---Narrator POV---
Jughead Voiceover: I think many of us, maybe the entire town, had been hoping against hope that somehow Jason Blossom hadn't drowned on July 4th. That we'd come to school Monday morning, and there Jason would be. Or that we'd see him and Cheryl in a booth at Pop's. But that was before the undeniable, irrevocable fact of his bloated, water-logged body, a corpse with a bullet hole in its forehead, and terrible secrets that could only be revealed by the cold, steel blade of a coroner's autopsy scalpel, or the telltale beating of a guilty heart.
Archie Andrews; sweating, anxious, guilty, restless. All those words described how he looked that Monday before the sun came out. He tried texting Betty or Cassie to talk about anything but Betty answered then ignored him and Cassie's lights were off so he assumed she was already asleep.
So Archie got up, pulled on some shorts and went out on a run to try and clear his head but soon enough he found himself at a place he frequented during the summer. Geraldine Grundy's house. Before even thinking he went up to her door and knocked until she answered.
"Archie, what are you doing here?" Geraldine Grundy asks after she opens her door early in the morning to see Archie Andrews standing there.
"It wasn't fireworks, Ms. Grundy." He says pushing into her house.
"You can't be here, Archie." Grundy tells him.
"On July 4th, it was a gunshot we heard."
"You can't come to my house." Grundy repeats crossing her arms over her chest.
"Probably the shot that killed Jason Blossom." Archie continues.
"We know exactly what the police know." She tells him for what felt like in her mind was the hundredth time. "That a gun was fired. That a boy was shot. We don't know by whom."
"We know when it was fired." He adds. "That's something the police still don't know." She sighs. "They're performing an autopsy. We could call them, anonymously."
"This is not a negotiation," She snaps. "Archie. This is our lives. If anybody knows that we were there, I could lose my job. You could be expelled. We could go to jail." She finishes leaving Archie to walk home still not sure weather not he regrets those nights with Ms. Grundy, or not.
---Cassie POV---
"Hey, girls?" Dad comes into Betty's room where we were getting ready for school that Monday morning after they found Jason's body. "We just wanted you two to know, it's gonna be a bit of a late night for us."
"It's going to be a lot of late nights for us." Our mom say excitedly. "I mean, an accidental drowning, who cares? But the sociopathic son of the wealthiest family in town, murdered? That's a national obsession waiting to happen."
"He's barely in his grave, Alice." Dad reminds her trying to make her more humanized after that disturbingly rude comment she made about the Blossom boy.
"Can you warm up the car, Hal? I'll be right down." She says trying to get rid of him and it works because he leaves the room. "Betty, you know what I love most about you? It's that you always want to see the good in people. Even people like Cheryl Blossom and Veronica Lodge and Archie Andrews." I roll my eyes. "But when they betrayed you this weekend, you saw their true colors, didn't you?"
"I did. I definitely did." Betty plays along.
"So no backsliding. No Cheryl. No Veronica and-"
"No Archie." Betty finishes.
"And Cassie you too, I don't want you having a relapse again." Mom reminds us which makes me clench my teeth and my hands but I stay silent and just nod so she will leave.
As soon as the door closes I turn to Betts. "Your not actually going to stay away from them are you?"
"Of course not." She smiles and the next thing I know Betty is running out of the house and over to Archie's front door.
I sigh and finish getting ready and head on my way to school, all by myself humming the lyrics to a new song I finished last night. I sing aloud remembering the times that caused me to write the song.
"Insecure In her skin Like a puppet, a girl on a string."
Cheryl Blossom calling me fat.
"Broke away Learned to fly, If you want her back gotta let her shine."
'Too Hefty Hanna Marin season 1.'
"So it looks like the joke's on you 'Cause the girl that you thought you knew, She's so gone."
The untouched food on my plate because I wouldn't eat.
"That's so over now, She's so gone. You won't find her around."
Me as I take a cold blade to my wrists, slicing it and watching the red blood drip from my arm into the tub and being washed away by the shower water.
"You can look but you won't see The girl I used to be 'Cause she's, She's so gone."
Clenching my fists so tight it makes tiny crescents of blood in the palms of my hands.
"Here I am, This is me, And I'm stronger than you ever thought I'd be. Are you shocked? Are you mad? That you're missing out on who I really am."
Meeting Veronica for the first time, laughing together. Seeing Jughead.
"Now it looks like the joke's on you, 'Cause the girl that you thought you knew, She's so gone. "
Me putting on the cheerleader uniform for the first finally beating Cheryl with the help of Veronica.
"That's so over now, She's so gone. You won't find her around. You can look but you won't see The girl I used to be, 'Cause she's so gone away Like history. She's so gone. Baby, this is me, yeah. She's so gone, That's so over now. You won't find her around. "
Standing up to mom and speaking my mind, I will be heard.
"You can look but you won't see The girl I used to be, 'Cause she's, She's so gone. She's so gone. You can look but you won't see The girl I used to be, 'Cause she's, She's so gone."
Me preforming in front of the whole school. Hearing their cheers and applause.
"So long, She's so gone. Gone, gone, gone."
"Now that romance is off the table, I'll just say it." Kevin says while we were walking to the front office. "Are we 100% sure that Archie's straight? Because no straight man has that body."
"Speaking of bodies," I start looking over towards Kevin. "Have you recovered from finding Jason's?"
"Yeah, how are you?" Betty jumps in.
"It was more traumatizing having to explain to my dad what I was doing with Moose at the river." He replies honestly. "Yet another perk of being the sheriff's son. Oh, my God, those are gorgeous." He trails off looking over at the gorgeous yellow roses sitting on the counter of the front office.
"Are those for Betty, Mrs. Philips?" I question walking over to them next to Kevin and Betty.
"That's why I called her." Mrs. Philips says as though she's stating the obvious.
""Dear Betty, please forgive me, XOXO, V."" Kevin reads out the note attached. "Who the hell is "V"?"
"Veronica." Betty says at the same time Veronica steps into the room.
"Veronica." She says at the same time as Betty smiling. "The yellow is for friendship. I also had Magnolia cupcakes flown in from New York." She hold out a small white box. I heard what happened at Cheryl's house, but I think Betts is slightly over-reacting because that was just Cheryl Blossom doing what Cheryl Blossom does best, acting like a bitch. "Because, as my mom likes to say, "There's no wrong the right cupcake can't fix." Also I've booked us for hers-and-hers mani-pedis at Chez Salon. Blowouts, too. I am so, so sorry, Betty. I don't know what happened to me that night. It was such a basic bitch move. It was like I was possessed by -"
"Madame Satan?" Kevin jumps in.
"The old Veronica." Vee corrects him. "And I will never, ever do anything like that to you again. I swear on my mother's pearls. Just, can you please give me one more chance?"
"Okay." Betty agrees.
"What?" Veronica, Kevin, and I say at once.
"Really?" Veronica smiles excited. "Awesome. I'll take it and you won't regret it. Okay. And I'll bring these to lunch so we can celebrate!" She walks out of the room and I follow her out.
You can look but you won't see the girl I used to be 'cause she's, she's so gone...