Chapter Text
“There is something to be said about a navy blue dress shirt against a rich black suit jacket,” Veronica stood in front of the store mirror, holding what appeared to be an expensive piece of navy blue fabric against an even more expensive piece of fabric. (Jughead would come to find out later that these two pieces of fabric were in fact very expensive, and much too far outside of the budget that he or any sane man would ever have for a shirt they’d wear once or twice and then never look at again.). “It’s classy and chic all in one.”
Jughead rolled his eyes, his entire torso slinking against the back of the armchair he sat in. His favorite part of this day so far had been the fact that this store had comfortable chairs, a luxury that stores like Target and Zumiez rarely offered. “Nothing about this wedding screams classy or chic , and I’d rather not spend an entire month's salary on a shirt.”
Veronica huffed in frustration as she hung the two articles of clothing on the metal hangers beside the mirror. “Every girl has the wedding of her dreams. Don’t you want to give Jessica hers?”
“Jess and I agreed, we want to keep it small. The only reason we’re not eloping at a town hall in the city is because your mother and my dad offered to pay for the venue if we agreed to get married in Riverdale.” Jughead shrugged, crossing his arms across his chest.
“How romantic, you’re getting married in the only church in Riverdale, and you’re not even religious.”
“You know, you sure do have a lot of opinions about my wedding for someone who tried to talk me out of it three months ago.”
“You and Jess had been dating for seven months, and I’d met her all of once. Of course I was concerned, Jughead!”
Jughead couldn’t help but nod in and out of a restless sleep as some random serial killer documentary played on the screen in front of him. His body was stretched out across the couch, his grey beanie stretched down past his eyes to allow for darkness in the otherwise well lit apartment.
Remind me to get some black out curtains next time I’m at Target , he told himself as he made a mental note, turning once more to try and angle the sun out of his eyes.
He’d just finally nodded off for more than a second when he heard the jangling of keys in the door. It didn’t dawn on him until after the door opened that his best friend and roommate wouldn’t be home from his trip to Indiana for another couple of hours. He peeked his eye open just in time to see a flash of dark hair walk past the couch.
“ What are you doing here?” Jughead groaned as he sat up.
Veronica nearly jumped out of her skin as she rounded the corner to the small kitchen, turning on her heel immediately to face her step brother. “I thought you were coming back tomorrow,” She said calmly, avoiding the fact that Jughead had just scared her half to death.
“And I thought there was no way you’d ever step foot inside this apartment without Archie, yet here we are.”
Veronica rolled her eyes and set her monster of a purse on the cheap counter. “Archie gets home soon, I thought I’d surprise him by making dinner.”
“You don’t cook.”
“Okay, fine . I was going to order from our favorite Italian restaurant. I’m sure he can go for a fine meal after spending the last week eating nothing but fried foods.”
“You know that this is Archie we’re talking about, right? His relationship to food is close in comparison to my relationship with food. He has had no issue with the fried food.”
“You didn’t tell me why you’re back early,” Veronica said, a stern tone to her voice. “Why in the world would you come back from Martha’s Vineyard an entire day early?”
“Jess got asked to come in for an interview at some radio station tomorrow so we decided to head back today.”
Veronica placed her manicured nails against her collarbone, feigning shock. “Now wait a minute, I was under the impression that you were going alone to work on your novel. Add a girlfriend and this becomes an incredibly romantic trip.”
“When exactly did you decide that you’re entitled to every detail of my life?”
“Mm…” Veronica seemed to think for a moment. “Prom night at Pops, definitely.”
Jughead stiffened and a blanket of silence coated the room around them. Veronica’s eyes widened just slightly as she realized that she’d just mentioned a night that Jughead had attempted to remove from his memory over and over again.
Jughead took a deep breath and pushed himself off the couch, deciding that now would be a perfect time to head to his own bedroom for the nap he’d been trying so desperately to get. As he walked past Veronica, he could hear her sigh before attempting to change the subject.
“Why did you bring Jessica to Martha’s Vineyard? I didn’t realize you two were travel-to-luxurious-locations serious.”
