"I swear in that little moment, a match was lit."
[RIVERDALE: BETTY & JUGHEAD FANFIC]
SEASON ONE ONLY
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NOTE: I do not own the characters, plot or original Riverdale story line. I have only enhanced and fantasized the Bughead...
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chapter fourteen: aftermath
♚jughead♚
EVERYTHING I had feared would happen, did in fact happen right before my eyes. The pin of the grenade had been pulled a long time ago, the minute we all discovered Ms.Grundy and Archie Andrews were a thing. All this time we had just been waiting for the grenade to go off, and tonight was the night that it did.
It sent an explosion of anger, despair, sorrow and fear radiating throughout the room, so harshly I felt as if my ears had started to bleed. Between Alice's yelling and Archie's defence, it was like world war three, and Betty and I were caught in the middle of it.
This was the reason all along that I wanted Betty to stay low about the whole Jennifer Gibson finding, as I knew deep down if anybody else every found out, it would blow up. I didn't want the two of us to take sides, but in the end I knew we would pick the side of Archie Andrews.
Archie is our friend, and yes this relationship with Ms.Grundy has stretched the trust we all share, but I know that isn't the real Archie. They say love does stupid things to a person, and now I finally understand what that phrase means.
I do believe Ms.Grundy was a toxic person, slowly killing the real Archie each day, slowly injecting her manipulative poison into his innocent soul. Maybe she did love Archie, and maybe Archie loved her, but I don't think the love shared was equal both ways. There was a crack in their perfect frame of love, and Archie was able to see right through it as if it weren't even there. He only saw the big picture, not the rubble underneath.
It was if Archie was in a maze, trapped inside the confusing walls, and Betty and I were on top. While Archie was lost, Betty and I could see the solution, but all we could do was watch as Archie travelled deeper and deeper into the maze in the wrong direction, getting so lost that he had almost reached a point where the maze consumed him as a whole.
He didn't realize what he was doing to his friends, more importantly what he was doing to Betty. I have to tell myself not to be mad at him, as I know he wasn't thinking straight. I know Betty shouldn't have to forgive him, but I know her. I know that if she doesn't, she will hate herself. I know her bond with Archie goes so deep, that even when she thinks she hates him, she only loves him more. They're best friends, and their type of friendship doesn't just disappear. They can get through anything, and I feel as though it is my job as Betty's friend to help her understand that.
Secretly I envy the friendship Betty Cooper and Archie Andrews share. I wish Betty looked at me the way she looks at Archie. I wish she laughed with me the way she laughs with him. But I can't think like this now. I can't make it about myself when two of my friends are struggling with themselves. I need to be there for them.
