stay away

Part 4

Betty pov

Wide awake I lay in my bed and my thoughts revolved around the encounter I had a few hours ago while sleep was out of the question. I was truly afraid of Jughead Jones and for a few seconds I thought he would seriously hurt me. He also triggered something inside me that I had been trying to hide from the outside world for years, but he managed to cause all my walls around me to collapse within minutes, leaving me helpless like a little child. I wonder if he knows how fucked up my family really is. I never told him my real name, so he must have been doing research on me. How deep did he dig?

My family isn't perfect as seen from the outside, but it's the exact opposite, although it wasn't always like that. My parents were high school sweethearts and have been together since. When my mother got pregnant with my sister Polly they moved in together and got married a few months before she was born. My father was the local police chief in our town and took good care of his family while my mother quit her job to be there for her child. So everything was perfect until my mother became pregnant with me 3 years later but this time the enthusiasm about having another child was dampened when my father started drinking out of the blue. At first it was one or two beers a day, but that quickly developed into more and also led to harder alcohol and drugs. My father began to commit many sins in the first years of my life, but it didn't get really bad until Polly and I were in teenage years.

His addiction was already visible at this time, he cheated on his wife with several other women and was also a policeman who could easily be bribed. The days in the police station were long counted for him and we waited every day for him to finally be fired. We tried to do everything in our power to get him back on the right track, but we had to realize that it was already too late. There were countless days in which I went to school with bruises, constantly trying to cover them up or hide them as much as possible. You would have thought my mother would leave him after he hit me the first time, but that never happened. She talked herself out of the fact that they were accidents and that it would not happen again, but it did over and over again, but only with me. He worshipped the ground Polly walked on and did everything he could to ensure that his first-born would have everything she needed. I was jealous of her for a long time and only wanted him to love me as much as he loved her, but he never did. The day I stopped seeing my father as my father was the day Polly died by his hand.

My sister and I sat in a Café and talked about her current boyfriend at that moment until my father found us and angrily pulled me outside for no reason. I could literally taste the alcohol in his breath and I knew today was another one of the worse days. He held my wrist, tightened his grip and dragged me back to his car. Before we got to the car I heard Polly calling after us and coming towards us.

"Hey, Dad, what's wrong? Betty and I were just talking." she tried to calm him down and saw the scared look in my eyes. She knew that if she didn't do anything, he would hurt me again, so she tried to protect me by playing the favorite daughter's card. To my amazement it actually worked and he calmed down a little and let go of my hand, but he forced both of us into the car. He was driving much too fast and much too drunk to realize that he was putting us all in danger. I can only remember bits and pieces of the following accident that happened less than 5 minutes after we got in the car and in which my dear sister died. Every time I think about it I see Polly lying on the street covered in blood, with an empty look in her eyes that immediately signalled to me that she was dead. Since that day Hal Cooper has died for me and I sincerely hope he rots in the cell he is sitting in and never comes out. He took an important part of my life and shall pay for it for the rest of his life.

My mother and I moved away from my hometown and started a new life. In the beginning I was a real asshole to everyone and didn't want to have anything to do with anyone, friends I didn't want any, the boys were really afraid of me and my grades dropped to the basement. Only when I met Cheryl and Veronica everything changed and they put me back on track. Even today I thank them for being there for me in the darkest hours of my life and for making sure that I was not as dead as my sister.

A woman's voice tore me out of my thoughts and made me realize that, without knowing it, I was sitting at the table with a coffee while the clock showed half past seven in the morning.

"Hello, excuse me but where is the bathroom?" she asked ashamedly and tiptoed back and forth on her feet.

"Hi, uhmm the bathroom is over there on the left." I point to the first door in the hallway while I looked confused as she closed the door behind her. Cheryl's girl? Or did Veronica want to try it again? After a few minutes the unknown woman came back from the bathroom and awkwardly sat down on the chair opposite of me. She had brown wavy hair with pink strands, which was dishevelled by her nightly activity, and she was quite small, but I could tell immediately that it was better not to mess with her.

"Sorry, my name is Toni. I'm Cheryl's..." she stuttered while I asked myself why she was even talking to me. She could've just walked away, but something told me she's not usually around girls.

"Toni, nice to meet you, I'm Betty. I assume you had fun last night?" I giggled and pointed at her frizzy hair. She blushed, which in some ways I found completely preposterous. She looked so tough but still she was uncomfortable with the whole thing, she just nodded. "Do I know you from somewhere?" I asked confusedly, because she looked familiar.

"Uhhm i work in that bar you guys showed up at a couple of days ago. Maybe that's why?" she said more confidently than before.

"You're working for that asshole Jones?" it came pouring out of me even though I was trying to keep a low profile.

"Yeah i'm in his gang, we go way back, he's like a brother to me even though he scares the shit out of people, i love him." she admitted and laughed. How can she support what he does?

"You'll have to excuse me but my sympathy is very limited. He's threatening people and I heard he deals drugs."

"I never meant that he is very friendly, but that he would do anything for his family and friends." she said determined and prepared to leave but I wanted to know more.

"Who is JB?"

"What?" she asked in shock and turned to me again.

"I found a bracelet that must have fallen out of his pocket and it had the initials JB on it. So who is JB?" I asked with a stronger voice and looked at her with a forceful look. Toni hesitated for a moment but then said, "His sister, she disappeared half a year ago. Betty may I give you a hint? Stay away from him, he is bad." she ended our conversation by going through the front door and leaving me completely flabbergasted. He has a sister who's missing, is that why he's so angry? I wonder what happened.

The rest of the day went without any incidents except for Cheryl who told us in every detail how good Toni was in bed. We made fun of her a little, because she and Toni would make an unusual couple. I also told the girls about my encounter with Jughead, but I left out how he had hurt me and knew how to hide my bruises well.

Since I had the evening off, I wanted to go to bed a little earlier to catch up on the sleep I didn't get last night, but Cheryl and Veronica were eager to accept the invitation Toni had sent her.

"No girls, I want to sleep, tomorrow will be another stressful day in the hospital and I can't afford to be out of shape. Why don't you just go without me?" I begged them to, but I knew I had already lost the fight. Less than 2 hours later we stood in front of the bar from which we were rudely thrown out a week ago. It was a mystery to me how Toni wanted to do it and get us in there unnoticed but when I discovered that he was not there I knew that she did it without his permission. I wonder if that was such a good idea.