You Shine (Choni)

38- The Ex

Toni's POV

I knew I had no right to be jealous. But everyone whom Cheryl had ever had any romantic attachment to was returning into her life, and it worried me. Our relationship was so strong and powerful, but it had only been a few weeks. We hadn't actually ever talked about our romantic pasts, and I didn't know how much she had liked Josie, or Heather. 

We arrived at school late, having quickly rushed home after Pop's to get changed into something else, and heard the bell ring while we were still on the bike there. Cheryl kissed me goodbye when we parked, softly brushing my lips with hers, her finger under my chin, pulling me in. It was sweet and made my stomach do a somersault. 

"I'll see you at break," she told me, and walked into the school, letting me lock up my bike. It was a shame we had barely any lessons together, but maybe it was a good thing to not spend the entirety of our day together, even if that was what I really wanted. 

At least I had Fangs and Jughead in most of my classes. The three of us sat at the back, passing notes, laughing, and getting very little actual work done. I threw a paper plane at Fangs, before receiving glares from the teacher. I apologised, and laughed as soon as she turned her back. As much as I appreciated being able to stay at Riverdale High, school just dragged on sometimes.

As soon as it hit morning break, we went to the common room, and I spotted Cheryl sitting next to Heather on one of the sofas, laughing. Heather was certainly pretty, tall and light haired, wearing a figure hugging dress. I walked over, and pulled up a chair opposite them. Cheryl leant forwards to squeeze my hand in greeting.

"This is my girlfriend, Toni," she introduced. "Toni, this is Heather."

I nodded at her, and gave a small smile. I wasn't about to be a bitch to this girl. I decided to trust Cheryl.

She smiled back. "I've heard loads about you already. You're a lucky girl."

I nodded, grinning at Cheryl. "Believe me, I know. When did you come back to Riverdale?"

"Two days ago," she replied. "My parents wanted to come back. They missed it. I can't think why."

I laughed. "Yeah, it's turned into a pile of shit."

"Imagine my surprise when I came back to see Cheryl, estranged from her mother, her brother and father dead, and a Southside Serpent," she laughed. Cheryl smiled nervously, and I gripped her hand a little tighter.

"The Serpent thing is proving to be a bit of a problem amongst a lot of the well respected Northside families," she admitted. "But I'm ready to fight the Serpents' corner."

"Oh, I don't care," Heather exclaimed, in a fake sounding high pitched voice. "It was just unexpected."

Cheryl looked at her suspiciously, and then quickly into my eyes. We immediately understood each other. I was telling her to be careful. She replied that she knew she'd have a problem with the Serpent thing. Our eyes spoke just as well as our mouths did. 

I smiled. "So, Heather, did you leave a lot of friends behind?" I asked.

She nodded. "Yep. But I'm excited to rekindle my friendships here, especially with Cheryl."

I gave her a smile which seemed fake, even to me. "That's cute."

I decided that I didn't particularly like Heather. She seemed like one of those classically bitchy popular girls. Not the ones like Cheryl, who were hiding everything they were and were just defensive, but those who were bitchy just because they could be. Everything she was saying seemed fake as fuck. But I could see that Cheryl wanted to regain the friendship, and I knew that she didn't have that many true friends. I would be nice to Heather, so long as she didn't give me a reason not to be.

We went back to lessons, and I sat with Jughead at the back again, complaining about how annoying Heather was in a low voice.

He laughed. "Give her a chance. She might turn out to be really nice."

I rolled my eyes at him. "Yeah right. She probably lives in a massive house with her perfect family, and makes friends with everyone only to gather blackmail on them for later."

"Toni, why do you always insist on seeing the worst in people?" He asked me.

I startled. "Wait, what? I don't do that."

He looked at me, pointedly. "Are you serious. Of course you do. You're always determined to find reasons for people to be bad."

I bit my lip, starting to understand what he was saying.

"Even with Cheryl. She wanted to be with you, and things were starting to go really well, and then you found out something tiny and trivial, and used it as a reason to fight with her, when you knew her anti-Southside thing was all in the past."

I nodded. "Okay, point taken. How haven't I realised this before?"

He shrugged. "I thought you knew. Remember the first time you met Betty?"

I pursed my lips. "Yeah, but she was being annoying."

"No she wasn't. You just couldn't see that because you were determined to make her bad. The only person I've ever seen you see the good in before you saw anything else was Cheryl. Sure, you overreacted about the reputation thing, but you could see that she was a good person underneath the bitch. It was really weird, because Cheryl was the one person that nobody else could find the good in. And then the pessimistic you came along, and insisted there was good there. I'd never seen you do that before."

I thought for a while, considering what he was saying. I'd known from the second I saw Cheryl that there was more than she was showing. I made an effort. I'd never seen that in a person before, or bothered to try and reach a person before. Maybe he was right. 

I began to feel the jealousy diminish, as I realised that me and Cheryl were more than just two broken girls. We were fated to be together. She made everything else in the world feel complete.