Riverdale~ A Bughead fanfiction

Chapter 8

And with that I stormed out.
"How dare you!" My pathetic excuse of a father bellowed, storming out of the equally pathetic excuse of a house. I swear I could see smoke coming from his ears "I raised you!" Betty ran in out of breath yet we woke and my dad arguing to much to realise.
I halted to a stop in the middle of the tiny brown lawn, swinging around to face the raging man.
"Raised me? Raised me?!" The rage I felt wasn't just for Betty now. It was for my lost childhood, that should've been filled with happiness and laughter. But instead it was filled with dread and concern for my jelly bean, praying she'll be okay. Because of him, because of what he was and what he did. "You've ruined my life! You took away jelly bean and mum and my future!" Tears began streaming down my face and I had no shame. I deserved to cry.
The hurt look on my dads gave me no satisfaction.I heard Betty behind me before I felt her dainty hand on my shoulder. Calm found me again, she was that little bit of light in the deep blackness of my life. And so I said.
"You'll never see me again dad. I'll never forgive you for what you've done. Goodbye." Blunt and quick, that's all I could manage. It took all my strength not to roar in his pathetic face. Which was now turning red with anger. His lips opened and closed as if forming the right words then, as if coming to an answer to his inner doubts, his face turned alarmingly blank.

Two steps, two steps was all it took for him to be less than a metre from my face. And it took less that two seconds for his fist to meet my face, throwing me away from Betty and onto the dry, crumbly ground.

All I could here above the ringing in my ears was Betty's voice, screaming at my father. But he was already in the house, slamming the door as if we were nothing but birds on his lawn. I stood shakily on my feet and gripped Betty's hand in my own. The ringing in my ears became silence. Long and groaning and echoing silence. And not even Betty could get through.

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Betty's pov

Jughead was a mess. And guilt seeped deep into my bones at what I had caused. This was my fault, because I was a coward and told my jughead his own father beat me up. I ripped apart what was left of his family and looking at him across from me in our booth at the diner, I knew I'd ripped him apart too.

His hair was a mess of brown that tumbled from his hat. A purple bruise was forming around his dull and empty eyes. I reached over to touch his arm, he didn't even spare me so much as a glance.
"Juggie? Jug talk to me, please," I whispered across to him, tears coating my voice. I had to stay strong, for him. Jughead's red rimmed eyes slowly reached mine and he didn't need to say a word for me to know he was breaking. I knew even before the sobs broke out of his mouth. Like a dam breaking his emotions flooded out, having been contained over weeks of stress and torment.
  I slid next to him on the booth and pulled him to my chest, as he had done so many times when I had been falling apart. My jughead's tears seeped through my jumper and he clung to my arms like I was his only lifeline, and perhaps after being torn from  his dad I was.

So, for my jughead, I choked down my own tears and stroked soothing circles around his shaking back, and kept his head tucked into the crook of my neck. Because when I broke he was there, so for him I could do this. I could hold my jughead as he broke in my arms.