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Betty stares at the ceiling, the sound of Jughead’s quiet breaths filling the room as he sleeps behind her. She can feel the heat radiating off his body, his arm resting over her torso. There was a time when that was the most comforting feeling in the world to her. Knowing he was here with her, safe with her. It feels kind of suffocating, now.
She couldn’t sleep even if she wanted to. There has been one thing running through her mind for hours – while she was dancing with Jughead, on the ride home, when they got to her room and she said she was too tired to have sex. If you carry the torch, I’ll follow the light.
She has no idea why, but Archie decided to perform the song he wrote for her in front of the whole school. She didn’t ask. She doesn’t care, because she can’t allow herself to care. That’s what gets her in trouble. But she still can’t stop thinking about it.
He sang the song, blindsiding her with those words in front of an audience. That’s probably her own fault, though. She’s the one who didn’t let him finish the first time.
Archie sang, and she listened with Jughead’s arms wrapped tight around her. She fixed her expression to be neutral. Swallowed the lump forming in her throat. She tried not to look at him, but in the end she couldn’t help herself. She stole a quick glance over Jughead’s shoulder, and found Archie staring right back at her. He had an aching look on his face that sent shivers down her spine. She made sure not to look at him for the rest of the night.
Jughead didn’t say anything, if he even suspected anything at all. Why would he? Why would he ever suspect his best friend was singing a song to his girlfriend? He trusts them both. She guesses that was his first mistake.
Her phone vibrates on her nightstand with a text, and she lets out a sigh. She knows it’s from Archie without even having to check.
She picks up her phone, looks at the time glaring back at her in bright white. 1:16 A.M.
Then she looks down at the message from Archie, and her blood runs cold.
Veronica knows.
A wave of panic washes over her. She gets out of bed as gently as she can to not wake Jughead, and walks to the window. She knows he’ll be waiting there for her.
She pulls her curtains back, and he’s staring back at her, his phone in his hand. Her heart is pounding. She texts him back, Outside. She doesn’t bother to watch him receive it before she’s out the door.
She walks down the stairs slowly, taking her time walking towards what she knows is about to be a disaster. The house is eerily quiet, everyone else long asleep. It’s a stark contrast to the voice screaming inside her head. Veronica knows.
When she opens her front door, Archie is walking up her front steps. Her mind flashes back to a memory of them in this same position three years prior – him about to hand her heart back to her, in pieces, because he decided he didn’t want it.
She gently closes the door, and Archie stands and waits. Just like he did back then. She’d laugh at the irony, except this isn’t funny at all.
She only realizes now that he hasn’t changed out of his clothes from prom. He’s still in his dress shirt and pants, his dark purple tie that matched Veronica’s dress now loose around his neck.
“What happened?” She asks, getting right to the point. They don’t really have time for pleasantries – it’s the middle of the night, and her boyfriend is sleeping upstairs.
“I told you. She knows.” He says quietly, taking another step closer.
“I got that, Archie,” she snaps, her anger already building. “How does she know?”
Archie sighs, stuffing his hands into his pockets. He doesn’t say anything for a minute. He looks exhausted. And sad.
“The song. She figured it out from the song.”
Betty shakes her head, covering her face with her hands. Of course it was the song. She figured because Jughead didn’t suspect anything, nobody else would either. She should have known Veronica is much more observant than that. She wonders if it was the lyrics that tipped her off. Maybe it was the way he was looking at her while singing it. Before she can ask, Archie continues.
“She said she could tell it wasn’t about her. She had a feeling.” He shrugs miserably.
“Why would you even perform that song? What the hell were you thinking?” She’s trying her best to keep her voice to a whisper, but even then she can hear the irritation in her tone. Archie looks up at her, and his expression instantly changes to one of exasperation.
“You think I wanted to perform that song? In front of all those people, in front of you and Jughead?” He questions, his voice distraught. “Veronica made me. She found the lyrics in my room, and she volunteered me to perform it at prom without me knowing. She said she had a feeling when she read the lyrics, and she wanted to make sure she was right. I guess something she saw let her know she was.”
