Burning Letters

Chapter 9

The day Veronica had to go back to school came way too soon for her liking. All she wanted to do was stay in bed all day and forget about everything. Her mother came in and forced her awake. She sat at breakfast with her parents with her hair in a bun, wearing the same clothes as she had worn for the past two days, and her signature pearls were nowhere in sight. She got concerned glances from her parents but they ultimately chalked it up to her still being sick.

Andre drove her to the school without a word. She was grateful, she had no intentions on talking at all for the day.

She walked into class right before the bell rang signaling the start of the day. She got some weird glances; no one seeing Veronica anything but impeccable before. Jughead refused to look at her. Veronica brought nothing to class, doing no work and not paying attention to anything said. Someone could stand right in front of her face and start screaming, and she wouldn't even notice.

When lunch rolled around Veronica felt as though she had been at school for days. 'Just make it through the day' she kept telling herself. The core four sat where they normally did, talking like they normally did, and acting like they normally did. Every one of them except Veronica. She didn't talk, she didn't listen, she didn't even eat. She just sat there. Jughead glanced at her here and there but said nothing.

Eventually, the day did end and she went home to her silent solitude. She dropped back into her bed like she never left. She stayed there the whole night not a single person coming to bother her until the next morning.

"Veronica hunny you have to get up. You have school in twenty minutes." Hermione spoke softly from the doorway. She received no answer. She walked farther into the room and sat by Veronica's bedside. "Mija, come on you have to get out of bed at some point." All she received in response was a blank stare that seemed to go right through her and into the next room. She eventually gave up.

Hermione did that every morning for a week with no new results. On day eight Hiram got involved.

"Mija if you do not get up and go to school or at least leave the house I'm canceling all your credit cards. Now stop this nonsense and get up."

"I don't care about the money daddy." Exasperated he left slamming the door. Through the walls, Veronica could hear her parents arguing over whether money was even a good motivator in the first place. Veronica tuned it out and went back to sleep.

What her parents didn't know was the only time she could muster up the energy to leave her room was in the middle of the night when she knew no one else would see her. She did what she needed to stay alive. She ate the bare minimum to stop her body from collapsing in on itself, and she kept a glass of water by her bed to keep the dehydration away but her parents never seemed to notice it.

Her friends began calling and texting hourly but after a while, she just shut her phone off. She didn't want to talk to anyone. She appreciated the thought but found it unnecessary. She didn't want to talk so she wasn't going to, she didn't want to leave so she was going to stay. Nothing her friend could do would change that.

Jughead went to school every day like nothing was wrong like nothing was different but it was. He tried his best to not think of Veronica and why she hadn't shown up to school in days. He tried not to think about how it was probably his fault. But he couldn't. He just had to know.

He stormed over to his lunch table where Betty and Archie already sat. "What is going on with Veronica!?" He demanded. Betty and Archie looked at him with confusion not having the slightest clue as to why he would care about his supposed mortal enemy.

"We don't know Jug she won't answer our calls or texts..." Betty said defeatedly.

"So go over there and figure out why she won't come to fucking school..." Jughead said as if it was the most obvious thing and it pretty much was. Betty began to argue but he walked away not wanting to hear it.

Sorry, this is late and so damn short but I've been trying to register for next semester and I can't so I was preoccupied.