Work Text:
Betty’s apartment in New York City is as nice as her small paycheck allows. It’s well kept, quiet as can be for such a busy city, and most of her neighbors seem friendly enough.
She doesn’t have much time to bake cakes and cookies like her mom would’ve done or would’ve made her do, but she keeps reminding herself that she is not her mother and she can deal with this exactly how she wants. So nods in the corridor and smiles in the elevators will suffice.
It isn’t a struggle to settle into her new life at all. In fact, it’s something she’s been craving for years. Small town life was not for her, especially with an overbearing mother who tracked her every move, so the independence is brilliant. She forms her own routine, can do what she wants when she wants, and most importantly, can eat as much crap as she so desires.
But that’s not to say she doesn’t struggle in other ways.
It’s not that easy to detach yourself from the first 18 years of your life. Many years of being controlled, manipulated by both parents, and finding out one of them is a serial killer while the other is in a cult sure does take a toll.
Some days, Betty doesn’t get out of bed. Some days, she’ll text Donna from work and ask her to cover her shift. (She always says yes. Sometimes Betty wishes she wouldn’t.)
It’s just… working at a coffee shop in the center of NYC is draining. It’s constantly busy, and all that small talk really takes it out of her. She ends up forgetting how to use the machines or what someone’s ordered, and she messes up, red-faced and embarrassed.
On days like that, it’s just easier to stay at home, sleep off whatever flook her brain has gotten into, and try again the following day.
(Her mom wouldn’t approve, but it’s not her mom’s life anymore, is it?)
Other days, though, are good. Great, even. She’ll go to work with a slight spring in her step, smile a hello to whoever is on shift with her, and get all of the customers’ orders right. It’s days like those that make her feel like a fully functioning adult, that she can do this life thing without the guidance she so desperately wanted to escape.
The other days are more common than the some days now.
But the some days can take everything she’s got.
One particularly bad day, it’s meant to be her last shift before a few days off. She should go into work really. She should make that effort. But her head weighs her down, straining against her memory foam pillow. Her covers feel like quicksand, swallowing her up so she can never move.
So she gives in.
(You have to, she tells herself. There is no way you can work in this state.)
She texts Donna.
Hey, can you work my early today? Got a migraine – so sorry!
In a way, she’s not really lying. Her head does hurt, just not as physically as a migraine suggests. She doesn’t want to admit the real reason behind her absences or the small crescent-shaped scars on the palms of her hands.
Donna texts back within the minute. Of course! Get well soon xo
It’s what Betty expected, really. Donna is nice, Donna is kind, and she knows Donna wouldn’t think any different of her even if she did know the truth. But that just doesn’t sit right with her, she’d just… rather not.
So she doesn’t.
Her mind is racing when she tugs the covers over her head and squeezes her eyes shut. She hopes sleep will overtake her quicker than her thoughts.
(It does.)
The second time she wakes up it’s lighter outside, a soft stream of sunshine beaming in through that annoying gap where her curtains meet in the middle. She’s been meaning to see if some kind of curtain-gap hook exists to stop this from happening, but of course she hadn’t got around to it. But maybe the light isn’t as offensive as she first thought.
Her head feels less like a brick now, so when she rolls over and sees the time staring back at her, she’s not surprised to see that it’s 11:24. It’s late for her, even on a bad day, but she’s learning to be okay with that. She needed that extra sleep and that’s okay.
She does drag herself out of bed this time, though. She even manages to force herself to brush her teeth and have a shower, but not wash her hair. (It’s the little things.)
She gets dressed into a clean pair of pajamas and heads into her tiny kitchen-lounge area. It’s warmer in there than it is elsewhere in the apartment, so she drudges over to the doors that slide open onto a patch of balcony.
It’s small. Barely enough to fit anything on. And it borders two others, separated by a half-height wall. It’s nice, though, especially since neither of her neighbors seem to use theirs. And she makes it work. A thrifted wooden chair and a corner table with a tiny fake plant enable her to sit out there and watch the sunset over the city. Being on the 10th floor gives her a great view, but also a sense of existential insignificance.
Today, she just opens the door to allow a thin layer of cooler air to push through her apartment.
In lieu of any proper food, she grabs a granola bar from the cupboard and a juice box from the fridge. It feels like a child’s snack, but sometimes, her own brain makes her resort back to those days.
