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The trailer was disappearing in the rearview mirror—distance erasing it from visibility—and his head was ricocheting back and forth between the window and the headrest; in time with the divots in the road. Jughead could shift in his seat, or lift his head slightly to alleviate the pain that it’s causing but honestly he cares too much about keeping himself turned as far away from his dad as he possibly can to take the pains to move.
The ‘Welcome to Sunnyside’ sign slides by next, chipped and spray-painted, and then they’re in town—the houses growing more and more ‘small town America’ with each block. White fences, with flowers growing in perfectly weeded rows. Pastel colors blend into one another as they pass by, and then they’re going past Elm Street; Archie’s white and red house almost visible, or visible through the tenacious memories of childhood that live in Jughead’s mind.
He squeezes his backpack tighter with his knees, thinking of road trips and failed promises and red hair, but then he can feel his dad glancing over at him. So Jughead schools his face into an expression of uninterested frustration and slides closer to the car window, closing his eyes—closing all the thoughts of Archie and Betty Cooper, and even—to a certain, barely there extent—Jason Blossom, out of his head and forces himself to fall asleep.
He wakes up once during the drive, when his dad stops at a drive through for lunch and orders him a burger and fries; which Jughead eats in a sullen silence—shoving his headphones over his ears to drown out any possible, ‘cheerful hopes’ that his dad might have to offer. Jughead’s heard them all already—there’ll be more work in the city, an ex serpent has an apartment he’s letting them have for cheap in Brooklyn, Jughead’s short story has gained him a scholarship and financial aid at one of New York City’s most prestigious prep schools—and Jughead knows that it’s all true and that in all fairness he should be blessing the lucky star that got him out of Riverdale.
But all he can seem to think about is the fact that the people he’s known all his life will be graduating without him in two years, and that should Jellybean ever want to come home, (she won’t, and he knows that too,) she won’t be able to because home will have been taken over by some burly serpent who doesn’t know or care about who lived there before.
He falls asleep again after that—lulled by the voice of Elliot Smith—and when he wakes up again the city has shot up around them; buildings casting long shadows over the road, people forcing against other people in an effort to make it to wherever they’re trying to go.
Stars and the night sky are blotted out by the city’s illumination—and before they cross over the bridge Jughead’s temporarily blinded by the flashes of a group of reporter’s cameras as they take pictures of a limo with darkly tinted windows that’s just pulled up to the curb.
He tries to catch sight of whomever it is that the reporters are so interested in, but the group slides out of view too quickly, and Jughead is left in the comparative darkness once more—facing his future with shaking hands.
The lights blind her as she steps out of the car—but Veronica doesn’t wince as she once would have. Flashing cameras have been too frequent in her life recently for her to have not grown used to them, after all.
A few reporters shout out questions to her—to them both, as her mother rounds the car’s bumper and takes her arm, leading her through the crowd—but most of them are content with a quick myriad of photos. No one truly wants to know what they are thinking and feeling in this moment; all they are wanted for is for their faces, for their reactions. They don’t care that Veronica is a sixteen year old girl who just had to watch her father get sentenced to twenty-five years or more in jail—which lets her have him back when Veronica’s in her forties (she’d done the math in the car on the ride back from the courthouse,)—all they want to know is if she or her mother would crack under the pressure.
A doorman holds open the door, closing it behind behind them as soon as they’ve entered, and Veronica waits until they’re inside the elevator and out of sight to tug her arm out of her mother’s too tight grip. Her mother doesn’t say anything, and when Veronica turns to look at her, her mother’s eyes are glassed over—staring sightlessly at the now closed doors.
One, two, three. The floors light up as they pass them—crisp numbers marching on with a regimental precision.
‘Twenty-five years.’
It seems like an eternity has passed by the time they finally reach their floor, and when the door opens it’s Veronica’s turn to take her mother’s arm; to lead her into the penthouse and through the ceremonies of eating and preparing for bed. Neither of them speak—really, there isn’t much that they can say—and when Veronica at last escapes to her bedroom and falls into bed, any emotion she might have unleashed on her silk pillowcase has dried up inside her, sitting heavily inside her stomach like a dead weight.
