Taken- A Bughead Fanific

Chapter 5: You Don't Need Water to Drown

Three days later-

The black haired boy sat at his couch, defeated. Ever since Betty's disappearance from her life, he realized something. He realized that silence was really loud. When silence came he immediately started to drown in a pool of hypotheticals, what if's, and dark, dark thoughts. It wasn't like this when his mom and Jellybean left. Of course it was hard and all, but it was never like this. He felt a paralyzing emptiness. He felt it everywhere. His stomach, his chest, his heart. He scrolled through his phone to Betty's contact. He called her phone to hear her voice. To avoid the torturous silence.

"Hi! It's Betty! Sorry I couldn't make it to the phone right now. Anyway, leave it at the beep!"

He hung up. Then he played it again.

"Hi! It's Betty! Sorry I couldn't make it to the phone right now. Anyway, leave it at the beep!"

Again.

Again.

Again.

His eyes glared blankly at the wall. After a three days of trying to find Betty, he had stopped feeling anything. He also hadn't slept. It was like he went completely numb. He brain felt foggy, his body felt heavy. Although he felt like it, he wouldn't give up. Even though the rest of the town was losing hope, he had to put a brave face on. Jughead listened to her voice for hours, playing her on a loop. He closed his eyes, imagining her smile, her golden locks, and her piercing, green eyes. Her eyes reminded him of freshly cut grass. He wanted to dive into her eyes and never come back up. He felt a hand grab his shoulder. He jolted up from the aged, shabby couch he had previously sunken into.

"Jughead... are you alright?" Archie asked, concern filling his eyes, "I called your name like several times. I knocked, too. So I just, you know, let myself in. What were you listening to?"

Archie had come to check on him. He had seen him earlier this morning with Veronica, going over what they knew so far about Penny and the Goolies. This included any possible leads, at which they had none. Archie noticed Jughead's purple, sunken in eyes. His color had faded and his shirt was extra baggy. Archie sighed as Jughead just looked at him blankly, as if he hadn't heard him.

"Jug?" He questioned again, his voice soft. Jughead blinked and broke out of his trance.

"Oh," he started. He looked down at his phone and eyed Betty's contact name. Betts, it said with a heart next to it, "just listening to Betty," he sighed, sinking back into the couch.

"What?" Archie yelped. Before he could go on, Jughead stopped him in his tracks, waving him off.

"Just her voicemail," he uttered, "it's almost like she is really there... but she's not."

A few moments of painful silence went by before Archie wandered into the kitchen. He looked at the bulletin-board above the kitchen table. Pictures, red string, cards and thumbtacks overflowed the board, spilling onto the actual wall. The red string reminded him of the time Betty lended him some in the third grade for a science project. He doesn't remember what the project was based on; just the memory of her fishing for the string in her backpack. She handed it to him.

"Keep it," she insisted, her young voice kind and full of good intentions. It's amazing what the brain chooses to keep and what it chooses to let go. He reached his hand out to graze the length of the string with his fingertips. A warm smile came upon his face as he thought back on the memories he had with her as a child. He thought of the time she picked flowers in her yard for him when he scraped his knee, the time she tutored him so he wouldn't get held back.

"We can't give up on her, Archie," Jughead murmured, "we can't. I'm all she has left. We are all she has left." It was like he was reading his thoughts. He was standing behind Archie, watching him touch the string. Archie glued his hand to his side, embarrassed.