She’s panicking. “What else does she know? What did you tell her?”
Archie pauses, and she sees a pang of guilt cross his face. “I told her what I should have told her a long time ago, Betty. I told her the truth. ”
“The truth,” Betty repeats.
“Yes. I told her we kissed. I told her we met in the bunker. I told her I did write the song for you. Then she asked me if it was just a kiss, or if it was more than that.”
Betty hears what he’s saying, but she isn’t processing any of the words. She thinks she’s in slight shock at how quickly her world is being turned upside down. Even though she already knows, she still asks, “What did you say?”
“She deserves to know the truth, Betty,” He tells her, not breaking eye contact. He’s not backing down this time. “I told her it wasn’t just a kiss… at least not for me. I told her I have feelings for you.”
Tears form in her eyes. She can’t tell if it’s from anger, or from something else entirely. “Why would you tell her that?”
“Because it’s the right thing to do, Betty.” Archie looks at her in disbelief, shaking his head like he can’t quite believe the words coming out of her mouth. “You know what? I’m tired of this. I’m tired of you making me feel like the bad guy, like I’m in the wrong here.”
“How am I making you feel like the bad guy?” Betty questions, though she already knows what he’s talking about. He’s brought it up to her relentlessly in the past few weeks – how they need to tell Jughead and Veronica. She’s shot him down every time.
“You make me feel guilty for wanting to be honest! You hate that I’m honest with myself about how I feel. You hate that I was honest with you about it. And now you hate that I was honest with Veronica.” She shakes her head, but he doesn’t stop. “You kissed me back in my garage that day. You met me in the bunker. I’m not the only one who needs to deal with the consequences here.”
She stares back at him, a tear falling down her cheek. His voice is harsh, in a way she’s never heard it directed at her before. In the fourteen years she’s known Archie, he’s never fought with her like this. She doesn’t know what to say, but it doesn’t matter, because he starts again and he doesn’t hold back.
“The only thing you care about is keeping your relationship with Jughead. But how is this fair to him? What about his feelings?” Archie says fervently, trying his best to convince her. “What about yours? What about mine, Betty?”
“This isn’t about your feelings, Archie. Or mine.” She doesn’t mean to be cruel. The truth is, she hasn’t allowed herself to think about her feelings since that night she left him in the bunker. She packed them away once again in a box marked do not open in her mind. She doesn’t let herself consider Archie’s feelings either. She knows where that road leads, so she stops herself from going down it before she can even start.
He scoffs, and she doesn’t miss the hurt look that crosses his face. “Trust me, I get that my feelings don’t matter to you. I hear that loud and clear. But you need to think about Jughead.”
“I’m trying to protect Jughead’s feelings. That’s the whole point.”
Archie’s face is hard. “Lying to him isn’t protecting his feelings. It’s just making it worse, for all of us. You have to tell him.”
He’s fed up, Betty can tell. She doesn’t know what to do, how to make this better with Archie. She doesn’t want it to be this way between them – bitter and hostile. What she does know is she can’t tell Jughead. It will break him, it will break them. It will ruin everything. “I can’t.”
Archie shakes his head, folding his arms across he chest. He says, resigned, “I’m not going to fight with you anymore, Betty. I spent all night fighting with Veronica. I’m tired. But you need to tell him, before he finds out from someone else.”
He turns to walk back down the steps, away from her. She wipes the tears from her cheeks as she watches him go. She knows he’s right. She can’t let Jughead find out from someone else. She knows everything is going to change the second he knows, and that scares her more than she even understands herself. She has to tell him. She just doesn’t know how.
“You know…” Archie’s voice cuts through the night air again, as he stops half-way down the stairs. He turns his head to look at her. “Maybe you need to consider why you’re really so terrified of him finding out. Is it only because you know you’ll lose him? Or is it also because you’re scared of the feelings you’ll be forced to face once he’s gone?"
