Sneaking out of my house was not a difficult challenge. I had never done it before(I know, I'm boring!) so my parents had never had to create any obstacles that would keep me inside.
Of course there are others at Riverdale High who broke the rules once in a while. Reggie has been known to show up to school in the morning bleary eyed, not to mention those school rumours of him dealing drugs behind the bike shed. Though I have never seen anything like that first hand. Reggie's whole crew was a little intimidating when they were together, cutting quite the imposing figures in the school halls.
I never interacted with them much before Veronica came to town. My whole inner circle had started interacting with them more and more. I hated it when I saw Archie hanging around with Reggie, Moose and Midge, that just was not who he was. He was too good for them, too good for anybody really, and as a result Reggie was the reason Archie had seen his fair share of detentions lately.
Veronica's arrival saw most of the school cliques cross-pollinate. Usually I spent time with Archie and Kevin, and occasionally Jughead too, though he was more Archie's friend than mine. Although we had been getting closer this year. Actually, I would consider him a friend now I think about it.
There was Cheryl and her cheerleaders. Toni and the South Side Serpents, Dilton's scout group, Josie and the Pussycats, Ethel's book club, until Veronica none of us interacted that much, but whatever it was she did, Veronica seems bring the whole class together. Lunches became a lot more unpredictable as I never knew who I would be eating with most of the time, Veronica always insisted on sitting with me. Meaning I was sitting with her and whoever she was with that day. Would it be the Serpents? Ugh. The cheerleaders? Ugh. The book club? Actually, the book club was fun.
It wasn't just at lunch though, even after school friend groups started mixing. I can't even remember the last time Archie and I sat by ourselves at Pop's. When it first started happening, I had convinced myself it was a good thing, it's nice to have more friends, it's nice that everybody is getting along. Though I never could quite shake the feeling that there was something odd about this whole situation. How could one girl shake up friend groups that had been defined since we were all in pre-school?
These were the thoughts that were going through my head as I made the trek to Sweetwater River. It was freezing and I was doing all I could to distract myself from thinking of how scary it was to be travelling the streets alone in the middle of the night.
It was just paranoia though, nothing bad ever happened in Riverdale, right?
"Ah, Betty, there you are!" I heard as I saw Jughead just as I reached the river. I was glad it was him I saw first, he seemed to be one of the few who had noticed how strange the social dynamics were these days.
"Jughead, can you believe this? We have to be a school in less that 6 hours."
"Oh Betty, you are not going to be thinking about school when you see Veronica." Jughead looked worried, he always seemed so unflappable, what was it that had gotten him so unnerved? "She's found a dead body on the riverbank. It looks like he drowned."
"A body?" I felt the wind get knocked out of me, a body in Riverdale, nothing like this ever happens in our small town. I forced my logical brain to take over, though it wasn't working as fast as I would have liked it to. "Umm, has she called Sheriff Keller?"
Jughead took a deep breath, taking off his beanie. "Actually no. Veronica has thrown a party in the body's honour. Our whole class is dancing around the corpse as well speak."
