Ever woken up in a hospital room with the overhead lights beaming on you and the sound of the heart rate monitor ringing in your ears? And you're in so much pain, but your eyes are simply too heavy and weak to open, so you crash for a little while longer, and you feel like you're in that continuous agonizing cycle for days.
Betty could relate.
She eventually woke up after several hours of sleep, the anesthesia finally wearing off.
After the room began to unblur itself, she first noticed her mom sitting in a chair next to her bed. She had her head leaned back, and her eyes were focused on the ceiling. Betty assumed her mom was thinking of a million questions to ask her. The kind of questions she knew she didn't have any reasonable answers for.
So many chaotic thoughts ran through her head about the entire situation; she figured it was best just to go back to sleep and never wake up again. Once her mom's eyes met hers, the blonde immediately tried to close them again, but it was too late. Her mom had already seen them.
Alice got up from her chair. "Betty?" She rested by her daughter's hospital bed and brought her cold hand up to her cheek. "Are you awake?"
Betty slowly opened her eyes again, afraid to see her mom's reaction.
"Oh, Betty, my baby," she sighed with relief and hugged her tightly. "Thank goodness you're all right."
She was a bit surprised by her mom's lack of anger in her voice. Even more surprised that she was calling her Betty and not Elizabeth. By the grateful tone and the long embrace, Alice seemed genuinely happy to see her daughter. She hadn't hugged her that hard since Betty was in the third grade, and she found her walking the streets alone in the middle of the night.
She was a little dramatic as a child. She'd run away from home almost every time she and her mom got into an argument. Betty liked the desperation in her mom's voice whenever she'd beg for her to come home. She liked the sadness and despair in her mom's eyes whenever she was worried about her.
She liked that her mom cared.
But once Betty got a little older, Alice started to show she cared in different ways. Instead of crying or hugging her, she'd yell and yell until Betty's fingers were so far deep into her palms, her nails would get stuck under the skin.
She grew out of her attention-seeking phase eventually. It became quite evident to her that no matter what she did, her mom wouldn't give her that same sympathetic look again.
Well, until now.
"I'm sorry, mom," Betty whispered softly against her mom's ear. Alice pulled back, looking at her daughter empathetically as if Betty had just told her some type of depressing secret about herself.
"It's okay, sweetheart." She lovingly brushed her fingers through her blonde locks. "Veronica told me what happened. I'm just so glad she found you in time."
Found me in time? Betty shot her mom a bemused look. Uh-oh, what did Veronica tell her?
Betty followed her mom's eyes to the other side of the room. Sitting in a chair on the left side of her bed, Veronica was gazing at her with raised eyebrows and a nervous smile.
Alice cleared her throat and turned to walk away. "I'm gonna go get a nurse and let you two talk for a moment," she said, then proceeded to head out of the room. Once the door was shut behind her, Veronica grabbed the chair and scooted it closer to her bed.
"Talk quickly," Betty demanded, eager to get the information out of her before her mom came back with the nurse.
"Okay --" she swallowed, then sat down, positioning herself in the chair and rested her hands next to Betty's arm. Noticing that her body and eyes reeked of distress and uneasiness, Betty knew the next words that would come out of her friend's mouth wouldn't be comforting to her ears.
"I had to lie to the nurses and your mom about what happened. I couldn't tell them that a Serpent did this to you. I couldn't tell them that anyone did this to you," Veronica confessed.
"What?" She cocked her eyebrows. "So... then, what did you tell them?"
Veronica sighed deeply and scooted to the edge of her chair to get closer to her. "Okay..." She leaned forward, locking her serious eyes with Betty's. "Listen to me."
Betty knew that deep tone. She was afraid of it. "What did you tell them, Veronica?" She repeated.
"I told them..." Veronica's eyes softened under Betty's stern gaze like a guilty puppy looking up at its owner. "I told them you did it to yourself," she admitted softly.
Betty's eyes practically popped out of their sockets. "What...?" She couldn't believe her ears. "You told them I stabbed myself?"
"I had to, Betty," Veronica replied, her voice changed into a harsh whisper. "It was the only way either one of us was going to make it out of this alive."
"What--what are you talking about?" She didn't know if it was the drugs or the extreme blood loss, but her friend wasn't making any sense to her.
Veronica looked around to make sure they were still alone. "Okay, Jughead--Forsythe," she caught herself and paused for a second. "Whatever..." she brushed it off and continued. "He warned me about it in the car on the way here. He said it's best to tell them that this was a self-inflicted knife wound. He said that if I tell the cops the truth about what happened, then they're going to investigate, which will lead to Rafael and the drugs."
