The clock beside the bed read one-fifteen. My dry eyes were stuck on the red numbers from my head's perch on the pillow. It was late. I should be sleeping. Sawing logs like the unconscious Serpent out to the wind just behind my back. But I wasn't. I'd been tired when I first laid down, but now it seemed my mind was keeping the rest of my body awake. I twisted my body, carefully turning onto my other side, turning my back to the clock.
Even in the dark of the bedroom, my eyes were adjusted enough to the darkness to see the shadows cast on Sweet Pea's face from the soft moonlight coming in the curtained window. He looked so peaceful, so gentle. Features relaxed, black hair smeared against his pillow like a brush stroke, cheek smudged up from being pressed into the pillow case. In this setting, he looked human. He looked young. Like he wasn't full of anger, ready to punch someone at any given moment.
With a soft sigh, I rolled back onto my other side, eyes moving straight to the red numbers on the clock. It was one-thirty. I couldn't take it anymore. Lying there and not moving. My mind was too far ahead to rest enough for sleep. I pushed myself up, sliding my legs over the edge of mattress, and carefully dropped off. Even though I knew Sweet Pea was a heavy sleeper, I was still cautious. I tip toed around the end of the bed and straight through the bedroom door.
I only went to the living room, dropping onto the couch. It was far enough of an escape. An escape from my thoughts. I remembered then the one time in my life I'd actually escaped. I ran away from home. If my memory was accurate, I was ten, and I only went to Jughead's trailer. But it was a big deal for me. It was in the middle of the night because I didn't have the nerve to leave during daylight. So I snuck out my window and ran all the way to the trailer park.
Thankfully, Jughead had been awake. He let me in, being quiet as not to wake his parents, and told me I could sleep with him in his bed that night. That I didn't have to go home. The memory placed a certain echo of nostalgia and longing in my chest. I missed Jughead. We'd still barely spoken since FP's arrest. But it worsened to nothing after we ran into each other at the Sheriff's station—after I'd talked to FP in jail.
It needed to change, I decided, pulling my knees to my chest, my heels bracing the edge of the couch cushion. My whole body startled—enough to drop my feet off the couch—when a familiar male voice pierced the silence in the room. "What are you doing out here?" Sweet Pea asked, with a knowing tone.
He stood in the doorway between the kitchen and living area. He looked fully awake, but I knew for a fact he was fighting to stand upright. "Couldn't sleep," I shook my head. He exhaled, nodding once, before walking further into the living room. My eyebrows drew together then, "How'd you know I was gone?"
"It's colder when you're not there," he answered, simply, as he lowered himself to sit on the couch beside me. "You okay?"
"Honestly? I don't think I know anymore."
I shook my head slowly, staring straight ahead. It was a true statement. My emotions were too up in the air to discern such an answer. Sweet Pea snaked an arm around my lower back, his free hand gripping my hip opposite him, and he pulled me into his bare chest. I slid my arms around his torso and nestled my face in the crook of his neck, inhaling to breathe him in. "I'm sorry, babe," he spoke softly. "I hate seeing you like this. I wish there was something I could do."
"Just don't let go."
"I won't."
His arms around me tightened, cheek against my left temple, as he exhaled a deep breath. I could feel his hand trailing up and down my spine in a slow, comforting line. And a wave of calm settled in the sands of my body. "I love you, Sweets." I sighed the words against his skin, and I could've sworn I felt him shudder. He shifted to press a kiss to my temple. The warmth on my skin broke my arms out in bumps, realizing just how cold it'd felt.
With a quiet, soft voice, he replied, "I love you, too, D."
It was like the first time all over again. The first time hearing those words come from his lips. I wished I could keep it that way, somehow. Just save it in a way that it could never change. Because that was one of the last kind moment I would have for a while. But I didn't know it then. Then, in that moment, I'd fallen asleep in his arms, and we'd woken up in a tangle of crooked limbs the next morning.
It was six o'clock in the morning when I turned my key in the lock on Ben's front door and pushed into the living room. There was no point in being quiet. Ben was already awake. Sitting at the dining room table in his bathrobe with a coffee mug in hand, flipping through the latest conspiracy theory from Alice Cooper in the Riverdale Register. I closed the door behind me and started into the kitchen, bypassing the dining room altogether.
