A New Friend

Ethel and I had talked while we both devoured Mom 2.0's spaghetti, finishing it all before the rest of my foster family arrived home in time for their own dinner. Ethel talked about how her parents were back to fighting ruthlessly since her dad had recovered from his suicide attempt last year. They had lost their house – lost everything – and were subsisting on the charity of relatives. Her story sounded a lot like mine, except for the charitable relatives part, because I had to subsist on the charity of strangers now, like Mom 2.0 and the rest of my foster family. She slipped me a card surreptitiously while I listened to Ethel. The card had a suicide hotline number on it.

"Ethel, you know I'm always here if you ever need to talk, okay? I've been through some of this myself."

She nodded, her red curls bobbing, "Thank you, Juggie. I'll keep that in mind."

"Good." I smiled and patted her hand.

I never gave her the card. I figured I was enough. I was someone she could talk to when things got too bleak. That's all she needed, right?

The next day at school the usual crowd was seated at our table. I sat next to Kevin, with Veronica, Archie, and Betty right across from us. The whole school had been abuzz with the news of a new Blossom that was moving to town, a cousin of Cheryl's.

"Do you think she'll have red hair?" Veronica inquired excitedly as if it was the most important question to be asking, even though the answer was obvious.

"What do you think?" I responded sarcastically, almost rudely, with a tilt of my head.

Betty kicked me lightly under the table.

"Jughead?" Suddenly Ethel was hovering about my shoulder, balancing a small tray of cupcakes in one hand. They were wrapped carefully in Saran wrap.

"Hey, Ethel," I looked up at her and scooched over, making room for her to sit next to me.

"I made these for you, as a thank you," she said and sat down.

I saw Veronica silently mouth "thank you for what?" to Betty, who gave an almost imperceptible shake of her ponytail in response.

"Ethel, these look really good," I said as she set the tray before me. "May I?"

"Sure, go ahead. They are for you afterall." Ethel gave a shy little shrug of her shoulders.

"So, what did Jughead uh . . ." Veronica let out a little cough as I pulled a cupcake from the platter. ". . . DO for you, Ethel?"

"Ronnie!" Betty hissed.

Ethel turned bright red.

"Yeah, not cool, Veronica." I snapped.

Veronica put her hands up in defense. "I'm just asking because I've never seen you come around with a girl before, Jug."

I wasn't having any of this. I stood up and held out my hand to Ethel, "C'mon, let's go eat somewhere else today."

Ethel didn't need any kind of inquiry into her private life right now. I wanted to protect her from the prying eyes of the Archie gang. Betty watched me take Ethel's hand curiously, but it's not like I held onto it. I was just helping her out of her seat.

And she was still curious enough to approach me about it later.

"So, Jug, what's going on with Ethel?" Betty ambushed me at my locker. Thankfully it was just her and Mr. Perfect Boyfriend wasn't with her.

I looked at her carefully, the golden light of the afternoon sun streaming through the windows, lighting up the fringes of her ponytail. Her blue eyes were open and inquisitive without any sign of the hurt I would sometimes see swimming in them when I would catch her watching me. Although I had been seeing that less and less as time went on. Much less, actually . . . In fact, when was the last time I had seen it? Months ago?

She was finally over me, no doubt. Past this. Past us.

But could I still trust her? Yes. Staring into her blue eyes I knew I could trust her. Just like always. Nothing had changed there. But could I trust her with someone else's secret?

I thought for a moment and decided . . . yes.

"Look, Betty, Ethel tried to kill herself and I kinda . . ."

Her eyes went wide and she leaned forward a bit, "You saved her, didn't you?"

"Yeah."

"Oh poor girl. Why did she – " Betty stopped herself and shook her head. "No, that's her business. I won't ask. I'm sure you're being a supportive friend to her. It's what she needs right now."

She reached out and stroked my shoulder.

"Yeah, something like that."

She smiled, dropped her hand, and walked back down the hallway to Archie. My eyes followed her the entire way and my fingers started moving to touch the hidden pin in my cap. Almost did, too. But I stopped myself just short of doing so.