Veronica grabbed Betty's hand and pulled her off the field. "You almost got knocked over by those football players," Veronica said with a smile, and Betty let out a breath of relief when she snapped out of her thoughts.
The cheerleaders got back in their positions on the sidelines and rattled their pom poms in the air. "Woo! Go Bulldogs!" Veronica yelled, and Betty repeated after her, "Woo!"
The game ended 7-0, Bulldogs winning with one touchdown and one field goal. The stadium was riled up, and Veronica had her hands gripped on Betty's forearm, yanking her down as she jumped up and down ecstatically. Betty stayed glued to the ground, smiling at Veronica's burst of excitement, but was soon abandoned when Veronica ran over to a few other cheerleaders to celebrate with them. Betty was left alone, her eyes lighting up at every person as the entire field and sidelines were packed with proud girlfriends, friends, and parents congratulating their star football players.
The parking lot became more crowded as everyone was leaving or getting ready to leave, and Betty followed behind Veronica. They walked passed the bleachers, and Veronica stopped to talk to a few of the other cheerleaders, who were waiting for their rides. Betty lingered behind her, not really interested in engaging in a conversation with them. She looked down at her uniform and noticed a small grass stain on the bottom of her shirt. Betty sighed and tried to wipe it off with her thumb when a faint whistle appeared from behind her, making her head rise immediately.
She turned her head in the direction of the whistle and saw him standing there, back against a wall with his arms crossed at his chest. He had a cigarette in his mouth, and his fingers were fidgeting with the lighter, opening and closing it again over and over. His eyes weren't on her but were fixated on the lighter and though, it seemed as if he wasn't aware of her attention on him, Betty was sure it was him who whistled at her.
His eyes scanned the ground in front of her and landed on her shoes. He looked up at her face quickly before he did a quick nod in the direction of her shoes like he was telling her to look down at them. Betty did and noticed her left tennis shoe was untied. "Shoot," she said under her breath before she bent down and started tying it.
As she made her second loop with the shoelace, she subtly looked up and found herself examining him. Every inch of him.
He looked young, maybe Betty's age. Betty hadn't recognized him, so she didn't think he went to Riverdale High. In all honesty, Betty didn't know guys like him existed in this town. Or any town for that matter. The only boys Betty ever paid attention to were the ones on the football team, mainly just Archie. Being a cheerleader, it was expected of her to be attracted to the jocks at her school, and she planned to keep it that way. Could you imagine her being attracted to a guy like him?
Betty smiled to herself at the thought and quickly buried it in the back of her mind. She stood back up, and her mouth dried at the thought of speaking. Luckily, he looked at her, and she couldn't help but react by curling the corners of her mouth slightly upward, thanking him for his kind gesture. The cigarette still lingering in his mouth; he kept his slightly squinted eyes locked with hers for a few seconds. Not wanting to look away for some reason, she felt her heart miss a beat, and then it made it up by thumping even harder inside her chest. She swallowed when his gaze finally shifted in a different direction, and Betty had forgotten why she was standing there for a second. Before she could think about it anymore, she felt a tap on her left shoulder, and she quickly turned around to a smiley Archie Andrews.
Betty matched with his smile and noticed he had changed from his football uniform to the regular clothes he was wearing at school. "Hey," he said to her, and his eyebrows furrowed when he acknowledged the guy leaned up against the wall. "Who's that guy?"
Betty took a slight pause before shaking her head, and her face scrunched. "Nobody" was the only word she managed to get out, hoping he wouldn't continue being curious about him.
Luckily, he just nodded at her brief answer, and Betty took a deep breath, trying to calm her nerves. She desperately wanted to find something else to talk about and quickly remembered the game. "You did great tonight. I loved watching you play."
"Yeah?" He smiled, showing his teeth and had his eyebrows raised. "I thought I did a pretty sucky job, but I appreciate you lying to me." He laughed.
Betty blushed from slight embarrassment because the truth is, she didn't really understand football all that well, so she figured as long as he didn't get tackled a bunch, then he did an okay job.
She shrugged. "I didn't notice your mistakes, so I guess you did alright." She smiled, and Archie laughed again.
Silence slowly built up between them, and Archie scratched his head, working up the nerve to talk. "Listen... there's something I wanted to ask you..." He swung his arms back and forth, and Betty's mind drifted back to when Veronica was telling her about Archie asking her to the dance after the game. She rubbed her bare arm, hoping to get rid of the goosebumps that appeared on her skin. Archie clicked his tongue and scratched his head again.
"Would you maybe wanna go to the homecoming dance with me next weekend?" Archie looked nervous, and Betty gulped at his question. She knew it was coming, but hearing the words flow out of his mouth; she knew their friendship would never be the same again. After years of them being friends, Betty was finally out of that zone, and she couldn't make sense of how she felt about it.
She looked down at the ground as if the answer to his question was displayed in big letters on the cold, hard cement. The star quarterback of the football team just asked her to the dance, and she was hesitant.
No, it will be good. This is good.
Betty finally nodded her head and spoke softly. "Yes."
Before Archie had time to react, she heard a faint scoff behind her, and Betty turned her head in the direction of the noise, and he was still standing there, eyes on the ground and not on her as usual. Only this time, he had a smirk on his face, and Betty could've sworn she saw him shake his head as if he was mocking their conversation. She decided to brush it off, then turned back to Archie, who luckily wasn't paying any attention to the guy behind Betty.
"Great. I'll text you more details about it," Archie said, and Betty nodded her head and smiled. She watched him walk away and was immediately yanked by Veronica, who was probably aware of the conversation Betty and Archie just had. "He asked you!" Veronica shrieked, and Betty giggled at how excited Veronica was for her. It eased her mind knowing her best friend was happy for her. Maybe saying yes to Archie was the right choice and the best thing for her.
