"Wait, Cheryl, I'm confused. What were the First and Second Rights?"
"What on earth are you talking about, Archie?"
"If this was the Third Right in Germany. What were the first two?"
"What? Good god, Archie. Reich. It was the Third Reich."
"Oh, I thought Mr Dullard was saying right."
"He clearly wasn't, but regardless it's written both in your textbook and on the board."
Cheryl rolled her eyes as she flipped the page in her book deftly with one hand, glancing sideways at Archie as he sat with his long legs strewn haphazardly beneath the small desk they were sharing, his chair dragged awkwardly close to hers from across the room.
Mr Dullard had not quite given up on life it seemed, but had clearly given up on teaching - at least for today - as he stood at the back of the classroom gazing longingly out of an open window at the sunshine, a pencil perched delicately balanced, close to his mouth, between his first and middle finger. No doubt he was wishing to be basking in the rays, reading a good book and smoking a cigarette. Or at least smoking something. He'd allocated partner work for the period with a dismissive wave of his hand, instructing them to sit and work on pages 34 through to 40. Cheryl had read them 2 months ago and was hoping to be able to choose Toni as her partner and sit and stare at her face for 45 minutes, but, alas, fate had reared its ugly head and whispered over Dullard's shoulder to convince him to allocate the pairs himself.
So, she was stuck here with Archie Andrews.
She watched, with a mild interest akin to someone peering in at the gorilla enclosure at the zoo, as he frowned, crossing out his sentence messily in his book before glancing across the room. His expression seemed to soften slowly, his handsome mouth pressing into a concerned line as he moved his head closer to Cheryl's.
"Toni's face seems like it's healing up pretty well." He murmured softly, nodding to the girl adjacent to them, "That's good."
Cheryl swallowed, glancing down at her page.
We coulda fuckin' died.
"Yes. She knows how to take care of herself very well."
She picked up her pen to write an asinine note onto her page distractedly.
Archie paused, watching her.
"I know you probably don't want to talk about it."
Cheryl scoffed.
"Finally, Archie. Showing some insight I see."
She hadn't meant to snap at him, she was supposed to be in control of the poisonous side of her tongue these days. But the flashes of blood and cuts and winces and hisses and waking up to red stains on the pillow and watching Toni hold back tears as she cleaned her cuts was gripping tightly at her stomach and making it hard to breathe.
It had been just over a week since that awful night and Cheryl was hoping that her memory of it would fade easily along with Toni's injuries themselves.
She lifted her head to look at Toni, a smile drifting onto her face.
She was healing well, thank god. Cheryl had made sure to press a soft kiss to each of her wounds every morning before school, ghosting her fingertips lightly over the scabs on her face, knowing they'd leave scars and realising, finally, that that was where all the others she'd noticed on her little body must have come from.
She'd insisted that Toni cover at least the bruises with makeup. They sat patchily over her skin like sickening, yellowing pools of poison seeping out across her face and darkening the skin under her left eye. If only for the fact that Cheryl wouldn't have to look at them. But Toni had refused. She wore her wounds with the same pride as she did her leather jacket, covering them would be admitting shame. Plus, as she'd rightly pointed out to Cheryl, with Sweetpea, Fangs, Jughead and the other Serpents at the school all carrying beaten faces, there was no need. Everyone knew something had gone down.
