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“What a perfectly stupid time we’d have.”
There were moments when someone would say something just minuscule enough that it fits just perfectly into that achingly empty spot in you heart.
Her whisper was wind rustling through the trees in the dead of night. The smoke curling past her lips and fluttering into the air around them with each word she spoke. Her fit of coughs that followed shortly after were jarring to say the least, but produced the most melodious laughter he’d ever heard.
His fingers tightened the moment he felt a pit in his stomach form and loosened when the butterflies began to settle in. He pulled the blunt to his lips and took the longest drag he could muster; willing the coughs to stay behind his lips before they managed to overtake him in a sudden puff of smoke.
Veronica laughed again, a deep belly aching laugh that brought tears to her eyes and made her hair float above her head in a halo of glossy ebony. Whenever she laughed things had a habit of going from hard to the easiest things ever imaginable.
“Tell me Jughead”-she started before pausing, her eyes squinting as she formed countless letters before a breathless laugh left her red painted lips-”I have words, I swear.” She continued; a deep breath following shortly before she began to laugh once more.
“Describe me with your writer words.” She fumbled with the bottle of water that was laying beside her, her nails tapping the plastic cap before she removed it and took a gulp. He rolled to his back, his hands folded under his head and his eyes trained at the ceiling fan that continued to spin without fail.
Suddenly his sweatpants were just a shade too grey, his shirt too baggy and his head too naked. He rolled the joint between his lips, signalling for Veronica to take it.
And she did.
Between two perfectly manicured pale blue fingers. He watched her take another drag from it; her nose scrunching in distaste as she exhaled slowly. She placed the joint onto the porcelain plate that lay empty between them; five minutes earlier it held two peanut butter and banana sandwiches (A favorite of Veronica’s he learned) but now was littered with crumbs and an empty blunt wrapper.
“You’re lazy smiles and silk ties....” He turned his head slightly to watch Veronica ease herself into the plush carpet, her fingers combing through the pristine white fluff and her black shorts hiking further up her thighs. His mouth goes dry and Jughead finds himself lightly tugging the edge of the tank-top she’s wearing, before motioning to the bottle of water.
She rolls it towards him and he drinks the rest of it.
“You’re lazy smiles and silk ties, warm hands and fluffy blankets in winter..” Veronica turns to look at him and smiles a slow knowing smile.
The kind that sends Archie running to her and Reggie fighting for her attention.
The kind that makes him feel every sort of agony and joy all at once.
‘You're lazy smiles and silk ties and warm hands and fluffy blankets in winter and im running down rainy streets and i'm absolutely irreversibly terribly obsessed with you.’ He doesn't say. But he thinks.
Veronica is far too High to even be able to process what he’s saying, but he likes to think she can feel the words.
Feel Him.
Nostalgia, however, is a dirty liar that insists things were better than they seemed.
“In the right light, at the right time, everything extraordinary.” He’d said it so matter of fact that Betty found herself momentarily stunned. She put her mug of coffee on the table with an audible thunk; drawing the gazes of patrons in the small cafe before she awkwardly smiled and waved off his comment.
“You’re stupid. Do you know that?” Jughead pursed his lips at her comment before he took a sip from his mug, hoping to wash the taste of stale cigarettes from his tongue. Smacking his lips at the lingering acidic taste he pushed the mug toward Betty.
“I know you don't feel the same way anymore.” Betty reached for his mug and poured the contents of it into her own (which was practically empty by the way) and proceeded to douse it with sugar and cream.
“Real writers take it black.” He supplied then, his lips tilting into a smile before blowing smoke.
“Don't digress.”
“It wasn't real. None of it was real Betty. We were teenagers who weren't being watched by our parents and ruled by fairy tales. Shit happens.”
“Oh really?” She’s reaching into her bag and pulling out a magazine that has Jugheads eyes bulging and his throat tightening. She flicks it open with the finesse of someone who’s practiced far too long; she flicks her ponytail over her shoulder in a show of dominance, her eyes staring into his own before she focuses her attention on the page before her.
“She looked at him the way all men want to be looked at by a woman and he sighed. She was a beautiful blooming flower, but she was far from soft. When her petals fall, they hit like bullets; her touch is ice on a hot summer day and her lips sweeter than lemonade.
She was all dark hair and noir mannerisms. She was a priceless painting no one wanted to buy.
‘I love you.’-She said. And he laughed. -‘You’re my soulmate.`-she continued. And he laughed harder.’ “
Betty drops the magazine onto the table and raises her eyebrow at him.
“You really want to tell me this isn't some sick therapeutic way to get over Veronica?” Jughead scoffs and snatches the magazine from the table.
“It was a prompt and I wrote it for a hundred dollars.”
“It was a way to get back into your teen angst bullshit cause you regret choices you made.”
“Listen a second.” She slurs. Her high-heel clad feet stumbling across marble floors that look like they’d cost him his whole life to fix.
