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My soul its secret has, my life too has its mystery,
A love eternal in a moment's space conceived;
Hopeless the evil is, I have not told its history,
And the one who was the cause nor knew it nor believed.
Alas! I shall have passed close by her unperceived,
Forever at her side, and yet forever lonely,
I shall unto the end have made life's journey, only
Daring to ask for naught, and having naught received.
For her, though God has made her gentle and endearing,
She will go on her way distraught and without hearing
These murmurings of love that round her steps ascend.
Piously faithful still unto her austere duty,
She will say, when she shall read these lines full of her beauty,
“Who can this woman be?” and will not comprehend.
– Un Secret (My Secret) by Félix Arvers, translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
At first, Jughead thinks nothing of the blonde who lives next door to his best friend. Archie, he knows even at such a young age, will be the golden boy of Riverdale once he grows up, possibly second only to Jason Blossom. (His awareness of his own family situation has taught him the importance of things like money and status.) As such, it only makes sense that everyone likes him and wants to be friends with him. The girl in the soft pink dress standing before him should be no different... although he has to admit he's a little confused as to why she's decided to take notice of him too when they meet properly for the first time at Archie's seventh birthday party.
“Hi,” she greets him with her hands clasped behind her back, her smile and voice warm yet tinged with shyness. "I'm Elizabeth but you can call me Betty."
He nods stiffly in response, unsure of what to make of her and letting it show in his posture. “Jughead,” he offers and says nothing else, hoping she gets the hint and leaves him alone. He'd stayed in the backyard specifically to avoid the other kids so he finds it a little annoying that this girl is here instead of inside the house or running around the front lawn.
Instead, she just scrunches her face up in confusion and continues talking to him. “That's a funny name,” she comments before her eyes suddenly widen in surprise and she claps her hands over her mouth. “I-I-I'm sorry, I promise I'm not making fun of it! I've just never heard a name like that before, that's all!” she manages to get out, shaking her head so vigorously her pigtails look like they're actually in danger of coming undone.
For some reason, her distress – which seems actually genuine – makes him uncomfortable the way an itch somewhere just out of his reach feels. “It's fine,” he mutters, waving his hand awkwardly and hoping that's enough to calm her down. “It's actually a nickname. I don't really like people using my real one.”
“Oh,” she exclaims as she lets her hands fall from her face and he's thankful that she seems to have calmed down with that. “Okay then. Nice to meet you, Jughead,” she says, and this time her smile is even warmer than before.
Their conversation is cut off when Archie's mom announces that it's time for the birthday cake to be cut. The thought of having a slice of that delicious chocolate cake he'd spied in the kitchen earlier makes Jughead's stomach rumble and prompts him to start walking to the door separating him from his goal. Unsurprisingly, Betty follows suit and even matches his pace so they end up walking side by side. After all, if there's one thing every kid can agree on, he thinks, it's that chocolate cake is the best thing ever.
What does surprise him, however, is her next question.
“Could you tell me your real name? Please?” she asks. “I promise I won't laugh or make fun of it. I just want to know, that's all.”
That itchy feeling is back and it makes him grimace. “I'd rather not,” he mutters and is glad when she simply accepts it with a nod of her head.
It doesn't take long for Jughead to realise that Betty doesn't just like Archie; she like-likes him. In fact, he's pretty sure that the only person who doesn't suspect it at the very least is Archie himself.
His awareness of this fact – that is, the fact that Betty has a crush on Archie and not the fact that his best friend is really dumb sometimes – is why he's absolutely not surprised to find out that she wants to play with them.
“You okay with that, buddy?” Archie asks him while Betty looks on, her big blue eyes shining with a mixture of hope and anxiety.
There is literally no way he can say no without coming off as mean. He can already picture the girl in front of him tearing up as she bites her bottom lip in an effort to not sob as she quietly thanks them anyway before running away to cry somewhere. He's not even sure if that's what will happen but it's the image that comes to mind all the same.
Even thinking about it is making him feel ill so he resigns himself to his fate. “Fine by me,” he mumbles, shrugging his shoulders for added effect. Archie beams but Betty's smile outshines his by far, her joy so clear and immense that his discomfort mysteriously eases and intensifies at the same time.
Well, he thinks, it could be so much worse. Instead of Betty, he could have been forced to deal with some rich snobby girl from the city. The thought alone makes him shudder.
