Bughead One-shots | Riverdale

"I'm happy for you."

"When did everything start going wrong?" Jughead whispered, his arm around Betty's waist, keeping her close as he spoke.

Betty didn't have an answer to his words. Everything had been perfect in the beginning. Having been friends for so long, they both had assumed that a relationship would be weird and wrong. But it was perfect. They were completely obsessed with each other - sleeping over each other's houses practically every night, messaging whenever they weren't together, kissing whenever they were alone. They had both shared their first time with each other. Granted, it was filled with embarrassed giggled and some awkward fumbling around, but it had been special nonetheless.

Though after high school had ended, the bliss of the relationship started to fall too. They both had ended up going to Yale, and thankfully managed to get a collage dorm together. But the stress of deadlines, being with each other all the time, and sleep deprivation from staying up to finish essays started to get to them. Betty and Jughead started fighting all the time, sometimes even ending in Jughead sleeping in one of his friend's dorms to give both himself and Betty space.

Both of them knew how it had to go, but neither of them wanted to end everything. They'd been through too much together, but it was getting too much. The fights were really affecting them both, and they couldn't do it anymore.

"I don't know." Betty whispered back, her eyes cast downwards on her hands. She knew if she looked at Jughead she'd start crying, and she had promised herself that she wasn't going to cry in front of him. "This is for the best, though."

"I know." Jughead muttered, lifting his free hand to start rubbing the blonde's arm gently, trying to give her some comfort.

Even though they were breaking up, Betty still appreciated Jughead's comfort. His touch still warmed her, to the point where she knew if he wasn't holding her she'd start crying. Her lip quivered though that was all, as she'd blinked back the tears that had started to burn along her waterline.

"We were good, weren't we?" Betty asked softly, causing a light chuckle to pass Jughead's lips that sounded forced.

"Yeah, we were. The best." Jughead responded, his arm subtly tightening around Betty's waist.

"When do you have to leave?" Betty questioned after another moment of silence.

Their split couldn't have been more perfect time-wise. College was over, and Jughead was moving to New York for a writing opportunity that he'd managed to get after a submission to their company a month back. Betty was staying in the dorm for another week, before she planned to move back to Riverdale for a little while as she considered her own options.

Jughead glanced at the clock on the wall opposite the bed they were both seated on, before breathing out a quiet sigh. "Ten minutes." He responded.

"You be careful, okay?" Betty asked, the tears starting to burn along her waterline again as she swallowed back the lump forming in her throat. "New York is a little while away."

"I will, I promise." Jughead nodded. "Are you going to be okay?"

"I will be." She responded after a pause. Of course Jughead was going to be incredibly hard to get over, but she was confident that after some time she'd move on and get on with her life.

The first tear slipped down her cheek, her hand lifting up to catch it quickly. The action hadn't been missed by Jughead, who leaned down to press a lingering kiss against her temple. "Good." He whispered as he pulled away.

"I'm gonna miss you, Betty Cooper." He muttered quietly.

"Yeah," Betty whispered back, tears falling faster as the lump in her throat returned. "I'll miss you too."