Smokestacks - Jughead Jones [1] ✔

Chapter Four

SMOKESTACKS

CHAPTER | FOUR

Euphoric.

That was how it felt to be sitting on a bench, basking in the summer sun with her lunch being quickly demolished by her friend.

Her eyes locked onto his face as he shovelled the burger into his mouth, attempting to fit in too much in one go. She couldn't help but let out a small laugh as he frowned and pulled the burger away again, glaring at it as if the burger had betrayed him.

This lasted just a second, however, before the look of glee overtook him once more, and the burger returned to his already full mouth.

"You gonna slow down with that?" She asked, raising her eyebrow, leaning back onto her palms that supported her body. Savannah was sitting on the bench longways, her legs stretching out along the smooth wood whilst her hands lay flat behind her.

"No." Jughead mumbled as a reply, a piece of lettuce shooting out of his mouth and across the table, clearing Savannah's head.

"Lovely." She muttered, letting out a sigh as she swivelled herself around to sit upright. "How can you eat so much?"

"I like food."

Savannah paused for a moment and blinked a few times. "How you can eat so much, I'll never understand."

"It takes years of practice." Jughead informed her, swallowing to clear his throat.

She couldn't eat as much as him.

Money was becoming a problem in their house. Kyle's job didn't pay nearly enough to cover the bills and with their mother confining herself to the bed, she'd have to take matters into her own hands.

She had managed to wrangle Pop into giving her a job at his diner, finding herself pouring coffee and replacing a burger every hour or so for Jughead, who apparently seemed to live at the place.

The girl had stumbled into Pop's at half-past seven the morning after their sunny picnic, yanking her hair up into a careless and hasty ponytail as she went, bumping into a counter with a hiss.

"You're late." The voice belonged to someone other than Pop but no other than Jughead Jones, who was already sitting at his favourite booth with his laptop and a cup of coffee spread out in front of him.

"And you're early." Savannah commented as she retracted her hands from her hair and slid behind the counter, leaning against it.

"It's a 24-hour diner." Jughead deadpanned, sliding his empty cup of coffee across the table.

Savannah rolled her eyes and stood up, taking the pot of coffee with her. She sauntered around the counter and refilled his cup, setting the pot down and settling down into the booth with him to drink his coffee.

"Hey!" Jughead reached for the cup but she whirled out of the booth and away from him with a wink.

"Come and get it." She dared, stealing a quarter from the tip box to put into the jukebox.

An old Elvis song came on and Jughead smirked as the girl started to dance around the diner, cleaning up after a few early birds.

It was when she pulled out the bucket and mop that Jughead started to chuckle to himself, "Don't tell me you're going to use it as a skateboard."

"I wasn't." Savannah stuck her tongue out at him, then paused. "That's not a bad idea though." She moved to put her foot inside the bucket when Jughead clicked his tongue and shook his head. "Boring."

"I need more coffee!" Jughead called from his booth, fifteen minutes later. Savannah was mopping the other end of the diner.

"There's literally a whole pot over there."

"Yeah, uh, not any more."

"Honestly." Savannah scoffed, tossing the mop down to make her way back over to the empty coffee pot. "You're a vacuum."

Jughead merely smiled as Savannah started to put a fresh pot on, hoisting herself onto the edge of the counter as she waited for it to brew.

They sat in silence for a little while, just listening to an old song on the jukebox and the slight whirring of the coffee machine, when Jughead broke it with a sharp breath.

Savannah frowned at the boy, who was staring holes into his laptop. "What is it?"

"Jason Blossom's dead."

The girl wasn't sure how she should have reacted to the news. Maybe she should have cried or fallen to the floor. It was wrong for a girl who had spent months in his bed that she didn't have an extreme reaction.

But she wasn't his girlfriend, that was Polly.

"Oh my god." Savannah slid off the counter, feeling her legs turn to jelly at the news. "How?"

Jughead kept scanning what she assumed was an article on his laptop, "He and Cheryl went for a boat ride. He drowned."

"What?" Savannah frowned, making her way over to the booth, pushing him across the bench so she could sit next to him, eyes locking onto the screen. "That makes no sense, he was the best swimmer in school."

"That's what it says."

Savannah's frown deepened as her eyes fell to the floor.

Something just didn't feel right.

*

He was dead.

She couldn't quite wrap her head around the news.

When Savannah crossed the threshold of her house later that night, she kicked the door shut behind her and tossed her keys into a bowl they sat on a nearby bookshelf.

Her hands threaded through her hair, tugging at the ends as she tried to figure out what she was feeling. Jason Blossom. He was just a boy that she had been using.

Right?

He was a cheater, he hurt his girlfriend over and over again, yet she had done that to Polly too. She should have known better.

Maybe if she had stayed at his house the night before, he wouldn't have went on that boat ride with Cheryl, he would still be alive. She would be buried in his bed sheets, laughing as he pressed gentle kisses to her shoulders.

He was more than a distraction. If he was, she would have been easily able to leave that house without a glance back. Instead, she found herself wanting to run back up the stairs and fall into bed with him again.

"Vanna?" She heard Piper ask from the top of the staircase. Her voice was thick with grief as tears fell down her cheeks. "I'm so sorry." She thudded down the steps and engulfed her friend in a tight hug. "I'm so so sorry."

Savannah said nothing, returning the hug as reality started to set in.