If he was being complete honest, Jughead would have to admit that he was impressed with his new school—snobbish classmates and faculty members excepted, of course. All his teaches seem intelligent, and there is a marked lack of sweaty, hot-headed football players—although there is a school lacrosse team; a fact that Jughead had had to choke down a laugh about when he’d first heard it.
No one seemed to be overly interested in his arrival. He was left to amuse himself, by himself, and Jughead couldn’t have been happier to dwell in the anonymity it offered him. True, he sometimes thinks about texting Archie—hell, he even typed the message once or twice—and telling him about his new life and asking what was happening to Archie in his, but so far he’d managed to control himself.
He and his dad still don’t talk much—F.P works nights mostly and so when Jughead returns to the apartment, with the golden sun shining through the slightly dingy windows, his dad’s door is shut tight with the curtains pulled closed. Sometimes Jughead feels like they’re inhabiting completely different worlds; that those stolen, uncomfortable dinners are just the barest brushing of one existence against another.
Those nights are the ones that he has to fight texting Archie the most.
“Are you going to the game tonight, Forsythe?”
Jerking back to himself with a start, Jughead shakes off the sleep that had been about to overtake him—turning to face his seat-mate with a half-apologetic smile.
“Sorry, Sarah, I was zoning out. What was that?”
“Oh, it’s fine.” the aforementioned Sarah laughed, tossing her slightly frizzy bangs out of her eyes.
“I just wanted to know if you were coming to the lacrosse game tonight—Alexander and I are going, so we could save you a seat!”
A stern ‘shhh’ echos from the the teacher’s desk at the front of the classroom, giving Jughead a moment to consider the proposition that has been laid before him. He really couldn’t care less about lacrosse, or school spirt, or what ever it is that students are meant to represent at school functions—but Sarah, with her bleached blonde hair that’s already returning to its natural black at the roots and boxes of Pop-rocks that she doesn’t mind sharing under the desk in Algebra, has been nice to him since their first class together and Jughead can’t help but feel that he owes her.
So when Ms. Carpenter’s narrowed eyes have at last turned away from them, and Sarah gives him an eager look, Jughead answers her with a smile and a nod—even when his stomach clenches over the fact that Riverdale Jughead would never have said yes.
The lacrosse field was buzzing with unspoken tension but, for the first time since classes had started, none of it was directed towards her—a fact that Veronica is deeply grateful for. She had known that there would be a talk; it wasn’t everyday that the school’s resident queen’s father was incarcerated for fraud, after all, but she had hoped that it would pass away as time went on.
It hadn’t.
“Veronica,” Katy murmured softly in her ear, tugging Veronica’s arm to pull her down beside her onto the cold metal of the bleachers. The seat was vaguely damp under her, and Veronica privately thanked her past self for choosing to change into a thicker skirt then she had been wearing earlier in the day.
“Veronica, darling.”
“Nick St. Clair, gracing our hollowed halls at last. Whatever have we done to deserve this honor?”
Nick smirked, dropping down next to her and passing her and Katy a bag of popcorn before answering,
“I’ve decided to develop a passion for team sports over summer break. Did you know that there’s a 0.3% injury rate in lacrosse players of our age?”
“Fascinating.” Katy responded absently, her eyes already pinned on the green grass below, despite the fact that the players had not yet appeared.
Rolling her eyes, Veronica turned back to Nick.
“That’s interesting, Nick, really. Tell me, did you read that on the drive here or did you wait until you’d gotten to the concession stand to google that?”
“Neither. I saw it on the news last night and thought that it would give me sympathy points if Mr. Gym-Rat himself were to see me and call me out on skipping gym all week. Clever, isn’t it?”
“Not as clever as not coming at all.” Veronica shot back, raising her hand in a half-wave to Sarah Kondo, who was clambering onto a bench a few seats below them, her boyfriend Alexander on one side, and a skinny, dark-haired boy Veronica didn’t recognize on the other.
“But if I hadn’t come I would have been deprived of the pleasure of your company!” Nick exclaimed, clutching at his chest dramatically, still smirking—until a nasty, yet familiar laugh jarred against the air behind them.