But Ben still knew. His voice filtered in through the archway between kitchen and dining room as I poured coffee into a mug. "Little early to be out, don't you think?" he questioned, rhetorically. The sound of his newspaper crinkling followed the screech of chair legs on tile. "Oh, that's right. You never came home last night. I'm honestly surprised you're even here this morning."
He stepped into the archway, then crossed his arms over his chest. I took a drink from my mug as I turned toward him, leaning a hip into the side of the counter, and replied with an almost flippant sarcasm. "You say that like you actually missed me," I quipped, dryly, holding the mug in both hands at my waist.
"So, where are you spending your nights these days?" he asked, obviously trying hard to ignore my comment.
"With my Serpent boyfriend at the trailer park. His bed's bigger than mine—plus he gives me rides to school, so." I shrugged, saying the words so freely, so casually. Even though I knew just how hot his skin had to have been boiling at that point. It almost made me smile. To think that I was getting at him like I hadn't been able to before. Ben's features were withered with age, but they were now stretched thin in anger, lips curved down in a frown.
I took a long drink from my mug, then sat it on the counter. "Don't worry, Ben. It's better this way. You don't see me, I don't see you—everyone wins. It's what you wanted, right?"
My feet moved onward, on a path back through the kitchen to the living room, with the aim of eventually meeting the stairs to my room to get a change of clothes. At this point, I'd lost track of how many shirts I'd left at Sweet Pea's trailer. Too many—I was beginning to run out. But as I passed Ben, his hand lurched out, fingers wrapping around my upper arm to stop me. It worked. My whole body stopped, my eyebrows knitting together.
"You think this is a joke, Diana?" he questioned, voice low, a little too close for comfort with a grip that was sure to leave a mark. "I have done everything I can to give you a better life—to get you a way out of this forsaken town—and this is how you repay me? Throwing it all away for some lowlife gang banger that's gonna leave you in six months?"
The strength I held was not enough to match his, but I'd slipped from his grip with a hard, unexpected yank that his words had surged into my veins. My immediate, instinctual reaction was exactly how I acted. I wadded up saliva in my mouth and spat it at him as my feet shuffled back. He recoiled an inch as it hit his left cheek. But it only seemed to enrage him—almost as enraged as I was. And that's when it happened. That's when the back of his hand swept across my face.
My feet stumbled backward, my lower back hitting the island hard, as my head snapped right from the force. Fingers gripping at the granite of the island to keep myself upright, I lifted my head in spite of the searing sting along my left cheekbone. Dizziness rushed in. Ben looked like he'd seen a ghost. His face pale, features slacked, taking a single step backward with round eyes. He shook his head, "D-Diana...I'm sorry, I- I didn't mean to-"
"Save it," I hissed, pushing off the island—against my head's wishes. "Cash and I will be out before you get home from work. Don't bother looking for us."
Letting those words sink in, I immediately left the kitchen and trotted up the stair case to my room. I'd made sure the door slammed loud and hard. There was no way I was letting a man hit me like that and stay in the same house. It was Ben's house. So the person that needed to leave was me. Ben had left for work before Cash woke up—thankfully for me. I only had thirty minutes to find a way to cover the red on my cheek before then.
It looked terrible. In my mind, the red mark was all I could see. I'd hoped no one else would be able to notice. Cash didn't. She was her usual bubbly self when she strolled into the kitchen for breakfast. She also didn't notice my hands were shaking beneath the sleeves of my sweater. I'd held her hand to school that morning, but I was sure she assumed it was just the cold. When she was safely inside the school, no longer able to see me, I ran my hands through my hair on the sidewalk.
Completely and utterly losing it. So many questions ran around inside my mind—where would we go? How would I support Cash? She needed clothes, food, schooling, but how would I be able to afford that? How could I take care of her and put myself through school? I'd continued on to the high school on foot, all the while trying to pull myself together and get myself out of my head. Even though that was seemingly impossible.
It'd been snowing again. So I brushed my hair off after entering the main hall, and continued to my locker. I couldn't let myself stop. Not even for a second. And I couldn't tell anyone my plans, either. Everyone would be worried, want to fix it, want to help. And Sweet Pea...I had no doubt in my mind that he would storm out of school, track down Ben, and beat him within an inch of his worthless life. That would be pointless.