"A few of the girls are going to Pop's now." Veronica grabbed both of Betty's hands and interlocked their fingers together. "We're celebrating."
A few minutes later, they walked to Veronica's car, and Betty nervously watched Veronica's face as they approached it. Veronica went to open up her driver's side door, and her mouth dropped when she saw the long white scratch on her door. "What the hell? What asshole did this?" She raised her voice, and Betty was afraid to speak up. "Did I do this? I didn't do this. I couldn't have done this," Veronica groaned in frustration and looked up at Betty.
Her guilty expression gave it away, and Veronica crossed her arms, waiting for Betty to start talking. "I... um..." Betty swallowed her words and walked over to where Veronica was standing. "When I went to get your megaphone, there were a few gang members hanging out in front of your car, and when I said I needed to get in it, one of them took their pocket knife and... well..."
Veronica dramatically gasped. "Who?! What?! What gang members?"
Betty shrugged. "I don't know. All I know is that the guy who scratched your car was named Sweet Pea, but I don't know what gang they were apart of." Betty didn't know any gangs existed within a 100-mile radius of her, so directing Veronica to the guy who damaged her car seemed like an impossible task.
"Wait, was it the Serpents?" Veronica asked, and Betty's eyebrows furrowed. "The what?"
"The Serpents. They're a gang located on the Southside. I bet it was them. Did they have a snake logo anywhere on their clothing or bodies?"
Betty thought back to their appearances and remembered Sweet Pea had a tattoo of a snake on his neck. "Yes!"
Veronica huffed and put her hands on her hips. She started walking back and forth next to her car, pacing. "Okay, I hate to say this, but I need to find the asshole who did this to my car."
Betty's eyes widened and shook her head quickly. "Veronica, no. They're dangerous. Can't you just pay to get it repainted or something? You have money," Betty said, biting her nail.
Veronica sighed and peeked down at her scratched door again before looking back up at her.
"It's not that... noticeable, I mean..." Betty said, hoping Veronica would agree with her. "It's fine."
Veronica rolled her eyes, and Betty continued, "It's not like there's anything you can do about it tonight. They're long gone," she lied.
A moment of silence washed over them for a few seconds before Veronica finally came to her senses. "Fine. We'll just go to Pop's then."
Betty blew out a puff of breath, relieved she didn't have to tell her about the guy who Betty, for no particular reason at all, found herself annoyingly curious about.
At Pop's, Betty was sitting on Veronica's side of the booth, sipping her vanilla milkshake and listening to the gossip Cheryl was rambling on about.
"Did you guys hear --" Cheryl's voice faded as Betty decided not to listen to her anymore. She exhaled sharply and noticed she had a bit of pressure in her bladder from the milkshake she just sucked down. She gave a look to Veronica and proceeded to stand up out of the booth and made her way to the bathroom.
When she was done, she turned the light off and had her eyes focused on the floor. She wasn't paying attention when she felt her body crashing into something and bounced back when she realized it was another body. Her eyes jumped up, and her brows scrunched together when she recognized the other body belonged to him. He scolded her, and Betty's response should've been to keep walking, but instead, she stayed in his way.
"Are you... Are you following me?" She bravely asked him.
He scoffed and pulled his bottom lip between his teeth before releasing it, and Betty watched as it moistened from his tongue swiping over it. "Don't flatter yourself. It's a public diner." He made eye contact with her, and they darkened as soon as his attention switched from being on her face down to the tag peeking out of her skirt.
"Elizabeth," he said with a smirk, and Betty's face lit up with shock. "How do you... How do you know my name?" She raised an eyebrow at him, and he pointed at the tag sticking out of her skirt. Betty looked down at it and saw the name 'Elizabeth' written in black sharpie. She widened her eyes and felt her face heat up from embarrassment as she quickly tucked it back in. Her mom was the one who ordered Betty's uniform and went to pick it up from the school for her. Cheryl had her mom write Betty's name on the tag of both her shirt and skirt, so none of the girls would get theirs mixed up, and Alice, being Alice, wrote Betty's full name on both the tags.
She looked back up at him and mumbled, "It's Betty." He heard her correcting him but chose to ignore it and took a step closer to her. "Besides, you're not exactly the type of girl..." His eyes then darted back down to her shirt, then her skirt. "... I would find myself following anyway."
The blood left her face and her eyes drooped from his words. She found herself more aware of how she might look right now in her cheer skirt. Maybe he found her unappealing to look at, and even though she had just met him, his words made her feel even smaller than usual. She couldn't help but frown, and he took a step closer to her. Her back just an inch away from the wall, she decided to press against it.
He was just a couple of inches away from her, one more small step, and her body would be pressed up against his. She flinched when he brought his thumb up to her chin and softly brushed against it. His touch made Betty shiver and found her lips absentmindedly parting away from each other and her breath became frequent. "Don't cry about it, baby girl. It's nothing personal," he snarked, then made his way into the men's restroom. She stood there frozen, wishing she had said something to defend herself. She tightened her fists at her sides, and the blood in her body quickly began to heat up. She didn't care that he didn't want her in that way. He was a stranger to her, a guy she had just met, who was a complete asshole to her, so of course, she didn't care. She didn't.
She unglued herself from the wall and scolded the men's restroom door. She was angry and wanted to leave that place as soon as she could. Her eyes caught the front door opening, and the bell chiming, and Betty decided to go for it.
She stormed out of Pop's, not bothering to tell Veronica she was leaving, and within a second, she found herself face to face with the guy who scratched Veronica's car. Betty gasped slightly, and her heart stopped when she realized there was a whole group of them.
Not again.