She had a vice grip on his arm, and her breath reeked of syrupy alcohol and regret. He’s trying to get her to sit on the couch and at least attempt to peel off her heels; but Veronica can't be reasoned with in her inebriated state.
He wants to know who took her out; who just let her walk into the building drunk and a mess.
He wants to hurt them for not taking care of her.
But he settles with shoving a glass bottle of some fancy bubbly shit in her hands and dropping to his knees to undo the clasps at her ankles.He was supposed to be able to read to his heart's content and work on finishing the short story compilation for a magazine. A magazine she’d bought so he could write for it.
And they said the rich had no hearts.
“I have a heart!” She sputtered out then, her hand smacking his shoulder; the water bottle falling from her grip (to thankfully not shatter on the marble floor) and unfortunately douse him in can what has to stupidly expensive water.
Fucking rich people and their need for lavish things.
“Veronica.” She ceased her shifting to look down at him, her lips in a pout before she muttered a sorry and unclasped the shoes.
“I have a heart, only I broke it on the way home...” She sniffles then. And he knows he’s playing a dangerous game.
A game he only plays when she’s not sober but overly honest.
“Should I fix it princess?” He asks genuinely.
“So you can just leave again?” She stands up and steps around him. She doesn't care she’s spilt the water and her shoes are soaking in it. She wants to sleep.
Jughead stands with a sigh and moves to follow Veronica. She’s peeling off clothes and just throwing them on the floor as she walks to the bedroom, and Jughead knows better then to comment on it. He grabs her shoes from the puddle of water, shaking them out before he bends down to grab the dress she was wearing off the floor.
She’s rummaging through her drawers when he walks into her room; he’s not entirely sure what she’s looking for but he thinks she finds it when she yanks out and ugly old red shirt and shoves her body into it.
He tosses her shoes behind the door and drops her dress onto the chase lounge she has at the end of her bed.
Her new room suits her compared to the older one she stayed in. It feels more lived in. Sure her bed is in constant disarray, but the desk placed just by the balcony is piled high with books and her floor is covered in what he assumes are lecture notes.
“You need to drink more water Ronnie.”
“You have no idea what i'm going through right now.” She’s pulling the covers over head, her voice muffled as she shifts beneath the piles of pink egyptian cotton. Jughead sighs and sits on the edge of the bed.
“Then tell me, that's how this works. You talk about it and I walk through it with you.”
She’s thrashing beneath the covers; throwing what he can only assume is a tantrum before she pokes her head out. Her hair frizzing and sticking out every which way; pink lipstick still somehow pristine and eyeliner still intact.
“I’ve been waiting for you for a really long time..-” Her words are still slurred, but there's a sort of clarity that comes with them. The kind that only comes with sober thoughts.
“-And I wouldn't take a second of it back ok? Does that make me selfish?” He looks at her curiously, thinking through his words. He doesn't want to hurt her anymore then she's already hurting; but he also doesn't feel the need to delve into these sorts of conversations she's so prone to springing on him when she’s under the influence.
The kind of conversations that turn into hushed whispers and giggles at three in the morning. The ones that are accompanied with light touches and heavy gazes. The sort that stay with you for years and years and make you yearn to just go back to them if only to ask the question differently and get a different answer.
The kind of conversation he’s terrified to have now.
“You don't deserve me. I can tell. I feel it.” She huffs out, all petulant and puffed cheeks. He thinks this is what a younger Veronica would be like. His brain sputters on the image of her with a child, their child and immediately disappears. This isn't the time for that. It’ll never be the time for that he reminds himself.
“That's perfect. I’d rather someone I don't deserve.”
”Jughead Jones the third. One day you’ll eat those words.”
He knows he will. He just hopes he doesn't choke on them.
Life was too short to regret things. This was something Veronica most definitely lived by. Were there cases when she did things that were far unbecoming for a woman of her stature?
Sure.
She’d drank at that one business party, and there was that one time in college she’d gone to a kegger knowing far better than to mingle with riff-raff. But regret? Veronica didn't know that word or the meaning of it. She didn't delve into the past and she sure as hell didn't take the time to think about it.
So why was she peeing on stick after stick all because she was vomiting her brains out a week after the christmas reunion? Veronica knew she wasn't pregnant, it was impossible. But the fact there was a small whisper in the back of her head that hoped it was true, well, that was enough of a reason to start to regret.
And if on cue the strip showed negative and a horrible sense of loss mixed relief ran down her spine.
Veronica Lodge had one regret. And that one regret found itself calling her phone four months later asking to crash while he visited his father.
Veronica knew Fp. She knew him fairly well. He was a good man with bad habits and a giant heart. The kind of heart that went out of his way to apologize for the actions of his son and try to help her pick of the pieces. She knew FP was sick; everyone knew FP was sick. Years of train smoking and drinking beer like water tended to do that to a human being. What Veronica didn't understand was why he was suddenly asking to stay with her.