it's been a little more than a week since archie and jughead kissed and neither of them had the balls to tell their girlfriends yet. they couldn't bear the thought of breaking their girlfriends hearts. but it was so hard to not tell them because all jughead and archie want is to be together but that can't happen if they're already in relationships. jughead would get so close to telling betty at times but then he would just choke up.
"hey, betty, i need to tell you something."
"what's up babe?" betty would ask curiously
"i-i, uh, i... i love you." jughead would say, every single time instead of telling the truth. and of course that only made everything worse because saying i love you to someone doesn't necessarily prepare them for you to tell them you actually don't love them because you love someone else.
archie on the other hand just became very distant from veronica. he wouldn't answer her calls or her texts. whenever he saw her in public he would walk the other way. he was absolutely terrified of confronting her. he knew very well how heartbreak felt and didn't want to put veronica through that. he knew he would have to talk to her eventually but avoiding her was just so much easier.
archie decided that he couldn't avoid veronica any longer so he called her and told her to meet him at pop's. she agreed to go, of course, considering she hasn't had any contact with her "boyfriend" in a little over a week. archie also told jughead what he was going to do and jughead told him that he and betty would be coming too, because it would be best if they did it together.
•••
as the four arrived at pop's archie and jughead's hearts began to race. it wasn't gonna be easy to do this. but it had to happen.
the four of them took a seat at their usual booth and ordered some milkshakes before archie began to speak
"so uh, betty, veronica, jughead and i have something we need to tell you." he said in a serious tone
the two girls smiles that were previously on their faces because of a dumb joke jughead told, began to fade.
"what is it?" veronica asked
archie and jughead looked at each other, trying to decide who would be the one to rip the bandaid off.
"archie, uh, archie and i, we umm, we k-kissed." jughead stuttered
"oh, umm, ok, so what does that mean?" betty asked with an unreadable expression
"it, uh, i mean i guess it means that we uh, we have feelings for each other." archie said with his head down.
there was an uncomfortable silence for a little while before betty spoke up
"so you do you even have feelings for me?" she asked jughead scooting away from him
"i do. well i did, i think. i don't know, you were just so nice to me when i was going through shit and i thought what i felt was love, but, but now i'm not sure." he sighed
betty opened her mouth to say something but she quickly closed it before getting up and leaving the diner.
jughead felt horrible. the hurt in betty's eyes was the worst thing he's ever seen.
"i think i'm gonna leave too." veronica said getting ready to walk away.
archie grabbed her wrist before she could leave.
"veronica i need you to understand that it was never my intention to hurt you. that's the last thing i would ever want to do. you were so good to me and trust me i appreciate it so fucking much. i appreciate you so fucking much. i wish that i could love you the way you love me but i just, i just can't. even if i can't love you in that way, i do love you. ok?" archie said sincerely
veronica didn't say anything, she just smiled sadly and left. archie knew this would be hard be he didn't expect it to hurt this bad. he looked over to jughead who was on the other side of the booth looking down at his lap.
they were silent for a few minutes
"if i'm hurting like this i can't even imagine how the girls feel." jughead sighed
"i've never felt so horrible in my life." archie groaned
"you know, maybe, maybe it would be best if we don't see each other for awhile. it wouldn't feel right." jughead mumbled finally lifting his head to look at archie
archie hated that idea, but he knew it would be best.
"yea, yea ok. well uh, bye for a little while then." archie said with a sad smile as he got up to leave.
he started to walk away but turned back and went to jughead who was still moping at the booth. archie gave jughead a quick peck on the lips and then left the diner.
*a/n: well there's pt. 2, it's kind of short but i hope you guys enjoy it. there could possibly be a pt. 3 but i'm not sure yet. thanks for reading :)*
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