Without another word, he continues on home. Betty stands in the same spot for longer than she even realizes, feeling like she just got slapped across the face.
--
She opens her bedroom door slowly. Jughead is still sleeping, and she’s thankful for that. She just needs time to think. She needs to figure out how to go about this, in the way that’s going to hurt him the least. But maybe she’s already much past that.
She lifts the covers on her side of the bed, sliding back in slowly. She looks at the clock again. 1:38.
“What was that about?” She jumps, his voice startling her. She thinks, fuck. It’s over.
She rolls over to face him, finding him already staring back, wide awake. She can’t read his expression, and she tries to keep hers blank. She wonders if he can tell she’s been crying. “What?”
“You and Archie.” She’s been caught. She knows there’s no going back now. “I woke up and you were gone. I went downstairs to see where you were, and saw you outside.”
Betty doesn’t say anything for a moment. What is there to? Anything she says is just going to dig an even deeper hole than she’s already dug for herself. Still, she mutters unconvincingly, “We were just talking.”
“What’s so important that you had to talk at one o’clock in the morning?” Jughead’s voice is slightly accusatory, and she knows he has a feeling something is wrong. When she doesn’t respond, he says, “Betty.”
Once she hears her name leave his lips, she can’t hide anymore. She starts to cry, because she knows she’s about to break his heart. And because she knows now Archie was right all along – she should have told him the truth a long time ago.
“I have to tell you something,” Betty tells him, her voice breaking.
“Tell me.” He says, like he knows it’s bad.
There are few moments in Betty’s life where she has known, with complete certainty, that what happens next will change everything. The first one she can remember with clarity is when Archie walked into that closet with Veronica at Cheryl’s party three years ago. This, right now, is another moment.
“I kissed Archie.”
Jughead says nothing. He doesn’t scream, he doesn’t cry. He doesn’t even really react. He just stares at her.
She cries harder. “Jughead.”
“I’m sorry,” he says, shaking his head a little like he’s confused, “I must be misunderstanding. I thought you just said that you kissed Archie. Again.”
Betty has never felt so horrible in her life. All along, the entire time they’ve been together, his biggest insecurity has always been Archie. He’d asked her weeks ago if any of her old feelings had come back when she kissed him. Part of him always believed she would go running back to Archie the second he showed any interest. She never wanted to believe that was true, but it turns out he was the one who was right all along.
She grabs his hands, needing him to understand. “I’m so sorry, Jughead. You have to let me explain.”
“When?” His voice is still emotionless, and it’s alarming her.
“It was… it was when we did the variety show.” She tells him quietly through her sobs. It’s then that Jughead explodes.
“That was weeks ago, Betty!” He pulls his hands away from hers, standing from the bed. He’s fuming. “You’ve been lying to me for weeks? You both have?”
He starts pacing the room, and Betty follows him. “I’m so sorry, Jug. I should have told you, okay, I know that now.”
“So why now then?”
Betty pauses, sniffling. She tells him honestly, “Veronica knows.”
“So you’re only telling me because I was going to find out anyway? Because Archie finally had the guts to tell Veronica?” He asks, his anger spewing at her. “Unbelievable. You’re both unbelievable.”
“I didn’t want to hurt you or lose you, Jughead. I’m sorry.”
“You cheated on me with Archie, and you say you didn’t want to fucking hurt me?” She doesn’t think she’s ever seen Jughead this upset in his life. He’s erratic.
“We just kissed,” Betty tries to explain, trying to calm him down, “It was just a kiss. Okay, I promise, I ended it after that.”
Jughead stops, turning to glare at her. “What do you mean, you ended it?” Betty stays quiet, stunned. She’s revealed too much. “If it was just a kiss, what was there to end?”
He’s never going to forgive her when she tells him it was more than that. That there were feelings involved. But like Archie said, it was never fair to lie to him. It still isn’t now. So she doesn’t. “We met a few times at the bunker. To talk.”
