A Riverdale Story: Opposites Attract (Jughead x OC)

Chapter 10: Middle of Starting Over

Quick A/N— I hate doing these because I know you guys just want to read the book; however, I wanted to thank everybody for all of your votes and putting my book on your reading lists!! It means so much to me to know that your guys love my story so this next chapter is for all of you!!

---Narrator POV---

Jughead Voiceover: Guilt, innocence. Good, evil. Life, death. As the shadows around Riverdale deepened, the lines that separated these polar opposites blurred and distorted. "I'm guilty," Cheryl said in Biology class. But of what?

"To clarify," Cheryl Blossom says in the office later on while talking to the Sheriff and the Principal. "I didn't mean I was guilty of killing Jason. I loved him more than I do myself." She pauses. "But I am guilty of lying about what happened on July 4th."

"The autopsy puts his death about July 11th." Sheriff Keller informs her. "When was the last time you saw your brother?"

"It was July 4th." Cheryl tells him honestly. "I don't know what happened the week after that, but," She trails off.

"Cheryl, in your own words, what happened at Sweetwater River?"

"The plan was bananas, even for me." Cheryl said thinking back to that tragic day over summer. "Jason wanted to leave Riverdale and never come back. He asked for my help to stage a tragic accident, so that our mom and dad wouldn't come after him. Our story would be, we went for an early morning boat ride, and the boat tipped, and capsized, and Jason drowned. In fact, we made it to the other side dry as bones. We said goodbye on the Greendale side of Sweetwater River. He promised he'd call me as soon as he was in a place where he couldn't be reached or pulled back by our parents. One month, at the most. Every day, I waited for him to call, for an email."

"You tell anyone about the plan?" The sheriff asks and the red head shakes her head no. "Any way that you can corroborate it?" Again the snawer was no. "And you have no idea why your brother wanted to run away, fake his own death? Doesn't that seem cruel?"

"No, he wasn't, Jason wasn't cruel." Cheryl defends him feroshiously.

"So maybe this is all just a web of lies you're spinning to cover your own tracks."

"I didn't kill Jason!" She yells causing them both to shut up. "There was a gunshot that morning. We heard a gunshot on July 4th. Maybe whoever killed Jason took a shot at him, and missed that morning."

"You heard a gunshot, and you're just telling us this now?" Sheriff Keller asks slightly sespichous.

"I was upset. My brother was murdered." She said as though it was obvious.

"So upset that you sang and danced at a pep rally yesterday." The slamming of a door cut the sheriff off.

"What the hell is going on here?" Cheryl's mom demands.

"Mommy." Cheryl says.

"Don't say another word, Cheryl." Her mother demands again. "Get up. Why didn't you call us?" She asks at they shove her out of the office and down the halls.

"Because she's a liar, Penelope." Clifford Blossom says talking about his only daughter. "When we get home, you're telling us everything."

---

"I think I know something that can help with the Blossom investigation." Archie says in the principal's office that morning. He decided to ignore what Ms. Grundy wants, and do what he feels and know is right despite the consequences that may follow. Right now he was sitting in front of the principal desk with the principal himself and Sheriff Keller leaning against it. "People are saying Cheryl heard a gunshot?" He verifies slowly testing the waters of their conversation.