There are things Toni does not know about Cheryl.
Toni does not know about her childhood, about the days when she and Jason were tiny and happy, and life was almost good, with just an undercurrent of sorrow and loneliness running through it.
She does not know about Heather, apart from the bare minimum (about the nights spent crying her eyes out in her bed, about the weeks of punishment of kneeling in the attic and praying for forgiveness to a God she didn't believe in, about the pain whenever they'd pass each other in the corridors in school). She doesn't know about the day Heather left, and how she punched an old tree over and over till the pain in her hands was the only thing she could comprehend.
She does not know about Sweetwater river, about the cold and the ice, and the horror of seeing her dead brother, bullet hole in his head, try to drag her down to her death. She doesn't know about Jughead and Veronica and Betty and Archie saving her, about how, when she'd opened her eyes, she'd been both grateful and disappointed to find herself alive.
She does not know about the bruises and the slaps, about the "You'll never find love, you worthless child" and the constant abuse.
Cheryl keeps things close to her chest. Doesn't let anyone in, doesn't let anything out. She eats up her sorrow, and she swallows the pain, and pushes it deep inside, so she doesn't have to feel it.
(It doesn't work. It doesn't work at all, but at least people don't know about it, and she can keep her reputation, at least)
And nobody asks. Nobody asks why she's so horrible, they just assume that's the things are, that she is someone who causes hurt because she wants to, because she revels in it, and she lets them. Nobody has ever cared.
But Toni does. Toni challenges her, and she doesn't back down, not even when Cheryl pushes her away. She simply looks her in the eyes, and takes one step further into her personal space, and asks her why she's hurting. She listens to Cheryl talk, and she is patient, and kind, and Cheryl feels like she cares. That she cares about her. And that in itself is such a foreign concept that it stumps her, it confuses her. Why does this tiny, intimidating South sider care so much? Why does she follow her around, and listen to her talk and complain and whine about her life?
So, after a while, she starts opening up. And for every one incident Toni doesn't know about, she tells her a million others. Toni knows about the TV shows she loves binge watching (about How I met your mother when she's losing faith in the concept of love, and Brooklyn Nine Nine when she just wants to laugh), knows about her days of dance, knows about her favorite books and her favorite novel characters. She knows about the way Cheryl feels about Sushi, and chicken, and lasagna. Toni knows about all the little things.
There's nothing in the world that scares her more than Toni getting close to her and being dragged inside the abyss that is her life. Or her mother finding out about them and taking away the only good thing in her world. Or the fear that someday she herself might hurt Toni with her darkness.
So, she keeps quiet. She doesn't tell Toni about the first time she fell in love, exactly a month ago, when they'd been sitting on a hill and Toni had jumped about four feet when a spider had landed on her lap. She doesn't tell Toni about the way she treasures every song she sends her, how she listens to them when she can't sleep and it feels a lot like Toni is sitting beside her. She doesn't tell Toni that she wants her to know every part of her life, every secret she has ever kept, because all of it belongs to her anyways.
She doesn't tell Toni that she loves her back.
And she does a great job of it. She keeps her face neutral every time one of the Serpents pass her, every time Sweet Pea or Fangs glare at her, whenever Toni passes by, unusually subdued and not quite meeting her eyes. It kills her, but she still doesn't speak. Not till the fifth day, that is the third day of Toni not turning up to school.
It's a text from Veronica at 8 in the evening, a tiny text that says "Whyte Wyrm. Now. Toni."
And she doesn't think anymore, grabs her car keys and runs out the house before her mother can see.
She puts on the radio during the drive, mostly to distract herself from the thoughts in her head. Toni lying on the ground, having been stabbed. Or shot. Or beaten. Her mind cannot shake the thoughts of Toni lying in physical pain somewhere, and her fingers tap on the steering wheel in her anxiety. There is an intense wave of panic threatening to take over right now, but she tries to keep it at bay, speeds up and tries to focus on getting there as fast as she can.
There's no extra bustle outside the bar, and that gives her a little hope. She parks it somewhere outside, and rushes out of it so fast she nearly crashes into Veronica who's waiting near the entrance.
"Veronica," she pants out "What happened? Where's Toni? Is she alright? Did someone hurt her? Tell me she's fine. Tell me….."
"She's fine."