Jughead shrugged, stopping in the hallway and turning to face his sister as he stuffed his hands in his jean pockets. “I just did, I don’t need a reason to bring my fiancé to nice place—”
“Wait, what?” Veronica’s eyes widened even more than before. Jughead could feel his heart begin to race. He had definitely not intended on telling Veronica about this quite yet. “Did you just call her your fiancé? I know for a fact that before you left, you were still calling her your girlfriend and I have the texts to prove it! Oh my god, Jughead Jones! Did you propose to Jessica at Martha’s Vineyard?”
Jughead sighed quietly, nodding slowly. “I mean, yeah, I guess I did.”
“You guess?”
“It wasn’t some big romantic gesture. We just kind of… decided it.”
“You decided to get married? Jughead, people decide to get married when they’re in their forties and still single and they have a pact with their best friend. Twenty-somethings don’t just decide to get married, especially when they’ve been dating for all of seven months.”
“What does that have to do with anything?” Jughead accused.
“It’s just, you’ve never been the type to just rush into something reckless—”
“Jess and I aren’t reckless.”
“Jug, neither of you are ready to get married. You’re both still in school, you don’t have the money, where would you even live?”
“I don’t remember asking you your opinion on how it’s going to work out. How about you leave my relationship to me and bug off?” Jughead said lowly before storming off down the hallway, slamming his bedroom door behind him. Crawling into bed, he put on his noise canceling headphones and blasted the newest Mother Mother album until his body gave in and finally went for that nap.
If Veronica had stayed for a night in with Italian dinner and Archie, he wouldn’t have known.
“And yet here we are.”
Veronica breathed in a deep breath and nodded slowly. “Here we are.”
“Can we please grab some lunch now? You’ve dragged me through three different clothing stores — I didn’t even know Riverdale had that many clothing stores to begin with — and you haven’t fed me. That’s torture, y’know, Ronnie.”
Half an hour later, Jughead was sitting in an old, slightly worn booth with a half-gone chocolate milkshake in front of him and a plate of onion rings that had since been devoured, mainly by himself. Veronica had eaten all of two.
“People are going to start thinking you’re a five year old when they see the things you eat,” Veronica shook her head as she eyed the crumbs of onion rings past that sat on the plate in the middle of the table.
“They wouldn’t be that far off, Ronnie.” Jughead smirked and took another sip of his milkshake.
Just as Veronica opened her mouth to speak again, the bell of the familiar diner’s door tinkled. Veronica smiled as Jughead turned around in his booth seat to see his roommate walk in, glancing around until he spotted the two of them. With a quickness in his step, Archie moved towards the booth until he was standing in front of it. His smile became a frown all too quickly as he found the empty plate of onion rings.
“Oh, come on!” Archie let out an exasperated sigh, feigning dramatics. “You know I love Pop’s onion rings!”
“Don’t look at me, lover boy. Blame your roomie.” Veronica said as she glanced down at her phone. “Oh, shoot! I completely forgot I have a mani-pedi booked with my mother today. Can I trust you two to your own devices for a few hours?”
Jughead shrugged. “Guess you’ll find out. Be careful though, I might go buy a dress shirt from Walmart or something if you’re not back soon enough.”
“Forsythe Pendleton Jones The Third, if you so much as step foot into the Walmart parking lot, I will have my driver take you to an undisclosed location and force you to eat only fruits and vegetables for a week straight.” Veronica narrowed her eyes at the raven haired boy, then moved her glare to Archie. “I’m trusting that you will make sure he makes no design decisions without me present, Archibald.”
Archie slunked back in his chair a bit and nodded. “Promise, babe.”
“Great!” Veronica’s vicious stare did a 180, turning into a smile that could only be made by cheerleaders of the past. “Then with that, I bid you both adieu.”
Jughead could still hear Veronica as she left, requesting one of the servers to pack the salad she’d ordered to-go and send it home with Archie.
Jughead relaxed in his seat as he took yet another sip from his milkshake and shook his head. “You’re going to live with that someday.”
Archie laughed. “Yeah, I guess I am.” Eyeing the root-beer float that Veronica had ordered for Archie specifically, he pulled it towards him and took a swig of it before setting it down with a clank. “Are you going to Cheryl’s party tomorrow night?”
It was Jughead’s turn to laugh, shaking his head back and forth. “God, no. I have had enough Blossom parties to last me a lifetime.”
“Oh, come on dude!” Archie pleaded. “It’s been years.”
