"love and hate, despite their polar opposites, are both feelings that are induced by passion. i can handle that. it's the indifference i don't know how to process"
-colleen hoover
book started: apr...
Another day - another mystery. It was on the musical night that one of the River Vixens had fallen. Midge was gruesomely murdered, pinned with scissors and knives to the wall of one the scenes in the play. It was horrific, terrible and just a plain tragedy. No one expected black hood to come back. Even I didn't.
Little later after Midge's funeral, the usual group of the four of us, were sitting in a booth at Pop's, not daring to look at each other, afraid to ruin the already heavy atmosphere.
"Are you sure this was The Black Hood who did it? I mean there is a lot of things that can mean B.H." Veronica said, breaking the silence.
But it was hard to not think of the Black Hood after all of the events, that lead everyone in town being paranoid, especially Archie. After Archie and Betty caught Mr. Svensson, the redhead was paranoid day and night that they caught the wrong man. And I can't blame him for that. Everything about the case seemed too tidy to be over and done with.
"Then what can it mean Ronnie?" he asked.
"Honestly? I don't know"
"I'm afraid that Arch is right, V. Black Hood is back." Betty said.
"We can't make assumptions before time." I said.
"I know, I know" he shot back.
"But in the mean time, please don't turn in to killer Archie again. I prefer my Archiekins way better."
"I promise Ronnie" he smiled at her.
Shortly later, the two love birds left and not long after, me and Betty did the same. I drove her to her house and got back to my trailer.
My dad was sleeping somewhere else for the third night in a row, so I casually walked straight in and sat down on the couch, taking my laptop out, easily falling back into my routine.
➳𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘰𝘯𝘪𝘤𝘢'𝘴 𝘱𝘰𝘷
After Archie dropped me of at the Pembrooke, I saw my parents in the living room drinking wine. They didn't even seem to care that a 16 year old teen was brutally murdered in a middle of a school play. I was disappointed in them, but mostly my mom.
My mom was different. She was much softer, vulnerable than my father. Even growing up I looked for comfort in her if I bruised my knee or if a girl made snarky comments about me. Daddy was there to solve the problem but my mom was there to ease the pain. I always admired that side of her, even though it appeared less and less as the time went on. She changed for dad, because she had to survive. And slowly but surely, she lost herself in the act she created to fill a spot in father's games. I thought I saw that caring and nurturing side of her show again, when we moved to Riverdale. She started smiling a bit more and worrying a bit less. However as soon as daddy arrived, things went back to what they were. Mom was again pushed to the sidelines as another pawn to be played. Everything she ever did was for him, her trying to be elected as major too. I hated the affect father had on her but I couldn't help her if she didn't want to change too.
"Good afternoon, Mija" I heard them say.
"Mommy. Daddy." I answered with the coldest voice I could muster.
"What's wrong honey? Is everything okay? Does it have to do with Archie?" my dad questioned.
"No. Archie is amazing."
"Then what is it, Mija?" mother asked.
"I don't want to be in our family business anymore. I'm tired of this control freak party. We are doing illegal business and it was the only thing that I begged you not to do in the first place." I suddenly burst out, regret washing my face instantly, as I let myself show weakness.
"Veronica, the papers that are in the study have your signature on them. You knew what you got yourself into, the second that you took that pen and wrote your name down. You can't just stand up and leave, thinking nothing will happen. That there will be no consequences. " Daddy was getting angrier with every venomous word that he spit out. The once caring face of a man that I loved so much, suddenly looked like nothing more that a strangers features, with it's eyes shooting daggers straight to my soul.
Suddenly I stopped controling the built up emotion over the years as it started controling me.
Everybody happened like a blur afterwards. I only remember saying something to my father, clutching my purse tighter and walking out of the apartment, not taking a second to look back. I don't know why I did it. But a sense of freedom and lightness washed over me the second I stepped outside and it felt like I could finally breathe in a fresh gulp of air. I felt like a fish that was captured at the shore, stranded there for god knows how long and finally able to breathe in painlessly in the depths of water.
The only problem was that now, I had nowhere to go. Archie and Betty were away in Chicago for a week. Redhead visiting his mom and the blonde girl going on a journalist getaway trip with her mother. Cheryl, Toni, Josie and Kevin were on a road trip, that they even invited me to go on, but I knew how guilty I'd feel if I'd run away from the ghosts that were haunting me.
There was only one person left and even the devil itself knew that it would have been a bad idea. Yet nothing else came to mind, except for Jughead Jones III.
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