Most of the reason for going to the maple syrup sign was to prove—if anything at all—that FP at least didn't torch the car. Odds were, if the bag wasn't there, FP was lying and it was enough proof needed for me. It was nightfall by the time Sweet Pea and I reached the stupid sign. Trudging through the thick snow in the dark. I shone my flashlight beam across it just to make sure it was the right one. "Here we are," I sighed, dreadfully.

"Babe, where'd he say it was?" Sweet Pea asked.

It sounded like it was more for nervous conformation than anything else. Turning my flashlight on him, I saw he was standing right where it was supposed to be. "Right there," I answered, taking steps toward him. He squatted in the snow and reached into the mess of odd branches and twigs in front of him. I'd held the light, hoping he'd miss the slight vibration of the beam's positioning. My hands were shaking—but not from the cold.

He dug for only a second before pulling out a dark duffel bag. Something moved me forward then, kneeling beside him to better see the bag as he unzipped it. His hand dug around inside, and pulled out, tugging out with it a Riverdale High Letterman jacket. My hands instinctively snatched it upon seeing the gold and blue coloring. The fabric against my skin brought a lump up into my throat. I'd turned it over, desperately searching for the name.

I could feel Sweet Pea's eyes on me a second before his unsure voice spoke my name, "Diana…"

"I have to know, Pea."

Not a second after the words left my mouth, my eyes found the gold cursive stitching spelling out a familiar name, as my flashlight beam illuminated it—Jason. Every muscle in my body became rigid at the sight of it. The lump in my throat only seemed to grow, becoming a hot burning sensation, causing my eyes to water. "There has to be something else," I was sounding more desperate than intended. "This can't be it-"

"It's the only thing in here- the bag's empty," Sweet Pea turned the bag upside down, shaking it in a see? gesture.

"No...this- this can't be it. What kind of a contingency plan is this?! If anything, it'll get FP more years in prison! It proves he killed Jason, that he torched the car, that he probably covered it up in other ways we don't know about-"

Stopping myself, I dropped back onto my butt in the snow, uncaring of the cold soon to follow from the action. This proved everything. It proved everything I was trying to disprove, everything I knew in my bones to be wrong. Even though warm tears fell off my icy cheeks, looking down at the jacket in my hands, I couldn't accept it. Not yet. I had to know for sure what happened—no matter the answer regarding FP's involvement.

I'd contemplated it all that night, sitting in the same place on the couch until the sun spilled through the cracks in the window at my back. The trailer had never felt so empty. Without FP in it, there was nothing worth staying for. But looking at the empty shell brought back old things I hadn't realized I'd forgotten. All the times FP was a father to me. Sometimes, better than the man I used to think was mine. It turns out, Bulldog was just a placeholder.

Trying to picture a life without Bulldog was too hard. But so was picturing my life without FP. I needed answers—for everything. And there was only one way to get them. Straight from the horse's mouth. Which means I needed to take a trip to the Sheriff's station. So I'd stayed at the trailer as long as it took for the sun to rise, and then I left—heading up third on foot. The streets were fairly empty that early. It gave an extra shove to the knife blade in the left side of my chest.

It was cold—like every morning during this time of year—but I'd barely noticed it by the time I'd reached the station. There were certain visiting hours. I'd known those times like the back of my hand since I was at least twelve. I was a little early, I knew, when I pulled open the glass door and stepped into the lobby. Two steps in and I nearly collided with a solid object. When I shuffled back, muttering a quick apology, I saw who it was.

"Mrs. Andrews? Hi...I- I didn't know you were in town," I tried to smile a little, through my blatant surprise.

Archie's mother smiled politely at me—unlike my awkward display. "Diana, it's so nice to see you. I was just in town for the homecoming dance."

"Oh...so, what brings you to the station?" I asked, a bit curiously. "Nothing bad, I hope?"

"Oh, no, nothing bad. For me, at least. Archie asked if I'd look into FP's case while I was still here," she explained.

Mrs. Andrews had always been nice to me—probably because I was dating her son. But, even after the breakup, she still seemed pleasantly polite. I nodded a little. Then I arched an eyebrow, looking as though my next words were out of sheer curiosity. "How is it looking?"

