Chapter 10

"Ronnie! Hey! Ronnie… wait up, " Archie yelled, still trying to slip his arm through the strap of his backpack as he ran down the steps of Riverdale High, intent on catching up with the raven-haired girl who seemed equally intent on ignoring him.

"Veronica, where's the fire?" he asked when he finally caught up to her halfway down the block. "I've been trying to catch you since the bell rang."

"Yeah?" she challenged, spinning to face him at last. "Well, I've been avoiding you since hours before that, so I had a head start."

"Okay," Archie said hesitantly. "Am I allowed to know why?"

"Hmmm…" Veronica gazed skyward in a pantomime of thinking about the question. "Sure. Why not? I'll be glad to tell you all about it… if you answer a 'why' question for me first. As in why did you ask me to homecoming?"

"Well, it seemed like the best way to get you to go with me," Archie answered lamely, hoping desperately that he didn't sound as confused as he felt. When he'd spoken to Veronica about homecoming before school this morning, she'd said she wanted to think about it. But she hadn't seemed angry about it. Somehow, between then and now, something had gone horribly awry.

"And you wanted me to go with you," Veronica said. Her tone somehow made the statement both a question and an accusation.

"Um… yes?" Archie wasn't sure what was going on here, but his instincts were screaming that he had inadvertently strayed onto dangerous ground.

"Fascinating," Veronica enunciated crisply. "And your reason for cutting me dead at lunch was?"

Archie flushed slightly, the perennial curse of the redhead. "I didn't exactly…" he began lamely, but Veronica cut him off.

"I offered you coffee. You ignore me, turned a glare of murderous hate and maniacal intensity on your best friend, and then stomped off without so much as acknowledging my presence… or anyone else's," Veronica recited. "What would you call that… exactly?"

"Look, Ronnie," he tried again. "I was rude to you. I get that, and I'm sorry. But that really wasn't about you, or homecoming, or any of that. It was totally unrelated."

"Oh, I beg to differ," she answered warningly. "But go ahead. Enlighten me. What was it about, then?"

Archie was no longer flushing slightly. He could tell by the wave of heat in his face that he was beet red by now. For a moment, he'd thought Veronica was simply – albeit excessively – annoyed that he hadn't returned her greeting at lunch. Now, though, he could dimly sense where this conversation was trending, and he was fairly certain things were about to get much worse.

"It was about… uh…" He found the situation surprisingly difficult to explain. "Well, Jughead and I had a fight earlier," he said at last. "And I was still angry when I saw you all at lunch. I'm sorry again I was rude to you." He glanced up at Veronica hopefully, then jumped as she unexpectedly made a jarring noise like a game show buzzer or alarm.

"I'm so sorry," she said in a falsely bright and cheery voice. "That answer has been deemed unacceptable by our panel of judges. Please try again. What. Did you. And Jughead. Fight. About?" She bit off each word as if it were a stand-alone sentence, with capital letters he could practically see in the air above her head… right next to the noose he could finally see closing around him, leaving him powerless to save himself.

"We…" he began, but trailed off. "He…" Archie tried again, but got no further. On the spot like this, it was difficult to recover the righteous indignation he'd felt in the early hours of the morning. In fact, he was rapidly coming to the miserable conviction that he'd acted like an ass for no good reason at all.

"Having trouble, Archiekins," Veronica cooed in mock concern. "Let's see if I can help. You found out that Jughead Jones spent the night with his girlfriend, and you promptly went all Jack Torrance about it."

"I didn't go… whoever that is!" Archie protested. "But I was concerned about Juggie exploiting Betty, and…" This time, It was Veronica's sharp exhalation of disgust that interrupted him.

"Exploiting? Seriously? What's that riff?" she demanded, rolling her eyes in exasperation. "Those two are crazy in love. They'd floss their teeth while watching paint dry and consider it a great night, so long as they were doing it together. Of course she's having him stay over whenever she can."

"They're not in love!" Archie all but shouted, startling himself with his own vehemence. "I mean, sure, they're kind of dating… or whatever… but it's nothing serious…" he trailed off of his own accord this time, without even waiting for Veronica to interrupt, as he watched her expression of disbelief morph gradually into one of pity."

