Amanda Renee Cooper || A Sweet Pea Love Story

Chapter 2 : A Touch of Evil

The Monday after Jason's body was found, the school, and town for that matter, was on edge. Cheryl was acting odd, as if the discovery of the body wasn't shocking to her at all.

At the begining of fifth period, we were all told to pair off, and luckily, Jughead was in this class so I didn't have to work with someone I didn't like.

My sister and Veronica must've made up because the two of them were working together. Archie was sitting with Cheryl at the lab table behind us, and I could just make out bits of their conversation about Jason.

"Archie knows something," Jughead said lowly as we worked.

"About?" I asked.

"Mathematics, finally," Jughead said sarcastically. "About Jason."

"Alright, sorry," I said softly. "Do you think he witnessed it and is just too scared to come forward?"

"I would guess so, yeah," he said.

As school got out, Jughead came running up to me, panting slightly at the sudden overexertion.

"I figured out why Archie is acting weird," he said quietly. I hummed a little in response to get him to continue. "I saw him with Grundy in the music room."

"He's got his independent study music thing that he's working on," I said.

"Yeah, that's before school," Jughead said. "It looked like they were having an affair. I plan to confront him about it."

"Let me know how that goes," I said as we neared my house. I headed inside, going straight to my room to knock my homework out of the way. When it was finished, I decided to read for a while to avoid any familial interactions.

I occasionally texted Sweet Pea as well. We had been texting quite a bit since Saturday night and he was actually making quite an impression. He was funny and stubborn and straightforward. He seemed like a really great guy so far. Of course, I hadn't yet forgotten how hot he was either, so that definitely helped his case.

Betty yelling at Cheryl to leave interrupted my thoughts, but it didn't matter because Jughead was texting me to tell me to meet him outside so we could talk. I sat my book down on my bed and headed out the front door with my cell phone in my hand. My bare arms shivered a little in the cooler air as I met Jughead out in front of my house.

He instantly began talking, telling me about how Archie admitted to the affair and that he'd been at Sweetwater River on July Fourth so he'd heard the gunshot. Apparently Archie had tried to threaten Jughead, but it didn't work so well. Jughead didn't have much to lose, and he wasn't the type to be scared of dying.

Jughead and I talked a little more before heading our separate ways to get some sleep.

The next day a bunch of us were gathered in the student lounge when Reggie started in about Jason.

"Sheriff Keller's grilling me, Mantle the Magnificent, cause I want Blossom dead when he's like the only good quarterback we have," Reggie said. I was standing beside Jughead, typing away on my cell phone and trying to ignore Reggie.

"Speaking of offensive tightends, I should've sent him your way Moose," Reggie continued. "Because here's another unsolved mystery. What exactly were you and Kevin doing at the river? Or does being with the Sheriff's son give you a free pass, Keller?" Reggie's attention turned to Kevin.

"Reggie's just being a blowhard, Kev," Betty said, attempting to console him.

"I don't care what he says," Kevin said in response.

"I mean, let's think about it," Reggie said. "If a kid at Riverdale killed Jason, it's not gonna be a jock, right? No, let's be honest. Isn't it always some spooky, scrawny, internet troll, too busy writing his manifesto to get laid. Some smug, moody, serial killer fanboy freak like Jughead." He attention turned towards us, causing me to bring my eyes up from my phone.

"What was it like Suicide Squad? When you killed Jason? You didn't ya know, do stuff to the body afterwards, did you?" Reggie continued.

"It's called necrophilia, Reggie. Can you spell it?" Jughead responded, causing Reggie to jump up and go after him.

Archie stepped in between them though as Veronica tried to get them to calm down.

"What do you care Andrews?" Reggie asked.

"Nothing, just leave him alone," Archie said.

"Holy crap," Reggie said. "Did you and Donny Darko kill him together? Was it some sort of pervy, blood brother thing?"

Archie shoved Reggie instantly at that comment, causing a fight to break out. Jughead tried to break them up, and so did Moose, but I wasn't in the mood for being hit so I shrunk in on myself and went back to texting Sweet Pea.

That night, there was a pep rally in memory of Jason. Since he isn't, or I guess wasn't, my favorite person, I tried to get out of it, but my parents dragged me along because Betty was performing. Well, not really. It was because the whole town was there and they didn't want the town to think that this family was anything other than perfect, even with their eldest in a group home.

My oldest sister Polly was Jason's girlfriend, but they'd gotten into a huge fight, and she kind of went off the deep end, so she was sent away to a group home.

After the down pour at the pep rally, I decided I was headed home to change. Sweet Pea tried to get me to go to Pop's, and I agreed instantly.

"Hey," I said, sitting down in the booth across from him.

"You look just as stunning as I remember Amanda," he said. I smiled at him softly.

"Pop said he'd fix your usual," Sweet Pea said.

"Mm, thank you," I said.

"What is your usual?" He asked.

"A vanilla milkshake, made extra thick, with an order of French fries," I said. Sweet Pea nodded, a curl of his hair falling onto his forehead.

We began talking about anything and everything, only stopping when my sister walked in with Veronica, and then again when Jughead and Archie came in and joined them.

"Are you sure you don't want to go back to your Northside friends?" Sweet Pea offered.

"You are way better than them. I mean, they all call themselves my friend, but I'm not that close with any of them."

"You have to have a best friend," he said.

"Not really," I said, shrugging it off. I'd just never found my clique.

We talked for close to an hour before I decided I should probably head home.

The next time we were sitting in our biology classroom, Principal Wetherbee and Sheriff Keller walked in, and Cheryl admitted to being guilty.

"Amanda, Jason was killed over a week after when they thought it had happened," Jughead said lowly, pausing his work just long enough to speak.

"I mean, it makes sense," I said and that was that. We dropped the discussion of Jason and returned to the one about our frog dissection.