Chapter 1

she didn't know why her fellings toward him had changed, I mean c'mon this was Jughed Jones, self certified loner and bad boy extraordinaire, it was never going to happen, if not for the fact her mother would most definitely have her institutionalised as she had done to Betty's sister not so long ago. She was certain that even if by some miracle she could gain her mothers approval Jughead had never seen her as anything more than an occasional writing partner and the best friend of the only person he'd ever admit to being friends with, Archie Andrews. Whom Betty, up until tonight thought she was in love with, it was after all the kind of love story that she'd read about in countless novels, neighbours their whole lives, bestfriends since before they could walk, forever spending every spare second they had together whether that be in person or on they phone and lets not forget the treehouse right where their gardens joined together that they would sneak out to night after night just to prolong the time they shared but in this moment the more she thought about it the more she realised that shed never actually been in love with Archie but with the idea of it all. And since Jughead had decided to join Betty on the schools newspaper 'the blue and gold' which before his arrival Betty had written,edited and printed alone, it had hit her how she'd never noticed that his bad boy image was just that, an image, a front put up to protect hime fom any further heartache than he'd already experienced from being abandoned by his mother and left with the choice to either fend for himself or stay with his alcoholic father. But standing here now, in the middle of the night, in the school she'd presumed was empty she could hear his sobs, hear the the screams, muffled by what she could only presume was his fist as he tried to keep it together and she knew in that moment that he was just a broken boy with nobody to turn to for comfort. She'd learnt from her own experience that crying alone was one of the most soul crushing things to have to do, so despite not knowing what his reaction would be when she found hime she set out on her search following the heartbreaking cries until she found herself outside the tiny closet beneath a staircase gently she tapped on the door hoping not to startle him and although the crying had stopped there was no acknowledgement that he'd recognised the tapping as someone being there rather than just a creak from the old building so she tapped again, this time softly calling out to him 'Juggie, it's me' praying that he'd recognise her voice and after a few agonising seconds the door flew open and nothing on this earth could have prepared her for the pain she felt as she looked into his puffy swollen eyes still streaming with tears, and in his breif moment of vunerability he threw his arms around her, clinging to her in that moment like she she more important to him than oxygen itselfs eliciting tears of her own as she tried to figure out what she could do to help this poor beautiful soul who so desperately needed it, quite qiuckly deciding that the best thing to do right now was to give him the love he clearly deserved so she held him, for what seemed like hours until his broken howls disaperated to deep wracking breaths. 'i'm so alone' it was less than a whisper, but the pain those three words carried was almost unbearable 'no jug, you're not alone, not anymore, i'm here and with god as my witness i swear to you that you'll never have to be alone again' she didn't know what made her say it, it was a promise that would be almost impossible to keep, but even as the words tumbled out of her mouth she knew in her heart that she'd do whatever it would take to keep true to her word, anything in her power to make sure that he never had to feel this way again and holding on to that thought she started to hatch a plan.