The relief that rushes through her body is indescribable. Every part of her relaxes, and she takes her first deep breath since the text.
"Why'd you call me, then?" she asks finally.
Veronica looks at her evenly "If you're this much in love with her, why don't you just tell her?"
"I'm not sure that's any of your business."
"Oh, shut up," the other girl tells her, grabbing her arm and dragging her to the back of the bar, inside a dingy alleyway "She's a friend. I care about her. All of us do. And by extension, we care about you."
"Oh, do you now?" Cheryl retorts, sharply "Nobody's ever given a shit about my fucking life. Except when there's a chance of me testifying against the man who is one of the reasons my brother is dead. Then, you've cared plenty. Plenty enough to blackmail me."
"You should know Betty regrets it."
"And you should know I don't give a fuck."
"It's not like you've made it easier on us, you know? You've caused a bit of trouble yourself."
She shrugs and leans against the wall, suddenly tired and defeated "A little trouble is an understatement. And that's why I can't…be whatever you think I should be to Toni."
"What do you mean?" Veronica asks her, no judgment in her eyes. Suddenly she is the girl who came after her during the pep-rally, and Cheryl misses the feeling of having friends.
"I'm a goddamned mess, Veronica. I am mean, and vindictive, and chaos follows me wherever I go. At the risk of sounding like the ever-brooding Jughead, I'm not normal. I'm a special brand of crazy. My family is fucked up. My father was a murderer; my mother is a psychopath, and I'm sure I've inherited their darkness. I can't let her get mixed up in my issues."
"She wants to get mixed up in your issues, Cheryl," Veronica tells her.
"And I can't let her. She's the one good thing I have in my life, she is the one good thing this stupid town has. She is good, and kind, and brave, and I don't know why she cares about me, but she does. And I…I think I love her. No, I know I love her. And I have been selfish about a lot of things, but for the first time in my life, I don't want to be."
She stops, out of breath from her impassioned speech, and looks at Veronica, who, unbelievably, is smiling at her.
"What?" she snaps.
"You don't see it, do you?" she asks her, gently.
"See what?"
"How changed you are. You're not the same Cheryl Blossom I met the beginning of last year. You have changed in ways that everyone apart from you can see. You're…well, I wouldn't say kinder, but you've stopped snapping at random people, you've stopped being mean to Kevin…."
"Oh, that's because Fangs is banging him, and he's a good guy."
"See? 'Fangs is a good guy' would never have come out of your mouth four months ago. I mean, you're being so….wait, did you say Fangs is banging Kevin?"
"You didn't know?" she asks, surprised.
"No," Veronica replies slowly, eyes lighting up with the prospect of another couple in their group "I did not know that. You have made me a very happy person, Cheryl."
She shrugs.
"You see what I mean, though, right? And it's not just you, it's her too. Toni has changed so much, too. You've both changed each other and it's for the better. You make each other better, just by being around each other. It's really nice."
"Is this why you called me here?" she asks, exhausted from all the emotional overload of the day "To talk some sense into me?"
"Nah. You're going to do that on your own when you go a week without talking to Toni. It's physically impossible for you. I called you here to speed up the process. Also, because Toni is inside, getting drunk with Sweets and Fangs and she's been crying for you, and while it's all very sweet and cute, you really should go and take care of her. I don't think she can handle her alcohol."
"Oh, she can't," Cheryl informs her "Coke is the strongest she goes up to."
"Calls herself a badass serpent," Veronica mutters, and Cheryl smiles fondly at the thought of Toni "Either way, I'm gonna go inside now. It's up to you whether you want to follow me in."
She gives her one last look, then opens the door, and walks inside.
Cheryl gives it five minutes. Five minutes of thinking over all that Veronica's told her, over all the events of the past few days, and all of that, all of the thinking leads her to thinking about Toni. About her smile and her hair and her stupid pretty face, and her resolve wavers.
She hates it when Veronica is right.
Toni is beautiful.
It isn't something that she's noticing the first time, and it definitely won't be the last, but it's just that, every time she sees her it hits her all over again. Plus, it's been two days of Toni-withdrawal, and the feeling is overwhelming.