“Not enough years.”
“I heard Reggie is bringing weed. We can get stoned in the bathroom, make the party way more bearable.”
“Smoking in a Blossom mansion bathroom with my roommate and some of his jock friends? Sounds enticing ,” Jughead said sarcastically.
“Okay, look, don’t tell Ronnie but you can even embarrass her by wearing some stupid couples costume with Jessica.”
“I don’t exactly have any interest in dressing up as some latex-covered superhero, but thanks Pureheart; plus Jess doesn’t get into town until the day of the wedding. Her sister took her on some bachelorette road trip to Maine.”
Archie seemed to think for a moment at this, but Jughead could see the lightbulb in his head go off as a smile grew across his face. “I haven’t thrown you a bachelor party! That’s it, this is your bachelor party and you don’t get another choice.”
“Can’t you take me to some sleazy bar? Hell, the Wyrm is still open.”
Archie shook his head with a smirk. “Nope. Your bachelor party is being held at Cheryl’s, and costume is mandatory.”
“What the hell has my sister done to you?”
It was Archie’s forced celebration and Jughead’s desire to embarrass his step-sister by wearing a fake raven on his sleeve that led him to this moment: standing in the doorway of his high school ex-girlfriend’s bedroom, making sure she left her bathroom safely after changing into some pajamas.
He hadn’t gotten nearly as drunk as he’d expected too, and smoking in the bathroom lasted all of ten minutes before Reggie admitted to having only brought enough weed for two bowl fulls. He also hadn’t left the way he’d expected, because never in his wildest imagination would he picture himself having a pleasant conversation with the girl who broke his heart, and then leaving the party with her.
But she was drunk, and her mom’s house was barely out of his way. At least, that’s what he told himself.
Then she had to go and fuck it all up and kiss him, which was another thing he hadn’t expected. And if Jughead was a dick, he’d have told her off then and there. But, he had to remind himself, she was drunk, and within moments of his apparent bombshell of a wedding announcement, she was throwing up outside of his truck.
He would pretend that his reason for helping her had everything to do with him being a proper gentleman and not at all a dick, and that he hadn’t just thrown a cold coffee at some asshole lawyer-type while walking in Times Square a month ago.
He could have just left her there on the sidewalk of her childhood home. He should have, he thinks, because why should it be his responsibility to take care of her? He’d done that once before, and she thanked him by breaking up with him. Just the reminder of that night had his chest feeling tight and his limbs feeling weak.
Maybe he’d had more to drink than he’d expected, and driving home was the worst thing he could have done.
He’d reprimand himself in the morning, when the feeling of the cold autumn air was crisp and he was thinking of how lucky he was to be able to experience a morning like that.
He doesn’t think too much about the fact that it was a fall morning he was thankful for first, and not his wedding.
After about five minutes, Betty emerged from her bathroom dressed in a t-shirt and a pair of fluffy flannel pajama pants that he’s pretty sure he’d seen in a Christmas bag last year from Veronica. Mystery solved of who the gift was for.
Gone was the Sharon Tate get up, a girl with tired eyes and a messy ponytail taking its place.
She jumped slightly as she noticed Jughead standing in the doorway, but he noted that she didn’t seem too bothered. Instead, she just continues towards her bed. Jughead sighed quietly to himself before speaking up as she crawled into her bed and under her covers.
“You feeling any better?”
“My mom made pumpkin scones today for breakfast, with this really delicious almond and hazelnut spread.”
Jughead raised an eyebrow and nodded slowly. “Sounds delicious.”
“Not when it’s coming back up.”
“Noted.” Jughead took a step towards her bed cautiously, eyeing her to make sure she looked alright. It was then that a street lamp reflecting into her room through some open blinds caught Betty, illuminating her golden strands of hair as they lie splayed out against her pillow like a beautiful, antique fan; the deep emerald of her eyes twinkles, and for a moment he’s lost in an ocean in the middle of a storm. Jughead felt a strange sensation as he looked into her eyes for the first true time since they had broken up, and every ounce of his soul wanted to reach out and touch her face. She hadn’t taken her makeup off yet, something Betty had always been notorious about in the past, and part of him wanted to hand her a makeup wipe, but then he remembered that they hadn’t spoken in years, and he had no idea who this Betty was or what she was notorious for.
