#document for her or giving her kid a bag of crisps to keep her quiet or something. it drives me crazy when she does this because it makes me

[juggieheadcoopers-blog]

The Girl From the Journal (Pt6)

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 AO3

Jughead hadn’t written in his journal for twenty four hours. That was the longest he had gone without writing in nearly eight years. He felt his fingers twitching and his hands shaking, urging him to pick up a pen and paper and dive into writing about anything he could possibly think of that would bring him any sort of inspiration. But no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t keep his mind from drifting off to thoughts of Elizabeth Cooper, and the fact that he was going to have to lie to her about writing an article on her ex-boyfriend’s sudden career change.

His mind was cluttered with thoughts and images and feelings that he would have normally documented in the leather-bound book that held all of his most vulnerable ways of thinking and looking at the world through the eyes of Betty Cooper. But without the journal, he found that he physically could not write about her anymore. Not without the journal. 

Sometime after lunch, in his much-too-quiet office in the much-too-pristine building that was home to the Riverdale Register, he was hit with such an intense need to empty the images flitting through his thoughts like one of those fireflies he used to chase when he was a kid, that he had no choice but to sneak a stack of loose leaf paper from the work room and set it on his desk so that he could let the words flow from pen to paper like he normally could. 

But the pen wouldn’t move. The images remained trapped in his own head, screaming at him to release them the way he always had. It was like the journal and his own writing ability were connected somehow. Or at least that was the case when it came to writing about the girl from the journal. 

“Sorry, Betty, but I need that journal back,” Jughead declared, pushing away from his desk and shoving his laptop into his messenger bag. He had an hour before he was supposed to meet Betty at the pavilion, but he couldn’t sit at his desk not writing anything. Maybe some fresh air would clear his head. Or maybe it would just cause the thoughts and unspoken words to become more jumbled. Either way, he had to get out of that office. 

--

“It has to be here!” 

Betty dove onto the concrete, pushing away the knowledge that millions of dirty shoes had walked these sidewalks as she searched underneath the bench she had used as her bed last night for any sign of the beat-up journal. 

Scrambling to her feet, Betty hurried over to the nearest trashcan, glancing into its foul contents skeptically as she took a deep breath and shoved her hand deep into the pile of garbage. 

“Well, well,” a shrill voice coming from behind Betty caused her to stop dead in her tracks, the judgmental tone all too familiar as she ground her teeth together in annoyance and tried to remain calm. “Elizabeth Cooper digging through the trash like some back alley hobo with zero class and little to no dignity. How appropriate.” 

“What do you want Cheryl?” Betty mumbled, shaking her hand over the garbage as she refrained from wiping her palm on her sister’s emergency backup dress she had borrowed earlier that day. 

“I heard you dumped Archie Andrews to the curb right after he proposed,” Cheryl announced, her silky red hair shining brilliantly as she stepped into the afternoon sunlight. “From what I’ve heard, you’ve always treated him like garbage, kind of like the rubbish you’re rummaging through right this very moment. As it would turn out, that’s something even crueler than what I would have done. Oh, how the tables have turned.”

“You don’t know the whole story,” Betty reminded her, urging herself to keep her voice calm as she gripped the side of the public trashcan so hard that she was sure that she was going to snap off the plastic handle. 

“I don’t need to know the whole story,” Cheryl told her, crossing her arms in front of her chest and raising a challenging eyebrow in Betty’s direction. “All I need to know is that you’re a terrible influence on my young and impressionable niece and nephew.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Jenny and JJ don’t need such negativity in their lives,” Cheryl explained, pursing her cherry red lips in disapproval and placing a hand on her hip. “Not after everything they’ve gone through over the past few years.” 

“You’re talking crazier than usual, Cheryl, which is impressive considering you hardly ever make a shred of sense to begin with,” Betty muttered, glancing away from her brother-in-law’s twin sister, hoping that by breaking eye contact, the conversation would end with it. However, as it had already proven itself from events that occurred earlier in the day, luck was not on her side. 

