CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Now we would hear from the person who was closest to Jason those days leading up to his disappearance: Polly Cooper. How a casual conversation turned into an epic forbidden romance. How, for reasons still murky, their respective parents tried to tear them apart. How their break-up was short-lived because Polly soon learned she was pregnant with Jason's baby. How they became secretly engaged with his grandmother's blessing and her heirloom ring and made plans to run away together. To start a new life. And how their dreams of escape went up in flames.
•
Moving into the Andrew's household with Jughead made Amethyst feel like she moved into a frat house. All night every night, Archie and Jughead would stay up and play video games until Fred eventually told them to turn it off. And because she was now living in a teenage boys room, she was constantly living with the stench that came with teenage boys. So, Amethyst currently had a clothes peg over her nose so that she wouldn't have to smell the revolting odour the boys left.
"You gotta stop blowing me up," Jughead groaned as he held his remote tighter in frustration.
"Blowing up builds character," Amethyst's nasally voice said from behind them.
"You're going the wrong way," Archie said in defence. "You're going -- left."
"What are you doing?" Jughead complained.
Then their characters both got killed and Archie groaned. "Come on, man."
"You're the one who keeps accidentally killing me," Jughead countered.
"War is hell, Jug," Archie said.
"You know what else is hell?" Amethyst asked. "The stench you two currently smell like."
Archie and Jughead shared looks. "So you think we smell bad?" Archie asked.
Jughead smelled under his armpit. "I don't smell anything bad. Do you Arch?"
Archie shook his head. "I don't smell anything wrong. Do you want to test it out, Amie?"
Amethyst frowned. "Is that even a question?"
Jughead smirked. "I take that as my answer."
Amethyst's eyes widened. "Wait!"
But it was too late. The two teenage boys pounced onto Amethyst who was sitting on Archie's bed and tried to shove their armpits in her face. "Ew. Ew. Ew! Blugh!" Amethyst gagged, trying to cover her nose. "No! The peg's gone!" She tried to cover her nose again but Jughead pulled her hand away. "Help meeeeeee!" She called out to Fred who was most likely downstairs.
Fred opened up the door to a confusing sight in front of him. Which was two guys on top of a girl.
"Umm. I'll just go," Fred said.
"No! No, help!" Amethyst yelped. "They're shoving their teenage odour in my face!"
Fred chuckled. "Guys, it's getting pretty late," Fred said before walking further into the room and screwing up his face just as Archie and Jughead got off of Amethyst. "Whoa, it's ripe in here. Somebody wanna open the window?"
Archie got up to open the window as Amethyst sat up with her hands on her cheeks. "All I smell is stench. The world is covered in stench," she whispered, causing Jughead to chuckle.
"You settling in, Jug and Amie?" Fred asked.
"Oh, completely," Jughead answered honestly.
"It's like Archie and i are just roommates in a college dorm and Buttercup is that girl who keeps wanting to join us because we're cool."
Amethyst glared at Jughead. "Pretty sure it's the other way around, Forsythe."
"Oh, great. What does that make me, the RA?" Fred asked.
"No, you're the third roommate," Archie said.
"The actual responsible roommate that cleans the other twos shit," Amethyst chuckled, earning a shove from both Archie and Jughead.
"Alright, guys. I got a big day tomorrow,"Fred said.
"Breaking ground on the SoDale project, right?" Archie asked.
"Yeah. Indeed we are," Fred smiled, before turning to Jughead and Amethyst. "Sorry. I know that's kind of a sore spot with you, Jughead and Amie, about the drive-in."
"As long as you build something beautiful in its place," Jughead said.
Amethyst frowned before smiling at Fred. "It's all good, Fred."
Fred chuckled. "I don't know about beautiful, but, uh, it's gonna be big. Night guys."
"Night, dad," Archie smiled.
Fred grabbed the door and closed it as he walked out.
•
Jughead, used to waking up at 5:30 everyday to get ready for school, woke up at around 6:30 the next day. He stared up at the roof of Archie's room and sighed before turning over, only to face a sleeping Amethyst. But he wasn't, like, face to face with her. She was asleep on her back with her head tilted to the side.
