There's Archie and there's Chuck, and then there's no Archie and no Chuck, but soon there's Archie again and Jughead comes around and they manage to distract you from all the other clues.
So, you don't notice much in the beginning. There are at least a hundred signs but it doesn't matter because you somehow miss all of them. In a world where almost nothing makes sense, Veronica is your constant. The first person you text and the last person you talk to. She's your one phone call. You're B&V, forged in fire, and she's your best friend.
She's your best friend. Of course she is. What else could she possibly be?
***
You both sit at Pop's and run through the endless lists of dim-witted boys at Riverdale High that she could date. Veronica raises a perfectly shaped eyebrow at each one of them and turns them all down.
"God, Ronnie, your standards are impossible!" You say to her after she rejects the star of the lacrosse team because he doesn't stand up straight when he walks.
"Of course they are, Betts, why shouldn't they be?"
So, life at Riverdale High continues and (much to the dismay of every boy in a fifty-mile radius) Veronica Lodge stays single.
Even the most enamored and persistent give up on asking her to go anywhere. When the traffic slows down, she looks pleased. You're a little happy, too. It's kind of nice not having to share her.
***
"Betty, you look amazing. You're a total smokeshow," she tells you, "You're always going to look amazing."
There's a ton of longing in her voice that you can't really place. You assume it's because you're wearng soft pink, a color that she claims she can't pull off because of her skin tone. She could pull it off, you want to tell her. She could pull anything off.
She's a novelty kind of beautiful.
For some reason you don't say it out loud, though. It doesn't feel right.
***
The Spring Formal is a high school dance straight out of some romantic comedy teen movie. Which is to say, the Spring Formal is fantastic.
The Scooby gang dances as a circle for most of the night, and for the slow songs you allow Archie and Jughead to rotate pulling you in and waltz around each other. When Archie holds you it no longer burns and your smiles are fond instead of forced and you think of how far you've come since Veronica got to Riverdale.
You smile.
You and Veronica go to the bathroom together and you laugh for a good ten minutes although if anybody asked you're not sure you could tell them what about, but everything feels light and good and you are positively floating. When you return, the boys are dancing together in an embarassing mess of limbs and you both laugh.
"Ah, forget 'em, querida," she tells you. She pulls you close and wraps her arms around your waist, "B&V forever, remember? We never needed them anyway."
Her face is mere centimeters from yours, and her eyes are breathtaking.
***
Summer starts and you and Jughead end as quickly as you began.
You break up with him quietly, and he hardly blinks. He doesn't seem surprised.
He doesn't make you blush the way that she does, and that has to mean something. You're not too sure what, but you think that it's important.
***
"Are you okay?" She asks, glancing up from her choclate milkshake to make eye contact for only a second before dropping again. The gang is out for dinner and they're taking up a long table at the diner. You don't know what she's talking about.
"About Jughead and Toni," she supplies, waving a hand in their direction.
You realize you had been spacing out in their direction. Jughead is smiling the stupid smile that used to be yours and Toni's eyes are all open and honest in a way yours could never be and they deserve each other.
"No," you turn to your own milkshake and sip slowly.
You're not upset. You're confused.
***
When you finally allow yourself to mull about what it means, you realize that things really haven't changed at all.
Veronica is the same as she's always been with you. She teases you about your clothing, she avoids your mom, and she takes care of the moon shaped wounds on your hands the way she always has.
So, you conclude, you're either delusional or just slow on picking up clues.
***
The indecision slowly kills you. It's all that you think about. You turn over the options again and again, trying to figure out if you and Veronica feel right. You assess and you obssess and you avoid her for a week because she's your best friend and if you see her you're afraid she'll know what's wrong and she'll run away and after Polly you're not sure you're ready to lose her too.
You know this is dangerous, and you want to talk to her because you're just not sure.
Not about your feelings. Those have made themselves pretty obvious. It's Veronica's that you're worried about.
***
It's been long enough, you decide, so you go to the Pembrooke with every intention of acting completely normal. Of discussing her latest theories about Pretty Little Liars, of debating the merits of different celebrity couples, and talking about Riverdale's latest gossip.
You're ready to get back to the way things were before.
So you head over and you don't call beforehand because you never did before. You're her best friend and you haven't needed any sort of invitation for months. You let yourself in and it's only when you get to her room that you fear you've made a mistake.
Her hair is in a messy braid down her back and she is in a Spence cheerleading tee and spandex and she looks surprised to see you after ten days and somehow her makeup is still flawless. (Of course it is).
She is beautiful and you can't act normal because you are an idiot.
"Look," She says, and she's using the same tone that she used the days after she made out with Archie in a closet at Cheryl's party. It seems irrelevant now. "I'm not sure what's going on or what you think I know but I promised nothing would ever come between us. Not even me so if something I did -"
You kiss her on instinct because you are an idiot and she looks adorable when she's flustered and what other option did you have?
She kisses back, slow and sweet and a sharp contrast to the spiteful first kiss you both shared. When you finally pull apart, her eyes are wide and surprised. They say ethnic people don't blush but the way Veronica looks right now is solid proof against that.
"Well," she finds her voice first. Of course she does. "That was... unexpected."
You nod dumbly, because you're Betty Cooper and of course you do. You can't decide whether you tackle her and kiss her or fill her in on all the things you've wanted to tell her for the past ten days. In the end, you do both. You tug at her hair and mumble stories into the crook of her neck and kiss her when she tells you she wants to learn to play the guitar. When she gasps you bite her lip and you don't stop smiling for the next four hours.
***
In many ways, junior year starts the same way as sophomore year.
You and Veronica fling the doors open standing shoulder to shoulder and her mere prescence keeps people out of your way.
This year, though, you two are holding hands.
She is your best friend, still.
At the end of last year you asked yourself what else she could be.
The answer to the question makes your cheeks hurt from smiling.
-
No warnings.
YOU ARE READING
Train Tracks // Beronica One-Shots
Fanfiction"She is the train ride to the rest of my life." B & V, because we all know that in whatever universe we throw these two into, they're meant to be together. I'm going to be posting all my past (and future) Betty and Veronica one-shots and drabbles in...
