Smokestacks - Jughead Jones [1] ✔

Chapter Eighteen

SMOKESTACKS

CHAPTER | EIGHTEEN

Savannah could feel the snow soaking through her jeans as she knelt there, tears turning her mascara into lines of black that ran down her cheeks.

"I'm sorry." Her voice broke as she spoke, her breath like smoke against the bitter air. "I'm so sorry that it took me this long to come here." She sniffled, "I'm sorry that I treated you like you were nothing to me because you weren't, you were so much more."

Her heart ached as she sat back on her heels, lightly touching the red roses that across his grave.

"I'm sorry that I never told you that I cared, that it took me so long to realise how much you meant to me. I'm sorry that I tried to pretend you had never existed, you deserved so much more than that."

"He forgives you." A sweet voice came from behind her.

"Cheryl." Savannah croaked, her throat hoarse from crying. "I'm trespassing, I know."

"This is a graveyard." Cheryl said simply, kneeling down in her dress beside the girl. "You can pay your respects any time you wish."

Savannah looked at the girl, dressed in red, who stared at her brother's grave like it was happening all over again. "Why are you being so kind to me?"

"Because you just lost the boy you loved." Cheryl consoled the girl with a hand on her shoulder, "You didn't even know it until now. Why now?"

The brunette sniffled and moved to cross her legs, not caring as the snow seeped through the back, the cool liquid harsh against the backs of her thighs. "Kevin and I were talking about death, funnily enough, and I realised that I hadn't been to my father's grave in a while." She paused, her eyes locking onto the tombstone once more, "And then I realised that I'd never come to see Jason."

"I was sorry to hear about your father." Cheryl told the girl, "Not sorry for him, sorry for you."

Savannah frowned at her words and met her gaze, "What are you -"

"I saw the bruises on your arms, the cuts on your knees and your brother's black eyes." Cheryl said simply, the weight of her words not evident in her voice. "Your mother had the same ones. She should have been more careful to hide her relationship from him."

"You - you knew?" Savannah's voice was shaking as she asked, her body starting to react to the sudden harshness of the winter chill.

"I'm good at observing." Chery clarified, taking her hand off the girl's shoulder and standing up. She brushed the snow from her dress and smiled, "We should have dinner sometime. That'd be nice."

Savannah watched as Cheryl wandered back up the path to her house, arms crossed tightly across her stomach, as if something else had plagued her thoughts.

*

"So, Clifford Blossom is the reason that Veronica's dad is in jail?"

It was a bitter morning, frost coating the tops of any uncovered surface, laying down its claim over Riverdale.

Two teenagers, one boy and one girl, were walking to school together that one morning. It was a rather special morning, for reasons that one believed and the other ignored, however the facts remained the same.

It was Jughead Jones' birthday, and he was quick to try and forget it.

"That's what Archie heard." Jughead shrugged, attempting to take no notice of the arm that had slipped through the crook of his own. "I don't understand how, though."