five
"What's your favorite color?" A small blonde ponytail bobbed as she tilted her head, staring at them both.
"Guess," his redheaded best friend said.
The girl in question studied the crayons on the table carefully, rolling them around as she hummed. "Red," she said finally, as though it was a matter of fact and his best friend nodded excitedly. "Whoa. How'd you know?"
She shrugged as she smiled, shyly at first, tentatively holding the red crayon out to Archie. "Lucky guess."
"Him next," his eager best friend said as he took the crayon and turned toward Jughead.
"Hmm," she hummed again, repeating the action as she swiped her fingers along the round sides of the crayons.
There were so many options. Twenty or more ways she could have gotten the question wrong.
But she didn't. Because she couldn't. It simply wasn't possible.
"Blue." Her voice only wavered a tad, and if he hadn't heard the same tentative lilt in questions he wished he hadn't understood in his meager five years, he might have missed it. But the glint in her eye, the soft twist at the corners of her lips, the unmistakable hope shining through as she held out the crayon to him caused him to agree.
And when he did, he was met with nothing short of brilliance disguised as a toothy grin framed by her cherry chapstick covered lips.
He hadn't even realized he had a favorite color until that very moment. And now it would never be another. Blue like the sea, blue like the sky, blue like his own eyes that were still fixed on hers as he reached forward to accept the crayon that would forever change his life.
And so blue it was.
At five he hadn't known the significance, but as the years went on, he grew to discover the depth of what it, and she, would truly mean to him.
twelve
Blue was a broad choice - she really couldn't have been wrong. Whether it was the color of the night sky, mixed heavily with the inky darkness, vague hints of cobalt streaked behind the barely set sun. Or a cornflower blue like the petals Jellybean used to love to pick. All shades fell under the same umbrella, the same overarching theme that blue truly had become his favorite.
Blue like the lollipops that stained their tongues as they laid on the riverbank. It permeated every aspect of his days, reflecting above, dotted with fluffy clouds they would all try to name.
"It looks like a puppy," Betty giggled, splayed out in the field's grass by Sweetwater River.
"No way!" Archie protested. "It's totally a car. See the wheels and hood?"
"Juggie," she called, "settle this dispute. Is it a car or a puppy?"
"Puppy," he answered easily. Betty was the most right thing in his entire world and it was easy to call the dispute in her favor knowing that singular fact. And it was a fact, as evidenced by many long nights arguing over anything and everything when they were crammed on the Andrews' old couch in the garage.
It was an accepted reality, blue shaped his life. As did she.
sixteen
Everything in his world was blue - the tangible and beyond. Hazy blue like the rain beating against the trailer, droplets falling in time with his tears. Dark denim like the jeans Jellybean was wearing as she followed their mother out the door with whispered promises to return.
The Blue and Gold became his sanctuary, the irony far from lost on him as to the name and his fellow member. The days were dark, but she was something else. The gold to his blue, the bright to his dim, the reprieve from reality he so desperately craved.
Betty's smiles, still soft and sweet, still curled on the edges of her lips just like when they were kids brought a little bit of light to his otherwise bleak canvas.
"Blue again?" she asked, pointing at the hand me down backpack from some Serpents' kid that FP had gifted him just the night before.
"It's my signature style by now, Betts. You should know that."
"Fair enough. It's always been your favorite."
"It has," he agreed.
Because it always had been, just as she had been as well.
Blue like the sea she was excitedly recounting from her summer on the opposite coast. She spoke of the power of the ocean and all the nights she'd spent simply staring in awe from her perch on the beach. He likened himself to it - the waves lapping at the shore in a storm, the tumultuous quality it held in instances of unpredictability. The same way moments with her made him feel more serene, more akin to a river sweeping over rocks, bending gracefully along the banks.
And a few months later, with their torrid investigation in full swing, the array of colors in the world melded into just one as his lips met hers in a surge. He was the wave, she was the moon, pulled by her direction. He would dive to the depths of the ocean, fly high into the sky to surround himself with any and every shade of the tint that stained his world.
She was his cerulean, the calming hue he needed to find the center and tilt his off-kilter world back on its axis.
The powder blue of her sweaters painted his dreams, the tiny flecks of it refracting in her irises when he was close enough to see.
The tint didn't matter so much anymore - dark, light, vibrant, or dull - every shade and pigment could be his favorite because nevertheless, it was always blue and it was always her, and it would always be.