Jughead laughs humorlessly, nodding. “It was more than just a kiss.” He walks to the closet, opening the door abruptly. He pulls out his duffel bag.
“What are you doing?” Betty asks desperately.
“Leaving.” Jughead walks to the drawer where he keeps his clothes, starts pulling them out quickly and stuffing them in the bag.
“No, you can’t leave,” Betty begs, trying to stop him from grabbing his clothes. “Jughead, please, we can talk about this, we can fix it-“
He cuts her off. “Do you have feelings for him?”
Betty stops. She looks him in the eyes, silently begging him not to do this. Not to make her do this. “Jughead.”
“Don’t lie to me again, Betty. If you love me at all, tell me the truth. Do you have feelings for him?” He stares and he waits.
Of course she loves him. She loves him so much – that’s why she lied in the first place. Because she can’t lose him. But he asked for the truth, so she has to give it to him. “I feel... something.” It’s the only way she knows how to explain it.
Jughead nods slowly, like it’s finally hitting him. His anger dissipates. “Okay.” He goes back to packing his clothes, now unhurriedly.
Betty sobs. She can’t believe how badly she’s ruined everything. She just wants him to understand. “I don’t even know what I feel, okay? Listen to me. It doesn’t mean I don’t love you Jughead. I love you. I chose you.”
“Betty, you don’t get it. You can say you love me or you choose me all you want. But you chose Archie the second you kissed him.”
“No.”
“Yes." Jughead says, his voice hard. He shakes his head, looking at her almost like he pities her for not understanding like he does. “You chose him, and you always will choose him. I guess that’s something we both need to accept.”
“No, you’re wrong. Whatever I feel for him, it doesn’t change how I feel about you.” She watches as Jughead zips the duffel bag up anyways, her words lost on him.
"Lets not kid ourselves anymore, Betty," he starts harshly, "we wouldn't even be here right now if Archie hadn't turned you down all those years ago."
That stings. She asks, taken aback, "Why would you even say that?"
Jughead snaps again. "Because it's the truth! If Archie had wanted to be with you then, you would be with him right now. Not me."
Betty stays silent. She can't fight back, because she knows Jughead's right just as much as he does. If Archie had told her back then that he wanted to be with her, and if Jughead had wanted to be with her too - she would have chosen Archie. Jughead scoffs at her non-response and heads towards the door.
“Please, Jughead, don’t leave,” Betty pleads again, crying hard. “Where are you even going? I’m so sorry, please don’t go.”
“I’m done, Betty.” He tells her sternly, giving her one last hard. She sobs quietly, knowing she can’t stop him.
He’s just about to leave when he pauses with his hand on the door handle. “You want to know what the worst part is?” He asks without turning around to look at her. When she doesn’t respond, he turns his head to meet her eyes. She can see the tears filling them from across the room. “You never even said it was a mistake.”
He leaves, and she watches him go, the same way she did an hour ago with Archie.
--
Betty lays in bed and cries until she can’t breathe. She cries because she’s lost Jughead, because she knows he’ll never forgive her. Because she’s sure Veronica hates her. Archie probably hates her at this point, too. She’s been so selfish, she wouldn’t even blame him. He was furious with her earlier, in a way he never has been.
What if she lost all three of the most important people in her life tonight? She can’t bear the thought of it.
Then, her phone buzzes on her nightstand. It can only be one person.
Are you okay?
Betty stares at the message until her vision blurs. She gets up from bed and walks to her window. She realizes only now that she never closed the curtains earlier. She sees Archie sitting at his own window staring back at her, and knows he saw everything.
She watches him type on his phone again, and she waits.
Sorry for what I said before.
He looks back up at her, then gives her a small, sympathetic smile. He’s not mad anymore. She knows, deep down, that they would forgive each other anything. It’s the nature of best friends. He's the one person she's got left. He’s the only person she’s always had. Maybe that's what matters right now.
Me too.
She smiles back through her tears.