As it happens, expanding their group of two by one – a girl no less – doesn't result in the end of the world. Betty turns out to be all too willing to join in on whatever games or make-believe stuff they come up with although Jughead chalks it up to her wanting to spend time with Archie no matter what it takes. To her credit, her awe at the tree-house their dads built for them is genuine and she's fine with getting a little dirty climbing into it so it's not too bad. She even names their group the Three Musketeers and the reference impresses him a lot.
She's even willing to play superheroes but Jughead himself gets a bit bored when they do because Archie always insists on being Spiderman. He prefers to change it up each round just to prevent things from getting predictable while Betty... well, he has to watch her struggle to decide between being Mary Jane or someone with actual powers every single time. (He's too young at this point in his life, but when Jughead is older he realises that even then Betty had already been struggling to bury her real self in favour of being whatever fit the idealised narrative.)
One too many Spiderman escapades aside, the three of them get along just fine. Jughead is all too aware that Archie is the link between him and Betty as she wouldn't be here if not for him. All in all, he figures it's not wrong of him to think that the two of them are in essence sharing the red-haired boy and would have nothing to do with each other under different circumstances.
That theory is put to the test when Archie starts developing an interest in football and begins trying out for the local Tiny-Mite team. It's practically a rite of passage for all boys but one that Jughead chooses not to get involved in. After all, he gets bullied and knocked around by Jason and his goons enough every other day; there's no need for him to give them yet another opportunity to do so. Without Archie around, he highly doubts Betty will show up at the tree-house and prepares himself for a quiet day of reading.
He is only just settling down with the copy of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd he'd borrowed from the library when the familiar sound of someone climbing up the ladder startles him. There is a wild, fleeting thought that it's an intruder running through his mind and the idea is kind of really terrifying even though the sensible part of his brain is pointing out the ridiculousness of it.
It is therefore, he justifies to himself later, perfectly understandable why it takes him a few seconds to recognise the person emerging from the trapdoor.
“Wh- Betty?” he asks disbelievingly, unable to do anything besides stare as the girl in question struggles to get her tote bag free from where it's gotten snagged on a wayward tree branch.
She looks up then just as the branch gives up its hold on her belongings and her smile is as bright as ever. “Oh! Hi Jughead,” she greets him like it's any other day as she brushes stray leaves and dirt off her skirt and bag, “I was worried you wouldn't be here.”
“Why are you here?” he blurts out, vaguely aware that his question is rather rude and somewhat accusing but still too stunned to change his tone.
Being ever-sensitive to such things, Betty visibly falters and her smile all but disappears. “I-I... just thought... we could... play together... since Archie's busy,” she answers haltingly, her voice getting softer and less sure with each word to the point where he has to strain to hear the last part even though she's barely a foot away.
It doesn't make sense. None of this makes sense. The two of them have nothing in common besides Archie; there's no way they could ever have some kind of bond that didn't include the red-haired boy. Except... except she'd talked to him that first time when Archie was nowhere to be found and maybe he's just failed to understand how sweet Betty really is all this while. (Jughead thinks maybe she was born with such a big heart to make up for the fact that her mom has none at all. After all, Mrs Cooper is the reason why he never so much as goes near the invisible line separating Betty's home from Archie's; the woman is scary.)
Betty predictably mistakes his continued silence throughout his bout of internal turmoil as a rejection and begins moving to climb back down the ladder. “I-It's okay, I'll leave,” she starts talking really quickly and sounding like she's going to cry, “I'm sorry for bothering you.”
“W-Wait!” he calls out, reaching out with the hand not holding on to his book as if to... to what, exactly? He's not sure but something inside him tells him that letting her leave – especially with that devastated look on her face – would be bad. He tries not to think about the why.
She stops at his exclamation, her body half-turned away from him and her expression now a mix of lingering sadness and faint hope. “Yes?” she asks carefully as if afraid of what he'll say next.
“You don't have to go,” he finally manages to say and breathes an internal sigh of relief when that tentatively brings back the smile on her face. “I was just... surprised to see you here, that's all. I mean,” and this time he's the one fumbling with his words, “Archie isn't around so...”
“But you're here, aren't you?” Her question cuts through his jumbled mess of half-formed sentences and he sees – really sees clearly, plain as day – the innocent confusion on her face. “We're friends too, aren't we?”
