"Hell no. And that is why I love you, Betty."
Jughead could feel his heart pounding as Betty froze, then turned towards him with a small, stunned smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.
He'd known her since they were children; tiny playmates making mud pies in the sandbox and pinky swearing never to date each other. She knew him better than anyone else did, even better than Archie, and he had let her deeper into his heart than even his own family.
But here, now, in this tiny trailer, the very last of his guards were down. His hat lay on the sofa alongside the heavy coat that he usually wore like armour, and his face held no sign of sarcasm or irony. He was as bare before her as if he'd stripped naked and knelt at her feet in subjugation. It was terrifying and exhilarating and right.
He'd known since he climbed in her bedroom window and kissed her that she was going to leave her mark on his life. He knew then that he'd started them down a path that there was no turning back from. This would end in forever, or earth-shattering heartbreak – at least for him.
For Jughead, there was only Betty. There had only ever been Betty. In his loneliest moments, when he had nothing but his own thoughts, he dared to dream of a future with a house and a dog and two-point-five kids and a beautiful, blonde wife sitting on the porch swing. He never gave her a face or a name; just a low, soothing voice, a heart of gold and a fiery, passionate personality that clashed with the image she presented to the world. She'd been his ray of hope in a dark life for as long as he could remember, but it was years before he admitted to himself who his dream woman really was.
Even then he'd tried his best to ignore it, to suppress the tiny spark he felt when she looked at him or touched him. He was careful to roll his eyes when she fluttered her lashes at him and wheedled him into doing her bidding. He broke down slowly, though, and he eventually came to realize that, while he wasn't heel enough to love his best friend's girl, he wasn't enough of a masochist to deny his own feelings when Betty has clearly moved on from Archie, and Archie had never been there in the first place.
It was the biggest risk he'd ever taken, the most vulnerable he'd ever felt. When he'd held her face in his hands that first time, and pressed his lips to hers, he'd felt like he was plummeting over a cliff. He had hoped she would catch him but it would almost have been worth it if she hadn't. Kissing Betty Cooper was worth any danger.
She had caught him though, body and soul, and proceeded to hold onto him with the same intensity with which she did everything else. She'd made sure he knew that he mattered to her. She'd stalked boldly – sometimes clumsily – through the wilds of their relationship, refusing to give up on him, or them, even when faced with impossible obstacles. She had dragged him bodily to this point in time, always completely present even when he'd wavered and doubted.
Now, looking across the room at her it was once again his turn to take the first risk. To make sure that Betty knew exactly what she meant to him, that he was all in, that he was hers as much as she'd proven by action and word that she was his.
"I love you, Betty Cooper."
He didn't expect her to say it back, and part of him was quite sure that he didn't deserve her love. But, as she walked slowly across the room to him - her face suddenly bright with some internal light, lips curved into the most genuine smile he'd ever seen and eyes glowing with certainty, happiness and, yes, love - he felt like he was falling over that cliff again, but that this time she was jumping with him.
"Jughead Jones. I love you."
...
Looking back on that moment, years down the road, Jughead would remember himself as being the happiest person in the world. He would remember feeling elation, completion, jubilation. If pressed for details, he might have been tempted to mention butterflies and rays of sunshine if such descriptions wouldn't have completely destroyed any chance he had of being seriously as a brooding, moody writer.
But in that first instant, as it really happened, he didn't consciously feel anything, aside from the brief internal war waging between smiling and pressing his lips together against the threat of tears, before Betty curled her fingers around his neck and kissed him through her own radiant smile.
Jughead gently stroked her neck while her fingers softly brushed against his hair and their lips touched again and again in sweet, knowing kisses. It was when Jughead realised that Betty's lips weren't meeting his completely because she couldn't stop smiling that the dam broke and the full force of their declaration hit him. His dream girl, the girl who had led him through the darkness and risked everything for him and his family, was as much in love with him as he was with her.
He was suddenly giddy with happiness, and completely fearless. He had told her once that he was afraid of being rejected for who he was, but he knew then with more certainty than he'd ever felt before, that Betty would never ridicule or reject him. He was free to be himself with her, whatever that meant.
He bent down and scooped her up, spinning with his arms tight around her waist while she let out a surprised giggle, and looked up at her with a cheeky grin. She raised her eyebrows at him questioningly as he gazed at her, his smile fading and eyes darkening with something she couldn't quite identify.
"It is the East, and Juliet is the Sun," he whispered softly, setting her gently on her feet and drawing her close so that his forehead rested on hers. "You're everything, Betts. You're my past and my future and the only proof I have that there's goodness in the world. Every day that you'll let me, I want to tell you how much you mean to me." He lifted her hand to his mouth and brushed against her knuckles, turning her wrist to kiss her palm.
Betty's eyes fluttered closed as he slid the sleeve of her coat up her arm and kissed the delicate skin of the inside of her wrist. "Tell me," she breathed.
Jughead pressed more kisses along her arm, murmuring against her, "You're so beautiful, so strong, so driven." His breath was making her head swim, so she rested her cheek against him and watched as he nipped the pulse point at her wrist. She shivered and drew breath sharply. "Passionate, trusting, honest...", each word punctuated by another kiss. "Loving," kiss "open," nip "sexy."
"Really?" She looked at him, half boldly, half shyly, working her bottom lip with her teeth.
"Really," he whispered. "You're amazing. The most incredible person I've ever met. I'll never know why you chose me but I'll spend the rest of my life thanking my lucky stars that you did."
"Jug..."
Betty sighed and snaked her arms around his neck, tangling her fingers in his hair and pulling his face down to hers.
"I didn't just choose you. We were made for each other... you fill in parts of me that I didn't know were missing." She spoke against his mouth, her lips brushing against his with every word. "I'll always be yours."
Her stomach quivered at the implications of her statement but she knew with every fibre of her being that Jughead was the one she'd always think of when the happiest moments of her life danced through her mind.
"Betty... can you stay? I don't know how much longer they'll let us keep this place, and I want to spend as much time here with you as I can."
The trailer had always been his family's home, and although it was tinged with unpleasant memories, it was also where he had started to allow himself to feel hopeful, as though there was a chance for a normal future with his parents and sister. Those hopes were gone now, rendered impossible by circumstances over which he had no control, but this little trailer with the outdated furniture and rain pounding on the roof was the site of his greatest happiness - when Betty Cooper had told him she'd love him forever.
If he could add her presence to his little store of happy memories in this house, maybe one day he'd be able to forget all the sadness there.
"I can stay. As long as you want me, I'm yours."