"You are so hot right now," she says in a sultry tone as her eyes scan Cheryl up and down.
Cheryl's response is quick and snappy much like her personality, "Tell me something I don't know."
"I love you," Toni replies without even thinking. The words tumble from her mouth without her consent, but really it's been a long time coming. She knows it's probably too soon, but she's been wanting to say it it since the moment they were reunited in that creepy nunnery.
Cheryl asked Toni to be her girlfriend officially the day after she broke her out of that damn conversion camp. They've only been dating for about a month and a half now, as long as they've been rehearsing this musical. But that doesn't mean this feeling hasn't been growing inside her since she first met Cheryl.
After Cheryl invited Toni to the will reading, they exchanged phone numbers and since then, there hasn't been a day that they don't talk. The texts are frequent and after about a week, there were even some calls too. They hung out a few times between the will reading and their slumber party with the vixens that went so awry. They spent time together mostly at Pop's, tucked away inside a booth together talking about anything and everything. She thinks that might have been how Cheryl convinced her to try out for the vixens in the first place, a well-placed hand on her thigh and an excessive amount of cleavage. She never stood a chance. She would have done it even without the full on charm that Cheryl had given her. The vixens were just another reason to spend more time with her redheaded crush and she wasn't going to miss that opportunity.
But things were shifting between them even before she tried out for the vixens and she knew it. She didn't dare talk about it for fear of sending Cheryl running scared in the opposite direction, but she knew there was more than friendship blossoming between them. Things took a heavy turn in the favor of her crush at the sleepover with Betty, Veronica, and Josie. Cheryl admitted that she craved Toni. The words whispered softly in the darkness of Cheryl's room were enough to send shivers down Toni's spine. She craved Cheryl too, more than anything she had ever craved before. And she almost got a taste when poor Nana Rose crashed down the stairs of Thistlehouse.
She at least got to be by Cheryl's side when they took her Nana to the hospital. She even found Cheryl posted by her Nana's hospital bedside and spent the afternoon with her there in hopes of distracting Cheryl from her mother and uncle's nefarious plans. Toni wasn't sure if she really believed Cheryl's mother was out to get her, but she was there for Cheryl nonetheless. They sat and talked. They played cards. They even flirted despite Cheryl's exhaustion.
Toni would have stayed there all night if she could have, but a nurse came by and told her that non family members had to leave at eight. She promised Cheryl she would be back in the morning and Cheryl nodded weakly. Toni placed the most delicate of kisses upon Cheryl's cheek and softly squeezed her hand as she whispered her goodbye. The kiss alone left her tingling for hours let alone all that uninterrupted one-on-one time with Cheryl.
Then the next morning she returned to the hospital to find Nana Rose's room empty and a hollow feeling in her chest to match. She checked in on Nana Rose to make sure she was okay before trying to call her redhead. Four calls, six texts, and one voicemail later she decided to just show up at Thistlehouse, Mrs. Blossom be damned.
When Mrs. Blossom said that Cheryl had left to go to a private school in Switzerland, Toni's heart sank. For just a second she believed that Cheryl left on her own, and how could Toni blame her. Riverdale had been nothing but horrible to her. Her twin brother was murdered here by none other than their own father. Her mother verbally and sometimes even physically abused her in this very home. And now, her Nana Rose had almost died, most likely at the hands of her crazy wasp mother and her long lost uncle. For just one second she believed that Cheryl had left her. That she didn't think Toni was enough of a reason to stay in Riverdale. That she was breaking Toni's heart before either of them really had a chance to be together.