Something inside him warms and he's kind of shocked to find the corners of his mouth curving upwards. “Yeah,” he murmurs, “yeah, we are.”
Betty's smile in all its sunshine brightness makes its return. “So what do you want to do today?” she asks before spotting the book he'd forgotten was still in his hand. “Oh, sorry. Did I interrupt your reading?”
“It's okay,” he waves it off. “I can always read it later. I was just about to start and it's supposed to be really interesting so it's probably good that you showed up when you did.” He holds up the book for good measure just so she can see that it's closed and free of bookmarks.
Him doing so also allows Betty to get a good look at the cover and her eyes light up as a result. “You like mysteries too?” she exclaims in delight. “I've been reading a lot of Nancy Drew recently but Agatha Christie writes the best stories!”
Betty Cooper and mysteries; who knew? The realisation that they've discovered a connection that isn't dependent on Archie makes Jughead grin... and gives him an awesome idea. “Hey, how about we play detectives?” he suggests eagerly. Archie had always preferred games that revolved around action and adventure so he'd never even thought of it before... but now...
His question earns him an even wider smile than before. “Yes please!” Betty exclaims excitedly, clapping her hands together in delight. “What are we going to investigate?”
Momentarily stumped, he takes a moment to think about it before snapping his fingers and flashing her a grin. “I remember hearing that Moose overdid it when he threw a baseball last week and it flew into the forest near the park. How about we see if we can solve the mystery of where it went?”
“And then we could stumble across an even bigger mystery,” she adds in an awed hush, her mind clearly imagining all kinds of possibilities.
Jughead finds himself so impressed by the idea that he can't help but grin even more. “There's only one way to find out. Come on, let's get to the park!”
“Oh, and after that we can eat the brownies I brought!”
That stops him in his tracks and he slowly turns to face Betty. “Brownies?” he asks woodenly.
“Mhm,” she hums as she lifts a large container out of the tote bag she'd struggled to carry up to the tree-house; he'd completely forgotten about it amidst the surprise and excitement. “Grandma came to visit and she let Polly and I help her bake a whole batch. I thought you'd like some.”
He can almost smell the delicious food inside. “Maybe we could have a bit now before we start playing,” he suggests, completely failing to hide his eagerness.
His stomach growls quite loudly just then and the sound makes Betty laugh out loud. “You're always hungry, Jughead!” she scolds him playfully even as she opens the container – and yes, the brownies smell as delicious as he imagined – to give him a piece.
They taste even better, he discovers as he all but inhales the dessert and now he's more energised than ever about their game. “Come on!” he enthuses as he grabs her hand to lead her to the trapdoor. “The faster we solve the case, the faster we can eat the rest of those brownies!”
Betty's laughter at his statement doesn't stop even by the time they reach the side-walk and he finds himself laughing along too halfway through it.
Despite what he said, Jughead still puts a great deal of energy and imagination into solving the mystery of the missing baseball and adding his own wild ideas to it whenever he feels the urge. Not to be outdone, Betty provides a lot of sound observations and is the one to suggest that they search amongst the tree branches as well in case the baseball had gotten stuck among them instead.
She calls him Juggie just like Archie does when she stumbles across a battered frisbee and he finds he doesn't mind. When he nearly slips while climbing a tree to search the bird's nest they'd spotted, she screams out a panicked “Jug!” and he figures that's okay too. After all, she was fine with him accidentally calling her Betts when a loud rustling in the bushes had scared them enough for him to grab her hand and tell her to run.
Wonder of wonders, they actually do manage to find the baseball and end up laughing all the way back to the tree-house. The two of them happily munch their way through Betty's supply of brownies – Jughead naturally eats more than half, not that Betty complains – as they admire all the other random treasures they'd found in the process. There's an incredibly shiny bluish-grey pebble, a jet-black feather and even a slightly scratched-up pendant among other things.
He thinks it should be strange that he's having this much fun yet it doesn't feel that way. Instead, it feels like the two of them have a real bond now – like they actually have something unique and special connecting them instead of just relying on Archie to bring them together – and Jughead couldn't be happier.