She sits down just next to the open door, breathing a sigh of relief at both no longer being stood up and the breeze coming through. Almost robotically, she carefully tears the corner of the granola bar packet, cursing herself when a few flakes spill onto the floor. She takes a bite. Dry. Always dry.
Nibbling her way through it, she can feel the moisture being sucked out of her mouth. It’s not pleasant if she’s honest, but it’s food. And it’s better than nothing.
Next, she slips the straw out of its plastic covering and stabs it into the foil seal. With some force, it makes a satisfying puncture noise, one that she feels ever-so familiar with. (She thinks the number of juice boxes she drinks probably says something about her mental state.)
She lets the multi-fruit juice coat her tongue. It’s better than the bar, taking her sand-like mouth back to its usual state. Plus, it’s sweet. So she enjoys it as much as her brain allows.
After her poor excuse for a meal, she leans back into the sofa, listening to the distant buzz of the city. Quiet for this time of the day, she manages to relax slightly, closing her eyes and focusing on breathing.
In, two, three. Out, two, three. In, two, three. Out, two, three.
As if on purpose to the time of her breathing, she hears the slow clicking of what sounds like a typewriter.
Click, click, click.
In, two, three.
Click, click, click.
Out, two, three.
She gets lost in the sound, hypnotized by the rhythm and monotony it brings. It completely distracts her from her thoughts, something she didn’t realize she so desperately needed until she got that break.
For hours, or it could’ve just been minutes, she listens. She focuses. And she breaths. While whoever they are, wherever they are, types away.
And she feels better.
There are few breaks in their typing, so Betty thinks they must be doing well in what they’re writing. At one point, she moves outside, where the clicking is louder. She takes a thin blanket with her, draping it over herself and the wooden chair, watching the city beneath her go about its normal ways.
After some time, she realizes the clicking is coming from her neighbor on the right’s apartment. She knows apartment 56 to be a young man who lives alone. He seems to be around her age, often seen wearing a gray knit hat, and always smiles at her in the corridor. They’ve never spoken, but he seems nice enough. She never expected him to be the type to use a typewriter, though.
Eventually, the sun starts to set beyond the city, and the clicking stops. She stays outside for a little longer, watching as the usual blues and grays of the sky merge into oranges and reds.
(It’s pretty, yet she mourns the loss of the comforting clicking.)
Later that evening, she scribbles on a pastel pink sticky note and sticks it on the top of the divide between their balconies.
Thank you for letting me hear your typing today. It helped me in a way you’ll never understand.
–
The next day is a better day. A better day without work and without the guilt of skipping a shift.
Betty purposely didn’t plan anything for today with it being her first day off work. She didn’t expect an impromptu sick day yesterday, but nevertheless, she’s glad for a proper free day.
She wakes up earlier than yesterday, showering once again – routine is good, yet not always manageable – before taking a pre-made cold brew coffee and a bowl of Lucky Charms out to the balcony. It’s still relatively low effort, but it’s enough for a day off.
Outside is, as before, pleasant. She finds herself being able to enjoy it more today, thoughts less intrusive.
As she eats her breakfast, her eyes wander around the space, falling on a torn piece of lined paper taped to the wall in place of her pink one.
I’ll leave the door open more often if you’d like.
“Yes, please,” she says without thinking.
She hears the tell-tale signs of the balcony door sliding open, a tall figure stepping out.
“Hey,” he murmurs over the wall. “I thought I’d, uh, show my face.”
She smiles involuntarily. He is, for lack of a better word, handsome. His hair is loose from the beanie she’s used to seeing in the corridors, dark and slightly wavy, a strand hanging over his eye. And he’s dressed in what looks like pajamas. Messy, but cute.
(She gets a strange urge to reach over and push the lock of hair out the way. Luckily, the wall acts as a needed barrier.)
“Hi,” she says. “Thank you for yesterday.”
He shrugs. “I didn’t know I was helping.”
“You really were.”
He ducks his head in an attempt to hide his blush. (She sees it anyway.) “Well, you’re welcome.”
Holding her hand over the wall for him to shake, she’s glad to be having a better day today. It enables her to do things like this. “I’m Betty.”
“Nice to meet you, Betty,” he grins, taking her hand. “I’m Jughead.”