t want to go home.”
“That’s okay.”
And it is.
—
Riverdale is not exactly a place that makes you feel alive, but you know where to go for it.
You’re tied to the slow, needy thrum of things only in driving those big, lonely hills— passing quiet throngs of shade with the sinking sun, watching the light along the horizon at night, windows open to let something ancient in. It’d be ominous if there was anything to fear— with all that space, all that nothing, you just feel free.
Freedom without any of the implications isn’t even happy, really— you’re just raw , open to the air and the whims of sediment, and it’s better than happiness because it’s real , and nothing else.
It makes you want to share it with someone.
But, well, whenever you go driving with Veronica all you can really focus on is her.
Watching her feel that freedom is almost as good as having it yourself— watching her hair whip in thin dark strands with the wind, watching her start to heave with slow, hungry breaths because the night air tastes like heaven, and heaven is dust and herbs and warm asphalt. It makes you itch there in the driver’s seat— you wish she’d smother you with whatever she’s feeling. You want her to breathe fire down your empty throat.
You watch her mouth part with this quiet sort of wonder, and in a dark curl of thought, you tell yourself that Archie can’t do this for her.
Archie doesn’t know Veronica like you do, and god ; you could do so many things for Veronica.
She’s hurt you, already, and you’re still trailing her like a baby bird. There’s a little solace to be had in thinking that maybe she wouldn’t think twice about using him, either.
And then:
“Wait,” she says, with that quiet rasp, and your foot jerks almost involuntarily onto the brake, jolting you forward for a moment.
“Can you pull over?”
Surprise, surprise, you can.
You love the truck despite your father, you love having something with such an immediate capacity for travel, for change. You love lying out in the flatbed, and you love it even more now.
You’re both sprawled on your ratty car blankets, the hood still issuing heat into the dark. It’s nice, really, but the crickets are fucking deafening.
“Thanks for taking me out here.” Her voice is heavy with watching the stars, rolling sweet over onto you.
“You’re so good at finding these places.”
You just hum at the praise— you’re almost back to your rhythm, you think, able to carry on together quietly. The stars are a little blurry overhead— god, you’re so tired.
“I’m not dating Archie, you know.”
It’s quiet, but against the dark velvet of the night it’s enough.
“Oh,” you say.
It’s an honest to god reflex; your hands loosen at your sides.
Not even happy, just real .
And you’re really going to have to grill her on that, because you really like to think you’re better than to be on the receiving end of Veronica Lodge, silvertongue.
Maybe it’s not especially fair to be so puffed-up over what’s perfectly within the bounds of the game, but you know Veronica, and she’s deliberate to a frightening degree.
The jealousy struck up in the flint of your throat— she wanted it.
Veronica sits up, and you watch her bite her lip in the warm silence. You’re leaning back on your elbows, and you’re still angry, you think. Not in the way that means a fight— you’ve still got momentum, that’s all, and you want her to feel it.
She turns so her face is tilted down to you, and maybe , you think, she wants to feel it, too.
—
This time when Veronica kisses you it’s earnest, quiet, and you press up to meet her, you sitting back on your hands and her half in your lap.
And, you think, you’d like her to be angry with you, too.
You’ve seen it— far as you can tell there would be no greater joy than Veronica Lodge siccing all that fury square on you. The game isn’t nice, after all, and seeing as you’re in the spirit to be trading apologies, well. It seems right.
As with most things, you’d never say it— but you like a little pain, when you know it’s coming.
You like stretching too deep in the mornings, the little prickles of protest in your bones; you like that first bite of your nails through the raw skin of your palms, the sudden copper of breaking the skin of your lower lip between your teeth.
You think Veronica’s teeth would be even nicer.
And, you think, she probably is pretty angry with you. You have not been quite so kind to one another.
—
Out here you feel almost savage, turning to pull her down to the metal, to meet the thin paint of the flatbed and the thin, wool-loose blankets. You really doubt you could put it into words, but Veronica Lodge is your favorite person in the world and you plan on telling her somehow.
She has to know the things you’d do for her— the things you’ve already done, god knows.
Veronica kisses you almost sleepily, slow and quiet and it’d be fine, really, if you weren’t still burning out slow and continuous.
You slide your fingers together, squeezing hard against her knuckles, and she gets it, you think.
She rolls so she’s fully in your lap, thighs a parenthetical to your waist, and she makes this noise and presses down when you dig your fingers into the backs of her thighs, and it’s nice , it’s like water just under boiling. Steam rolling, hot enough to take the air right out of you but not to burn.
Never to burn.
It’s not anger, anymore, it’s something bright and only a little violent, and when she presses your foreheads together with her hands cradling your face, you have to ask if she really wants you— because, apparently, it’s impossible to tell what Veronica’s really after until she’s got it.
And god knows she’s got you.
“Oh, Betty Cooper,” she whispers, looking at the slight part of your mouth under the moon. “I don’t think I could want anyone else.”
And Veronica Lodge has words that run so smooth you don’t notice until they’ve gone right past you, and you think the excited thrum under her skin has something to do with the cold, flat edge to your words earlier.
And you believe her.