IMAGINES ▹ ROSS BUTLER

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( PROTECTED ) 
by mantlelificent

I miss you.

You received the text on the first day of school, the instant your baby pink ballet flats maneuvered within the halls of Riverdale High, which were marginally filled with mayhem from everyone's first day jitters.

Well, not everyone. You, despite your extra pretty face, extra shiny curls, and extra preppy outfit, wore a heavy façade that drooped lower than the Maybelline Fit Me-concealed eye-bags that were situated below your unexplained, cheery eyes that tried to greet everyone with much positivity as possible. As everyone knew your perfect reputation, the happy-go-lucky cheerleader that everyone admired and loved since the day you entered high school. It was never tarnished, so you refused to let a silly break-up move it at all.

You took out your phone and shakily gazed down at the message. It was sent in clear, with no emoji's or silly grammatical errors. Your nervous fingers moved for you, but your brain was being silly that day and it had no planned response for the text message.

A wave of students accidentally crossed and one of them partially collided against your hardly five feet tall physique, which was a thankful jolt that rattled you off from replying to the text message. You squeezed the iPhone tightly, bearing no mind of the glittery fake diamonds from the phone case bearing harsh indentions against your palm.

The moment you were able to fix your locker and lock it behind you, you immediately set off to find a seat in the gym—hoping that an early departure from the first day madness would create a false sense of comfort from your inevitable fate, which was meeting your ex-boyfriend again subsequently after a summer of trying to forget all about him.

Everyone had always said that you were perfect for Reginald Mantle.

You were a girl blessed with your father's dominant sloped nose and your mother's graceful and tiny, ballerina body. Being the only child meant being under the revolving gaze of your mother and father's watchful eyes twenty-four/seven, and you grew up to be accordingly limpid; yet, at the same time pretentious for you were the heir of one of the wealthiest families in Riverdale.

Reggie was a boy meant for you even before you knew what he was supposed to be. He was a constant person in your life, a fixture caused by your parents and his parents' meddling. Though, despite your unending play times together and a hired tutor that taught you and him up until you were in middle school, Reggie and you grew up in different paths, in different aspects.

You and Reggie were in the opposite sides of the spectrum. Nevertheless, you were inexplicably drawn to him. He was exactly the same as you, but as the same time, so, so different.

He was difficult to figure out. He had pushed children off swing sets and had hogged all the toy cars to himself as he disliked sharing. You hated the smirk on his face when he teased his inferiors, and still you loved him when he kissed you goodnight. He'd hold you in the softest way possible, muscled arms entrapped around you with touch as light as a feather, and similarly he'd used the same arms dangerously with heated intent at someone else.

You never got why people often told you that he was perfect for you. He was, in your point of view, a mixture of positives and negatives. He was your opposite.

The thing about opposites was that when a unity occurred, it would be a co-existent dependency that held itself with tension.

You loved him more than he loved himself. That was probably the reason why the balance wasn't right and he pushed himself off, leaving you in the dust.