Falice 2

Polaroid

The trailer was awfully quiet with half of the Jones family gone. It was only the father and son that remained and it was not easy. The older man was usually out. He was not particularly a happy man. With a failed marriage and the stress of running a gang it was not like he could be. He was doing his best though. To raise his son without becoming his own father. He would have wished to have his daughter too, but for now all he had was his son.

Jughead placed a box he took from the Blue and Gold on the kitchen table. It had old archives that he wanted to get through. He brushed the dust off of the lid. It was dated back to almost two decades ago.

He took advantage of the silence to work on an assignment for the school newspaper. He opened the box and peeked in. It was filled with aging articles and what looked to be like memoirs of the student life at Riverdale High. Jughead carefully took everything out. He laid it out on the table. His eye caught his father's name in one of the headlines.

FP Jones v. Baxter High Ravens:
Single-handed Victory

Jughead didn't know his father played football in high school. He had never seen a picture of his father in a letterman jacket. He could only visualize him in his Serpent jacket. That's what he had always known him as. So seeing him in his football gear on the front page of the school newspaper was a whole new experience.

He scanned through the rest of the things on the table. Was there more about his father he didn't know? He found an interesting polaroid of his father hidden in the mix. It was him in his Bulldog attire. His eyes were heavily focused on that, but it wasn't just that. There was a girl in his arms. He looked happy. So happy. They both were.

He looked closely at it. This wasn't his mother. She wore a Serpent jacket though. It was a Southside Serpent. Whoever this was made his father smile in a way he has never seen before. Was this an old girlfriend? Who was she?

The image was shaky, but the pure joy was well captured. It only proved that they were laughing when it was being taken. He recognized the background. It was taken in the Blue and Gold room. Was this the girl who wrote all the articles found in the box? They were all credited to a someone named Alice Smith.

FP staggered into the trailer. Jughead knew that heavy walk. He just came from the Whyte Wyrm. FP shuffled over to the couch and flopped down. He had a migraine fighting to stay. He shut his eyes and hoped it would go away.

"I didn't know you were a Bulldog," Jughead nonchalantly told him. He made his way over to his father with the polaroid still in hand. He wanted to know more about this past life.

"What are you going on about, boy?" FP grumbled, feeling the headache kicking in.

"I found an article about how you singlehandedly won the football game of the year."

"I didn't know you cared about that stuff," A small smile tugged on his face thinking about those memories. "That was ages ago."

"How come you never brought it up?"

"I stopped playing. I was putting it in the past."

"Why? By the looks of it you were good. Like really good."

"I had to give it up."

"Why?"

"I couldn't play anymore."

"Why?"