Riverdale's Sleeping Beauty

Mirror, Mirror

Betty watched her reflection in the mirror absentmindedly as she wiped her makeup off her face. Smearing her lipstick away with makeup remover, she paid little attention to how hard she rubbed. Something about the pain was soothing as she replayed the night's events in her mind. Her heart pounded equally as furious as the knots in her stomach grew.

He told her he loved her. And her heart had burst into a supernova of joy at hearing what she knew all along. What she believed to be true while unspoken between them for weeks now.

Tonight he whispered those melodious words, and despite the chaos of the past 48 hours, her heart hoped that a better tomorrow, a better Riverdale, might really be possible.

Then the knock at the door had sounded. That is, after Jughead stripped off her shirt and kissed her neck in a way that made her whole body feel all the things her heart felt minutes before at just his words.

Betty ghosted her fingers along her now bare lips thinking back on the intense exchange of passion they experienced a mere hours ago. She had felt so ready to give over to all those overwhelming, delicious feelings pooling inside of her when that damn knock came. A knock she didn't yet know whether was a curse or a blessing.

The night had ended not long after that with a precipitous phone call from the Wicked Witch, masking the real reason for her flustered exit from the Jones trailer.

Looking into the mirror, Betty finally made eye contact with herself and the growing fear dilating her pupils and causing her heart to race at a whole other gallop.

Jughead. A Serpent.

Perhaps he always was, simply by blood. But tonight, she saw another side to him. Another one among the many she kept discovering over these past months.

He wanted this. He wanted another reason to stay on the Southside. Which meant it was another reason he had found to leave her.

She knew nothing could be changed about his legal guardianship, and thus high school of enrollment. But she figured his loner, wanderer soul would return to Riverdale at every possible chance. Return to her.

Seeing him acclimate in just a day to life at Southside High School was unnerving. She saw charmer Jughead unbridled for the whole world to fall in love with, and not just her in their private moments alone.

She didn't want to share him.

Now, the Serpents wanted him too. Calling to him. Becoming the family he so much deserved, but not the one he truly needed.

Her hands clenched tightly against the feeling of helplessness to change the dark course of events she sensed unwinding before her. She didn't stop clenching until she felt her nails finally puncture skin.

Unconsciously, she wiped her sweaty hands on her thighs before realizing she still wore her nice cornflower blue skirt. She cursed at herself knowing the skirt was ruined. She cursed louder when she realized what her mother would say when she found out.

Her eyes clenched shut in agony. Everything about this night had gone sour when for a moment, it seemed like it was going to be the most magical night of her life.

Unable to take the thoughts crowding her brain, Betty ripped off the rest of her clothing, shoving them to the bottom of her laundry basket. Moving to her dresser, she dug around the drawers searching for would-be salvation: sleeping pills prescribed to Polly, who had stopped taking them for fear of their effects on the baby. Betty hadn't tried any yet, but she couldn't think of any other way to quiet her brain. Rather, no other way short of something that felt all too dangerous to form complete thoughts over.

Tentatively, she popped one pill, swallowing it bare without any water. Though tempting to take another in order to speed up its effects, she knew better. Normal Betty knew how chemicals worked in the body. Dark Betty wouldn't win this round.

Crawling into bed only in her bra and underwear, she shut off the bedside lamp and prayed for the pill to take effect soon. She refused to dwell on the night's events any further. That's what Dark Betty would do, and that's not who she wanted to be anymore.

Despite the chaos of the last few months, there had been so many wonderful events to brighten her world: Polly's ultimately safe return, her forthcoming niece or nephew, and, allowing herself to remember, a kind, caring, supportive dark-haired prince whose soul seemed to have molded itself to her own.

Thinking back on their warm embraces and gentle kisses shared, Betty's furrowed forehead began to relax, frown lines lifting ever so slightly.

As her thoughts and memories blurred into nothingness and her breathing slowed to an even sigh, the light of her cell phone glowed with an incoming text:

"Good night, my Juliet."