Red moons ---Beronica (Riverdale's, Betty Cooper and Veronica Lodge)

Chapter 7: helpless

"Do you think we would have been friends if I met you before you moved here?"

There's a light scoff. "How honest do you want my answer to be?"

A pause. "Brutally"

"Then no, we wouldn't have." The answer is quick, clipped, and factual.

A lighthearted chuckle escapes her lips, though there's a chord of hurt in there somewhere. She already knew the answer, and yet. "That bad, huh?"

The warm glow of the fireplace fills every inch of the Pembrooke, but not a flicker touches those dark, dark eyes. "Girl, you don't know the half of it."

"It's staring at me." Kevin is grimacing at the...whatever's sitting on his lunch tray. "I swear, it's sentient."

"A true testimony to the National School Lunch Act, circa 1946." Even Jughead won't touch it; that's how bad it is.

"You know, even though it's a private school, Spence wasn't any better." Veronica wrinkles her nose in disgust.

Betty's lips split into a teasing grin. "So you're saying that poor Veronica Lodge was forced to eat the same gruel as us plebs and peasants?"

A playful roll of the eyes. "I had my lunches carefully prepared by a chef from Nice who used to cater for then-Brangelina and all of their kids, thank you very much." She pushes her tray as close to the far end of the table as she possibly can. "Katy and I would beg him to make-"

She cuts herself off, leaving Betty and the rest hanging on her words. She looks like she just saw Jason Blossom's ghost.

She briefly mentioned Katy before to her in private - the things they've said and done to other girls, mostly, but she never disclosed anything about their actual relationship with each other. The fact that Veronica's keeping that part a secret kind of makes Betty upset, for some reason.

"Make what?" The blonde shyly prods, though she already knows that's the most she's going to get out of her today.

Five seconds of silence later, "I just realized-" Veronica's hand disappears inside her Prada bag; a beat goes by, and she's holding up her phone. "-We have a solid forty-five minutes before next period. That's enough time to Uber to Pop's, pick up something edible, and Uber back. What do you think?"

The boys bite the bait; they're already getting up to leave. Veronica's smirk is triumphant.

Betty casts her a knowing look as they cross the field towards the parking lot. You can't keep this up for much longer.

Chestnut irises gleam wickedly under the afternoon sun.

Watch me, They seem to say back.

She stabs the eraser end of her pencil towards the paper cup sitting by her textbook. "That's gotta be, like, your third coffee since this morning. Late night?"

"Kinda." Distant, distracted.

Her brow furrows with worry. "V?" No reply. "Ronnie."

"I'm fine." Siri could have given her a more lively response.

She wonders if it's safe to keep prying (Probably not, but what the hell). "Do you want to talk about it?"

The sound of rifling pages. "Do you remember which sections we need to know for next week's test?"

I guess that's a no.

"Keep your hands up, Veronica. There isn't any money for you to steal down there." Cheryl's prowling around the gym, scrutinizing every move.