Our Story's Not Over

the wild college years

FULL STORY on my Ao3. I'm worried about this website's terms and conditions so I'm deleting the other 6 chapters. But here's chapter one, the rest is at: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30759521/chapters/75920483
If the link doesn't work look for "crazymisscarly" on Ao3 - I have also posted a part 2 of this story called "I'll never stop loving you". Dw, both have happy endings.

Hope I see you there! :)

——-

Jughead wasn't sure when, exactly, his sexual competition with Betty started.

Maybe 'competition' wasn't technically the right word. But in the years following their graduation from high school, the ex-couple turned casual lovers turned furious frenemies slowly descended into an emotional spiralling war of madness - their chosen weapons of mass destruction being their unrequited love for each other and their conflicting sexual escapades...

Once, when Jughead and his roommate were both celebrating the end of the semester over a shared bottle of Hennessy, he had mentioned that his life would be a lot less problematic if his father wasn't still shacked up with his ex-girlfriend's mother.

"That's rough, my guy." His roommate - Dean - had agreed, nodding in solemn confirmation as he took his next swig.

Jughead would never admit it out loud, but there was a minuscule, minute, very very small part of him (that he definitely never thought about) that was grateful for his father's relationship. It certainly gave Jughead a safe excuse to lay his eyes on his favourite golden blonde beauty.

In the first two years of college, Betty and Jughead mostly avoided each other any time their schedules happened to overlap and they found themselves face to face in the Jones/Cooper/Smith house. The pain of their mutual breakup never completely dulled, and the 'what ifs' kept Jughead awake some nights as he glared at the glossy white paint of the ceiling in his bedroom in the basement.

So they stayed civil, and aloof, and when their friends in Riverdale organised group events over the Winter, Spring and Summer breaks, they both attended. All the while they tried to pretend like they were nothing more than friends. Friends who just happened to date in high school.

For the most part, it worked. Except for the times they'd pass each other in the kitchen late at night, perhaps not entirely by accident, and instead of treating each other with stoney politeness they'd push each other up against the wall, or onto the plush couch, or on top of the counter, and were soon falling into Jughead's bed down in the basement.

Betty would always quietly leave before the night was over, and she'd come back downstairs for breakfast the next morning looking exactly like the good girl her mother had raised - and not at all like the debauched, wonton mess she'd been between Jughead's sheets.

Jughead ardently tried to squash his feelings for her. We didn't work out, he often reminded himself. Your schools are almost 20 hours apart. Your lives are going different directions. You tried long-distance in high school and you were fighting all the time. It's better this way. It's better that we ended things on good terms and with fond memories... 

And yet, sometimes he'd look into Betty's eyes across the dinner table, when they were both amused by something one of their relatives said. He'd get a glimpse of that smile, and those emerald green irises, and there'd be a sharp jolt in his chest. A desire to reach out for her hand, or pull her into his arms, or even just to flip the entire table over and drop to his knees in front of her to beg her to take him back, right there in front of their whole family—

Stop. It didn't work out.

Of course, Betty wasn't immune to Jughead's charm either.