Letters From Another (Bughead)

Chapter Forty Three

A/n Hello, it's been a while.  Not sure if any of my old readers are out there but I've been writing new chapters! 

This is a short one but I enjoyed writing it and more are on the way :)

(Jughead POV)

After hearing Betty's car pull out of our drive I retreat to the living room floor. Everything is wrong. The life I had built, that I had wanted before I took it apart brick by brick, can only be felt in memories.

How? How did it get so bad? This isn't something that happens over night.

I'm sure there were times I was good, that I had earned the love of Betty Cooper. I remember the comfort we offered each other when it felt like the rest of the world was falling apart. Oblivion surrounding us, but unable to penetrate us in our booth at pops. I can still picture her hands in mine as I pull on our living room carpet below me.

Those moments haven't existed in a long time. The road to our destruction began after our less than perfect adolescence.

I thought I was going to make it out. Out of what? What was the big bad I found myself running from? As a 'promising writer' just trying to make it through the end of his teens, I believed that was Riverdale. I had to leave the town where I had been hurt by people and the systems that continuously tried to drag me down. It wasn't long before I noticed, the further I ran from the cause of my pain, the worse it became.

Did I take this turn into destruction because I didn't want to face the truth? That meant I had to admit that I was living this dream that had consumed so much of me for the majority of my life, and I still wasn't happy. The sum of myself wouldn't be magically cured by geography or success.

Everyone I've hurt, who has hurt me. I couldn't leave them in a physical place. All of it has been carried within me. Buried deeper by that last pain but never removed.

It's me.

—----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(3 POV)

Jughead pulled himself off the floor, bracing himself on the furniture that Betty and him had made the decision to buy together. One of the last times she felt they were truly partners.

Once standing he made his way to the remaining bottles of liquor then brought them to their sink and began to pour. He moved like an aged animatronic you may have seen performing on a stage in its past life. His eyes glossed over, unable to focus on one thing in particular.

Once he finished pouring, he collected the bottles and walked them onto his side yard to discard them in the bins.

The sun had risen. Despite everything, all the pain, grief, hate, longing for the sun rises you were able to experience with a person you loved and no longer have... the sun continues to rise. 

A/n  If there's anyone out there, there's more to come!