Her lips took a bit of a downward turn, shaking her head slowly. "Not good, I'm afraid. I was just about to go meet the boys at Pop's and tell them about it—you could come along if you'd like? I know you and FP were really close."

She'd said it like FP died and we were talking about funeral arrangements. It irked me. I shook my head, told her I had other business to attend to before school. We had a nice, casual goodbye as she slid out the door. The second she was gone, my polite smile fell into an uninterested frown. I didn't dislike her. But I wasn't in the mood to be genuinely happy to see someone. It seemed to be happening more and more as time went on, my dislike for human interaction.

Moving to some remote corner of the world and becoming a hermit was slowly becoming a viable option for my future, especially if Riverdale continued to throw me around like it'd been doing. Sighing, I made my way up to the teller-like window. "I'm here to see FP Jones," I said, leaning my palms into the wood of the thin piece of desk on my side of the glass.

Apparently, I'd come just shortly after visiting hours began. So I was technically right on time. Sheriff Keller himself took me back to the holding cells—more specifically, to FP's. Keller opened the door to the small room housing FP's cell, and stepped in, saying, "Look alive, you've got a visitor."

I'd walked in a moment behind him. Keller stayed by the door to hold it open for me, his back to it. FP was reclining on a small cot-like bed in the far corner of his cell. Looking more washed-up than usual. He didn't look anywhere but straight forward. "What is it now?" he grumbled, disinterested.

I twisted, looking over my shoulder at the Sheriff. His eyes shifted from FP to mine. His expression was questioning—do you need me to stay? It was a kind offer. But I gave a shake of my head, and he nodded in return, turning and leaving the room. Shutting the door behind him. Leaving nothing but me and my empty veins to face FP. As I turned back to the jail cell, I exhaled. "What, you forget me in here already?" I asked, the words light-hearted to throw off my dry tone.

FP looked up then—really looked up. And his face turned. His features sunk in their crevices and his eyes saddened. All in the bat of an eye lash. "What are you doing here, kid?" his voice was empty as he sat up, pushed himself up off the cot to stand, and stepped toward the bars. "You should be in school—not in this dump worrying about me. No, you got better things to do with your life."

"Stop while you're behind. I have one question—to start. But you better answer me honestly, FP," I stepped toward the bars as well, my tone a bit angrier than I truly was. If anything, I was sad. Sad to have to ask this question. But I looked into his eyes—no matter how much I didn't want to. "Did you do it? Did you actually kill Jason Blossom?"

I waited for his reply with a held breath caught in my throat. He was quiet. Looking at me with an unchanging expression. Finally, after a long moment, he answered. "Yeah, I killed him," he said, with a certain shade of unbothered that cratered in my chest. It was a kind of flippant so what? that made him seem darkly uncaring.

With his unwavering confidence, and the words I didn't want to hear but needed to, I felt myself crack. Physically, mentally, emotionally—I cracked and splintered right down the middle of my body. It felt like I was shattered pieces of glass on the floor being stepped on. "Dad..." my voice came out as a strangled croak. "Why?"

He leaned his palms into the bars, "I did what I had to do—like I always do."

"Is that what you were doing by not telling me you were my father? Is that why you kept it from me—because you were doing what you had to do? Huh?!"

My saddened anger might have appeared weak to anyone else. But, for good reason, FP knew me better than that. He had to have seen that I was broken. That I was not strong—not anymore. Not there, in that moment. It was the weakest I'd ever felt. "I did it to protect you, Diana," his voice was rising with mine. "Look at me—I'm in jail! You really think knowing your old man is a dead beat would've been something good for you?"

"You're all I wanted! Every night I spent in that forsaken house, I wanted to be with you and Jughead at the trailer park. I wanted to be with you, because you acted like you actually cared about me! All those nights I came to the Wyrm after my parents…after Jason...you let me cry for all of them in your arms—and you knew the truth all along. I actually thought it wasn't you when you were first arrested. So much that I got Jughead to come to the station with me that night to plead with Keller to release you—that it was somehow a mistake."

Sometime during my speech, my bearing of soul, I'd started crying. Nothing too boisterous. They were just single, silent tears treading a path down my cheeks. But they were there. FP's features were slightly softened, but otherwise remained the same. "The mistake was you coming here," he shook his head, taking a step back.

