Jellybean Jones

Chapter 67: Full Emo

Jughead POV
"You mean to tell me, you almost died for the motherfu-" "Okay you're done." Dad quickly cut Jellybean off from finishing her sentence. It had been nearly a week since her own brush with death and she said upright on her plain hospital bed. Dad had finally decided that it was time to tell her about the small 'déjà vu moment'. Which was, after all, fairly similar to her recent experience.

Luckily, she was recovering remarkably well. The concussion that was allegedly 'pretty damn bad' was nearly gone, only small remains of the head injury were present. Unluckily, however, she was absolutely, one hundred percent, very, extremely, incredibly furious at what Dad had just told her. Mad at me or mad at him, I couldn't tell, but I'm sure it was a mix of both.

"Bean, you have to understand-" I began, making a feeble attempt at calming her down. She cut me off just as Dad had cut off her. "I think I understand just fine!" She snapped relentlessly. "That's enough." Dad said through clenched teeth. "You are not listening to reason. Your brother believed in something so much that he was willing to die for it. It wasn't even his choice to get involved with the Serpents in the first place. It was, much like most of the screwed up things in your life, my fault. Blame him, or blame me, it's not going to make a difference. What's done is done. We cannot change the past, no matter how bad it may be." He said, his voice cold, but calm at the same time.

She scowled slightly, knowing that Dad was correct, knowing that she had, in fact, not been listening to reason. She leaned back against the bed. "Did you tell Mum?" She asked very suddenly. Dad looked down before answering. "No." He paused. "No I didn't tell her, but why, why would that thought come to you?" He asked hesitantly. "I just thought that, um, maybe it was uh, just something else she hadn't told me." She said quietly, an edge of the slightest bitterness audible in her voice. Truth be told, you could cut the tension in here with a knife.

Jellybean POV
'He almost died so the Serpents could live on.' Dad had finished. He had explained how Jughead had surrendered himself to The Ghoulies as a sacrifice. It made me more angry than I think I've ever been. The rage that coursed through me was entangled with resentment and blame.

I had said some things I regretted, yes, but I was also still not in a fully stable state. I pushed my hair out of my eyes, my fingers carefully brushed the bandages on my forehead, reminding me that it would be a scar. A scar that wold last forever. There goes all of my good first impressions. The first thing people are going to see is a nasty slice from a capture that never should have happened.

My several injuries were still polluting my somewhat frail body with pain. I felt weak, weaker than my anxiety had ever made me feel. It was a different kind of weak than that. It wasn't just mental this time, it wasn't invisible. It was physical and, rather obviously, easy to see. I didn't like it, I didn't like feeling contained in this room, this dark, dismal room.

"M'sorry I overreacted, or had an outburst, or whatever you wanna call it." I said, finally working up the nerve to speak. A wave of something that can only be described as sadness washed over me. "We only expected as much." Dad said tiredly. I flushed, well aware that this was not the first time I had overreacted to something the boys had told me.

Third Person POV
The week to follow this slight event was painful in more ways than one. It was painfully slow, painfully emotional and just painful in general for the youngest member of the Jones family. The small girl had grown so used to hiding the pain she was truly in, that she hid the way she was really feeling. Which, by the way, was sore, achey, weak, sick, and both emotionally and physically drained.

She was discharged from the hospital exactly two weeks after looking death directly in the face. Her copious injuries were still taking a major toll on her body, but she could manage. She always had, and so, she decided, she always would. But sometimes, managing all alone wasn't always the best thing, especially for Jellybean Jones.