Falling Apart

Chapter 23

I hear the doorbell. “Come in!” I yell from my room, hoping he hears me.
“I’ll take your stuff outside, okay? Hurry up!” FP shouts.
“Yeah!” I shout back and keep looking for the book Jug asked for. I see it finally after like 10 minutes of looking for it now. I grab it and another one for me, just totally random, and also throw my smaller backpack over my shoulder. I slide my phone into my back pocket and go downstairs.
“Hey,” FP says with a smile.
“Hey,” I say and hand him my backpack as well. He kisses my hair while taking it.
“That’s all?” he asks. I nod. He smirks and nods.
We start to go outside, but Hot Dog keeps sitting. I sigh and look at her. “Come on girl.” She keeps sitting and I'm not one of the persons who would just pull her by her collar, with me. I sigh. “Don’t do this again,” I whine. FP laughs at me. “Shut up,” I say, making him only laugh more. “Juggie’s outside,” I tell to my dog and that gets her moving.
“That dog is a lot like you,” FP smirks.
“I'm not that bad,” I smirk and lock the door behind us. Hot Dog pulls herself free and runs to the side of the car where Jug is sitting at and where the door is opened. She jumps in and I hear Jug welcoming her. I smile and walk there too.
My dog is lying on Jug's lap even though she's big now. Like 8 months now since it's the end of April. “Hey,” Jug chuckles at me, petting her.
I don't say anything, I keep staring at Hot Dog. “Hot Dog. This is my place.” They laugh at me and she barks once. “No,” I say. “Down.” She starts licking my hand as I try to push her off. “Come on. Please?” She barks again once and climbs on the front seat.
I get in the car, on Jug's lap. “Hi,” I smile and close the door behind me.
He chuckles. “Hi.” We kiss for a few seconds. “You’re tired,” he says after we pull away.
“And where do you get that?" I smirk, knowing I am.
“From your kiss. You have a few hours for sleeping or you'll be tired later,” he says, stroking my hair softly.
“I’ll be like in a super bad mood when you wake me up later,” I warn him.
“Nothing I haven't seen before,” he chuckles and kisses my cheek. I sigh and close my eyes on his shoulder.
We're going camping. It's the first week of May. We got one week free from school because the school thought we needed a break between all the college applications and SAT-s and shit. They're going every year. Jug, FP, Jellybean, Slurpe and Sweet Pea. Usually Toni and Fangs are with them too, but not every time. This time, they invited all of us. Meaning me, Kev, Cher, Ronnie and Peaches, who is Toni's girlfriend. And Hot Dog obviously.
We're here with two cars; FP's and Slurpe's. They're both big, but still have room for only five and five people. So I'm sitting on Jug's lap and Jelly's on Sweets' since we're the youngest apparently and the smallest and skinniest. After about 3 hours we should get to the place they wanna go and then hike there the rest of the day.

“Baby, wake up. We're here,” Jug whispers. I hide my face further into his shirt and feel him kiss my hair. “Yeah, do it,” he says to someone. There's a bang. I flinch and look up rapidly just to realize it was a car door closing.
“Idiot,” I mumble and go back to sleeping on him.
“You wanna get there for night?” Jug asks. After I don't answer anything he sighs. “Hot Dog. Wake her up,” he says with his puppy voice.
So she starts licking my face and I keep pushing her off tiredly. “Hot Dog,” I whine as she comes back after every time I do it. But now she starts eating my hair. “Ugh, fine,” I say and jump out of the car. Everyone laughs at me and my pouty face. I walk to Veronica and lean on her, closing my eyes. “B, don't,” she chuckles and pushes me off.
I sigh sadly and put my camping backpack on. It‘s one of these big ones where you attach the sleeping bag and stuff like that as well. I look at Jug sadly. He smirks and gives me Hot Dog's strap. I take it and hold her back as she wants to literally go and run around in the forest and the mountains.
“Okay, it's 1pm. So we should be there around 8 with a few stops,” Slurpe says. We all nod.
“8?” Toni asks and sighs, making us chuckle.
“Hey can I let her free or are here other dogs or wolves or something?” I ask.
“She won't go away?” FP asks.
I shake my head. “She stays with me or Jughead, but runs around quite a lot, so I wouldn't want to stop her.”
“Yeah, sure, just be careful.” I roll my eyes at him and take out one of the dog snacks I have. I feed it to Hot Dog, making her want more of it. I pet her head and let her free, but she keeps sitting.
“Stay close,” I tell her. She barks and I pet her head again.
“She could've said no for all you know," Ronnie grins.
“Well I hope not,” I smirk and give the strap to Jug. He fits it into my bag somewhere and then we all start going.
I lean against Jug while walking. He chuckles, “I need to walk too, baby.” I sigh and lean up normally. Hot Dog runs somewhere in front of us.
“You have the tent, right?” I ask Jug.
He smirks. “I’m not gonna let you sleep on the grass, genius.”
“So that's a yes?” I smirk.
“It's a maybe…” he looks towards his dad. “Dad, you took my tent, right?”
“It's attached to your backpack idiot,” Jelly says.
I look at it. “Yeah, she’s right.”
Jug chuckles and kisses my cheek. “That is a yes.” I smile and nod, satisfied.
In a few minutes of walking, he starts humming the exact same tune he always sings when he's with me. I smile. “What song is this?” I ask. He looks at me while still humming it and shrugs. I furrow my brows. “You invented it?” He nods. “Wow,” I mumble. “How?”
“One time you were talking in sleep and almost crying, so I just started humming something to calm you down.”
I smile sadly, tilting my head at him. “Thank you.”
He smiles the same way back and brings my hand to his lips to give it a kiss. After that, he holds it tightly and we keep walking.
In a few minutes, I know that everyone is talking except for me and Jug, but I can't bring myself to join their conversation. Instead, I look at Jughead. I look at his face and the lonely black curl on his forehead and how the sun shines back from his eyes full of excitement.
“What are you looking at?” he asks.
I smile. “You.”
He purses his lips a little and pulls me against him. “I love you.”
“I love you too,” I say and let him kiss my face a few times. “What are you photo shooting today?” I ask, touching his camera around his neck.
“Some beautiful stuff,” he grins and we keep walking, hand in hand.