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It stings at first, almost like a betrayal.
It’s not a betrayal, by definition, and Betty is fair enough to admit that neither Veronica nor Archie owe her any romantic loyalty - no matter what Veronica’s accountant might think about the apology roses and cupcakes.
But it still stings. Not as much as her mother’s relentless barbs or the lack of communication from her sister, but enough that she sometimes longs for the relief of a different kind of sting. A harsher, bloodier sting that nice girls shouldn’t need.
Betty is a nice girl. She smiles beneficently when Archie asks if she’s okay, when Veronica double-checks the next day, and when Kevin declares them “hashtag endgame.”
She watches them spend the better part of Junior year locked in their own Shakespearean drama - a near-comical combination of petty high school angst, and a much darker, much more dangerous game of cat and mouse between Archie and Mr Lodge.
Romantic overtures spurned notwithstanding, he’s still her oldest (if not her best) friend and it hurts her to see him tangled up in the mafia of all things. Vigilante, running fugitive, hunted man, and finally, in a conclusion that’s as tangled as it is incomplete, back in the arms of Veronica Lodge.
That’s when the tragedy becomes a comedy of errors. Veronica toys with the affections of Reggie when Archie displeases her; Archie pouts and asks Nancy to the dance when Veronica “simply has to” take the son of one of her father’s associates as her plus one; they spend a week ignoring each other and trying to prove their own disinterest in the other, all while ostentatiously flaunting whatever flirtation they’re hiding behind.
It’s a little embarrassing to watch, actually.
But the sting goes away.
The nonsense eases everything and Betty finds herself almost thankful that Archie didn’t love her back. The toll everything took on Veronica was substantial, and the constant headache that is watching their current courtship drives Betty to distraction. She can’t imagine actually being part of it.
She accepts her place as their third wheel - or as a backup companion when one of them is somehow dateless and can’t not go to Pop’s after the game on Friday, Betty, please? Because, God forbid Veronica stay at home while Archie splits a milkshake with Ginger. She has to make an appearance and show exactly how much his antics don’t bother her.
Well, at least Betty can understand that compulsion.
When Jughead comes back into their lives, she feels like less of a third wheel all of a sudden. He’s there to share sarcastic eye-rolls with her, to place bets on how long each spat will last, to make wry comments about Veronica’s ‘model friends,’ and to keep Betty company when “Varchie,” as he mockingly dubs them, are otherwise occupied.
It’s nice. Sometimes she wishes he’d been there that night, before she humiliated herself at the back-to-school dance. She thinks if anyone could have told her exactly how the night would end, and maybe even talked her out of her grand confession, it would have been Jughead. He always seems to know, somehow.
But then sometimes, even though the sting is gone, hollow loneliness takes its place. Because however much Archie and Veronica enjoy playing out their own version of on-again, off-again for the entertainment of their peers, no one at Riverdale High ever questions how much they love each other. It’s almost as if the drama feeds the passion, and it’s obvious that they’d never survive without each other for long.
Betty doesn’t have that with anyone. Sure, she has lots of great friends and Polly is finally home so she has a sister again, but she’s a romantic at heart and watching Archie and Veronica fall in love a hundred times over makes her almost envious. She doesn’t want Archie, per se, but she wants someone to look at her the way he looks at Veronica.
In her more cynical moods, she knows she’s better off the way she is, with a few good friends and lots of time to figure herself out and to plan her future without taking anyone else into consideration. She knows she should relish the chance to be selfish and create exactly the kind of life she wants for herself without feeling guilty about choosing Harvard over SUNY because it means a long-distance relationship - a decision that had Veronica wracked for weeks.
Really, she dodged a bullet by not falling in love in high school.
And she knows now that Archie is all wrong for her, and it probably would have doomed their friendship if they’d tried.
She’s lucky.
But she’s lonely.
She throws herself into college prep courses, determined to be valedictorian as well as President of the senior class. She won’t be Prom Queen but she doesn’t really covet it, and she’s voted captain of the cheerleading team in addition to editing the paper for three consecutive years.
It’s a good year, and she’s so busy that she hardly has time to envy her friends. So busy that she doesn’t notice that Jughead spends less time trading barbs with Veronica and more time debating books with Betty. She doesn’t notice that he’s always the last to laugh when she tells a joke because he’s staring at her and thinking about something else. Somehow she misses all the significant glances Kevin and Veronica share when she and Jughead slip into their own conversation and forget about the group around them.
Grateful that he helps her carry her books home, she never thinks about why he might have offered. Happy to see him when she works the closing shift at Pop’s every Friday and Saturday, she doesn’t question why he always shows up after the school crowd leaves and the more questionable leather-clad group from Centerville arrives, parking at the counter and glowering at anyone who takes up too much of her time.
She’s so busy being grateful for his friendship that she doesn’t notice the loneliness has almost vanished.
They all survive senior year together. Archie gives Veronica a promise ring on prom night, and people speculate on how long it will take before she throws it in his face. (Three weeks, the first time.)
They walk across the stage in their staticky blue robes and hold their diplomas aloft while proud parents cheer, and then they pose in front of the trophy case while the Lodges’ professional photographer poses them a hundred ways. Hermione insists on getting a shot of just Betty and Jughead, and trades meaningful looks with Mary and FP when Jughead wraps his arm around her waist and holds her close.
Then it’s over, her locker is empty, the keys to the Blue and Gold are handed in - not that she needs them as long as Goody still makes hairpins - and she’s alone in her pink flowered room, already thinking about what she wants to take to Columbia.
She’s survived. Heartache and betrayal and every little sting that life has thrown her way. She’s loved a little bit, and lost a little bit, but she knows now that it’s all for the best.
There’s a knock on her window and she jumps where she sits, playing with her necklace and contemplating the ring of photographs that surround her vanity mirror.
It’s Jughead, grinning almost shyly from atop a rickety old ladder that she thinks he stole from the treehouse, and when she opens the window he looks up at her like the moon in the sky and says, “Hey there, Juliet.”