"So?!"
Truth be told, she wanted Rafael and the other guys to go to jail. It wasn't like she could ever feel safe knowing they're still walking freely on the paved streets.
"So..." Veronica began again and reached for Betty's hand, gripping it gently, and ran her thumb over the peak of her knuckles. Betty could tell she was delaying her next words, so she retreated her hand away from her hold, hoping that would help her spit it out faster.
She recognized Betty's rejected body language and let out a soft exhale. "If Rafael goes to prison, then... all of us are dead, Betty," she finally let out, and the dark words flew right over Betty's head. "He's got men on the Southside... He's got men in different states... He's got men across the fucking border. If he goes down, then it'll come out that we ratted him out, and then he'll know that we're still alive. Rafael and his goons will come for the Serpents, for Jughead, for us."
"Why do you keep calling him Jughead?" Betty plainly asked in the midst of their serious conversation.
Veronica raised her eyebrows at the blonde's random question. "What...? Are you even listening to me right now?"
The information wasn't quite registering in Betty's brain, but deep down, she knew how profound the situation actually was. It was just that the name triggered her, and hearing it fall out of her friend's mouth so casually without any consequences made her skin crawl. "He doesn't like it when people call him that, so why are you saying it?"
"Uh... I don't know. I got bored whenever you fell asleep last night and started snooping around his room," she admitted. "I found a drawing in one of his drawers, and it looked like a kid drew it. The name Jughead was written on it really big in crayon, so it got sort of stuck in my head, I guess."
"Well, don't say it again," Betty warned.
"Okay... Fine," she murmured with questioning eyes. "I won't."
Betty nodded and let out a breath of relief. She leaned her head back against the pillow, feeling her heavy eyes weigh down on her face.
"Anyway..." Veronica cut in, not yet done with their conversation. "it wouldn't be just Rafael who would try to kill us... Betty. Even if the cops weren't able to trace the incident back to him and it was just the Serpents who got accused, then Forsythe... said he'd slice our necks himself."
Betty scoffed at that statement, managing a hysterical smile on her face. The medicine was definitely making her groggy and a bit careless, but there was nothing more absurd than what her life had become. Being threatened by gang members who do treacherous and unspeakable acts was not something she ever planned on happening.
"Also, if it comes up, I was the one who drove you to the hospital. He dropped us off at my car --"
"What?" She cut her off, dropping the smile immediately, "Why didn't he just drive me to the fucking hospital himself?"
Her aggressive outburst felt out of her control, just like the aching patter in her chest.
There was something seriously wrong with her.
"He couldn't have, Betty..." Veronica replied softly.
"I could've died!" she exclaimed, raising her voice that cracked subtly under her rigid tone.
"I know."
She couldn't bite back the smile that absentmindedly formed on her face again. Only this time, there was a glint of insanity that peaked in her eyes, "I was dying, and you let him drive thirty minutes back to where your car was parked at the party?"
"It was the only way," Veronica retorted.
"Bull fucking shit," she snapped back.
"B..."
"Why couldn't you have just told them it was an accident or--or something other than me not sounding like a mentally unstable freak?"
The glistening dazzle in Veronica's eyes told her she was fighting back the tears. It was difficult knowing that she was making her best friend cry, but for some reason, the longer the discussion went on, the more amused and hysterical Betty got. She coughed out a soft chuckle, then secured her lips shut.
"An accident? Who accidentally knives themselves in the stomach?" Veronica swiftly slapped a tear away from her cheek and proceeded in a mocking tone, "Oh, hey, yeah, my friend here accidentally walked into this knife I was holding."
"Think, Betty."
"Veronica, I can't have my mom or anyone..." She paused, and in an unblinking mess, tears flowed steadily down her reddening cheeks, "...thinking I'm suicidal."
Fear escalated in Veronica's eyes due to the silent frenzy of madness on the blonde's face. Betty was unrecognizable at that point. She had dark circles under her eyes, and Veronica could've sworn her pupils dilated as wide as the green irises in her eyes.
"They're going to send me to an insane asylum," she whispered under her breath.
"I-I know," Veronica swallowed harshly. "Trust me, if I thought there was a better option..."
Betty didn't speak for several seconds. Out of frustration, she tried moving her arms to fold over her chest but didn't realize she had an IV in her hand. She groaned and ripped the tape off, yanking the needle right out of her skin.
Veronica blinked back the tears, and concern took over her facial expression. "What are you doing?"