“Thanks for staying, Jug.” Betty’s words were slurred slightly, partly from the drinking and partly due to the fact that she was clearly exhausted. Her eyes had begun to butterfly shut. The blankets that covered her moved slowly with her chest as she began to slip into a state of sleep. “Good night, I love you.”
“What?”
Jughead stared at Betty in shock, but it was too late. She was out like a light, a quiet snore escaping her rosy lips every couple of seconds.
She definitely hadn’t meant what she said, he knew that. In her drunken and tired state, she’d said something stupid. She probably thought she’d been talking to Veronica, her mom — hell, even Archie. But there was no way she’d meant to say that to Jughead.
With a quiet gulp and a tight feeling in his chest, Jughead began to walk out of her bedroom and down the stairs towards the front door. He’d walked these stairs so many times in his youth, his fingers twitching at the feeling of the familiar stained wood.
“We’ll be out in like sixty seconds, Juggie.” A cheerful blonde popped her head out from the door at the top of the stairs, illuminating every stair down to the ground level, where a quiet Jughead stood slouched against the wall. “I mean it this time, V is putting the finishing touches on her makeup.”
“Betty!” A much less soothing voice screeched from behind the door Betty was propped up at. “What did you do with the lipstick?! I need it!”
Betty rolled her eyes and giggled before tilting her head back towards the room and saying, “Look to your right.” She gazed back at Jughead and smiled apologetically. “We’ll be down any second now, swear it.”
Jughead simply shrugged and stuffed his hands into the pockets of his dark grey jeans, the chains from his belt dangling quietly. A few moments later, the two girls emerged from Betty’s bedroom.
Veronica was dressed in a pair of dark skinny jeans and a deep violet blouse that he distinctly remembered she had gotten for her birthday from her aunt last year. The shoes she wore were higher than any heel he’d ever seen on her own, let alone higher than any that she was allowed to wear at thirteen, and he was without a doubt positive that she had snagged them from Hermione’s closet. Her hair was hanging loosely around her shoulders, a headband that matched her blouse surprisingly well peeking out from the top of her skull.
Betty was the polar opposite of her best friend, a stark contrast between the two of them that it nearly took his breath away. She wore a light pink dress with little cherry blossom petals sprinkled around the skirt that fell right at her knees. A pair of bright white tennis-shoes and light pink socks to go with the dress, and her hair was pulled back into a looser ponytail than she normally wore, with a few strands flying free to shape her face.
They looked like night and day, and the night owl in Jughead wanted suddenly to bask in the bright day’s sunlight.
“Sorry for the wait, Juggie.” Betty offered affectionately as the two girls trailed down the stairs to meet him.
“I’m not sorry at all.” Veronica cut in, crossing her arms across her chest. “This is serious business, I had to get the right look down.”
“A date with Archie is not some fancy smancy business deal, V.”
“ First date, thank you very much,” Veronica corrected Betty. “And you’re right, it’s far more important than any business deal!”
Betty giggled quietly at her best friend's nervous behaviors.
“Remind me again why I have to tag along on this stupid thing,” Jughead finally said, but he was pretty sure he knew the answer anyways.
“Because my mother said thirteen is too young to be going on dates alone, but that I could bring a friend, and I wasn’t about to let B here be a third wheel.”
Jughead and Betty rolled their eyes simultaneously, Jughead going as far as to shrug at her. “Fine, let’s head out.” Swinging the front door open and heading down the stone pathway, he couldn’t help but sneak one more quick glance at the sunshine behind him. “The quicker we get to mini-golf, the quicker we’re done with mini-golf.”
He’d loved Betty for so long. Before he’d truly believed in the word love, he was pretty sure he had still loved Betty. He would recall faint childhood memories and realize that the common denominator and all of his best memories was none-other than Betty Cooper. For a while, those memories haunted him. He could no longer look back at the formative years of his youth without a painful tightness in his chest, and all he wanted was to find Morpheus and take the little blue pill.
But they had started to fade, and while they were still painful to think of, Jughead no longer felt the need to double over in pain. Eventually he wasn’t thinking of her more than a couple times a month.
