Resilience | Sweet Pea.

16- Accusations.

I sit in the living room reading, Archie had gone to meet Betty and I had chickened out of going. Seeing Jughead kiss Toni made me angry, but I couldn't tell Betty, it'd kill her. But I also couldn't lie to her either, so being there, hearing her be so honest with me and knowing I couldn't be honest with her... I just couldn't do it.

"Nova put your shoes on, we're going to the Coopers." Fred tells me. "Archie's meeting us there."

"Why is everything okay?" I ask.

"Let's just go." He says, he doesn't sound mad, he sounds stressed.

"Riverdale's best and brightest, huh?" Alice says as we all sit around the Cooper's living room.

There're many people in this room. Josie and her mom, Mayor McCoy. Kevin and Sheriff Keller, Veronica and Mr and Mrs. Lodge. Reggie and his mom, and Fred, myself, Betty, and Archie.

"Alice, thank you for hosting." Mayor McCoy says to Alice.

"Of course, Mayor McCoy. When I heard what happened at Nicks party, I decided we should come together to deal with this motley crew of liars, dope fiends and fornicators." Alice says. "Except for my Betty who was smart enough to leave the party before it was a bacchanalian free-for-all."

"Oh my god. Mom please don't." Betty says.

"Here we go, Saint Betty and Succubus Veronica." Veronica scoffs to Archie.

"So to get this straight, Alice. You're hosting this to gloat?" Fred asks.

"Here we go again." I whisper to myself. Rolling my eyes and crossing my arms.

"Is there something you'd like to say, Nova?" Alice asks.

"Of course not, Mrs C." I say in the fakest tone I could muster.

"I may have taken jingle jangle but she's the one that had a psychotic break." Veronica snaps to Archie about Betty.

"Cut her some slack, Ronnie-" I whisper.

"She just broke up with Jughead." Archie completes my sentence.

"Wait what? Hashtag 'Bughead' is no more?" Kevin asks, making my skin crawl at the use of 'hashtag bughead' "Betty didn't tell me!"

"Ahem!" Alice grumbles, causing all of us to snap our heads to her.

"Careful throwing stones there, acid-queen Alice." Mr Lodge says. "I'm not the only one in this room that knows the story behind that mugshot your daughter printed in the paper."

As wary as I am of Hiram Lodge and his southside destroying plans, I can't help but smirk at him putting Alice in her place. Mental high five, dude.

"I, for one, would like to know who brought the jingle jangle to the party." Mrs Lodge says. Alice turns towards me, raising an eyebrow.

"Well I don't know what you're looking at me for. I wasn't even at the party." I say.

"Well... Nova, given your strong connections to the southside... I wouldn't have been surprised had it been you supplying drugs to Nick's party." Alice says.

My eyes dart to Reggie, who gulps. I know it'd been him, but I also had a feeling Reggie's 'perfect life' isn't all it seems. Just because I'd love to beat the shit out of him doesn't mean I want to be the reason for something bad happening to him. Am I going to have to talk the fall for this?

"Alice don't you dare accuse my daughter like that!" Fred growls.

"Well it's true, Fred. You can bubble-wrap your pet-project all you like, but Nova is the most likely to be hanging around the southside, following in Ottis and Juliet's troublesome-"