It would only get Sweet Pea in more trouble than Ben. So I kept quiet throughout the day. I'd sat at an empty table at lunch, ignoring Veronica's attempts to wave me over to her table. Archie, Kevin, and Betty were sitting with her. Today was not my day. Sitting with them would only make it harder to keep going. To not break. I sat with my tray and slid in my ear buds, all the while writing out possible next moves for me and Cash on a notepad beside the tray.
A shadow was cast over the table in a brief wave, and I ignored it. But then the shadow kept moving, back and forth, and I sighed heavily as I lifted my head. It was Betty. I plucked one ear bud out, raising an eyebrow with an otherwise plain expression. "Can I help you?"
"Um, I just wanted to see if you were okay? You've been really quiet and reserved today," she said, a bit cautiously. "Jughead said you two haven't talked much lately, and I thought I should see how you were doing."
"That's nice of you, Betty, but I'm kind of on a mission here," I said, trying to politely tell her to get lost.
"Ooh, what kind of mission?" Kevin asked, sliding onto the bench space next to me.
"The secret kind?" Veronica inquired, sitting beside Betty opposite me.
My elbows perched on the edge of the table then, pressing my forehead to my palms with a groan-like exhale. I heard Archie's voice next, coming from the other space beside Betty, and I wanted to scream. This was my only chance when not in class to come up with a plan before school let out. And these hooligans were ruining it. "Guys, go away," I said, bluntly, as I dropped my arms.
Everyone stared at me with semi-shocked expressions. No one spoke for a moment. Archie's eyebrows drew together, and he leaned forward an inch. "Diana, is everything okay?" he asked, tentatively. If I was willing to be honest with the people at my table I would tell them why the answer was no. But I wasn't willing. So I didn't.
I only shook my head quickly, probably looking like a stressed baboon. "No! Now, just...go."
"D, come on," Veronica looked a little offended, but mostly just worried. "When I said we were here for you, we all meant it. So whatever's going on, just tell us. Maybe we can help?"
"No, no- see? That's why I'm not telling you. Because you want to fix it. And you can't. So jump ship before this sinking Titanic splits in half." I sounded exasperated at this point. Reluctantly, Betty and Kevin got up from the table and slowly drifted back toward their own table, followed by Veronica. But Archie stayed.
He was not going to leave easily, which would make my job a lot harder. And it would also make me the bad guy in this scenario. "I'm not leaving until you tell me what's going on," he shook his head, but stopped in a split second. Face forward, eyes narrowed, focused slightly to my left. My heart stopped as he spoke. "Is that a welt? Under concealer? You don't wear concealer. Diana, what happened?"
I leaned forward on my folded arms across the table, "Look, Archie- just- promise me you won't react when I say it."
"I won't," he agreed, leaning forward on his arms to mirror my position, listening intently.
"This morning, Ben and I had a fight...long story short, I'm moving out, and I'm taking Cash with me," I explained—sort of. "I don't know...where we're gonna go, how I'm gonna pay for it, or what's going to happen when we leave. But I just need to get out of there. I can't- I just can't be there."
Archie eyed me for a long, silent moment with a slow nod. Like he was getting it. Like he knew that Ben hit me. He knew why I had such an urgency to get out as fast as humanly possible. Finally, he spoke up, acting calmly like I'd wanted. "Okay. I can talk to my dad, and you can stay in the garage tonight—just to get you out. My dad and I can help you work the rest out tomorrow. If you want."
I was honestly taken aback by the offer. But it was greatly appreciated—even if staying at Archie Andrews' house wasn't exactly what I'd wanted. I nodded, "Yeah, okay. Thank you."
"We'll pick you and Cash up after school, when you're packed?"
He'd said it like a question. But it really wasn't at all. I nodded as he stood up from the table, nodding in return. He gave my shoulder a reassuring squeeze before walking across the cafeteria to join the others at their table. Of all the people to possibly offer me refuge in a time like this, I hadn't expected it to be Archie. But it was the best chance I had at keeping Cash safe, at keeping a roof over her head. So I swallowed my pride and I took it.