"Yeah...you're right. No. The mistake was believing in you," I corrected, bitter-toned but plain-faced.

He dropped onto the cot in the corner and put his feet up, reclining against the wall again with a sigh. It was suddenly as though I wasn't even in the room. I wanted to scream. The walls of the house I'd built out of people I loved was slowly caving in. Archie had been a wall, so was Jason. But FP was the ceiling. The wall Jughead used to be was broken, but somewhat repaired. The only thing that seemed to be standing was the floor I stood on.

I'd left the room without another word. Wiping my face with my sleeved wrists, I walked the hall toward the lobby. As I rounded the corner to the final stretch, I saw Jughead near the front desk, talking to Sheriff Keller. The tears weren't stopping and neither was I. At some point, Jughead noticed me. I was at the halfway point when he spoke. "Diana?" he asked, surprised, confused. "Did you talk to dad?"

My feet kept moving as I replied, "He's all yours. You can have him."

The bitter voice that came from me sounded darker than I imagined it in my head. I walked right past a stunned Jughead Jones, across the lobby, and through the glass front doors into the cold.

It was the most difficult thing I'd ever had to do—acknowledge that my biological father was more than likely a murderer. The worst part was that he killed my best friend. I'd vowed to never hurt myself again, but that was all I wanted to do when I finally got back to my bedroom. Ben was at work and Cash was at school. The house was empty, with nothing but me and Killer. Even Killer was gone—sleeping on the couch downstairs.

I dropped my weight onto the edge of my bed. There had to be something. Some kind of alternative to physical harm. But I couldn't think of one. It felt like my brain was on fire, like all the things inside it were tangled too deep into each other. Like I was about to explode. And, in a way, I guessed I did. Because I got off the bed and marched straight to my desk. My left hand grabbed the waist basket from beside the desk, and my right swung across the surface of the desk.

Knocking all the photos, trinkets, pencils and pens—any and all things—into the basket. Then I took to the walls. Literally gripping the edges of posters and tearing them from the wall, dropping them into the basket with the desk items. When the walls were bare, I went into the closet, flipping on the light. My hands started grabbing hung up articles of clothing and throwing them onto the floor outside the closet. I didn't want them anymore.

I didn't need them. They were possessions of North side Diana—a version of myself I wanted to burn at the stake until she was a pile of smoldering ashes. This metaphorical other half of me was almost dead. But I needed to kill her. I needed to make it permanent and it needed to happen now. I stuffed all the clothes into carpenter bags and tied them off until all of them were out of the closet. I went to my bed and pulled the cases off the pillows, the matching sheet from the mattress.

Both of them went into bags. Along with the pansy pattern comforter I never liked. The frilly pillows from the love seat, the pink curtains, my cutesy days of the week socks, and anything else I could find in the room that I didn't like went into the bags. But it wasn't enough. When I stood in a naked and empty looking room, it wasn't enough. My body felt weak, empty—still retaining its urge to incur physical pain.

So I went to the bathroom and turned on the light before standing in front of the mirror. My face was cute. Too cute. My hair waved and lightly curled down my front in a pampered, expensive-looking style that made everything youthful and cute. I hated that word. But it described my appearance perfectly. So my hand dove into the little drawer to the right of the sink. It rifled until it landed on the silver pair of scissors i'd kept in there.

When I had them in my clutches, I didn't hesitate to grab a fistful of my chocolate colored hair. The scissor blades cut through the clump. It left a somewhat jagged, just slightly uneven fray of hair on my head and a long wad of it in my hand. I tossed the cut hair into the waste basket beside the toilet and grabbed another fistful of brown waves—this time on the other side. I'd managed to cut my hair in a way that, yes, looked a bit trashy, but was still usable.

Either way, I didn't care how it looked other than one fact—it looked like me. The Diana Cassidy I hadn't seen in over two years was staring back at me in the mirror. Clumps of hair had fallen over the porcelain of the sink, the granite of the counter tops, the tile of the floor. But I didn't feel any regret for what I'd done. Instead, I felt free. I felt a release. This was what I'd needed to do for years. I cleaned up the fallen hair and dumped it in the waste basket.

