Chapter 1

A grey haze has swept in over Riverdale. The dense air makes the moss on the trees appear greener against the pale setting that is the town itself.

I stand steadfast looking up at the weathered façade of Riverdale High. Feeling the weight of the building towering above me. That building would crush me into oblivion if it suddenly collapsed unto me, right as I stood here defencelessly peering up. I try my best to let those words resonate, to really feel the reality of the statement. I don't know why I do it. I often imagine things that hold neither significance nor productivity.

Yet no matter how hard I try I can't seem to conceptualize the thought. The unlikeliness of it actually happening is too great I assume. And then simultaneously the event that holds unlikeliness great enough to halter my imagination can often feel so real, however, in a metaphorical sense.

I decide upon entering the thing that crushes me. But leaving my thoughts of destruction at the door.

While walking down the corridor with my hands in the pockets of my jean jacket I wear the same old tired expression I always do. I look for Archie among the crowd, hoping I won't see him with one of his football acquaintances. I would say friends, but it would be an inaccurate description for most of the team I believe. They're not nice; let's just say that. I haven't been called Jughead so often since I was little that even my friend and myself now also do for nothing. The thing is it really doesn't matter how inexistent your regard of them is, it still crushes down on you, but slowly and unnotably until you're crushed. Much like in the same way a frog doesn't notice the rising temperature of the water until it's boiling.

Surprisingly, Archie never minded. He has still kept by my side through the years. Just far enough not to fall into the boiling water himself, yet still keeping close. See Archie they accept, Archie they like. He follows their idea of normalcy. He flirts with girls, plays football and goes to their parties. Archie is on safe water, the lukewarm kind.

I see him standing by his locker. He's not talking to a football player, but to the other kind I like to avoid: girls.

This is the greatest enigma of my existence: The same bored and mysterious exterior that I carry, which inevitably drives most heterosexual boys to torment me, seems to have the opposite effect with a great deal of people who find themselves attracted to the male gender. I don't know why, but they continue to show a keen interest in me despite my attempts at dislodging myself.

I greet them both and lean against the lockers, folding my arms, assuming the 'careless with a supposed hint of annoyance' exterior I like to be displayed in. The girl turns away from Archie and flashes me a would-be contagious smile had I not been immune.

"Hey Jug." She greets back. She touches my beanie lightly, withholding the smile, which I refuse to reciprocate, especially now that she's touched my beanie. I catch Archie's eye and he looks on amused. No, the beanie isn't consecrated or anything. I know it's just a hat, having it be anything more than that would be childish. It's just an odd thing to do is all. I don't even know her that well. Maybe her name is Tessa or something? I'm not sure. Instead of smiling back, I search her eyes, not dropping my apathetic demeanour for anything. I wonder how determined she is. Usually, the suitors give up after not long. But I've had a determined fair few.

My thought is interrupted though, as I hear the familiar rolling of wheels echoing through the corridor. The wheels supposedly belong to a skateboard, and that skateboard supposedly belongs to none other than my, more often than not frustratingly so, partner in crime. My eyes, currently plastered on another, are instantly stolen away along with their attention. Only to be directed at a blonde girl who just turns the corner in that moment. I follow her with my eyes as she, head held high, looking straight ahead rolls right by us. Just as she passes her head turns and she briefly sweeps over us with her gaze. Beginning with Archie and landing on me. She then disappears into the stream of people, never to be seen again, or at least not until later today when we will be working together on The Blue and Gold, the school newspaper.

I like words, basically. I like combining them in intriguing ways, I like finding out new and interesting one's. So when the teachers announced they were inaugurating the formerly dormant school paper I was the first to sign up. Also, I was one of the only two who did.

The other was Betty, aforementioned skateboarding Betty. Blonde girl sometimes interesting, sometimes frustrating Betty. Betty, whom I have come to realise, is even more intense when it comes to writing than I, although, that may be because I write outside of the Blue and Gold. I write my own stories and I spend most of my nights at Pop's sunken in whatever allegedly meaningless narrative I'm invested in at that moment. It occurs to me now that for all I know, she might do the same. It occurs to me now that I don't know all that much about her. Yet I spend more or less every day in that darkly lit study, hence the Betty being intense when it comes to writing and it inevitably sending me down the very same spiral.

I slowly realise that the girl talking to us (mainly Archie at this point) has uttered something directed at me; she carries a look of hopefulness, which makes me feel uncertain as to what to reply with. I mutter something in the likes of a "Yeah, cool." Archie, standing behind her now carries an accusatory look, which I ignore as the girl had departs our company looking pleased. The girl seems happy and so I deem my "lords work" done. Archie will always continue to be disappointed in my lack of interest in people who take an interest in me, so there is really no legitimate reason in paying him any attention these days. Let him sulk! Cry the apostles.

I am slouched down over a table in the cafeteria with my bag as padding. Sitting next to me is Archie, like always. Like always he is chewing away at whatever nourishment comes near his mouth. I am not touching my food at the moment as I am in the middle of my daily routine of scanning the cafeteria. Similar to the way the suave cat spends numerous hours watching pedestrians from the windowsill of the home, never growing weary, I too find pleasure in viewing the students go about their lives, an outsider looking in.