Then Archie shows up at the tree-house like usual the next day and Jughead doesn't understand why he's not glad that he's back. Archie was his best friend first so he should be happy, right? The three of them are proper friends now so no one has to feel awkward, right? With Archie around and their discovery of the joy in mystery-solving games, they can have fun being Nancy Drew and the Hardy boys, right?
So why isn't he happy?
He doesn't know. He doesn't get why the idea of the three of them being able to play together like usual doesn't make him grin. He looks over at Betty, her smile wide and her cheeks flushed a bright pink as she shyly greets Archie, and he doesn't understand-
-until suddenly he does.
Oh, he thinks stupidly as he recognises the hollow sensation in his chest for what it is. So this is what it feels like.
Betty likes Archie. This is a fact. Sooner or later, Archie will find out. This is also a fact. When that happens, he will realise that Betty is the best girl in the whole world and like her too. This is yet another a fact.
Jughead does his best to make peace with these facts but it's kind of hard when he also has to deal with the fact that he really really likes Betty.
He sighs mournfully – or as mournfully as a boy his age is capable of – even as he bites into another fry. Not even Pop's food is improving his mood and to him, that's a sure sign his world is ending.
“There you are! Jughead, I've been looking for you everywhere!” The voice that interrupts his moping is painfully familiar and he looks up to find none other than Betty sliding into the seat across from him. Dressed in a light blue blouse and matching skirt, she looks pretty as always and he hopes he isn't giving off creepy idiot vibes as he stares at her.
“Hi Betty,” he manages to say although he's pretty sure he sounds like he swallowed a frog or something. “Why were you looking for me?” There, he'd managed to ask a pretty safe question. All he has to do is act normal and she won't suspect anything.
Unfortunately, she still looks at him funny as if he'd just asked her something really dumb like whether water is wet. “To see if you want to play of course, silly!” she answers. “Archie has football practice, remember? It's just the two of us again today so I was wondering if we could play together like we did the other day.”
He could say no. He could say he has indigestion – it sure feels like he does, the way his stomach is doing flip-flops right now – and run home so he doesn't have to keep thinking about how much he likes Betty and how much Betty seems to like Archie and how he's just too young to be dealing with all this stuff.
But another part of him is desperate and just a little selfish. Even if Betty never looks at him the way she looks at Archie, he wants her in his life. As long as Betty still smiles at him and spends time with him, he'll be okay. He hopes, anyway.
So he musters up a grin for her and says, “Sure!” He enjoys the sight of her sunshine smile and lets her take his hand as she all but drags him out of Pop's. He makes a lot of noise about her trying to make him waste the rest of his fries and pretends to be grumpy as he gets the leftovers packed up for him while she giggles and teases him about his bottomless stomach.
He savours every moment. As much as he still enjoys horsing around with Archie when Betty isn't free and the times where all three of them are together, he begins to look forward to the days when his red-haired best friend is off playing football. On the days when it's just the two of them – Jugs and Betts, she announces one day and he likes the sound of it – they have fun. Whether it's solving yet another mystery, sharing fries and a milkshake at Pop's or simply reading together in the tree-house in comfortable silence, Jughead feels like simply having Betty around makes everything feel new.
In between everything, they talk about all kinds of stuff – their favourite things, the upcoming maths quiz and whether there's some kind of secret ingredient in Pop's food that makes it so good. She brings him home-made snacks and he repays her by telling her stories of his own making, enjoying the way she listens to him attentively and praises his creativity. Neither of them ever bring up their parents but when Betty starts telling him about Polly, Jughead feels the need to tell her about Jellybean even if it's just so he can brag a little. (He falters a little when she asks if she can meet Jellybean though and she must notice since she never brings it up again.)
Jughead knows he has it bad when he finds himself willing to not only tell her his real full name but also spell it out for her. It's a pretty bad sign, he thinks, that he even teaches her how to pronounce it correctly and feels a teensy bit happy when she finally gets it right.
Even so, he gets reminded that Betty likes Archie every time his red-haired best friend shows up and their choice of detective characters even reflects it in a way. Archie may always play Joe but Jughead thinks in this case he's really Ned and being Nancy, Betty will choose him no matter how close she and Frank seem to get.
When he gets blamed for trying to set fire to their school, he wishes so hard that their games weren't just make-believe and he could prove his innocence. Unfortunately, no one believes him when he explains himself so he gets sent to juvie and only his mom is able to visit him. But Archie remains his friend when he gets released despite the whispers that follow them and Betty doesn't hesitate to hug him on his first day back. Between Archie's comforting hand on his shoulder and Betty's iron grip on his waist, he thinks maybe he shouldn't be so greedy.