Then I began hauling bags down the stairs. More like, dragging the bags to the top and throwing them down the rest of the way. It was faster and more efficient. Killer leapt up from the couch with a bark, getting up from a dead sleep, and he ran to the base of the stairs as I'd finally finished tossing the bags. "It's okay, boy," I assured, exhaling as I trotted down the carpeted steps. "This is what freedom looks like. Take it in—because I'm probably getting kicked out for this."

I drug the bags to the garage, one-by-one, until they were gone. Then I went back up the stairs to my room and closed the door, before heading into the closet. I took the clothes out of my dresser and hung them up on the now empty bars to take the place of all the clothes I just got rid of. The things from my drawers were all clothing options I actually liked. Most of the clothes I'd worn to keep Ben in the dark were blouses, blazers, cardigans, and skirts.

But the clothes I felt comfortable in were the ones I hung up—tank tops, over-sized t-shirts, denim shorts, faded jeans, crop tops, and mesh-shirt-over-tank-top combos. They were relaxed. They were South side. The thought of Ben's reaction no longer scared me. Instead, I wore a loose smirk, fighting a laugh. This was close, but I still needed to put the final nail in North side Diana's coffin. That would come tomorrow.

Ben left early in the morning for another work-related trip out of Riverdale, so he didn't see what I came down the stairs wearing—or the fact that I'd butchered my hair. But he soon would. I made breakfast and had it on the table before Cash came downstairs, ready for school, and entered the kitchen. She wandered into the dining room with a bright expression, eyes wide to match her smile, staring at me. "WOW! I love your hair!" she exclaimed.

I chuckled, smiling as I pulled out her chair. "Thanks, Cash."

She climbed into the chair and I pushed her in, then sidestepped to sit in my own seat. After breakfast, I walked Cash to school. Then I walked myself to school. Knowing what kind of school I was going to, I knew to anticipate a not-so-subtle reaction. But it didn't bother me. Not anymore. All I thought of walking into school was about the bio test on Monday. I hadn't studied for it much, considering my recent life changes, but I needed to start soon.

Otherwise I would be officially failing biology. It wasn't my strong suit, but I'd never had a problem with it until this year, when my life went to kingdom come. I pushed through the main doors and strode in, stepping without a care to my locker. Ear buds dug deep into my ear canals, plain-faced expression, and my bag loosely hanging from my shoulder. All signs pointed to not giving one single care. But heads were in fact turning.

I didn't need to be able to hear them to know they were whispering. It came with the territory. Not only was I a friend of Jughead's and was close with FP Jones, but I also came into school looking like i'd fallen into a meat grinder—and my hair did not survive. My outfit wasn't the most subtle either. A black t-shirt with a gold woman woman logo stretched across the chest that was faded and worn, black tights beneath matching denim shorts, my red hoodie beneath a denim jacket, and my studded ankle boots.

It was still modest enough to fit the dress code, but it was just South side enough to work. I rolled in my locker combo and pulled open the door. That was when I was attacked by a red headed viper. Cheryl Blossom. She yanked out one of my ear buds and I recoiled to the side a step, giving her a what for? look. "What are you wearing? And what did you do to your hair?!" she practically shrieked, tugging on the frayed ends of my hair.

Rolling my eyes, I pulled out the other ear bud and stuffed my mp3 player into my bag. "I cut it, Cher. Obviously. I needed a change—why else?" I shut my locker after pulling out my algebra textbook and turned toward her at my right, raising an eyebrow with an otherwise plain expression. "Considering how you pummeled Jughead yesterday, I'm surprised you're even talking to me."

Cheryl's expression loosened as her eyes averted, guilty as sin. "I didn't think-"

"Archie texted me, Cheryl. He told me everything," I crossed my arms, over the textbook.

I wasn't happy with her, even though I could understand why she did it. I got Archie's messages late last night. Apparently Jughead apologized to Cheryl in the cafeteria and she responded by hitting him as hard as she could until they were pulled apart. I guessed that's how you reacted when your beloved twin brother's murderer was finally caught, and his unsuspecting son showed his face. I also guessed I didn't know Cheryl like I thought I did. Just like everyone else in my life.