“Are you sure you’re still interested in that milk train, St. Clair? I wouldn’t want to have to check the family silver every time I invited my girlfriend over for a quickie—the expression is, ‘like father, like daughter,’ after all.”
The trio turned to face the speaker, with Katy reaching over to squeeze some feeling back into Veronica’s icy fingers, and Nick tensing in his seat—ready to pounce, but Freddy Prescott only grinned down at them; sucking the salt from his popcorn off his fingers with a slimy ‘plop.’
“You have a an issue with me, Prescott?” Nick hissed.
“Of course not, I just want to congratulate you on standing by your bimbo here,” gesturing to Veronica with his free hand. “Although maybe it’s not all gallantry—she’d be worth keeping around if half the stories I’ve heard are true. Hell, maybe you’ll let me take a tur—“
He never got the chance to finish the offensive thought; his words were too busy transitioning into a bellow of pain as Nick’s fist connected with his jaw. Katy jumped to her feet in unison with Nick, but her efforts to pull the dark boy off the light one went unnoticed, and nearly resulted in her being knocked backwards into Veronica’s lap.
Freddy’s eye had already begun to swell, blood red saliva starting to drip out of his mouth. Veronica watched it all unfold silently, her face turning stony under the harsh stadium lights. It had all begun to slow around her—every noise but Nick’s fist against Freddy’s skin fading into nonexistence.
“I’ll kill you, I swear I’ll kill you!” Nick’s voice echoed, muffled and rage filled inside Veronica’s ears.
Katy had latched onto her arm again—was dragging her to her feet and pulling her away from the spectacle. A teacher, Mr. Chang the gym teacher, ironically enough, passed them as they hurried down the concrete steps—blowing hard into his whistle, letting out a shriek loud enough to pierce through the cloud surrounding her; forcing Veronica back into the moment.
She glanced around the crowd—at all the horrified faces staring up at the mess she had left behind—then froze, her stare locked to the stare of the only person not looking at Nick and Freddy. The boy she had noticed earlier with Sarah, the one she didn’t know, was staring her down; blue eyes visible even with the distance between them—
“Veronica, we have to go!” Katy yelped, and together she and Veronica hurried away—leaving the blood and the violence and the too blue eyes in their wake.
Veronica doesn’t remember how she got home when she wakes up in the morning, and if her mother gets a call from Head Mistress Geller she doesn’t say anything to Veronica about it.
If her father was there they would have had a discussion about the entire situation—but he isn’t there, and so Veronica just has to pretend that it never even happened; that she isn’t terrified of going back to school on Monday morning and facing the ire of her classmates.
“Everyone will have forgotten about it by the time the week is up.” Katy promises her over the phone Saturday night.
Veronica sighs, twisted inside of her sheets, and lowers the volume on the movie she’s watching as Katy continues,
“Veronica, you know how this works—as soon as something bigger comes along Nick and Freddy’s fight will simply be a footnote in the history of this semester.”
“I know that, Katy, but can you tell what exactly is going to innocently come along that is bigger then Nick St. Clair half killing Freddy Prescott in defense of my honor?”
A pause from Katy’s end of the line, and on her computer screen the credits begin to roll.
“Exactly. So I can’t just wait for something to come along—if I want a massive scandal, I’m going to have to make it myself. The only question is how.”
“Looks like St. Clair is a no-show.” Sarah announced, slapping her plastic lunch tray onto the table next to Jughead’s.
He glanced at her mutely, chocking down the handful of fries he’d stuffed into his mouth a moment before, then asked,
“Who?”
“Nick St. Clair? The guy who beat up Freddy Prescott at the game last Friday after going completely ape—“
“I got it, I got it,” Jughead interrupted, shooting a passing faculty member an apologetic look.
“Do you think they kicked him out?”
She laughed, lifting a hand to push her hair out of her eyes.
“Permanently? No, I doubt it—they’ll just have him stay out for a day or two and then pretend that nothing ever happened; it probably won’t even end up on his record...I wonder if he’s upset about it.”
“Well you could always ask your friend about it.” Jughead muttered, hurrying to take another bite of his lunch.
