Dark Hearts || Archie Andrews and Jughead Jones [1]

CHAPTER TWENTY SIX: Anger

"They're acting like the last week and the last few months didn't even happen. Polly's back home, my Dad's back home, my Mom's back at The Register. They all just keep smiling and talking about the Jubilee."

"Well, that's good right?"

"No. Cause even tho they're back to normal, Ellie is... loosing it." Betty looked at her hands, "She looks like a ghost. She doesn't talk with us, she doesn't smile, I also know she isn't sleeping either. She locks herself inside her room and ignores everything else."

Archie sighed, "Yeah, she's not answering my texts or calls."

"And my parents don't even notice it – notice her. They keep pretending to be normal and perfect when really we're like... Like a Greek suburban tragedy." She told him, "Our family imploded, Arch, and we barely survived. I don't think Ellie survived at all, and if we don't start dealing with out crap, it's gonna get worse."

"Maybe Jug could try to talk with Ellie." The ginger proposed.

"He tried." Betty shook her head slowly, "I was with Veronica and Polly, having lunch at her house, and Jughead passed by on our house and Ellie didn't even answered the door."

"Maybe she wasn't –."

"She was there, Archie." She interrupted him, "She's just... fading."

Eleanor was numb.

The night after discovering Jason's killer, it was like it all came back to her. It was like she had been avoiding all the feelings of his death, and when it finally hit her, all of it, it was too much. So now Ellie was disappearing, a little more each day, and it would only be a matter of time before she would vanish once and for all, and then there would be no way to stop her.

"Hey!"

She turned around, "I thought you were with your Dad."

"I was." Jughead stepped forward, "They want him to say names, the Sheriff thinks it's the Serpents who have been dealing Clifford's drugs. My Dad won't say a thing."

Ellie sighed, "I'm sorry about it."

"Look," He held her arm, stopping her from leaving, "Where were you? I called you like a million times and I even went to your house but no one answered."

"I was... sleeping."

"Uou, thanks for opening the door for me, bestie." Jughead gave her a small smile.

"I probably thought the bell was in my dream." She shrugged.

"Betty told me you aren't sleeping so I doubt it." He looked into her eyes, "You can talk to me, Ellie."

"I just feel like being alone, locked away from the world," Eleanor swallowed, "so there's no room in my day for me to mess up... again."

"Again? What is that supposed to mean?"