"Don't let go"

46-mixed up dates and confusion

Jugheads Point Of View-

Exactly three days after my birthday party Betty started to act really weird. I woke up and she wasn't in the apartment, and I didn't worry until it was after  8pm and she still hadn't been home. She wasn't answering her cell phone, and everything that I had ever done wrong floated through my mind.

She's gone, she's left me, that's the only possible explanation. Frantically I called every one I knew, Fangs was at his aunts in New York, and sweet pea and Veronica hadn't seen her all day, Toni and Cheryl were over at Cheryl's place and they hadn't heard from her either.

I walked down to the bar to find my dad having a cigarette at the table with croaky joe watching some of the dancers and he waved me over.

"Have you saw Betty anywhere?" I sighed sitting down next to him lighting my own cigarette, trying to call her again for the sixth hundredth time.

"Uh she lives with you now?" My dad laughed.

"When I woke up she was gone, no body has heard from her all day and it's getting a little late?" I sighed staring at my phone, as if she was magically going to call me.

But then my phone did start ringing, and I got excited. But it wasn't Betty. It was Veronica.

"Any news?" I answered the call.

"Jughead what's the date?" Veronica asked me, her tone was panicked.

"24th August?" I asked confused.

"Holy shit V!" I heard Cheryl's voice in the background.

"We gotta go jug, we'll call you soon." And then the line went dead.

I stared at my phone and it took me much, much longer to put two and two together. My dad had to help me.

"well that was weird" I sighed.

"Who was it?" My dad asked me.

"Veronica, she sounded like she was shitting bricks, panicking over something, she called me to ask me the date and hung up the phone when I told her" I said sparking another cigarette.

"You've got to be kidding me" he said choking on his drink.

"How often do you guys, you know.... do the deed?" He asked again and this time it was my turn to choke on my drink, it spluttered all over he bar and it took me a minute to catch my breath.

"What the fuck dad-" but I was interrupted.

"Shut up and listen to me boy, girlfriend: MIA, acting weird plus the weird phone call about dates multiplied by all the sex you two kids have, divided by the panic of Veronica, equals?"

"This is a math question even I can figure out" I said feeling the colour draining from my face.

"Betty and I use condoms" I said trying to think about the last few times we've done it, it was hard to remember, we do have a lot of sex.

"....most of the time" I said reaching for my phone again texting Veronica.

Me
Find Betty ASAP!

"Jughead, the one thing I trusted you to not do, the only thing. She's 17 years old do you not think she's freaking the fuck out right now!" He said stumping his cigarette out, but I was already out of the bar door and on my motor bike.

I was certainly not ready to be a dad, I don't think I've ever even held a kid before, and the only person I've ever loved in this whole entire world is Betty, and that's only since like a year ago. What if I don't love my own child? What if my own child doesn't love me? What if my child doesn't love me and Betty chooses the baby over me? Is Betty even ready to have a baby, she had her whole life planned out, she's so fucking smart, we were going to college, to see the world.