Sarah frowned across the table at him, shaken from her contemplation.
“Which friend do you mean?”
He didn’t want to answer that, in fact, he wished that he’d never even opened his big, fat mouth to begin with, but there really wasn’t any way for him to avoid the question without being obvious—so he swallowed slowly and, keeping his stare deliberately on the table-top, answered,
“You know...the one you waved to when we first sat down—the one that guy was sitting with. They seemed pretty close, so she’d know, wouldn’t she?”
“Do you mean Veronica? Veronica Lodge?”
Jughead shrugged, opening his mouth to answer, but shutting again with a click of his teeth when a shadow fell across the table and a voice from behind him said,
“Anything I can help with?”
It was a gentle voice, Jughead thought to himself as he turned to face the speaker, gentle and soothing to the ear—like the heroine of a Billy Wilder film. He could hear Sarah talking on in the background and when he met the speaker’s eye she smirked down at him as if they were in the middle of a private joke.
“...so Forsythe here suggested that I ask you how he was doing—“
“Forsythe?” the girl, whom Jughead now had a name for, broke in, smiling again, “That’s an interesting name.”
“It’s to make up for my entirely forgettable surname—in fact my family considered the name Forsythe to be so incredibly unique that they decided to reuse it twice.”
“Well now I have to know what you last name is—what family name could be so unoriginal that they were forced to resort to their Irish roots?”
“Forsythe Pendleton Jones, the third. And it’s Scottish, not Irish.”
“Ah, my mistake,” sticking out a manicured hand for him to shake, “Veronica Cecilia Lodge, the first.”
Her face is softer under the mid-day lights then it had been when she had stared up at him from the concrete steps of the bleachers—less mask like, the half smirk that’s hovering over her expression humanizing the idea of her that had been sitting in the back of Jughead’s mind for the past three days.
His fingertips press softly against the inside of her wrist, and for a moment all that exists is his stare lifting up to meet her’s—and then from somewhere in the distance a bell rings and Jughead shakes himself, rising to his feet and dropping her hand with as much nonchalance as he can manage.
“And there’s my cue to get to class. It was nice to meet you,” ducking his head down and swiping his tray from the table, “and Sarah, I’ll save you a seat in English.”
Sarah nods at him mutely, her eyes wide, and Jughead hurries away from the table as quickly as he can—unable to shake the feeling that those brown eyes are still pinned to him; burning holes into the back of his skull all the way to the cafeteria door.
“Hhhhmmmm.”
Veronica glanced up from her book—abandoning the page that she had just finished rereading for the fifth time—and raised an eyebrow at Katy, who was leaning against the opposing car door; heaving heavy sighs into the small space.
She knew the reason for the sighs that Katy had been unleashing ever since that afternoon, and Veronica couldn’t deny that she was enjoying teasing the other girl’s patience; but perhaps enough was enough.
“Are you feeling all right, Katy?”
“No, I’m not all right, and I’m not going to be all right until you tell me what exactly you were playing at this afternoon with the new guy!”
“I’m sure I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Liar.” Katy pouted, slumping back against the black leather of the limo’s seats—crossing her arms in frustration.
“You haven’t paid attention to any guy except Nick since last winter, but now this no-one from nowheres-vile shows up and you flirting like you’ve never flirted before! It doesn't make any sense!”
“Exactly.”
“What?” Katy asked, swiveling to face Veronica, her forehead wrinkled in confusion.
She could feel herself begin to smile and closed her book slowly and deliberately as explained—the passing buildings casting both shadows and judgement down through the car windows.
“Exactly, it doesn’t make any sense at all—that is why it’s the perfect plan. If I go to the school dance with this Forsythe person for seemingly no reason at all, nobody will be able to talk about anything else—Nick and Freddy’s fight and my father’s incarceration will just be the forgotten gossip of last week. You said it yourself,” Veronica added, reopening her book, “something bigger has to take over for people to move on; I just decided to be an active participant in my fate."
The other girl was silent for a moment, doubtlessly going over Veronica’s logic, trying to find a fault with it; and Veronica’s building loomed in the distance.
“What does the new kid get out of this?”