But here he was, sitting in the driver's seat of his truck, fingers clenching the wheel as if he were afraid to drive away. He sees her again, in the flesh and not through his sister's occasional Instagram stories where he swears he sees a peek of blonde hair in the corner of the screen, and suddenly his mind is flooding with memories, and flashbacks are being triggered by something as mundane as a staircase.
She hadn’t meant anything by it.
She hadn’t meant anything by it.
He kept telling himself that, over and over again as he drove right past Archie’s, where he was supposed to be staying. The voice got louder, more harsh and more painful, as he continued to drive, driving right over the train track that separated the town in two, and suddenly he was transported to a land he’d only come to remember during writing assignments and calls with Jellybean where he could hear his mother in the background.
“Jones?” Jughead looked up from the dirt driveway to see an old friend approaching him, a sweater wrapped tightly around her halloween costume and a pair of fluffy pajama pants protecting her legs from the cold. “I came as soon as I got your text.”
“Thanks, Toni.” Jughead offered a small smile in her direction as she took a seat beside him on the stairs of her old trailer. Her grandparents had moved to Florida a while back, but Toni kept up with the rent on the spot so that they always had somewhere to stay for visits. Despite their lack of acceptance when she had first come out, Toni had helped them become more educated and in turn, they became more accepting.
“What’s going on?”
“What makes you think something is going on?” Jughead raised his eyebrows. He knew she knew, but he couldn’t help but play a bit.
“We haven’t sat on these steps since Christmas break of our freshman year of college, and I distinctly remember the snot you got all over my favorite denim jacket back then.”
“We don’t have to talk about the snot.”
“Did anyone ever tell you you’re a really ugly crier?” Toni smirked. “No, seriously. Your face goes all squinty and wrinkly and the snot, dude… so much snot.”
“I hate you,” Jughead said with a dramatic sigh.
“I hate you too,” Toni smiled, hitting his shoulder lightly with her own. “So what brought you back? You know you could have just come by the party again.”
Jughead shook his head and leaned back against the stairs, a position that felt almost natural as he remembered all the times he’d bask in the sunlight from these very steps. “We talked about everything here.”
“That we did. Most kids have treehouses and hideouts in their rooms, but these stairs were our safe haven.”
“It was always easier here, you know? Like, I’d walk to your house with no intention of even talking about my feelings, but the moment I’d sit down on this stupid little step, the words would just spill out of me. If we were here, it was like we had no secrets. It was our own little bubble.”
“I still come here some nights, honestly.” Toni sighed, tightening the jacket around her. “When things get really overwhelming, as they sometimes do with Cheryl, I come here and talk everything out with my mom. Or, I mean… I guess I pretend that’s what I’m doing.”
Jughead offered a sympathetic smile at his long time friend. “You’re not pretending. She’s there when you talk to her; she listens.”
Toni nodded slowly and shrugged. “I miss her, dude. Every day I wish she could meet Cheryl, because as crazy as Cheryl can be, I think she and my mom would get along so well.”
“Anyone who can get along well with Cheryl is a saint, which lines up with everything you’ve ever told me about your mom.”
“I was really young when she died so I don’t have a lot of memories; but grandma and gramps talk about her all the time. She was a wicked cook, and when I turned eighteen my grandma gave me all of the recipes my mom had written down.” Toni laughed quietly into the dark night. “I make a mean Succotash now. Gramps told me that she would make it for every event, no matter how big, so I was hellbent on getting it down.”
“You know my relationship to food, Toni.” Jughead raised an eyebrow at his friend and smiled.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Toni waved her hand in his direction and laughed. “I was going to make acorn bread for your reception, but I suppose I could switch it up last minute.”
Jughead’s lips tightened at that moment and his gaze drifted back to the dirt driveway before them. He could feel the way his heart tugged in two different directions as he tried to figure out what to say next.
“Jones?” Toni asked quietly, placing her hand on his shoulder. “What’s going on?”
“I…” He tried, shaking his head. “I don’t know, Toni.”
“Did something happen between you and Jessica?”
“No,” Jughead stated quietly, and even though he wasn’t lying — nothing had technically happened — he couldn’t help but feel like the words couldn’t be farther from the truth. “I saw Betty tonight.”
“Ah,” Toni said with a nod, as if the puzzle pieces were finally fitting together.
“We talked at the party, and then I gave her a ride home,” He continued, rubbing the back of his neck with his hand. “The thing is, she kissed me.”