"Archiekins," she said in a gentler tone than she'd used toward him all afternoon, "wake up and smell the end game. They're not 'kind of dating.' They're together. Totally, irrevocably together. And having listened to an extemporaneous Jughead-themed monologue from Betty this morning, complete with themes of personal transformation and newfound meaning in life, I can promise you that she, at least, is fathoms-deep in love. And if you don't know Juggie's in love with her… well, you obviously haven't been paying attention."

Archie felt slightly numb now. "She can't be in love with him" he insisted stubbornly, though with no real conviction. "She's always been in love with…" he trailed off yet again, but Veronica understood anyway.

"With you?" she asked, and he nodded miserably, not proud of what his attitude suggested about him. "Maybe she was at one point, Archie. Or maybe she just thought she was," he made a gesture of denial, but Veronica continued inexorably. "It doesn't matter now. You had your chance, and you made your choice. She's made hers, too. She's in love with Jughead… wouldn't trade now even if she could.

"And as for you, my Titian friend?" Veronica paused. "You're jealous."

There was a silence for a few moments while Archie reflected on that. He instinctively wanted to deny it, to dismiss the mere suggestion as preposterous.

But he couldn't.

The pieces fit too well… the rage he'd felt at seeing Jughead leaving Betty's room… the twist in his gut when he saw them at lunch, so wrapped up in one another that they didn't even see him approaching… the general sense of irritation he'd felt ever since they began dating.

"I shouldn't be," he grudgingly admitted at last, "but yeah. I guess I am, a little. I mean… I meant it, when I told Betty I didn't feel that way about her…"

"But you liked knowing that she felt that way about you?" Veronica supplied. "And you took for granted that she always would?"

Archie just nodded, too choked with self-recriminations to speak for the moment.

They'd been standing by the side of the road, at the exact point where Archie had caught up to her, but now, by mutual consent, they turned and began ambling toward home. Most of their schoolmates had already passed by, and they were alone.

"Okay," said Archie after walking a few minutes in silence. "You've made your point. I'm jealous of Jughead and Betty, and I was rude to you at lunch. But what does all this have to do with homecoming?"

"Seriously?" Veronica challenged him, giving him a major side-eye without even breaking her stride. "You don't see the relevance?" Archie shrugged, and Veronica sighed dramatically.

"Once upon a time, when the world was young and I was new in town, you and I kissed." Archie nodded. He remembered that pretty vividly. "Whereupon, Ms. Betty Cooper was bitten by the green-eyed monster, an experience that prompted her to lay it all on the line with you and confront you with her feelings." Archie nodded again. That, he'd never forget. His heart still hurt just thinking about that night on the walkway in front of Betty's house.

"Lo and behold, this morning, that self-same green-eyed monster got to you, Archibald Andrews. And instead of having the courage Betty did, and telling her about it, risking being rejected… the way you rejected her," Archie winced, but Veronica ignored it, "you responded by asking me to homecoming. Me… of 'seven minutes in Heaven' fame… she most likely to spark reciprocal jealousy in Betty.

"And that is why I won't be going to homecoming with you, Archiekins. I don't like being anyone's second choice… or third… or whatever I am after Betty and Val and Ms. Grundy and God knows who else.

"I don't like being second choice. And I really don't like being used."

Now it was Archie's turn to sigh. Put that way… he couldn't even blame Veronica for rejecting his offer. "I'm a jerk, aren't I?" he asked her wryly, admitting defeat.

"Li'l bit, yeah," she answered after a moment of pretend reflection. But she smiled as she said it, bumping his shoulder companionably with her own as they continued toward home."

Author's Note: I know this chapter is a little "off brand" for this story, given that neither Betty nor Jughead makes an appearance. I couldn't seem to write the next Betty/Jughead scene on my mind, though, until this conversation was out of the way.

But I'd love to hear what you think:. Is there space for this scene? Or should I carve it out and make it a stand-alone one-shot?

Either way, rest assured my next chapter will be back to the core of my Bughead obsession.

Best,

Blue