Betty chose to ignore her; stubbornness and anger now becoming her strongest emotions. There was too much rage building up in her body at once. After a minute passed and the silence between them had grown tiring, Betty clenched her fist tightly at her side, trying her best to hide the purple tint it started to turn. Everything about the environment surrounding her was irritating her -- the temperature, the lights, the pain, the thirst... all of it was going to consume her.
"Knock, knock," Alice said as she entered the room.
The nurse followed behind and made her way over to the right side of her bed. "Hey, there. How are you feelin'?"
"Fine," Betty muttered.
"Ooh, baby, you gotta keep this in," the nurse signaled to the IV, sweeping it up with her fingers and directed it back into Betty's hand.
"Yeah? If you feel any pain, let me know," her mom interfered as she grabbed her daughter's other hand and gave it a light squeeze.
"Mom, I'm fine," she huffed. "You don't need to hold my hand."
Alice gave an apologetic smile, clearing her throat gently, and retreated her hand away, "Sorry."
After the nurse was finished settling the IV back in her hand, she stepped over to the front of her hospital bed and grabbed the blonde's medical chart. "I did want to ask you about the stitching on your wound..." Her eyes curiously wandered to that particular spot that was hidden underneath layers of gauze and blankets. "Did you try to stitch that up yourself?"
This would've been the part where Betty tenses her body, turn a shade of red only roses could resemble, then blurt out any excuse she could find in her chaotic head. But all she could do was sit in silence. Sit in miserable silence, practically encouraging it to drown her from the inside out.
"I did," Veronica bravely confessed aloud, followed by her breath arising out of her mouth with a slight shudder. "I was able to stop the bleeding, and she begged me to help her because she knew she had made a big mistake. I told her that we should go to the hospital, but she refused. I had the stitching supplies at my house, so I figured I could help... I tried my best to."
Alice eyed her warily, then exchanged a short look with the nurse, who seemed more surprised than skeptical. "Well, okay, then. That is not something you should ever do," the nurse sternly raised her voice. "I--I'm surprised and quite frankly, a little worried you thought suturing her instead of taking her to the hospital was the better option, but um..."
Veronica pursed her lips together, displaying an expression similar to a cringe.
"She could have developed an infection, which is very, very dangerous. And super deadly if not treated right away," the nurse added, looking bewildered.
Alice cut in, "What were you thinking, Elizabeth?"
She squeezed her eyes tightly shut after hearing that name overshadow the rest of her mom's words. "I wasn't."
"Did you want to die?"
"No!" Betty shouted.
"Then why'd you do it?" Alice was trying to badger the answers out of her. She stared down at her daughter with fixed eyes, then sighed deeply when Betty wouldn't meet them. "Why do that to yourself?"
The blonde fidgeted with a wrinkle in the bedsheet as she tightened her lips together, feeling anger rush over her because she couldn't tell her mom the truth. "I don't know," she muttered.
"Honey, you know you can always come to me --"
"Can we not do this right now?" Betty blurted as she shot her eyes up at her mom. "I'm fine! Look!" She pointed her finger at the heart monitor machine that was situated to the right of her. The machine beeped every time her heart pumped a stream of blood through her body. "If I weren't fine, then that thing would flatline." She paused for a second, bringing her finger back down as she aggressively glared at Alice. "I'd be dead."
Her mom closed her eyes for a second like she was trying to block out the image of her daughter dying, then slowly opened them back up. "I know you're fine physically... okay?" Her voice weakened, "But... but what about mentally?"
Betty let silence answer the question for her. She sunk back into her pillow, refusing to say a word. Truth be told, no one had ever questioned her mental state before, but that was because they never had a reason to. She pushed the thought of her being that damaged away.
"I think I'm gonna go," Veronica said, breaking the silence thankfully. "It's been a long night and day, and my parents don't exactly know where I am."
Alice nodded her head, "Okay."
Veronica turned to head out of the room, but when she got to the doorway, she stopped and turned back. "You're gonna be okay, right, B?"
Betty lifted her head to look at her and gave a small nod--a nod that was barely readable.
She watched her best friend and her mom clear out of the room while she memorized the details of her mother's charismatic expression on her face. She tried to lock that image in her brain, making it last, so she could remember it the next time her mom causes a storm in her mind.
She couldn't lie to herself. She wasn't the one to drive the knife through her own stomach, but she couldn't deny the fact that she knew the location of every single one of her mom's knives in the kitchen. There were countless times where she would pick one up and daydream about slitting her wrists vertically. Sometimes she liked to imagine the remorse and sorrow in her mom's eyes once she saw the blood streaming out of her daughter's forearms.