Toni is sitting on a stool surrounded by Sweet Pea and Fangs, and the Scooby gang who seem to be singing some sort of strange song, interspersed by a lot of air-guitar-ing from Archie, and Veronica and Betty bopping their heads along. The three Serpents have a bunch of empty shot glasses lying in front of them, and Toni has her face resting glumly on her hand. Cheryl hangs back slightly, staying out of sight, but close enough to overhear.
Not that she needs to. They're all talking loud enough to be overheard on the other side of town.
"I miss her so much, you guys," Toni slurs into her glass of scotch.
"I miss her too," Sweet Pea agrees with her, and when everyone else looks at him in surprise, he shrugs "What? She was like a little mean-machine with the best vocabulary of insults. Plus, her cheerleader friends."
Cheryl smiles.
"No," Toni suddenly speaks up again, insistently "I miss her. Like, so, so much. I miss her stupid gorgeous face, and her stupid small laugh, and her eyes, and her nose, and her lips, and her…her smart words. I miss her fanciness. She was so fancy," she grows quiet "Maybe that's why she rejected me. Because I'm not fancy enough."
And oh, that breaks her heart. Toni sounds more vulnerable than Cheryl has ever seen her, voice tinier than her frame. Witnessing first-hand the damage she has done is the worst feeling she has ever had in her life. She steps forward, desperate to undo the damage, and the all the sober people in the vicinity, Jughead, Betty, Veronica, and Archie turn to stare at her. There is a moment of awkwardness, and then all of them nod at her. Archie even gives her a tentative smile, and she feels a sudden fondness for the boy. She points to Toni, who is now slumped over the bar.
"I'm going to take her home, now?" she asks, even if she doesn't know where home is. All she knows is that she wants to be around her, with her. She wants her to stop hurting.
"Take her upstairs," Fangs tells her, sounding entirely too sober for the amount of whiskey he seems to have drunk "There's a bed there. Her uncle won't…"
She nods at him seriously, then lugs Toni up to the room, all while the girl keeps mumbling about Green Day and how Hannibal totally had the hots for Will Graham and how Cheryl was the hottest girl she had ever seen.
"But she doesn't love me," she then says, sadly, and Cheryl's heart aches.
They finally reach the bed, and she coerces the drunk girl to drink an entire glass of water, and take off her Serpent jacket, and lie down on the bed. She raises her legs onto the bed, takes off her socks, her tiny ankle length socks with little red dots on them, and she is hit with the thought that she wants to do this every day for the rest of her life. Not the having her girlfriend get drunk part, but the tucking her into bed, and the taking care of her part.
Toni stares up at her from the bed with wide, unblinking eyes, and Cheryl, suddenly overcome with craving, leans down, and kisses her eyes. First the right, then the left.
"Sleep, sweetheart," she whispers to her.
"Cheryl."
Toni is still staring at her, and Cheryl leans down again, because she's surprised at how serious she sounds.
"Cheryl," Toni says again.
"What, baby?" she asks, the word slipping out (she doesn't mind. Not really. It suits her)
"Stay, please," the girl mumbles, but she can make out every word "Cheryl, please stay. I know you don't want to, and you don't love me, but please, just for this one night, please, stay, please…"
"Shh," Cheryl tries to calm her down, but Toni keeps asking her to stay, and weak for the girl, she gives in.
"Shh, shh, It's okay, it's okay, Toni, I'm staying."
Toni smiles and it's bright enough to make the past five days better, bright enough to take the permanent agony in her chest away for a moment, and that's when she decides to give up on this entire, staying away from Toni thing. It's not working, and all it's doing is giving them both a lot of pain. She lays down on the bed next to her, half-reclining on the headboard, and Toni immediately curls up into her, rests her head on her chest.
Cheryl has never known this kind of peace in her life. She never wants to let go. She doesn't think she can.
"Tomorrow," she starts "Tomorrow, when you wake up, and you are hungover, and cursing yourself and Sweet Pea and Fangs and the Scooby gang for letting you drink this much, I am going to get you something to eat, and get you an aspirin, and tell you that I love you. I am going to tell you that I love you, that I have loved you for about a month now, and that I am hopefully going to love you and stupid face and hair and eyes for a long time. I am going to be brave for you, because that's what you deserve. You deserve the best, and I promise to be that for you from now on. Now, go to sleep, because I'm pretty sure you're not going to remember this tomorrow."
"I will," comes a mumbled reply, and Cheryl smiles.
"Okay, baby," she says, and closes her eyes.