When Ruby finally stopped running away she ended up in the area in which I live. The parts I was used to were a little shadier than most so I scrambled to find something to say to her. She was clearly tired and stressed out from the situation beforehand, so I invited her into my house and offered her all of the customary things like asking if she wanted something to drink or eat but she apparently didn't care. As soon as she walked through my front door she kicked her shoes into the wall and slam her body into my mattress. She faced herself towards the wall.
"What happened in there Ruby?" I asked sitting closely by the mattress facing her back. She shrugged and strands of her hair fell down the front of her face. "Nothing really. Just someone I didn't particularly want to see at all in my life showed up. I don't really have a high liking of her." She gave an overly dramatic sigh. I grinned and realized that she was toying with me saying it wasn't a big deal, but really she wanted me to ask her. We usually went over this routine when she had something on her mind. Mostly it was about her parents but we glossed over the major facts.
"What horrible things did this person do to make you hate her so much?" I teased back, poking at her back. She chuckled softly and spun around so she was now facing me. Our banter usually started with us making up weird scenarios to hide the facts about the actual situation. Very rarely did she ever openly express how she felt or what the situation was.
"Well I saw her disown a puppy and openly leave it lying in the dirt one night, and she's rumored to be a psychotic killer who comes into your house if you don't make a sacrifice every once in a blood moon." Ruby whispered, trying to hide the fact she wanted to laugh. We both joked dark things back and forth before we ended up laughing so hard we had to hold our stomachs. Ruby was softly chuckling until her laughing turned into sobs. I opened my eyes and saw her sobbing in her hands while tears ran down her face and onto her palms.
"R-Ruby are you alright?!" I panicked and tried to find something to make her stop. I wasn't an expert at trying to make a girl feel better, but I thought of the time Betty felt down and couldn't continue on with anything and I tried to cheer her up. "Hey Ruby, what does a house wear?" I asked. She looked up from her hands and gave me a confused look. "Um.. a dress! Heh, get it?" I chuckled and put my hand behind my head awkwardly trying to think of a comeback from the awful
She stared at me for a second before building up to a giggle while wiping her tears away from her stained face. Her face turned bright red, which I assumed was from the aftermath of crying, and she smiled shyly. "You're such a dork. How did you know the perfect dumb pun to cheer me up?" She got up from her lying position and started sitting on the mattress. She looked down at me. I grinned. "Well Betty always loved stupid p-"
I stopped myself as Ruby gave me the same expression as I was wearing. She seemed more surprised than me and instead of asking about it she silently looked down at the floor, a cloud of darkness seemed to surround her. Her hair was completely covering the front of her face.
"Wow I didn't even know I was mentioning Betty. Sorry. I should escort you back to your house. Your parents must be wo-" I was interrupted when Ruby took my jacket in protest of me leaving. I had a sudden flashback of Jellybean holding my jacket the same way. I looked back at her.
"Please don't take me back to that place Juggie. You of all people should understand what it's truly like in a certain household living in the Southside. Please just don't take me back." She begged and clenched the clothing tighter. Some adjustments would have to be made, but theoretically I could house her for a couple of days. I'll just sleep on the floor.
"Yeah of course. Stay as long as you need to. I have to go out anyways so make yourself at home!" I shuffled towards the front door and put on my Southside jacket. As I stepped out of the door I heard Ruby's voice yelling at me.
"Jughead wait!" She called, leaning me back into the house. "I lo- I lo.. I appreciate this. I'm glad we met." She said, holding back her words. I nodded and smiled back at her.
Shutting the door to my house I could memorize past memories from Ruby's words. I flushed bright red and shook my head as I headed out to my destination.
As Jughead shut the door to his house I cursed and flung my body onto his mattress. I ruffled my hair and looked straight up at the ceiling as I covered my face into my hands. I could feel the heat radiating off of my face.
What was I thinking? I almost let months of hard work and trust pass by in an instance. I have to be more careful of what I say.
I sat up and eyed the entire apartment. It was well kept for a boy of Juggie's age, especially since everything was put up nicely into stacks or into boxes. I could see the sheets of the bed scattered all across the floor like he'd forcefully thrown them off in a pit of rage. Images of Jughead vigorously moving in his sleep making everything around him fall made me chuckle. Now that I'm basically living with him, I have to keep up my perfect girl act otherwise he might not even see me as an interest, though before I changed he still talked to me the same way. Though that was when he was with Betty, so that might change things
Betty. So that's her name. I've known what she looks like considering I had a whole chat with her and she came to take Juggie away from our high school, but I never realized how absolutely pretty and perfect she was. She seemed like the type to be good at everything she did and be the perfect opposites attract couple with Jughead. It only made me more jealous of the fact Jughead is basically pining after her and seems hurt after something that she probably did. It makes me mad because she got to him before I could make a move on him.
I met him before she did. I became friends with him before she did. We even promised ourselves to always be the best of friends and back each other up whenever we had family issues. I did exactly that. When his family was breaking down I was the first one to go to him, to support him. But I did notice something was off. He wasn't as depressed as I thought he was going to be. He seemed a little bit chipper and he had as smile on his face as I walked up to him. I always wondered why I wasn't the one to make him happy.
It was because she got to him first. It's because I was too weak and pretentious to be there first and rush over immediately as I heard. Since then I've always wondered who was the lucky girl to make Jughead smile for the first time.
Now I'm just like her. I'm smarter, cleaner, prettier, and more sophisticated than when he last saw me. I even convinced my parents to let me do my own blond highlights over my raven locks of hair. Too bad they wouldn't let me dye my whole set of hair though. It came out well that I didn't look or try to be exactly like her because obviously if I did, then Jughead could never see me for me. Not that it would matter anyways.
I sighed and mushed my face into one of his pillows. As I sat there I would think, "Was I the first girl who ever came here?" It was a simple answer since he doesn't ever take anyone here under any circumstances, but the pillow didn't have his scent.
I threw the pillow across the room. Of course I wasn't the first. Somehow she convinced Jughead to take her here.
Of course she was the first of everything in his life.