Everybody wants you, my love (Beronica)

One shot

"Nothing."

Betty notices this when she shows Veronica around the school on her first day.

She steps into Riverdale High and the entire school bends to her will. She struts down the main hallway, heels clicking and designer bag swinging from the crook of her arm, and every set of eyes is drawn to her. Veronica Lodge takes command of every room she enters without uttering a single word.

But even though the entire town has their sights set on her, the feeling isn't mutual. Unlike Cheryl Blossom, who gobbles up attention like her life depends on it, Veronica simply brushes past it and moves on with her life. She knows she's the centre of Riverdale's attention, but Riverdale isn't the centre of hers. She teases them with slight glances and sly smirks; she is a masterpiece in a museum and you can look but can't touch.

Betty can feel their eyes pushing holes into her as she, Kevin, and Veronica eat lunch together. She's treading water in a sea of circling sharks; they're watching, waiting, wondering how she managed to get this girl's attention for more than five minutes. Out of all the people she could have chosen to befriend first, why choose Betty Cooper - plain old vanilla Betty Cooper?

She suspects it's a question Cheryl is desperately seeking the answer to, because she's suddenly here and practically begging Veronica to try out for the River Vixens. Even more pairs of eyes find their way over, and Betty begins to feel self-conscious. Cheryl Blossom, self-appointed queen of Riverdale High's social food chain, personally inviting the new girl to try out for her Vixens. That's unheard of.

But then Veronica implores that Betty try out too, and even though Cheryl clearly wasn't expecting the conversation to take this turn she plays nice and agrees to it. When she leaves and Betty begrudgingly explains how she was turned down last year for being too fat, Veronica looks genuinely offended - and then she starts using words like smokeshow and hot and Queen Bey of this drab hive and why is she doing this?

She glances up and instantly regrets it because once again she is pulled into those bottomless eyes. The sun shines brown into Veronica's irises and that prickly weightless feeling returns to her belly, quickly inflating and spreading to her chest. Does this happen to every person that locks eyes with this girl?

Veronica's lips are moving, saying something about helping her out and having moves that she can show her if she really needed them - and before Betty can process it she's already agreeing and telling Veronica to show her what these moves are, because she's completely smitten even though she doesn't really know why.

(But she begins to figure it out later in the school gymnasium, when a hurried, "Don't freak out, just trust me" escapes those familiar red lips before they press themselves against her own. The initial shock quickly evaporates and that same weightlessness barrels back into her like an oncoming freight train, crashing into and demolishing everything she thought she knew about herself. A part of her knows this is just a ploy, a tactic to shock and awe, but another part of her - a part she never knew existed until now - feels like it's waking up for the first time.)

It's not even about Archie anymore, and maybe it never really was. The moment the bottle stopped spinning and Cheryl ordered Veronica into the closet with him Betty felt everything click together, and that's why she had to leave early.

Archie Andrews is a manifestation of everything she's expected to be: The All-American, straight-as-an-arrow, As and 100s across the board, pastel coloured, goody-two-shoes girl next door who's supposed to fall in love with her childhood friend. They're supposed to get married in a nice church and build a life together in a nice house with a white picket fence and two-point-five kids. Some unspoken universal law dictates that they're meant for each other because that's just the way it is - Betty Cooper, Archie Andrews, the girl and boy next door.