Second Chances [Sweet Pea x OC]

Chapter 9

"What are you thinking about?" I asked, taking a seat next to Sweet Pea.

"The first time you came out here with us," he replied with a small smile.

I smiled too, remembering that afternoon, but the smile quickly faded. "That was when things were still easy. When I thought that for the first time in a long time I could have a normal life."

"What happened, Abigail?" Sweet Pea asked, turning to look at me.

"A lot," I said. "Where do you want me to start? I know I promised to tell you everything at one point."

Sweet Pea nodded. "You did."

"Okay," I sighed. "After everyone found out my parents had left, the Serpents took me in, letting me spend a few days here and there, whoever could take me in. I was staying with Tall Boy when he took me to Centerville late one night, left me with the Serpents there. He told me I still had things to learn before I could really become a Serpent, that he and FP had arranged this. I found out later that FP had no idea what was going on, but that's what I was told at the time. The first few months were fine, things weren't much different than they'd been here. But then Penny Peabody showed up, had me start running 'errands' for her."

"You started working for her that long ago?" Sweet Pea asked. I nodded, not looking at him. "But you just came back to Riverdale a year ago. There's no way you could have been working for her that long."

"I was and I wasn't," I replied. "Penny took me out of Centerville after a while, told me I owed her for everything she'd done for me since I'd been there. I was going to have to work the debt off, but not under her. Not directly, at least. I spent the majority of the next seven years with the Ghoulies. You can figure out what that involved."

I paused as Sweet Pea muttered something under his breath, too quiet for me to hear. He didn't make any move to leave though, so I continued on. "Penny'd show up every few months, move me to another town, sometimes leave me with Serpents. I don't know how much they knew about what was going on, if anything, but they never turned me away. I tried running away a few times, while staying with both gangs but it never ended well. After the night of the party...the next morning I found Penny and told her I was out. She didn't stop me, told me I'd paid off all my debts to her, I was free to go where I wanted. Dakota and Hunter took me in when I made it to Centerville, and after a few months, I came here."

Sweet Pea ran a hand through his hair, sighing. I couldn't tell what he was thinking. "You were so secretive about your past, and even with the few things you said, I never imagined anything even close to that. It's all true?" I nodded, watching him nervously, still unsure of how he was feeling.

"There's more to the story, how things ended up the way they did," I said softly. "If you want to know."

He nodded. "Please. I need to know what happened."

"A month or so after being here, Penny pulled me back in. She had me start running Jingle Jangle for her. If I refused, she was going to hurt my friends. She was going to hurt you. This time it was Tall Boy who took me to the Ghoulies, to be part of his plan to join them with the Serpents. At first it was just running drugs for them again and hanging out with old friends. FP is the one who came up with the idea of me being the Serpents man on the inside. But bad habits are hard to break and even easier to pick back up. I got in too far, lost control, especially near the end."

"You started using again?" Sweet Pea asked quietly.

"It was a way to forget things for a while, not have to face the facts of what I was doing," I replied, surprised when Sweet Pea laid his hand on mine. "I'd known Malachai from the beginning and he and I, uh, we had a history together. I used that to stay close to him when he and the others were released. He thought I was going to help bring the Serpents down, that I was one of them. He took advantage of the chaos of Riot Night to attack Pop's."