“Other then the pleasure of my company? Instant respect from everyone worth having the respect of and the phone number of anyone he wants the morning after the dance. What more could a guy ask for?”
Veronica can hear how trite her words sound—how vain and empty—but Katy just laughs and shakes her head at her like she isn’t shocked in the least by Veronica’s tone. She tries to laugh along with her, but those too intelligent eyes are still imprinted on her memory, chocking the chuckle off in her throat. She settles for a smile instead—fingernails tapping nervously on her thigh.
He manages to field off Sarah’s not very subtle questions for the rest of the day, and by the time that he gets home to Brooklyn and his father’s tightly shut door, a small part of him would gladly tie a brick around the name ‘Veronica Lodge’ and throw it into the Hudson to die a watery death.
The other parts of him are confused—mostly—confused and vaguely apprehensive. Granted, there hadn’t been girls like Veronica Lodge in Riverdale, but if there had been Jughead very much doubted that they would have been interested in him—and it’s clear from the way that Sarah and her boyfriend had talked about her, hell, even how she had talked about herself, that even in New York City ‘Veronica Lodge’ is a force to be reckoned with.
She is a storm, and he’s positive that their conversation is a one time only bolt of lightening that won’t strike Jughead twice. Only, it does strike twice—in fact, lightning strikes a grand total of nine times that week, and people have definitely taken notice. Fellow students murmur as he walks by, and teachers purse their lips when Veronica whispers at him across the desks—dark eyes shining with glee, like she knows something he doesn’t.
“So you mean to tell me that out of all the food items a ‘Chocklite Shoppe’ could be renowned for, they decided that burgers and milkshakes was the way to go?”
They’re standing together at the bottom of the school steps. That is, Jughead’s standing, and Veronica has taken it upon herself to perch herself on the end of the large, stone railing. She’s a little higher then eye-level, sitting there, and her knees keep accidentally brushing against the front of his thigh. He knows he should step back—he even tells himself that he would if it weren’t for the fact that Veronica is speaking so quietly and that the stairs are so busy with students escaping the school’s stone walls.
“The name isn’t important, it doesn’t effect what they sell. It’s just a diner—a diner that happens to sell the most delicious burgers and milkshakes in the state.”
She laughs at that, causing heads to turn as they pass by.
“Forsythe my friend, you really need to get out more.”
“I get out plenty, but thank you very much for your concern.”
“I’m serious,” reaching out to shove him slightly in the shoulder, “your tastebuds deserve better and you know it.”
“And just were am I supposed to obtain this magic food you’re so insistent about. You carry a list of the top ten dining spots in Brooklyn?”
A limo, her limo, pulls up to the curve—signaling the end of their conversation—and Jughead responds to her silent appeal, gripping her waist in his hands and lifting her off the pillar and back onto the ground. He can feel her ribcage through the soft cashmere of her sweater, and when he speaks, Jughead somehow forgets to drop his hands away from her.
“Well I guess this is goodbye for now.”
A glance towards the limo, then back to him. She’s wearing burgundy lipstick today—exaggerating her facial expressions.
“It doesn’t have to be.”
“What do you mean?”
“Come home with me. We can have the hotel’s head chef make us something that’ll blow those burgers and milkshakes straight out of your head, and then my driver can take you home to Brooklyn, safe and sound.”
He hesitates for a moment, freezes over—his brain stuttering to a jerky halt—then feels himself nod.
“Great!” Veronica chirps, slipping away from Jughead and towards the limo, “I promise that you won’t be disappointed.”
She kicks herself the whole ride over to the penthouse. It wasn’t like she needed to woo him any further—Forsythe certainly wasn’t her most powerful conquest; he still argued and teased and generally made a pain in the ass of himself if he thought that he was right, but Veronica felt secure in the fact that when she invited him to the dance it wouldn’t be in vain.
So why had she invited him to have dinner with her? Veronica never invited guys to her place—it was her tower of solitude, the only place she couldn’t be touched, so why, she wondered, leaning her cheek against the headrest and watching Forsythe’s hands flap around anxiously, why was she bringing this random stranger with her?