The years go by and they grow up.
Some things change; Betty gets taller and it causes her to start calling Archie “Little Archie” again like she used to much to Archie's initial annoyance. Jellybean is deemed old enough to be allowed to go to the park – accompanied by her big brother, of course – and Jughead gets to introduce her to Betty. (When they bond almost immediately, he breathes a sigh of relief that he didn't know he'd been holding.)
In other news, Betty becomes friends with Kevin, the sheriff's son although he doesn't join their little group. Meanwhile, they graduate from comic books to movies and start arguing over whose favourites are the best although this tends to pit Jughead and Betty against Archie since the two of them tend to like the same kinds of stories.
Other things don't; the three of them are still the best of friends and spend all their free time together. They still meet up at the tree-house even if it does start feeling a little cramped and Archie still chooses to be Spiderman when they play superheroes.
Of course, the things that don't change also include Betty's crush on Archie, Archie's obliviousness to it and Jughead's utter inability to squash his own feelings for Betty for the sake of his sanity.
It is, he finds, a really irritating and depressing situation on so many levels especially when all the guys in class unofficially graduate from their 'girls have cooties' stage. Archie in particular annoys him to no end when he starts noticing practically every girl except Betty.
“You know, Juggie,” Archie comments one day as he watches a few older girls walk past the Chock'lit Shoppe window he's all but pressed himself against, “the guys are starting to wonder if you're even interested in girls. Reggie's been saying a lot of... well, stuff.”
Jughead lets out a snort at that. “Reggie says a lot of things. Empty cans and all that,” he mutters derisively as he tosses another fry into his mouth with one hand while he scribbles a new short story into his worn notebook. He is so going to get a laptop when he's saved up enough money, he promises himself as he scratches out yet another spelling mistake rather viciously.
“Do you though? Like girls, I mean,” Archie asks with all the grace of a blind elephant.
“I don't know, Arch,” he mutters through gritted teeth, so fed up with the conversation that his mouth ends up working faster than his brain, “if more girls were like Betty, maybe I'd be more interested in them.”
Jughead freezes the moment the last word leaves his lips, aware that in his irritated state he has potentially exposed the one secret he cannot afford to reveal to anyone, least of all Archie or Betty. It's a good a time as any to start praying that Archie is too dense to realise what he'd just said.
Luckily, Archie really is that dense because all he does is laugh and Jughead allows himself to breathe again. “If more girls were like Betty, I think things would be really tough for me,” the red-haired boy confides in a rather unusually cryptic manner.
Mystified, Jughead opens his mouth to ask for an explanation when the Chock'lit Shoppe's door bursts wide open and Ethel storms right in with none other than the girl they're talking about right on her heels.
“Ethel, you don't have to do this,” she pleads, glancing between him and the redhead... who also happens to be staring quite intensely at him.
“What's going on?” he asks warily as he slowly slides out of the booth. Everything about this situation is telling him he's in some kind of danger so he draws on his years of experience running away from jocks.
He doesn't get any answer besides Ethel taking a decisive step forward and sees that as his cue to try and dash past her. Unfortunately, there's not enough space to fully escape her grasp and he realises a second too late what she intends to do. He manages to twist his body away at the very last moment so that her kiss lands on his cheek but he freaks out all the same, letting out a disgusted sound that almost drowns out the loud smacking sound her lips make when they leave his face.
Ethel thankfully releases him immediately after that but the damage has already been done and he just runs out of the diner as fast as he can. The sound of his name being called by both his best friends doesn't deter him in the slightest as he lets his legs take him as far away as possible. He doesn't think – he doesn't want to think about what just happened – and just pushes himself harder than he's ever had to his entire life.
By the time his body gives out on him and he collapses on the ground, he's run a mini-marathon and ended up all the way on the other end of the park. His head is buzzing, his chest feels like it's going to cave in and he thinks he might actually be okay with falling into a coma right then and there.
He's not sure how much time passes before he hears the sound of approaching footsteps followed by the voice of the one person he didn't want but completely expected to chase him.
“Juggie?” Betty asks timidly from somewhere on his left. “Are you okay?”
