After the world's most awkward Secret Santa party Jughead and I had to go to school. I'm putting away books in between classes and something on the door of my locker catches my eye. It's a picture of my family. Jughead and I are around twelve and Jellybean is six. My Mom has Jellybean in her arms and I'm on my Dad's back. Jughead stands in front of Dad and he has one hand on his shoulder. We're all smiling and not those forced smiles everyone does when their picture is being taken. No, we were smiling real smiles. The smiles we used to have before Dad was drunk all the time and before Mom took Jellybean and left. Before all the problems, we were happy. Especially Dad. I miss that.
I don't even realize I'm crying until I catch myself in the little mirror above the picture.
"Boo." Someone whispers in my ear behind me. I jump and quickly close my locker.
I turn around and see Sweet Pea leaning against the lockers. "You scared the hell out of me, what's wrong with you?"
"You okay?" I realize I still have tears streaking my cheeks and wipe them away.
"Yeah, I'm fine." I turn around to walk away but he grabs my arm and stops me. "What? Don't you have a class to ditch?"
"Serpent Law number one: No Serpent stands alone." He looks at me with an expression I've never seen on him before.
"If I tell you, you're gonna think I'm stupid."
"I already think you're stupid so we're halfway there." He smirks at me and crosses his arms.
