Walking back to Thistlehouse after school gave Cheryl time to think about the past day. It hadn't been a good one.

In first period, she had to take the seat next to a giant serpent guy, who seemed both attracted to, and disgusted by her. She ended up basically telling him to fuck off, and got a detention to match.

Then, straight after break, she made the substitute teacher cry. It wasn't on purpose, the teacher was a nervous wreck anyway. And she was definitely unfit to teach a bunch of teenagers. Everyone knows teenagers are like tax collecters. They find your weaknesses, and exploit them.

And then, to top it all off, the crazy Serpent girl sat with her at lunch. Why? Cheryl couldn't tell, but she knew there was no way the girl actually wanted to be friends.

The problem was though, Cheryl almost wanted her to be telling the truth. It had been a long time since Cheryl had had real, proper friends, as a pose to lackeys and sidekicks. Most of the time people just wanted to use her; for her money, or her status, or for popularity. But this Serpent had seemed almost.. genuine. And there was no denying the wierd connection she felt with the girl. The pink-haired serpent always seemed to draw her attention, and Cheryl couldn't understand why.

Saved from her thoughts by the sight of Thistlehouse' imposing dark oak double doors, Cheryl involuntarily shivered. THIS was where she lived, where she slept. THIS was her home, this house of horrors. She couldn't wait until she was eighteen. It was only in a few months afterall, but it would mean she could finally leave Thistlehouse, leave Riverdale, and start a new life, one where the name Cheryl Blossom didn't cause people to shudder in fear. She wanted to start over, which is what she had tried to do when burning down Thornhill. But, of course, it just resulted in more abuse from her nightmare of a mother.

"Cheryl?" she heard the demon call. "Why are you standing outside like that? We can't have people thinking you've gone mad."

"There's no one around, Mother. No one in their right mind would come this close to our house," she said, opening the front door, and pushing past her mother, up the stairs to her bedroom.

Upon arrival, she sat down on the bed, slipping her shoes off, and moving to place them by the closet. She sat down at the desk in her room, getting out the days homework, and deciding to start on her comparative literature essay first.

After a few hours, she heard a car pull up in the drive, a door slam, and then the sound of someone knocking on the thick front doors, the sound reverberating throughout the house.

Moving to the window, Cheryl saw another one of the men that has been visiting Thistlehouse recently. This time, it was Hal Cooper. A married man. But she imagined her mother wouldn't care. She would just take the money and never tell a soul what had happened.

Not wanting to be in the same house as her mother anymore, Cheryl got changed, deciding to go find an escape from reality.

She headed downstairs, past the living room where her mother and Hal were sitting, and, grabbing the set of car keys hanging on a hook by the door, Cheryl made her way down the drive to where her red convertible was parked.

Hopping in and starting the engine, she took off down the street, heading towards her escape for tonight: The Bijou.

Arriving at the movie theatre, Cheryl bought tickets for the new movie that was showing, Love, Simon. It seemed like an alright movie, though she preferred the space travel, or super spy type movies: the ones that were about as unrealistic as they could get.

Moving to order a drink, she heard a now familiar voice behind her.

"Let me guess: a Cherry Cola for Cheryl Bombshell," she heard the Serpent girl say.

Huffing, Cheryl turned to face her. Why was this girl HERE, TONIGHT. Was it not possible for Cheryl to have an escape from her problems, even for one night??

"Oh my god. What do you want?" She asked annoyed. "And why do you keep stalking me?"

"I'm not.." the girl, Toni replied. "I came to see this movie with Fangs, and he bailed on me. Are you ok?" She checked.

Why was this girl so determined to get to know her. It was annoying and Cheryl was getting tired of pushing her away, so after contemplating for a second, she sighed heavily.

"I'm alone at the movies," she answered. Looking away from the girl infront of her. "And... I'm trying to stay away from my mother, who has turned our house into her sexual playpen," she said meeting Toni's gaze and smiling grimly. "So no, I am really not."

"Well", the girl said, her mouth lifting slightly, "I was gonna go grab a seat alone. Unless you want some company.. but, no pressure," she said, kindly.

Cheryl smiled slightly, turning from the girl and grabbing the drink on the bench next to her, before guiding the straw up to her lips and smiling shyly from behind the drink.

Toni, smiling now, turned and started walking slowly towards the door, Cheryl right beside her.

\--/

Hello!

Ok so thanks to BritishGirlWhoWrites, you guys are getting an extra update day: Friday!!

So for this chapter, I just kinda wanted an insight into some of Cheryl's home life, however small. I will be adding more later, when we get closer to the will reading (Ch.9, for me, I think) .

If the timeline for stuff feels a bit off, sorry. There's never any real dates and stuff in Riverdale. Its hard to make a concrete timeline, but I try.

Also, Choni is real, and as someone who shipped from the start, I got so annoyed at the Toni x Jughead stuff. And the backlash on Vanessa was just uncalled for. Buuuuuut, now everything is fine. And S3 is supposed to have more Choni, since they only had 12 minutes of screen time, 13 if you count the deleted "You Shine" scene (which, I must say, was adorable, and would have made the episode a million times better).

I'm sorry, I just think their isn't enough LGBTIQA representation on mainstream media, especially bi-sexuality. So it's just so nice for there to be a bi-sexual couple, and even better, it's aimed at people my age, which really helps open kid's minds while they're still young and impressionable.

Anyway, this was a long A/N, so I'm gonna go now.

Thanks guys, xxx

-G