The Smell Before Rain // Jughead Jones

Pre-chorus one: chapter two, part two

A crown of gold, a heart that's harder than stone

As the class let out, Brady had tried to go back to her normal routine of taking up as little space as possible and sneaking out covered by the crowd at the door. But two slightly taller, slightly more positive figures stopped her on the other side.
"We'd like to formally introduce ourselves and extend you an invite to our lunch table. You look like fun." The well groomed male says.
"I'm Kevin, The Only Gay In The Village, as you probably already know." She did know (She also appreciated the Little Britain reference). Everyone knows Kevin. The sheriffs son, the burgeoning broadway star, the most extroverted character at Riverdale High.
"And Little Miss Girl Next Door is Betty." Kevin points to the girl standing next to him. Betty waves to Brady, and Brady can't help but notice how dainty even Betty's wave is. She knows if she tried to wave like that it'd be clunky.
"Ooh, and that's Jughead. " the Blonde says while grabbing Brady's shoulders and steering her around to face the boy standing behind her.
"But you already knew that."
The look on his face to her seemed uncomfortable, but to him he was just worried they'd scare her off by being too forward. If he thought he'd gotten far with breaking down her walls in that booth at Pop's he'd be shocked to see how far he'd gotten just at school.
The welcoming committee can't ruin this for him.

"Whatever they've told you is a lie."

He's pretty sure he's never seen anything quite as devastating as seeing how her face fell. He never wants to see that again.
But she must be having a good day because she recovers quickly.
"Oh, so you don't want me to sit with you at lunch? That's fine, I have a date with The Smiths and Sylvia Plath in the library like I originally planned then."
She's cheeky when she's comfortable. The three present noted that. Betty and Kevin can't help but think Jughead may have found his match.
He hopes she is.
He also blames his foot and mouth on his reaction because he doesn't want her (once again) thinking he's too eager for her presence. But once again it's too late and he's an open book and grasping on to every vowel he could find to tell her that that's the exact opposite of anything he could ever want.
It's very rare for either Betty or Kevin to see Jughead stutter, in fact neither of them can remember Jughead ever not be sure of himself or what he's saying. Jughead Jones, the ever eloquent author, can't find the words to tell a girl he wants her to sit with them. And it would nearly be comical. If it wasn't sad.

"What this introverted, tortured genius is trying to say is he'd be honoured for you to grace him with your presence during lunch," Kevin butts in, grabbing her hand and beginning to drag her to the core fours usual lunch table outside.
He's thankful for the Keller kid because he's not sure his brain would have kicked in again. And the look Betty's giving him is something along the lines of disappointed and sympathetic. Mostly sympathetic.
He can't believe he jeopardised everything so easily.

The blonde girl was by far the easiest for Brady to get along with immediately. She radiated light and acceptance, the kind of soulful energy that Brady feeds off when she's running on social autopilot. Her brain shuts off if she's uncomfortable. And she's very uncomfortable, but she sits beside the kind girl at the table, opposite Jughead and Kevin. The two she knows as Archie and Veronica haven't quite joined them yet, but she knows from her history of observing Jug and his friends that they won't be too far away.
The raven haired girl she knows as Veronica sits by Kevin when she joins them and politely smiles at Brady as if they're old friends. The redhead nowhere in sight yet, the group converse as if nothing new has happened. As if they don't have an outsider in their presence.
She can feel his soft gaze on her as she fails to lift her eyes from her apple on the table in front of her.
Veronica noticing Jughead staring so fixedly at the beautiful new addition to their lunch table makes eye contact with Betty and raises a neat eyebrow. The unspoken conversation in a surprised eyebrow raise and a smile and shrug from the blonde was enough for the raven beauty to turn to the quiet girl down the end and hold her hand out.
"Hi there, I'm Veronica Lodge."

Brady's wide eyes meet V's and a flush spreads on her cheeks, and the speed with which her hand meets Veronica's is enough for Jug to think she's about to crack under the pressure, but Brady gathers herself together and smiles at the hand shake.

"I'm Brady Forester, it's nice to meet you."

She can feel his eyes on her, burning into the side of her face. His gaze is hot, and causing her severe discomfort. Has something she's done been wrong or offensive to him? She doesn't think she's done anything abnormal. This is how people interact, isn't it?

Veronica can see her shift in her seat under his gaze, and not being one to ignore this kind of behaviour from the jones boy quickly points it out. "I'm sorry, Jughead. Are we interrupting time with your new girlfriend?"
His reaction, or rejection rather, came so fast everyone at the table got whiplash from the ferocity of the delivery.
Jughead snapped his head around to the socialite, red faced and sharp eyed.

"Fleetwood isn't my girlfriend."

She can't believe (actually in hindsight she can believe) that the way he said that mattered so much to her.  She isn't his girlfriend. She understands social conventions well enough to know that two good conversations don't justify a relationship, even by high school standards. She won't deny she wishes that could change though.

She wears her denim jacket and band shirts the way Jug wears his Whoopie cap. Outwardly, to fend off the world from its questions and inwardly to stop the noise and clamour of the world around them. She pulls the denim across her Pulp shirt and chest to stop the faint aching this realisation has caused, just as he pulls his cap further down to cover the tops of his ears.

Veronica whispers to Kevin just loud enough for Brady to hear "he's given her a nickname already? That boy is in denial."
To which Kevin nods and Brady can't help but feel they're too naive to understand the complexity of their situation.
They'd never work in this universe or the next.

He'd run away as soon as she lets him in.

And it hurts to hold on, but it's missed when it's gone

The walls around her mind close in on her every second longer that she sits there.
Surely the time she'd spent around others today had been more than she'd willingly done in the last three years without an extended break. She is drained. Mentally and physically. The kind extroverts welcomed her warmly but sapped all her energy. Like all highly functioning introverts, she needs to recharge her batteries. And with the addition of another, she takes her leave, grabbing her bag and fleeing to the safe warmth of the school library to carry out her original plan of the Smiths and Plath.

Archie, who had been close enough to witness that last blunder by Jughead, clips him on the back of the head, muttering about his stupidity. Jughead doesn't even protest the violence by his best friend, he just agrees with him. He was stupid. He should have said it differently, but no matter what he said it would have been taken the wrong way anyway. He admits out loud it wouldn't be a bad thing if they were together, he just wants to get to know her first without any labels or expectations. Know her truly before becoming too attached.

She catches it as she walks away, and it would almost be enough to cheer her up but her head is so foggy she can hardly see in front of her.

Twenty minutes into Hatful of Hollow and chapter 14 of The Bell Jar, she thinks to herself even though this is her favourite pastime, for the first time in her life she can't help but wish she had someone by her side.

And she knows exactly who she's imagining there.