But that was just a reoccurring fantasy that started at the age of 10. She knew deep down that her life wasn't that hard.
Just an endless suffocating loop that she didn't know how to get out of.
"Have you been self-harming for a while now?" Betty heard the nurse ask, immediately snapping her out of her daze.
"What?" She rotated her head to look up at the nurse, who was now standing at the right side of her bed. "No," she replied defensively. "I don't self-harm."
The nurse raised her eyebrows, glancing down at Betty's side. "What about that knife infliction?"
"It was stupid," she snapped. "Just a spur of the moment type thing. I'm not, like, depressed or anything like that, and I don't self-harm."
The woman narrowed her eyes at her in a quizzical manner as she gave a slight head nod, "Then what are those?" She kept her eyes locked with Betty's, but the blonde felt the blood leave her head once she knew what the nurse was gesturing to. Betty darted her eyes down, and there rested by her side--her red crescents displayed on her exposed palm for anyone to see.
She inhaled a sharp breath and snapped her hand shut as quickly as she could. Her heart beating loud in her chest was the only thing she could hear and feel as she averted her eyes away from the nurse. She was reluctant to acknowledge her any longer as embarrassment and self-hatred consumed her.
Once the woman finally left the room, Betty was no longer capable of holding back the tears. Her body trembled as she closed her eyes and sobbed.
She didn't just cry. She sobbed and wept for minutes on end, letting the tears inevitably stain her cheeks.
It was the moment Betty realized she was no longer a closed book. A page had been ripped out, and those words were now plastered all over the thin walls.
Veronica and Alice walked out of the elevator, heading their way to the revolving door to exit the hospital. Alice stepped in the cylindrical enclosure first with Veronica following behind. As the older woman pushed one of the doors to rotate them, there was a person simultaneously entering the building. Veronica gave a quick glance through the rotating glass; then, her eyes were immediately bulging out of their sockets as they gawked at the dark-headed man passing them. His flexed jawline and the toothpick hanging from his fleshy red lips were unmissable as his devilish eyes slowly reached hers.
Jughead.
She was surprised to see he wasn't in his Serpent jacket, just a plain black bomber with a white fitted t-shirt underneath. He strolled through the revolving doors so casually, quickly flashing her that wicked look in his eyes as her heart sank to the thought of them being just a foot apart, and the only thing separating them was a transparent door circling around the vertical axis.
Once the door rotated enough for him to enter the building and for her to walk out into the fall light, Veronica stopped, keeping her cautious gaze on the man as he disappeared inside the hospital.
Alice puzzledly stared at Veronica, then followed the direction of her eyes. "What? What's wrong?"
Realizing Alice didn't know who they had just walked passed, Veronica stiffened momentarily, looking up at her with an unsettled expression frozen on her face.
Black combat boots treaded the white flooring of the hospital, slowly making their way over to the nurses station arranged in the center of the floor. A nurse looked up from the stack of papers she was filing to acknowledge the presence of the stranger.
"Hey," Jughead greeted while leaning his elbow against the surface of the desk. "I came here to ask about the status of one of your patients."
"What's the name?" The nurse asked.
"Uh..." He tapped his strong, slender fingers along the cool surface. "Elizabeth. She came in with a stab wound."
"Oh, yes." The nurse grabbed a manila folder off the desk and opened it up. "Elizabeth Cooper..." she read off the page, gliding the tip of her finger across it. "It says here that she's out of surgery."
A crease appeared in between his brows like those words mystified him for a second, then he relaxed his face, looked down and straightened himself back up. "Okay," he responded.
"She's awake now if you want to go see her. She's in that room over there." The nurse pointed to the room closest to the station. Jughead turned his head to see the door was wide open. The bottom of Betty's bed was visible, but not a single inch of her was.
Jughead took a second to respond, then shook his head, "Uh, no. That's okay."
"Do you wanna leave a message?--"
He shook his head.
"Or you can at least tell me your name, so she knows you stopped by," the woman insisted with a smile.
Jughead looked like he was debating with himself as he rolled the toothpick around with his tongue.
A few seconds traveled by, then he took a short step back. "No," he uttered, and the raven-haired boy was now viewed as nothing less than some supernatural creature. The nurse was transfixed by his mysterious yet devious tone as he took another few steps backward.
"No name," he slyly smirked.
Then, without waiting a second to see a reaction form on the woman's face, he was back to treading the floors once again.
Leaving behind a trail of unsettling dust that even caused Betty to glance over at her doorway coincidentally.
The lingering presence of him appeared to haunt the hospital walls because there she was--alone--thinking about him
--once again.