“Oh, shit.” Toni bit her lip. “And you kissed her back?”
Jughead took a deep breath and nodded. “Yeah. I mean, just for a couple of seconds before I realized I was engaged and pushed her off of me.”
Toni stayed silent, anticipating his next words.
“So I went off on her and ended up telling her I was getting married, and then like two seconds later she was puking right outside of my truck.”
“Don’t tell me you left her on the side of the road puking.”
“No, god no. I helped her up to her room and made sure she got to sleep safely.” Jughead shrugged, recalling the tension between he and Betty as they trailed up her family staircase silently through the dark like they had in the past, many times before.
“Sounds awkward, but it was the right thing to do.”
“Toni?” Jughead bit his lip and turned to face his friend, the beat in his chest fast and uneven now, like it was beating all over the place. He’d always told Toni everything. She was the first to know about Jessica, the first to hear about the engagement purposely. They were practically family, and while he did talk with Veronica much more these days than in high school, there were some things he preferred to talk through with his best friend.
This was one of them.
“Mhm?” Toni responded quietly, her own facial expression anticipating his next sentence.
“She told me she loved me.”
If Toni had been drinking anything at that moment, Jughead would have been covered in it. This he was sure of. Toni’s eyes had grown wide and her eyebrows nearly reached her hairline as she tried to process what she had just heard. “I need some context here. Was this before or after the kiss?”
“After.” Jughead reassured. “I don’t even know if it was directed at me. She was asleep a literal second later. She could have been talking in her sleep for all I know.”
“Do you actually believe that or is that something you’re telling yourself?”
Jughead’s shoulders drooped and he sighed, shaking his head. “I don’t really know anymore.”
“So Betty kisses you and tells you she loves you… and now you’re feeling some type of way about your marriage to Jessica. Do you still love Betty?”
“ No .” Jughead said, maybe too quickly. “There’s no way. We broke up years ago.”
“You’ve broken up before, though.” Toni stated. “And I didn’t ask how long ago you two broke up… I asked if you still love her.”
Jughead took a deep breath, breathing in through his nose and letting the air slip slowly through his barely parted lips. He repeated this action a few more times as Toni waited patiently for his answer.
Out of all the times he had thought about Betty in the last couple of years, he had avoided the most important question. Did he still love her?
The little bit of light that had found it’s way through his blackout curtains caressed his eyelids, causing Jughead to open them slowly and wearily. Based off the shade of light coming in, it was far earlier than he was used to waking up, and he had no interest in actually staying conscious. With a grunt, he rolled to his side, throwing his arm over the brown haired beauty laying on the other side of his bed.
Except all he found was more mattress.
Jughead’s eyes opened more widely, the blurry image of his bedroom coming into focus. Just as he suspected, there was a serious lack of a beautiful brunette in his bed. Catching the time real quick, he realized that Jessica wouldn’t need to leave for class for another two and a half hours.
“Jess?” He called out. When he didn’t hear a response, he pulled himself out of bed, threw on a pair of green pajama pants over his boxers, and headed out of his bedroom into the living room.
“Jess, you out here?”
“Over here.” Her soft voice called from the kitchen. He found her sitting at the counter with a cup of coffee in her hands. Her eyes were focused on the coffee, and he couldn’t quite tell if she was trying to read an old faded logo from a coffee cup his dad had given him ages ago.
“It’s so early, why are you up?”
“Couldn’t sleep.” She shrugged. “So I came out and made coffee.”
Jughead's body instinctively moved towards the coffee pot, reaching for his favorite green mug and pouring himself a heaping portion of the caffeinated bean juice. As he touched the cup to his lips and took a gulp of coffee, he couldn’t help but notice the way the coffee was warm. Not hot, as if it had been brewed within the hour. Warm, like it had been sitting for a while.
“Any particular reason you couldn’t sleep?”
Jessica shrugged and took a sip from her coffee, black like his own. They were similar like that… similar in many ways that he hadn’t shared with Betty and her love of flavored coffee and whipped cream on top. Not that it mattered.
“Honestly, Jones?” Jessica finally heaved a sigh as her eyes glanced up to meet his own. “You were having a nightmare.”