"But why do we have to leave?" Cash whined, for the millionth time. She sat on my bed, clutching her stuffed unicorn tightly against her body as she watched me stuff my clothes into a bag. I'd answered her already, every time, with something simple—we just can't stay here anymore. But this time, she was not having it. I sighed as I stopped, turning to see her.
She looked to be on the verge of anxious tears, her lower lip pouting. It tugged something in my chest. I walked across the room and sat beside her, wrapping my arms around her form to hug her to my chest. "Cash...I know you like it here. But it's time for us to go. It's not safe for us here," I told her, as softly as I could manage. "I need to take you somewhere I can keep you safe. You have to be a big girl and keep those tears in, okay? Can you be a big girl for me?"
"I think so," she mumbled, against my shirt.
I sat back, pulling my hand back and reaching up to brush the hair from her face. "You can do this, Cash. You're a Cassidy. We'll get through this together."
She nodded, though still saddened, and I pushed off the bed to finish packing. After I put my things in bags, we went to Cash's room. It was harder in there to pack. She almost had a mental breakdown at the thought of leaving some things behind. So I did my best to pack up everything I could manage into a bag. Archie and his dad got to the house an hour before I had to be out to miss Ben getting back. It was a lot of help. They carried most of the bags out and put them in the truck.
I'd brought another trip of bags down the stairs and handed them off to Archie, who proceeded to take them outside. Mr. Andrews came back inside, passing Archie at the door, and walked straight over to me at the stairs for another load. "I'll get more," I said, before turning for the stairs.
"Hey, Diana," he stopped me with my name, causing me to face me him again. "I'm really sorry about what's going on with you and your sister. If you need more than just a place to stay, you can always talk to me, alright? You may not be dating my son, but you're still family."
I nodded a little, surprised but outwardly grateful. "Thank you, Mr. Andrews."
He nodded in return and I went back up the stairs to get the last of the bags. Once they were out and in the truck, the next task was getting Cash out of the house. Killer was in the truck waiting for us. But Cash was sitting on her bed, crying, still clutching her unicorn. It broke my heart to see her like that, almost bringing me to tears myself. But I swallowed it down and hefted her up onto my hip. She clung to me without a word and I carried her down the stairs.
It was so hard to keep it together, especially that close to breaking. Water was in my eyes but I kept it at bay, walking for the door. As I past Archie, he looked incredibly sympathetic, seeing Cash crying into my shoulder. This was just another loss for her. Another move. Another place, set of people, she'd attached herself to only to get ripped away from. And, this time, I was the one ripping her away.
When Cash was finally asleep, I sat on the floor of the garage atop my sleeping bag, stroking Killer where he laid beside me. She'd literally cried herself to sleep. And it made me wonder if our parents dying finally hit her. If this jarred loose the emotions she didn't display when we moved the first time. I'd been fighting crying the whole day. I successfully held it in even in the sight of my sobbing little sister and her tear-soaked stuffed animal.
But sitting there alone, in Archie's garage, I finally cried. It felt like hot knife blades being guided down my cheek bones. I pushed up from the floor then, pulling my cell phone out of my back pocket, and stepped outside the garage door. I made sure to close it securely behind me. There was no way I was waking Cash up, not for something so selfish as my own problems. With shaking hands, I dialed Sweet Pea's number, and leaned my butt into the wall of the garage as I listened to it ringing.
I folded my arms in a way I could still hold the phone, and I tried to take a deep breath between hiccuping waves of water. On the second ring, he answered. "Hey, babe, what's up?" he asked, sounding as carefree as I did this morning. Before all hell broke loose and flooded my life with misery. Maybe it was my sniffle that gave it away? Or maybe it was the silence that followed as I tried not to sob into the phone? Whatever it was, he noticed it. His voice changed, any and all background noise fading out. "Diana, what's wrong?" he sounded concerned, angry. "Did something happen?"
"Ben hit me this morning, Pea. I took Cash and our things to a friend's house after school. But...I can't take this. I can't- I can't do this by myself."
It was hard to tell my words apart in my own ears, let alone through a cell phone speaker. But, somehow, he'd understood. "Text me the address—I'm coming."