“Ngh.” It's the best he can do considering his throat feels like sandpaper.
“Ethel wants you to know she's sorry,” she continues as she finally comes into view, her blue eyes shining with worry. “She only did it because Cheryl stole her favourite hairband and told her she couldn't get it back until she kissed you.” She pauses, and there's a flash of guilt on her face. “I'm sorry too; I wasn't able to stop her and find another way to get her hairband back for her.”
“Not your fault,” he manages to wheeze out and winces; saying even those few words makes him feel like coughing.
“Do you really dislike it that much though? Kissing and being kissed?” she asks quietly. “If that's the case, I'll do my best to make sure no one does anything like that to you ever again.”
He's not sure which part he finds funnier: that Betty says it like she's making it her lifelong duty to protect him from kisses of all things or the fact that it's Betty that's saying it. What he's pretty sure about though is that the universe is currently laughing at him so he says the only thing he feels he can say.
“Betty,” he announces with enough weariness to make it difficult to tell if he's joking or not, “if the time should ever come that I would willingly kiss a girl, it'll be you.”
She doesn't pick up on it just like he expected; all she does is huff in fond exasperation as she helps him get up and picks off the stray bits of grass sticking to his clothes. Which is totally fine by him since he takes it as proof that the universe is never going to give him a break.
Predictably, things just get worse for him as they get older. Betty starts getting really self-conscious about her appearance which means Jughead has to be extra-careful he doesn't say or do something stupid like look at her the way stalkers and serial killers in movies stare at their victims.
Archie is still oblivious. Jughead isn't sure how he feels about that.
In the meantime, he has to deal with the really difficult reality of Betty asking him Really Difficult Questions when he least expects them.
“Come again?” he asks, fairly certain his face resembles a half-dead goldfish right about now.
“Do you think I'm pretty?” she repeats, looking at him from across the booth where she had been quietly enjoying her vanilla milkshake. That is, until she'd decided to spring this Really Difficult Question on him without warning.
In that one moment, Jughead wonders if it's not too late to pretend he's still stuck in the 'girls have cooties' phase. Maybe he can exaggerate it by going around Riverdale and yelling about how much he hates girls. In time, he imagines that this future-him would even come to be known as the town's foremost woman-hater.
It sounds like a good plan.
Except he can clearly see the outcome: future-him would eventually come face to face with future-Betty who would be even prettier than she already was and she'd ask with those sad puppy eyes if that meant he hated her too.
Jughead is already of the opinion that Betty's sad puppy eyes were the best and worst thing to ever exist because they could get him to do anything (bad) but he'd be rewarded with Betty's smile which would light up his day (really good). So of course future-him would totally cave at the mere sight of this weapon of mass destruction and say Really Stupid Things.
“Of course not, Betty!” he hears future-him say. “In fact, when I stop being a woman-hater, you're going to be the first girl I'll fall in love with! To tell you the truth, I'm actually lying when I say I hate women and I'm already in love with you!”
Then future-Betty's sad puppy eyes would get even sadder as she apologises a thousand times before gently turning him down because she's already in love with Archie. Meanwhile, future-him would feel his heart break because she'd never return his feelings but also feel really terrible about making future-Betty sad because that was a crime worthy of a terrible punishment like not being allowed to eat burgers for five years.
“Jughead?”
He blinks once, twice, and he's back in their booth at Pop's where Betty is looking at him in concern. A sigh threatens to escape him and when he opens his mouth to answer he can't tell if it's his stupid current self or his equally stupid imaginary future self that's doing the talking. Whatever. He's already come to terms with the fact that he's capital-D, red-ink doomed when it comes to dealing with one Elizabeth Cooper.
“Sure I do, Betty,” he allows himself to admit out loud but in a way that'll let him maintain some small shred of his dignity. “I mean, your hair is the colour of bananas and you have strawberry lips and peach skin. In short,” he summarises with a touch of grandiose just to make sure she doesn't look too deeply into what he's saying, “you've got all the appeal of a good pizza.”
Sure enough, his speech makes Betty laugh. “Coming from you, that's quite a compliment,” she teases as she reaches over to poke his arm playfully.
Thankfully, he's saved from doing or saying anything even stupider by his own stomach which growls audibly at so many mentions of food.