Jughead raised his brow in confusion. He typically remembered his own dreams, at least for a moment. Smirking in an attempt to cut through the tension that seemed to have cloaked the air, Jughead asked, “Was I screaming about dead writer zombies chasing after me trying to steal my work?”
Jessica’s face didn’t budge as she stared into his eyes, but he swore he saw an ounce of pain flash through her eyes. “I don’t know what you were dreaming about, but you were panting and calling out for someone.”
Jughead’s smirk faded. “Oh?”
“You called her Betty.” Jessica bit her lip and only then did her face change from hard to pleading. “I’ve heard Veronica mention the name before, but I think I finally put two and two together.”
Jughead’s eyes were wide now, disbelief staining his mind. There was no way he was calling out for her. He hadn’t seen her in ages, he hadn’t looked at her socials in months. Why would his brain choose a night when Jessica was there to suddenly dream about the girl who broke him?
“Betty’s your ex, isn’t she? The one you won’t talk about.”
Jughead held his coffee cup with both hands as he let out a quiet, defeated breath. He did not want to have this conversation this morning.
He didn’t want to have this conversation ever.
“I mean, yeah.” Jughead finally said. “Yeah.”
“God, Jones!” Jessica said sharply, pushing herself up out of the stool and away from the counter. Her defenses were up, and Jughead couldn’t blame her. “I don’t expect you to be calling out for me in the middle of the night, but your ex !? You told me you’re over her!”
“I was!” Jughead exclaimed, his own heart rate beginning to rise at the thwarting tone in her voice.
“Was!?” Jessica exclaimed.
“Am!” Jughead backtracked, shaking his head as he placed his coffee cup on the counter. “I am over her, Jess.”
“Obviously not if you’re dreaming about her in the middle of the night. God, if you’re in love with her still—”
“I don’t control my fucking dreams,” Ignoring the second part of her tyrant, Jughead rolled his eyes but he immediately regretted it as Jessica threw her hands in the air.
“Don’t!” She exclaimed. “Don’t do that to me.”
“Do what? I’m literally just standing in the kitchen!”
“You’re reacting like I’m being crazy! Don’t make me feel crazy.”
Jughead opened his mouth to spit back some insult about her needing to stop acting the part, but he stopped himself before he could. This wasn’t who he was. He wasn’t his father and mother circa his childhood, and he wasn’t about to do something that would make him no better than either of them. His hands dropped to his side as he let out a deep breath and shook his head. “I’m sorry,” were the next words to come out of his mouth.
Jessica stayed where she was on the other side of the counter, her guard still standing tall, but he could see the tension in her shoulders ease just barely.
“I never meant to make you feel that way.” Jughead spoke with a soft voice, and even though her walls were starting to crumble slowly, he remained where he was. He would let her come to him if she was comfortable. “I’m sorry.”
Jessica sighed, nodding slowly. “You know I’ve been burned before… How do I know you’re not going to do the same?”
Jughead looked to the ground for a moment, giving himself time to process her question. He had been burned too, and neither of them fully trusted the other not to do the same. It was just another similarity between the two.
“You don’t.” Jughead finally said. Jessica seemed surprised by his answer, but remained silent. “Simply put, there’s no way to know if one of us is going to hurt the other. And if we do, then that’s just fate. We can’t know for sure if we’re meant to be in each other's lives temporarily or permanently, but what I do know is I don’t want to spend whatever time we do have looking over my shoulder and waiting for the other shoe to drop.”
Jessica nodded slowly, bringing her hands up to wipe below her eyes. “Can we make a promise?”
“As long as it doesn’t involve stealing my fries, then yes.”
Jessica giggled quietly and began to walk around the counter and into the kitchen. She walked right up to Jughead and placed her hands in his. “Can we promise that if there’s ever a moment where one of us realizes that this is temporary, we’ll come clean about it? No matter what, we won’t try to ‘avoid the heartache’ or whatever by ignoring it.”
Jughead's lips tilted up in a smile as he leaned down and pressed a gentle kiss against her forehead. “I promise.”
“Me, too.”
His entire body was exhausted, the bags under his eyes heavy, and he was pretty sure his brain was fried from the way the night had gone.
Still, he’d never felt more clear-headed before.
“Toni?” He finally asked through the piercing silence.
“Yeah?” She asked from her spot next to him.
“I think there’s something I have to do.”