Miss Atomic Bomb (Jughead Jones)

Part 5

"Hey Mari, sit by us!" Betty shouted over at me.

I turned towards her and saw her sitting with Archie, Veronica, and Kevin.

"Umm, actually..." I trailed off and searched for Jughead.

I found him sitting under a tree with his laptop.

"I'm gonna sit by Juggie!" I shouted back.

Betty and Veronica looked confused and I heard Veronica mutter along the lines of, "Who's Juggie?"

I sat down next to him and he barely looked up from his laptop.

"Earth to Jughead?"

Without looking away from his computer, he grabbed a fry from his tray and greeted me.

"Hi, Mari."

"What are you working on?" I asked him.

"Something." He answered flatly.

It was obvious he was in the zone.

His fingers danced around his keyboard with perfect accuracy. Barely any mistakes were made with his typing and he seemed to be typing at an extremely fast pace. It was interesting how his writing put him in some sort of trance.

Finally, he shut the lid on his laptop and looked up at me expectantly.

"What do you want?"

I looked at him in mock confusion.

"What do you mean?"

He sighed, "You know I like to be alone at lunch, so why did you sit by me?"

"Alright, you got me. I wanted to know what time you would be picking me up for the dance."

"Aww, how cute! The two outcasts are going to the dance together!"

I didn't have to look up to know Cheryl was standing in front of us.

"Get the hell away from us." I snarled at her.

"Excuse me! You of all people should be giving me some sympathy, since you know what it's like to loose someone you love. Even if they deserved it." She spat at me.

I looked away, trying to hide the fact that there were tears threatening to run down my cheeks.

"Hey, leave her alone! At least she doesn't have to fake her sadness!" Jughead cut in.

"Faking! I can't believe you think I would ever do such a thing!"

He smirked at her, "Well believe it."

"Whatever, I can feel my popularity level lowering just standing by you peasants."

She stormed off towards her crew of barbies and Jughead looked over at me.

"Don't let her get to you."

I know I shouldn't have let her, but it was impossible at that point. She had hit a spot that was still extremely tender for me.

"She already did."

I felt a wet tear slide down my cheek and I let out a small whimper.

"Mari..." He started to say slowly.

I leaned my head on his shoulder and felt more tears fall down.

He wrapped his arm around me and wiped the tears away.

"Mari, she doesn't know what your going through, I don't even know exactly what your going through. Only you do and only you can get yourself through this."