I Want You to Be Alive
Chapter 3
"Are you okay son?" his father asked as he stepped into Archie's room.
"I'm laying my best friend to rest today dad, okay is the last thing I'm going to be today."
"It's perfectly alright to feel that way Archie. It's never easy to say goodbye to a loved one. She was your best friend and it was a tragedy what happened to her."
"You're right, but today is not about thinking how she died but honoring how she lived. Are you ready to go?"
"I'm ready whenever you are."
Pulling up to the funeral home, Archie put his truck in park hoping out of it as he took a deep breath gathering all his courage to go inside and talk with Mr. and Mrs. Cooper.
"Archie. You made it." Alice said as she stepped into Archie's line of vision.
"I wouldn't miss it."
Nodding, Archie sat down in one of the pews wanting nothing more than to get this over with as he heard a commotion coming from the front where Betty's mother had been.
"What do you think you're doing here?"
Turning in his seat, Archie looked at what had started the commotion as his eyes landed on none other then Jughead Jones and his fellow serpents. Shit. This was not good.
"She was my girlfriend Alice; I have a right to pay my respects to her."
"You have no right to be here. She's dead because of you."
"You know why she's dead Alice. Stop trying to fool yourself into thinking that you were the perfect mother."
"Get. Out."
"Maybe we should go Jughead." Toni Topaz urged with a squeeze to his arm.
"You know she would want me here, but for her sake I'll go. Come on guys. We'll pay our respects for Betty in our own way." Jughead growled before the serpents left leaving everyone to mourn Betty's loss in peace as Alice and Hal finally took their seats up front.
Taking a deep breath, Archie looked forward as the pastor said a few heart felt words before Betty's mother Alice took the podium looking grief stricken and in shock almost like she couldn't believe that someone as perfect as Betty could do this to herself. Maybe she didn't. Maybe Jughead was right about it being a murder rather than a suicide, but this was not the time to be thinking of that while her grieving mother was about to talk about one of the hardest things she had been through in her entire life.
"Thank you everyone who came today to help us grieve the loss of my beautiful daughter Elizabeth."
Muffled cries filed the room, as Alice continued.
"When my daughter was younger, she was always fascinated with journalism and would always ask me questions about my job saying she wanted to be just like me and her father when she grew up. Now she'll never get the chance. My daughter was the light inside of my life and now she's gone."
A tear fell down Archie's cheeks as there wasn't a dry eye in the room. Archie listened to everyone's stories of Betty laughing, crying, and everything else in between before he took the podium ready to share his own story of Betty.
"Betty and I have been next door neighbors since we were four, we've always gone to the same school, been in the same class. I remember in the second grade; I was having trouble reading and my teacher told my mom and dad that I should stay back a year to get caught up. Betty was so against us not being in the same grade that she took it upon herself to tutor me every single day. When I passed thanks to Betty, I kissed her and asked her to marry me. She was like, oh little archie, we're too young, ask me again when we're eighteen and I'll say yes. I guess sometime between then and now we grew apart, but it didn't mean that I ever stopped thinking about her or wanting the best for her. I'll miss her every single day and the world will always be a darker place now that she's gone."
A tear slid down Archie's cheek as he stepped down. God, he missed her. He missed her so much. Life would be truly awful without her. If Jughead was right, if someone had really killed her, he would find them and he will kill them.