“Get your shit together, Cooper,” Cheryl spat, stepping so close to Betty that she could feel her breath huffing angrily against her cheek. “You’re acting like a character straight out of a  Susanna Kaysen novel, and I don’t think the school board would appreciate one of their employees expressing such manic behavior when their job is to mold the children of Riverdale into stable members of society.” 

“If you’re threatening me Cheryl, at least look me in the eye and say it to my face,” Betty told her, her voice raising slightly as she felt the anger continuing to rise within her chest. “We’re not teenagers anymore. Anything you would like accuse me of, then just say it. We are adults after all, even if it’s easy for you to forget that sometimes.” 

“So then get your head out of the garbage can and start acting like one, you blonde-haired whack job,” Cheryl’s eyes were blazing with such intensity that Betty was sure they were going to pop right out of her head. Taking a deep breath, Cheryl regained her composure and adjusted her designer handbag hanging delicately over her shoulder. “I will be picking up Jenny and JJ from school from now on. I’ve spoken to Jason and that was what we both feel is necessary at this time.” 

“What the hell, Cheryl you can’t-”

“This conversation is over,” Cheryl informed her, slowly turning on her heel to head back in the direction she had been coming from before she had run into Betty rummaging through the garbage. “Have a great day hovering over the trashcans of downtown Riverdale. I hope you’ve finally found your place in the world.”

Betty’s eyes followed Cheryl’s swinging hips down the sidewalk until she rounded the corner, completely out of sight. Her mouth hung open in shock, having been left dumfounded by Cheryl Blossom for the hundredth time in her life.  

“This day couldn’t get any worse, could it?” 

As soon as the words left her lips, she immediately regretted uttering a single syllable of them.                   

“Elizabeth Cooper!” 

Alice Cooper’s cold screech made Betty’s blood run cold, wondering if it was too late to turn on her heel and sprint in the opposite direction to catch up with Cheryl. 

“What have I done to deserve such cruelty, universe?” Betty mumbled to herself, watching in horror as her mother stomped her way out of the drugstore and over to where Betty was trying not to faint into the trashcan. 

“I’ve been calling you since you left the house last night,” she snapped, her brows drawing together in anger the way they always had when Betty and Polly were kids. “I have never been more disappointed in you, Elizabeth, how could you do that to poor Archie, he was completely devastated I can’t believe you would turn down his marriage proposal when he has always been nothing but good to you and-”

Betty’s cheeks burned red hot as the anger bubbling inside of her finally boiled over and reached the surface with a vengeance. 

“BUT HE HASN’T MOTHER!” Betty yelled, her voice so shrill that the patrons having an early dinner in the restaurant across the street turned to watch them with looks of curious confusion. 

“I beg your pardon?” Alice said slowly, clearly taken aback by her daughter’s sudden boldness in her attempt to lash out at her mother. 

“I-uh-I don’t want to talk about this right now,” Betty mumbled, the anger fizzling out just as quickly as it had surfaced. “It’s my life. It was my decision. I said no. Can we all please move on with our lives and forget that last night ever happened?” 

“I deserve an explanation,” Alice told her.

“No, Mom, you don’t,” Betty said simply, shrugging her shoulders as if she wasn’t sure what else to say to her. “It’s about time you finally realized that.” 

Before her mother could say another word, Betty backed away from the street corner that had caused more trouble than it was worth, and headed down main street to the road that would lead her to the pavilion by the river. 

“Elizabeth,” her mother called after her, but Betty ignored it. She was tired of having to please everyone all the time. She was tired of having to be this perfect girl in this terribly imperfect body. To put it simply, she was just tired. “Elizabeth!” 

Just as she had wanted to earlier, Betty picked up her pace and began sprinting down the street. The wind whipping her hair behind her shoulders and her heart pounding wildly in her chest, she let her problems stay routed on the street corner where her mother was sure to be furiously dialing Polly to talk some sense into her senseless younger sister. But Betty didn’t care anymore. And she had to admit, that felt pretty damn good. 

