Shit, what have I done?
Forsythe "Jughead" Jones III could not sleep, and worse yet his alarm was set to go off in an hour. He was in a cold sweat and terrified. With a murderer on the loose, that may very well make sense, but as a hormonal teenager, he was sweating over a girl instead of the gloom hanging over the town or even his broken family or perhaps his own homelessness.
Ever since he could remember, he had had a crush on Betty Cooper. Never did it develop into something more as he never got to hang out with her one on one and it was for the best as she was clearly in love with the red haired Adonis. But this year was different, and the dynamic of their triad was completely thrown off. Archie was now the third wheel to their newspaper, investigation, and secret friendship.
The more time he spent with Betty, the faster his heart began to beat. She asked him to write for the Blue and Gold with her. She investigated with him. She asked him (and Archie), to sit with her and the new girl, Veronica Lodge, at Pop's. When she turned her head to look at them, he took his arm off Archie and just looked at her. He could identify that exact moment because it was the second he realized he was no longer just crushing on Elizabeth "Betty" Cooper. He was falling, and hard. He made sure he sat across from her so he could watch her, even if she barely even noticed him all night.
And then he had to screw it all up. He kissed her. He wanted to kiss her and he doubted he could ever truly regret it. She responded, too, so he didn't feel guilty either. But it plagued his mind.
She said she was over Archie Andrews, and he believed her. He was terrified of defining what they had and when his dad asked if he was dating her, he changed the subject. It wasn't that he was afraid she would reject him and decide they weren't "official" or whatever. What he feared was much worse, or at least to him. He was afraid of being the rebound; her way of getting over their ginger mutual friend. He wanted so much more than that.
In all his life, he never noticed girls, not in the way that the other guys did. He didn't notice boys either, like Kevin did. He didn't even understand media's fixation on looks and sexuality. But Betty Cooper was his exception to the rule and if he was with her, he wanted to be in it for the long haul. If she was the only one he noticed, then he would be perfectly content with never being with anyone else. He didn't need anyone else.
And that's what terrified him. That she would break his grey little heart. Not on purpose, no never on purpose. That just wasn't his Betts. But eventually she would get bored with the words smith. She was a cheerleader after all, so she wasn't exactly a little fish in the river.
As scared as he was, as much as it haunted him and eluded his sleep, he was glad, because even if he sincerely did not want to be her rebound or anything so fickle and temporary, he knew she was going through just as much crap in her life as he was. He understood that, and he did everything he could to anchor her down, even if it meant drowning in his own feelings and insecurities along the way.
He didn't know what they were or how they would last, and he felt like a dumbass for kissing her, but he didn't regret it at all. He was in love with Betty Cooper, and as he finally fell asleep, that was enough for him.
A/N: wrote this a while back and couldn't publish it on my phone because Riverdale doesn't come up as an option on my mobile app??? But in light of the recent episode, I decided to publish it. Takes place after episode 6.