At that, Betty just laughs again. “You're always hungry, Jug,” she mock-complains as she slides out from her seat. “But you said I was pretty so I'm treating you to a burger and fries.”
That is such a dangerously slippery slope that he almost swears right then and there to never compliment Betty ever again. However, he already knows it's an impossible promise to make much less keep and lets his head hit the table, welcoming the pain and audible 'thunk' that ensues.
Wallowing in his self-inflicted despair even as the sound of Betty giving her order to Pop's reaches his ears, Jughead tries to decide who is crazier: Archie, who from the looks of things is going to spend his whole life chasing all the wrong things and all the wrong girls, or him, the idiot who has resigned himself to being in love with a girl who'll never see him as more than a good friend for the rest of his miserable existence.
It's as if the universe eventually decides that he hasn't suffered enough because even the parts of his life that don't involve pining after Betty go to hell.
Like dominoes, one bad thing leads to another: His dad gets fired. So he starts drinking. Which makes the sad look in his mom's eyes return but this time... this time there's a gravity to it that wasn't there before.
It brings them to where they stand now: two suitcases at the door and Jellybean hugging him like she never wants to let go while their mom looks at them as if she's going to cry at any second.
It feels like forever before his little sister loosens her grip so she can look him in the eyes. “I'm not saying goodbye,” she tells him resolutely. “I'm not going to and I never will because you're my big brother always and there are no goodbyes between us.”
He nods jerkily, not trusting his ability to string words together in anything resembling normal speech, and Jellybean takes that as her cue to run out the door and lock herself in the car. She's probably started crying, he thinks numbly, and wishes he could too.
“You don't have to stay,” his mom says quietly as she steps forward and cups his face in her hands. “You don't owe your father anything.”
There's a lump in his throat the size of a baseball but he forces himself to speak anyway. “I'm not giving up,” he musters even though he's not sure what exactly he's not giving up on. Maybe it's his dad or maybe it's this fantasy of achieving the picture-perfect life Riverdale has always pretended to offer people with his kind of background. He can't tell what it is that he's so eager to preserve but it's a physical need now, a unexplainable hunger deep in his soul that won't go away.
“So brave, my boy,” his mom whispers as she presses a kiss to his forehead and hugs him. “Don't ever hesitate to call, okay? There will never be a day where we don't want to hear from you.”
Tears are a real possibility now but he wills himself not to cry all the same. “Yes mom.”
And then his mom lets go and gives him one final look of pained longing before disappearing out the front door with both suitcases. He hears the car start up and drive off but it takes him a while to do anything besides breathe and stare vacantly at the spot where half his family had been standing just minutes ago.
It comes so suddenly, the feeling that he's suffocating and the walls are closing in on him, and he wants to get away from it all even if it's just for a single moment. One blissful moment where he doesn't have to think or feel and just... be.
So he opens the door and starts walking. He walks and walks and walks until he's at their old tree-house and finds himself climbing up and squeezing himself into a corner.
Of course Betty finds him some time later. Of course.
She doesn't say anything at first, choosing instead to sit so close to him that they're touching from shoulder to hip.
“I'm sorry, Jughead,” she finally whispers.
“How did you find out?” he asks just as quietly, as if they're trading little secrets instead of discussing the disintegration of his home life.
“Your mom dropped by,” she admits. “Jellybean wanted to say goodbye to me.”
Of course.
Betty shifts then, twisting her body sideways as she gives him a hug that ends up being a little awkward due to their sitting positions. Starved for any kind of affection, he turns to face her and all but crushes her to him.
She doesn't complain. “I'm so sorry,” she repeats instead, clutching him just as tightly. “Will you be okay?”
He thinks he could tell her, right here and now in this moment of weakness. He could tell her everything – all the secrets, big and small, that he has been keeping from her all these years. The dark and ugly parts of his life that he never wants her to see because he's afraid and so very ashamed but most of all because he knows that deep down, she has her own darkness that she hides away from the rest of the world just like him and he doesn't want to burden her with his.
So he lets the moment pass and draws a shuddering breath, savouring her warmth and kindness before he starts building up the walls he'll need now more than ever to separate this aspect of their lives.
“I'll figure it out,” he says, wondering if he's trying to convince her or himself.
