Cheryl meets a Toni for the first time in sixth grade. The distinction is important — not the Toni but a Toni. A random boy who appears in her class named Toni with dirty nails and unwashed blonde hair. He's gross, plain and simple, and Cheryl's heart sinks when the teacher calls out his name during roll call. He'd been picking his ear and inspecting the wax when the teacher asked for Toni and he said what up?
Cheryl rolls her eyes so hard she almost sees her brain. She doesn't like him, plain and simple. She watches him for the rest of the class period and decides she'd rather have her tattoo removed than be with him for the rest of her life. He's rude and annoying and ugly and is it possible that the universe makes mistakes? Maybe Jughead was onto something.
"Can I see your tattoo?" Cheryl demands during lunch, standing tall over him. He's surrounded by a small crowd of equally ugly boys who'd been previously throwing tater tots at each other before Cheryl showed up. He looks affronted.
"What?" His voice is high-pitched, squeaky.
"I want to see your tattoo."
"That's private, you weirdo. You're a stalker."
"I'm not–" Cheryl scoffs, "I'm not a stalker. Or a weirdo. See, I have Toni tattooed behind my shoulder and I just want to make sure my name isn't somewhere on your dirty, unwashed, unkempt, annoying body."
The boys oooh and shove each other and, honestly, it's not even that good of an insult but she can't help but feel pride at having Toni shut up.
He stands up, obviously trying to intimidate her even though he's shorter than her. Cheryl raises her chin and then, quite unexpectedly, he rolls up the short sleeve of his T-shirt and shows her the very top of his arm where, in a nice font, Mary is written.
Cheryl lets out a sigh of relief, feeling like a ten pound weight was just lifted off her shoulders.
"Is it Toni with a 'y'?" He asks, shoving his sleeve down again. Cheryl blinks at him and then —
"No. No, it isn't. It's with an 'i'."
"Then it isn't me."
"Great." Cheryl whirls around and heads toward her usual cafeteria spot, next to some girls named Valerie and Josie. They're looking at her strange-like, because literally everyone in the small room heard the heated exchange, but Cheryl ignores them and digs into her food. It's none of their business, anyway.
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Sick of losing soulmates (Cheryl Blossom & Toni Topaz)
Fanfiction"Toni looks at her - like, really looks at her - long and hard and then she nods as if she understands, as if all of Cheryl's secrets are written all over her face and it just took someone to look closer than usual to discover them all." Or; you hav...