Jughead had to hold in a laugh when he saw that Amethyst had her mouth open and seemed to be catching flies. She had a bit of drool coming out of her mouth as she snored quietly.
Jughead knew that the first movie he saw where a girl slept beautifully was fake, and Amethyst was a big example of that. Her eyes didn't flutter from the dreams she was seeing, her hair wasn't neatly placed over the pillow, a small smile wasn't on her lips as she dreamt of something that no one else would. Instead, she was the complete opposite.
Jughead was startled when Amethyst stopped snoring and closed her mouth. He didn't want to be caught looking at her while he was sleeping.
After a brief moment of pause to make sure she hadn't woken up, Jughead let out a sigh of relief.
"Stop staring at me," Amethyst suddenly frowned, but still didn't open up her eyes.
Jughead's face turned pink from being caught. "I was gazing?" It came out more as a question.
"It's creepy," Amethyst said.
"It's romantic," Jughead corrected.
A small smile appeared on Amethyst's lips as she turned to her side so she was facing Jughead and finally opened up her eyes. Amethyst didn't think that by rolling over that their noses would be touching.
"Good morning," Jughead whispered, a small smile on his face.
Amethyst's face screwed up as she sat up. "God, your morning breath is awful," Amethyst said while running the sleep out of her eyes.
Jughead chuckled. "I could say the same about yours," he replied.
Amethyst playfully rolled her eyes, but then squeaked in surprise when arms were suddenly wrapped around her waist and she was pulled back down to the blow up mattress.
Amethyst huffed before looking up and catching Jughead's gaze.
"Was that necessary?" She asked him.
Jughead smiled. "Totally."
Archie then had to ruin the moment by walking into the room with a towel wrapped around his waist. He had a toothbrush in his mouth and was brushing his teeth, but paused at what his best friends were doing.
"Stop flirting and get ready for school," Archie told them before grabbing his clothes and waking back out of the room.
Amethyst groaned as she sat up and rubbed her hands over her face.
She realised she really needed to sort out whether Jughead liked her back, or those small interactions will leave her heart in two.
•
"Polly's convinced herself that no one wants her baby," Betty said as she placed her hands on her lap as the usual group sat in the student lounge.
"Besides, of course, the child-snatching Blossom monsters," Kevin said, and at the look Cheryl gave him, he added, "No offence, Cheryl."
"None taken," Cheryl replied sassily as she distasteful looked Kevin up and down.
"So your mom and dad want Polly but not the baby...." Jughead concluded.
".....and the Blossom's want the baby and not Polly," Amethyst finished.
"It's a true Gordian knot," Jughead commented.
"It's an impossible situation," Betty sighed.
"Betty, come on. An impossible situation is being invited to the Vanity Flair Oscar party and Elton John's Oscar party on the same night," and when Kevin placed a hand on Veronica's shoulder to ask her a question, Veronica bet him to it by turning around and saying, "which happened to me one year. I know."
Kevin looked at the girl in awe.
"This is merely an annoying situation," Veronica said. "But luckily, I have been percolating on an idea, hellishly simple in its conception. What if my mom and I were to host a baby shower?"
"Count me in," Cheryl smiled.
"You want Polly to feel loved and supported, right?" Veronica asked Betty.
"Yeah, but ideally by her own parents," Betty said.
"Okay, so baby steps, girl. Get Polly and your parents in the same room, in a public setting where they can't fight and voilá, let the healing began," Veronica grinned at her plan before looking at Amethyst and Jughead who seemed to have zoned out on the couch. "And you two are coming."
Amethyst rose an eyebrow when she realised she was being addressed. "Me?" She asked.
"Yes you," Veronica said. "You're one of Betty's closest friends. You need to be there. And Jughead can be there for emotional support."
Amethyst sighed and slouched her shoulders when she realised she wasn't getting out of it.
"Betty, what do you say?" Veronica asked her, but was interrupted by someone entering the room.
"Elizabeth Cooper," Alice Cooper snapped.
"Mom?" Betty frowned at her mother's random appearance at school.
"I need you and you," she pointed at Betty and Veronica. "Right now."