No one ever said that it would be this hard

Chapter 16

♾ Betty ♾

I woke up and looked around for Jughead but he wasn't in bed. With a sigh, I pushed myself out of bed and then got into some clothes for a weekend-day — a hoodie from our school and some baggy pants. Once in new clothes, I went to look for Jug. I walked in the bathroom, no one. Then in the kitchen, no one. I walked in the living room, again no one. When I couldn't find him anywhere in the house, I texted him a short message, asking him where he was.

I made myself some breakfast before sitting down on the couch and turning on the TV. His laptop was staring at me the whole time, daring me to look through it. And even though I hated myself for doing it, I opened the laptop and put in his password. Betty02. It has been the same since we started dating, so two years ago.

I just wanted to find out what happened and where he was. It was just the worry. Something was going on, it has been for at least two weeks. I don't know why but whenever I woke up, he was gone. He also wasn't home, anywhere. Jughead only ever came back in the morning, cuddled up to me and then fell asleep till noon.

I looked through some stuff — nothing too private. Just... maybe some of his recent documents and maybe his search history. Nothing out of the ordinary. Lastly I went to his emails. The last one in the inbox was from a Mr. Miller. Jughead told me that, aside from Pops, he had also been looking for a job that he could do online, maybe beta-read things for a newspaper or so — that's what he told me.

From: gregmiller@icloud.com
Subject: Job application

Dearest Mr. Jones,
I'm sorry to tell you this but we have decided to not extent your contract at our business.
Sadly you weren't able to fulfill our expectations and therefore your time with us will end at the end of the month.
We thank you for your interest and wish you well.

Best regards,
Greg Miller.

Jughead told me that he had been trying to find a job, that he even maybe found one. That's where I thought that he was working at, for his job. But if he didn't do that, then...

What exactly was he doing instead?

I would need to talk to him about this, once he's back from wherever he was right now. Sometimes I got hungry, so I sat down on the couch with something to eat and turned on the TV to get the time around.

At 5am, a key jiggled at the front door and then he walked inside. I had been so worried about him — because he also didn't answer his phone when I texted or called him — so once I saw him in front of me, a weight lifted off my chest. Even though I was still curious about where he was, what mattered the most was that he was okay.

"Jug," I said, exhaling relieved as I got up from the couch and walked over to hug him.

"Morning, Betts. Why are you up? You should be asleep"

"I woke up and you were gone. J couldn't fall asleep without you anymore"

"Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be gone this long"

"Where were you anyways?"

"I was just doing some stuff at work, so that I could be here over the day" I nodded, just continuing to hug him a bit more. He lied. But I didn't want to confront him about it, not yet. It was working too good right now. I didn't even know what was going on. I was hoping that I would just find more stuff or that he would tell it from himself. You know? Mauve it was all just a really big misunderstanding of mine...? Besides, I purposely went on his laptop. I shouldn't have done that, it was a break of his trust.