Falice 2

To Love Once

Jughead comes home to his father sulking in front of the tv and a drink in his hand. The one of many. There are empty bottles scattered all around the coffee table.

His mother had left his father not so long ago, taking his only sister with her to his grandparents' house in Toledo.

Jughead glares at his father. "Seriously, dad?" FP only grumbles. Jughead walks over to stand in front of the tv. "This is what drove mom to leave in the first place."

"I am a grown man, boy. I am allowed to unwind."

"You're never going to get her to come back if you keep this up. You should be making amends with Mr. Andrews so you can go back to work."

"He betrayed me!" FP shouts back at him. He takes another sip out of the bottle in his hand. "We were partners and he dropped me as if I didn't help the business make it this far."

"You were stealing from the company and getting into serious trouble with the Serpents! What else was he supposed to do? That's business."

"I was making sure I was putting food on the table for you and your sister!" FP defends himself. He knows his tactics weren't the best, but he had to resort to certain jobs at desperate times.

"What are you going to do when you end up serving time, huh? Because that's where you're heading at this rate. You think I like this arrangement? My mother and sister are gone! And you don't want to bring the family back together!"

"She chose to leave!"

"What other choice did you give her?"

"You stayed," He points out.

"I did because I wasn't giving up on you, but the longer you keep this up..." Jughead shakes his head, disappointed. "...I don't know. I can't see myself being here until you put in the effort to change."

"What are you saying?"

"I want to leave and I don't want to come back until everything is back to how it used to be."

"Jug, come on. I want to bring Jellybelly back too. I also miss her."

"What about mom?"

"Your mom and I are never going to work. I'm sorry, but that's the truth."

"Don't you love her enough to try to make it work. For me and Jellybean?"

FP doesn't say anything.

"Do you love her?"

He still doesn't say anything.

"Did you ever love her?" Jughead takes his silence as an answer. It breaks his heart to know the truth about his parents. "Then why did you marry her?"

FP sighs. "It was the right thing to do at the time."

He had never felt love for Gladys. He wasn't sure he ever even liked her, but the comfort of having somebody stay changed a lot for him. He preferred having her company than none at all. He hoped that he would find some sort of romantic feeling along the way, but he never did. Instead, he only proposed to get married for the sake of the sudden pregnancy.

A part of him was excited to be having a baby to love, maybe he could prove it to himself that he could do it better than his own father, but the other part was disappointed that it wasn't with who he had imagined a future with.

Only she could ever make him feel the love he searched everywhere for; it tore him when he found out she was getting married to somebody else. He had to hear from mutual friends that they had begun a family of their own. She had two beautiful daughters by the time his son was almost due to arrive.