She is sitting all by herself like always. It doesn't seem to bother her, however. She appears content with her situation. Managing to make eating alone in a cafeteria full of people her age look intentional, like everything is going as planned. I don't think I would have been able to put up that level of an at ease façade had I been in her seat. Let's face it, had it not been for Archie and I being childhood friends, I would have surely been in her seat. Or maybe I would have been in the seat next to hers...

I shake the thought away immediately. That would never happen. Betty is simply impossible; I have declared it being so long ago.

What I said before about most people who favour boys taking an interest in me. This has never been the case with Betty.

There are signs, okay? Signs one learns to detect, and later to expect when two people spend an awful lot of time together late at night and leaned closely toward the same computer screen. Signs like stealing unnecessary glances, lingering when one shouldn't and asking personal questions or even making flirtatious remarks.

These signs have never come from Betty, no matter how long or closely we work. She is a mystery. Never teasing, never wanting to spend more than necessary time with me, never keeping it outside of the bounds of the professional for even so much as to ask me how I am.

So instead I started doing it. I've tried asking her things, I've lingered and I've stolen glances. I've even tried being flirtatious at times. Nothing has made her open up, not even to leave the door so much as ajar. It's as if she has removed the hand applying pressure to a bleeding wound and now I have to stop the increasing blood loss with my own. Except no one is bleeding so I don't know why I do it. I am simply not needed, I've realised subsequently, and I think that's fundamentally what bothers me.

She isn't rude or anything. I mean, she has a knack for sparking frustration in me, and I think she might be intentionally contentious at times only to advance our texts, making them the best they can be. But she isn't intentionally rude. She just simply isn't interested in the mysterious demeanour all the others seem to find so enticing. Which is fair yet nonetheless, enigmatic.

It might be that she prefers the other gender of course. I don't wish to assume the former points mentioned as proof of this, which would be narcissistic of course. Although having such an attitude toward me would probably not be ill placed. Nevertheless, from my experience with girls, and Betty is a girl, her lack of showing the designated signs did come as a surprise. That I cannot dismiss.

"Jughead." Archie calls at me and I slip out of my daydream to look at him only to find Betty standing right in front of us looking quizzically at me. I shoot up from my slouching position like hit by lightning. They both seem taken aback by my minor contretemps. I instinctively try to salvage this by glaring at Betty, and quite excessively so, compared to the default frown that usually adorns my features. Betty has a way of making me on edge, making me painstakingly aware of how I'm carrying myself. A power no one else has. This probably plays part in how I can be extra agitated sometimes when we communicate. She usually doesn't seem to mind though, which in itself creates a whole other subcategory of agitation.

"Rude, dude." Archie says after a significant amount of my glaring at Betty and slaps me on the shoulder in the process. "Hi, Betty, is what he means to say." He smiles apologetically at her. Archie has always been excessively polite, even kind to Betty. Always excusing my behaviour for me, or agreeing to things in my place. I don't see why he feels the need to be this nice to her but in this instance it seems to catalytically start her off.

"What's up," she starts, "I was just thinking maybe we should meet at Pop's tonight and finish the article there instead of here at school. It'll probably be a long one, tonight, I mean. You know how pedantic we get… I was just thinking it might be better to do it at Pop's so that we can grab dinner as well, so that we won't be hungry…" She trails of; having started her speech somewhat confidently it surely degenerated toward the end.

I shrug and slouch down on the table again. "I'm supposed to be at the Twilight tonight." My eyes trace the blonde locks that cover her shoulders with a frown as I look up at her. Before I can continue she nods and makes for a departure so I have to hurriedly add, "But they have food there obviously, I mean it's a drive in theatre, of course there's food." She turns back to meet my gaze. "I'll have to monitor the projector I guess but … we'll work something out." I get the feeling that this is when the average human would give her a smile, so I don't.

Why couldn't she have just texted me? But she felt the need to venture over to my realm and disrupt the peace. I was perfectly fine studying her at a safe distance when she was all the way over at the other end of the cafeteria, where she now retrieves after little actual communication between us.

"I love that girl." Archie says, smiling. I give him a contemptuous stare. "It's just that she … sort of…" He looks at me as though he assumes I already know what he's going to say, which I genuinely don't. "She gets to you is what I mean to say." He finally spills while eyeing me amusedly. I respond to this by giving him my death stare and rolling my eyes until they land on the girl across the cafeteria briefly. Archie seems to have caught this as he shakes his head gently while peering at his food.

"Well, despite your sullen ways … and in this case outright awkwardness, at least you still got a date. Plain old Jug, wouldn't you say?" Archie says light-heartedly after a moment's silence.

With a scornful look I say, "A date? You think I'd bother with such trivial matters? This is about reporting on the news of this school, keeping the people of this town informed. It's nothing less of professionalism."

"Of course, how could I make such a mistake?" Archie says, but without the sincerity in his tone. Replaced instead with mock at my pretentious manner, I presume.

Sunday, 2 April 2017