--

Jughead watched the leaves blow onto the crystal clear water, the early signs of autumn giving way to a golden hue that coated everything around him. His eyes were closed as he breathed in the crisp evening air that made his skin prickle with anticipation for whatever the rest of the night was going to bring him. A smile crept onto his lips as he heard a clumsy pair of footsteps tripping their way up the small set of stairs leading up to the pavilion and he turned slightly on the bench of the picnic table to meet them with a look of amusement. 

“I was starting to wonder if you’d forgotten about me,” he told Betty, leaning one elbow against the wooden surface behind him as he met her gaze with an uncertain smile. 

“I don’t think that’s physically possible at this point,” she muttered, her cheeks flushing a rosy pink as she took a few steps towards him, her feet kicking the leaves out of her path and making their way to the other side of the picnic table so that she could take a seat next to him on the bench. 

Betty kept her eyes forward, soaking in the steady flow of the river and refusing to meet Jughead’s eyes. 

“Did you finish it?” Jughead asked after a moment, not wanting to push her to give him back the journal, but curious enough to hear what she had to say about what she had read the night before. 

“I stayed up all night,” she nodded slowly, her hands moving up and down her knees nervously as she slowly turned her head to meet his eyes for the first time since she had stepped onto the pavilion. “If I had anymore doubts about me being the girl you’ve been writing about, they’re gone now, that’s for sure.”

Betty’s gaze lingered on Jughead’s for a moment before she pulled her legs up onto the bench so that her knees were now resting comfortably underneath her chin.  

“What’s going on in that head of yours?” Jughead wondered, his brows furrowing together slightly as he struggled to figure out what was causing her so much discomfort. 

“Chaos,” Betty whispered. “Kind of like the rest of my life.” 

“Beautiful chaos,” he corrected her, his voice so honest and sure of itself as his eyes bore into hers with an intensity that made Betty’s heart begin to pound in her chest. 

“I don’t know about that,” she blushed, pulling on the sleeves of her cardigan and wrapping it closely around the rest of her body as she tried her best to suppress a shiver. “I try so hard to make everyone in my life happy that when I do something they don’t like I-”

“You feel like you let them down somehow,” Jughead finished for her, and Betty turned back to him in surprise. “Like you’re responsible for their happiness and when you do something they weren’t expecting, you owe them an explanation for why you’ve caused them unhappiness.” 

Betty’s gaze drifted to the ground, taking in the tiny cracks in the concrete as she sucked in a harsh breath. “I mean this in the nicest way possible, Jughead, so don’t think I’m saying it to be rude or spiteful because I don’t want you to hate me but-”

“Betty, you can tell me anything,” Jughead assured her, and Betty closed her eyes as she tried to muster up the courage to say what she wanted to tell him. 

“I know that this whole thing is bizarre and confusing and just - kind of hard to believe. And I know that you’ve been writing about my life since you were sixteen,” Betty stuttered out quickly, hoping that she was making at least a shred of sense in her attempt to explain herself. “But you don’t actually know me. I mean, not really.”

“You’re right,” Jughead agreed, swinging his legs around so that he was facing away from the river and towards the parking lot. “So why don’t you let me.” 

“Are you sure you want to do that?” Betty asked uncertainly. “If you haven’t figured it out yet, I’m kind of a mess.”

“Trust me, I’ve seen what a mess looks like,” Jughead told her, the smile that was evident on the corners of his lips only moments ago suddenly dropping to a frown. “You’re nowhere close.” 

“You mean your Dad?”

Betty winced at the words that had just escaped her lips. She wasn’t supposed to know about that. The knowledge that she had been writing about Jughead’s life when she was in high school had not been shared yet, and she wasn’t sure that she would have ever said anything to him at all if she hadn’t just slipped up. Now she had no choice. 

“How did you know that?”

“Oh - I - um. Just a lucky guess I guess,” Betty stuttered, standing from the picnic table quickly and shuffling her feet across the concrete to stand by the edge of the pavilion. 

“No, it’s something else,” Jughead pointed out slowly, pushing off the bench and moving to stand next to her. “Your eyebrows scrunch together when you’re lying.”

“Okay, it’s not fair that you know that yet.” 

“Betty,” Jughead lightly took her elbow in his hands and gently turned her body to face his. “Remember, you can tell me-”

“Anything,” Betty breathed. “I know.” 