‘Because you like him more then the others.’ A traitorous voice whispered in her ear, sending shivers up her spine.
“Are you okay?” Forsythe asked, shooting her a worried glance.
Veronica nodded, forcing a quick smile, and pointed out the window where the hotel had just come into view.
“Look, we’re almost there!”
The conversation dwindles more and more the closer they get to Veronica’s front door. Forsythe’s eyes alternate between wide and wincing—his footsteps light against the hardwood and carpet as if he’s afraid to make too much noise—and when Veronica peers anxiously around the entry to the penthouse to see if there is any sign of her mother she can almost hear his teeth grinding against one another. It’s gotten awkward, awkward in a way that it hasn’t ever been before when it comes to Forsythe, and Veronica isn’t sure what to do about it.
“Well...you just...make yourself at home while I call room service. Okay?”
“Uh, yep, sounds great.”
His first impression of Veronica’s penthouse is that it’s cold—even the velvet draped couch is icy under his fingertips.
He can hear her speaking softly in the other room, although her voice is too quiet for Jughead to deceiver any individual words. Their conversation in the back of the limo had been stilted—him talking to much about too many things and her hardly saying a word; despite her usual need to have the last word. He doesn’t think it’s him that’s causing the rift—his lack of ability to comprehend the luxury that’s surrounding him not withstanding—Veronica is the one holding herself stiffly, keeping back from him.
“One basil, sausage, and provolone pizza, coming right up!” she cries upon re-entering the room, a glassy smile on her face.
“Pizza? That doesn’t sound very gourmet to me—there’s a pizza place across the street from my apartment.”
“Ah, but this is no ordinary pizza. This is pizza that will change your idea about what a good pizza should be; a pizza that—“
“Veronica,” Jughead interrupted, standing and crossing the room to meet her, “forget about the pizza—what’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong...I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He raised an eyebrow at her, hiding a smile when he saw the tip of her ears redden slightly, and pressed on, taking her hands in his own.
“You do know; you’ve been acting weird ever since you invited me here...is that it? Do you not what me here? Because if you’re uncomfortable or something I can just—“
“Don’t be an idiot, Forsythe, of course I don’t want you to go—that’s the problem!” Veronica snapped, pulling away from him slightly and wrapping her arms around her torso.
Jughead blinked down at her, owlishly, and repeated, “That’s a problem?”
“Yes! I mean, no, not exactly, it’s just...” sighing, Veronica dropped into the nearest chair, holding her head in her hands.
“It’s just what?”
“It’s just that I wasn’t supposed to actually like you—you were my no-strings-attached, get out of jail free card and now I’ve gone and ruined it by—“
“By what?” Jughead interrupts, again, sinking down onto his knees in front of her.
Neither one of the them seem to be able to hold against the urge to speak over the other— their words crashing against one another like waves onto the shore during a storm.
“I was using you.” she murmurs, “You were new, and available, and I needed some positive press so I used you to get it.”
She pauses there, like she’s expecting him to say something but he doesn’t—too intent on watching her to speak.
“I was going to ask you to with me to the school dance and then drop you. I tried to justify it by saying that you’d get attention from it, but the truth is that you deserve to be known for how good and interesting of a guy you are—not just because I hung out with you and spent a night on your arm.”
“Veronica?”
He says her name slowly, as if he’s testing out the feeling of it on his tongue for the first time, and when she looks up into his face he’s much closer then she had anticipated.
“What?”
Forsythe’s fingers are cold against hers, setting a tingling sensation across her skin, and he leans closer.
“If you down’t stop me very soon, I am going to kiss you—but there’s something that you should know first.”
Closer again, and her eyes dart rapidly between the grayish blue of his eyes and his slightly parted lips.
“What should I know?” Veronica asked breathlessly, chasing the almost feeling of his lips when he pulls back from her slightly.
“My friends call me Jughead.”
She doesn’t have time to process his words before he’s leaning in, capturing her. His skin is warm against hers, and teeth clash as they each break out into smiles—arms pulling each other closer—and when they at last separate it takes Veronica a moment or two to collect her now scattered thoughts.
“Why on earth would your friends call you Jughead?”