Betty doesn't respond, and he thinks maybe her silence is her way of trying to convince them both that he's right. Instead, she leads him by his hand out of the tree-house and all the way to the drive-in. Frank the projector man takes one good long look at them and gives them popcorn and sodas on the house without saying a single word. To his pleasant surprise, Rebel Without a Cause starts playing and as the opening credits of their favourite movie start scrolling he feels he can breathe for the first time since that morning.
It's a painfully slow – and painful in general – process but Jughead steadily puts some distance between his best friends and himself while paradoxically doing his best to maintain said relationships. The rift between Archie and him is an expected consequence of the fallout between their fathers so Jughead doesn't have to come up with excuses for not telling the red-haired boy what's going on in his life.
Betty, on the other hand...
She frets and worries, he can tell; she's always been terrible at hiding that kind of stuff. For her, he has to pretend that things are fine half the time and pointedly tell her – lie to her, really, but who's going to argue with him? – that there's nothing to worry about.
In a way, it's almost a relief when she excitedly calls him up one day to tell him that she's gotten a summer internship all the way in the City of Angels.
“I'm happy for you, Betts,” he says and means it too. From what he's gathered, her mom has been getting even more controlling lately and any chance Betty has to get away from her even if just for a while is a golden opportunity.
“Thanks, Juggie,” she offers him a genuine smile but it dims just a little much to his confusion. “I think I'll miss home after a week or two though,” she clarifies. “And I know Archie and you are going to have your own fun with that road trip but I know I'm going to miss you guys too-”
“Stop,” he cuts her off, jabbing his index finger in her face and making her go cross-eyed. “I hereby forbid you from thinking about anything or anyone in Riverdale throughout your time in LA. You should enjoy your time there to the fullest and not spend it fussing about whatever silly stuff goes on back home.”
“Jug-”
“Nope,” he interrupts again, rising to his full height and using the few inches he has over her to his advantage. “Come on, Betty. Nothing is going to change while you're not here. I mean, it's Riverdale. Sometimes I think this town exists in some kind of time bubble and we're still living in the 50's. There's nothing to worry about.”
She bites her lip in that adorable way that makes him have thoughts he immediately shoves into a tiny box in the corner of his brain-attic the moment they manifest; it's become second-nature by now. “Promise?”
“Promise. Now give me a hug and don't call. I mean it; I won't answer even if you do.”
She laughs and throws her arms around him. “You can be so annoying sometimes, you know?”
“I prefer the label 'complicated',” he shoots back with faux outrage. “And I promise, Betts. Everything will be just the way you left it when you come back. ”
In hindsight, he thinks he really should've known better than to make such a promise because everything goes wrong – Archie, the road trip, Jason, his father – and Riverdale is changed forever.
Jughead takes it as a sign and decides this is it. This is where he severs his ties with the two of them.
But then he mends things with Archie and Betty is there at Pop's when he walks in with Archie and he feels himself fall back into her orbit as easily as breathing the moment he looks into those blue eyes. It is at that point that he realises that she is the one constant left from the bygone days he misses so much and he wants to keep it in his life no matter what. She may never look at him the way she looks at (used to look at?) Archie but she's back in his life and that's enough for him.
Coda
Every now and then, Jughead pinches himself just to make sure he's not dreaming. He makes sure he does it when no one is likely to notice though, least of all Betty who would totally give him her patented you-are-being-a-particularly-monumental-idiot-right-now-do-you-know-that look which had the added implication that she was mentally using his full name to berate him if she ever found out, he's sure of it.
Still, he thinks he can be forgiven for feeling like all this – him and her, Jugs and Betts, together – is sometimes a figment of his wildest imaginations.
The fact that Betty directs so many of her smiles at him in all their varied forms – soft and shy, beaming like sunshine, tempered with fond exasperation and so many more.
The fact that Betty holds his hand so casually whether it's to nudge his hand away from the mouse when they're sharing the computer or just to draw comfort from his touch, palm to palm and fingers intertwined.
The fact that Betty kisses him; sometimes it's a quick peck on the cheek when she's rushing between classes or before cheer practice and other times it's deep and languid and robs him of his breath, his words and even his sense of time.
The fact that Betty simply enjoys spending time with him even if all they do some days is read together, his head on her lap and her free hand toying with the edge of his beanie.
It is in these moments that Jughead feels like he, Forsythe Pendleton Jones III, and not anyone else is the luckiest person in the universe.