Betty Cooper stared at the clock on the wall, willing the damn cuckoo to shut the hell up. It didn't work. The drugs they'd forced her on over the past six weeks had quelled her entire will to do anything. The power and energy she'd built up inside herself evaporated without a trace. The only way to get the fuck out of this place was to keep popping the pills and smiling. Anything to get herself out of there. She'd even begun to believe the lies she told the orderlies. As soon as she'd sufficiently faked her way into conformity, they'd let her out. Then everything would be back the way it should be. Betty Cooper could return to chasing perfection as the girl next door.
"Betty, dear, it's so good to see you!" Alice Cooper rushed into the waiting chamber of the Sisters of Quiet Mercy. Hal trailed in behind her, face plastered with a grin so large it was probably fake.
"You look well rested, Sweetheart," Hal said as his grin retreated to normalcy. "You must be excited to come home. You've got an invitation to dinner at Pop's with Archie, Kevin and Jughead. They're all very excited to see you."
"Yes, Betty, I hope you are back to normal now. You gave us quite the scare. We were afraid we'd lost you forever," crocodile tears welled up in Alice's eyes. Betty took a deep breath and hugged each of her parents, having no fuckin' clue how to read either one. Suddenly she had to sit down as the first of many lost memories hit her like a ton of bricks.
The summer of 2016, the summer after sophomore year of high school, started out with so much potential. Her speech at the 50thAnnual Riverdale Jubilee over Memorial Day Weekend spoke of hope and her grand vision for the revival of the Southside. Midway through the speech, however, Betty had an epiphany of sorts about the very ground she stood on. As she caught the eye of an original Southside Serpent, their history of the Serpents being pushed off their own land ignited a flame in her very heart and soul. The tone of her speech went from Northsiders improving the land for the Southsiders, to Southsiders being pushed from their land yet again. Mayor McCoy ran quick interference as Betty's speech pulled an about-face, asking the crowd to give Betty a hand as she whisked the overly zealous high school student off the stage. McCoy thought she'd made it very clear: the purpose of this speech was to promote the SoDale project, not to give a voice to the Southside. The damn Southsiders and their dueling gangs were wandering up to the Northside and decreasing land value. How in the hell were they supposed to secure additional funding for the SoDale Revival project if the gangs of hoodlums scared off investors?
Betty had been shoved less than gently into the family station wagon after her speech gone bad. The ride home was brutally awkward, the family's silence screaming through her head like a bottle rocket.
"What the hell was that all about young lady?" Alice yelled. The door to the Cooper residence slammed loudly after Alice as she followed Betty and Hal inside. "Since when do you stand for the Southside? Don't you remember what happed to Jughead when FP moved them into that damn trailer?"
"Hold on, Alice!" Hal interjected, unexpectedly coming to his daughter's rescue. "Betty has a point. We should be working together, the Southsiders are part of our town. Or did you forget where you came from?" Turning to Betty, "I'm proud of you. It takes a lot of nerve to stand up against the crowd."
The memory left more questions than it answered for Betty, but it was a starting piece of the puzzle. For the first time, Nancy Drew would be focusing her problem-solving skills on the black hole that was the pivotal summer of 2016.
Pop Tate greeted Betty warmly as she entered the Choc-lit Shop to meet up with her friends. "Betty, welcome back!" God only knows what her parents had told everyone about where she had gone. "I hope you enjoyed the time you spent with your grandparents in Myrtle Beach!" There it was. She'd apparently been visiting non-existent grandparents in South Carolina for the past two months.
Betty continued nervously, not knowing what to expect, to the booth where all her friends were waiting. Archie and Kevin sat facing her, while Jughead's beanie served as a beacon to her seat. "Betty, so good to see you," Archie greeted her a little bit too enthusiastically with the most awkward grin he'd ever worn. Almost as if he was afraid of Betty for some reason. "We all started to get worried about you after the Jubilee speech."
"We're so sorry we weren't around to help with whatever you were going through," Kevin added with a half-concerned frown, trying to genuinely apologize for something he wasn't actually sorry about.
"What exactly happened that caused your parents to send you to the Sisters of Quiet Mercy?" Jughead turned to Betty, eyes welling with genuine concern. Apparently, her parents weren't quite as hush-hush as she'd thought, or maybe Jughead was just that good at solving mysteries. "Did you get caught up with a bunch of weirdos hanging out on the Southside or something? My dad thought he saw someone that looked like you hanging out when he went out to buy smokes one day."
So many questions. "What in the hell are you guys smoking? How the hell did you know where I was, Jug?" Betty asked, hoping to appear merely perplexed but ready to snap inside. What happened to her friends this summer? "Why would I be on the Southside? My mom would kill me if she ever caught me there."
"I'm sorry Betty, I didn't mean to –" Jughead was cut off as a stunning brunette announced herself at their table.
"What sort of transgressions are we trying to hide from mommy over here?" she quirked her eyebrow as if she'd been part of their group for years. That did not sit well with Betty Cooper.
Betty turned and stared daggers into the perfectly made-up face of this pretentious princess. "None of your goddamn business," she growled, growing angrier by the second. She was not in the mood for so much social interaction. The pills they fed her day after day were supposed to "help her feel normal." If this is what normal feels like, Betty would take the crazy train any day of the week. It was starting to feel like all her friends turned against her for some unknown reason.
"Betty, Jesus, what has gotten into you?" Archie sounded more angry than confused. What the hell happened to the sweet girl next door? "Sorry about that," Archie turned to the newcomer, apparently talking for the table. "She's normally much more friendly, but isn't feeling well today. I'm Archie, by the way. This is Jughead, Kevin and Betty."
"Veronica Lodge," she said twirling her pearls as she winked at Archie. "I just moved to town from New York City. Mind if I sit?" Veronica pulled a chair over to the edge of the booth, not waiting for an answer.
Betty shook her head as she stood up from the table. "Sorry to cut this short, but I've got to run. I'll see you guys in school tomorrow." Where the hell did Archie get off telling this new girl "she's not feeling well?" She didn't quite understand the rift between her and her three amigos. Once upon a time Betty and Archie had essentially been the same person. Kevin was always good for an off-the-wall compliment based on his current flavor of choice. Not today. They'd spent the summer miles apart, physically and metaphysically. At least Jughead seemed to still be on her side.
After unceremoniously leaving her friends, Betty walked along the railroad tracks towards Fox Forest. She could feel her sadness and anger evaporate with each step towards the abandoned house at the edge of the forest. By the time she'd reached her lair, the entire meal she'd just had with her friends was gone from her consciousness. Despite the drugs, she felt a slight twinge of old feelings the moment she donned the black wig. After swapping her high-wasted jean shorts and collared pink tee for dark jeans and black tank top, she applied a touch of black eyeliner and walked off towards the Southside gas station Smokin' Joe's.
a/n: Every universe has its own broken mirror, and sometimes the partition between them is nothing more than a misguided intent. Until next time…ever yours in chaos ~ Alice.