“Come on,” Jughead pressed, his voice soft as he urged her to explain what she had been talking about. “Tell me.”

“Well it’s not like I have a whole journal to show you or anything, but - um - it turns out that you’re not the only one who had a stranger to write about growing up,” Betty swallowed hard. She had only ever told Polly about her essays and poems that she kept hidden in a portfolio in her room at her childhood home, and saying it out loud to the actual person she had been writing about unsuspectingly was a strange feeling. 

“Why didn’t you say anything sooner?”

“Because I still wasn’t sure if this was real,” Betty admitted, her eyes flitting up to meet his gaze. “To be honest, I wasn’t entirely sure that you were real.” 

“What about now?” Jughead took a step closer to her on the pavilion so that there was no space between them, his hand reaching up to rest gently on her cheek. “Is this real?”

“I don’t know,” Betty breathed. “Why don’t you show me.”

Betty could feel the electricity radiating off his skin before their lips even met. She was pulled to him like it was written in her DNA for her hand to slide up his arm and rest comfortably on his cheek. For him to rest his hand on the crook of her hip. For both of them to breath in the other’s scent like they had been waiting their entire lives to be this close to another human being. And as Betty finally placed a soft kiss on his lips, her mind was filled with the most beautiful words ever written, words that she had never seen or heard until that moment. Words that were only meant to describe what she was feeling for this man that she didn’t know, but who she felt like she had known her entire life.  

“I thought you might be here.”

Betty and Jughead both pulled back from the kiss to find Archie Andrews standing at the top of the pavilion, his voice harsh as he ascended the steps and made his way closer to them. 

“Archie, what are you-” 

“Missing something?” Archie pulled the familiar leather-bound journal from his back pocket, tossing it onto the picnic table and glancing up to meet Betty’s gaze. 

“That’s my journal,” Jughead muttered, confusion written in his expression as he turned to Betty for an explanation. “What is he doing with it?”

“He must have taken it when I was sleeping on the bench last night,” Betty explained, her brows drawing together angrily as she stepped away from Jughead so that she could come face to face with the boy she had once loved so long ago. “I didn’t think you were the vengeful type, Archie.” 

“Yeah, well I guess there’s a lot we didn’t know about each other,” Archie shot back, his cheeks turning a deep red as the anger began to flare up within the pit of his stomach. “Kind of like you having an ongoing affair behind my back pretty much the entire time we were dating when you practically crucified me for what happened two years ago!”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about, Archie,” Betty pointed out, frustrated tears popping up in the corners of her eyes as she balled her hands into fists at her sides. “It’s not like that.” 

“Oh really? Then how the hell did he know all this stuff, Betty?” Archie picked up the journal again, flipping through it quickly before shoving it into her arms. “There’s personal stuff about you in here that I didn’t even know about until now. If he’s a stranger, why does he know enough to be able to write a whole goddamn book about it?” 

“I - it - it’s kind of hard to explain.”

“Then explain this,” Archie growled, his voice so low that Betty wasn’t entirely sure he had said anything at all. “Why were you kissing him just now if you don’t know him?” 

“Archie,” Betty squeaked out, reaching out to touch his arm, but coming up short when he backed away from edge of the pavilion. 

“Save it,” he snapped. “I don’t want anything to do with you. I’m getting out of this godforsaken town like I should have two years ago. That way I don’t have to run into either one of you ever again.”

Archie turned on his heel to head back to the parking lot, but stopped short to point a finger in Jughead’s direction. 

“As for you,” Archie hissed. “My agent called about the article. She seems to think you’re the best person to write about my comeback to the game. Well, I think you can guess where I’m going to tell you to shove that article now. Have a nice life together.”  

Betty watched in horror as her life imploded before her very eyes. The boy who had been a constant in her world for so long was no longer a part of it in any way. The boy she had some unexplainable connection with had lied to her about writing an article about the other boy. And to top it all off, she had lied to him about losing the journal. Nothing was working out the way it was supposed to and it was all her fault. 

“I was wrong,” Betty muttered under her breath. “It definitely could get a lot worse.” 

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