Blind Love

She's Not Doing Well

Veronica hated the afterlife, she decided. She could not move and she hurt all over. It was horrible. The weirdest part of this experience was she could hear distinctly people, probably doctors, talking about her, and she could feel them operating on her. The whirs and beeps of different machines annoyed her, and she particularly hated when she was injected daily.

Another strange thing was the sounds and feelings were getting less clear every day. She remembered the first day when she woke up, she had had better hearing and feeling than this. The tube in her throat was not helping either. It was hard to breathe.

Maybe she'd fade into nothing slowly, she'd fade into a mixture of numbness and emptiness.

"Veronica?"

"Veronica?"

"V? Veronica?"

Veronica got annoyed at the constant murmurs of her name. 'Yes, that's my name,' she thought. 'Now stop it, I can't respond!'

"Veronica?"

After a few days, she got used to hearing random sounds of her name being called. She could never hear the content of what the people were saying besides her name. That annoyed her too.

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"She's not doing well," The doctor said grimly.

Jughead, in a wheelchair, could tell the doctor was holding back on him. He wished the doctor would tell him the truth of how Veronica was, he was sure he could handle it.

Well, at least he got to see Veronica in the ICU after constant nagging and whining and fasting, yes fasting. Veronica should know how important she was to him.

"Tell me the truth please, I deserve to know," Jughead frowned at the doctor while wheeling himself closer to Veronica, who was lying motionless on the bed.

The doctor sighed. "She's been in a coma for a month with no sign of waking up. We don't know when she will wake up. She has to wake up by her own will according to how much she wants to survive. Besides this, she's not healing well either, her wrists and ribcage are not repairing themselves."

"Is that all?" Jughead quipped sarcastically.

"We also don't know how whether her brain is permanently damaged from the long period of time she was under water, and she's blind in her left eye," the doctor added seriously.

"Gee, I was joking," Jughead was silent. His heart was breaking from the informaton he had just received.

Looking at the comatose Veronica on the bed, Jughead wanted to cry. There were tubes all over her and it looked extremely painful. He'd take that pain for her any day.

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So Jughead wheeled himself to Veronica everyday, talking to her and begging her to wake up. It was an endless wait and torture for him. He could not even touch her according to the doctors' strict orders.

He wished and wished for her to wake up, so he told her every happy thing he could think of. He doubted she could hear him though, because if she could hear him why has she not woken up? He knew if their roles were reversed and he could hear Veronica talking to him in his comatose state, he would do anything to wake up just to respond and be with her.

"And it was so funny when Jellybean accidentally dropped her ice cream on dad's head when she was sitting on his shoulders. I laughed so hard and dad couldn't even stay mad at her because it was so funny," Jughead told Veronica.

He started laughing upon recalling the memory, but started choking on a sob once he snapped back to reality where Veronica was not responsive.

"Hang on, I'll be back, just give me a moment," he faked cheerfulness and wheeled himself out to compose himself.

Now, if Jughead had looked down carefully, he would have seen Veronica's right index finger moving a bit, as if telling him to stay.

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"It's like I don't know him anymore, Arch. He's been a complete stranger ever since he'd been kidnapped. It's like the real Jug is still kidnapped, and this isn't him."

A familiar voice floated down the corridor. Jughead, while composing himself, decided to stick around and eavesdrop.

"Give him some time, Betty. I don't think anything will be the same after the kidnap," another voice responded.

Jughead did not need two guesses to guess who these voices belonged to.

"He's either been distant or he's been Veronica this, Veronica that."

It was hard not to miss the bitterness in the usually sweet voice.

"I won't be surprised if Veronica tried to steal my boyfriend in the process, you know how she is," Betty Cooper spitefully continued.

Jughead was about to wheel in and probably ram into her with his wheelchair in his anger, but Archie beat him to responding.
"Betty, how could you say that? My Veronica is the most loyal girl you could ask for!"

Jughead, knowing his girlfriend, could imagine her biting her lip in apology. "I'm sorry, Archie, I just got stressed. It's just...too much, Archie, I wanna be there for him, but I'm so, so tired! I feel I need a break from all this."

The ginger obviously did not know how to respond because there was a long pause before the blond continued.

"I've been trying so hard to talk and be with Jughead, but nothing's happening! This is getting one-sided! And...I... I just need some space to think this through... I think...I need to go home."

"We'll talk about this tomorrow morning when you're feeling better, Betty. Don't make any rash decisions. I'll take you home."

The footsteps echoed in the hallway until they were nothing but faint echoes.

Jughead, to his own surprise, was not hurt at all at Betty's confession. He felt relieved even, when he heard she wanted a break. He knew how hard a one-sided relationship was, and he temporarily could not contribute to their relationship at least until Veronica woke up. Jughead honestly felt this was a good choice, and he could finally stop hurting Betty's feelings unintentionally.