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Riverdale S2 Ep. 3 Fanfiction

“Who is Jughead Jones? (Wouldn’t you like to know.)”

I stop and stare at the heading of my opened Word document. A distant thought grazes my mind that questions whether the title is coming off as too self-centered. Who am I kidding? I agreed to write an article about myself. What else should they expect? I scoff. Most of the kids that will see this are gonna be too high off their asses to even see that it’s my name on the paper. At least, that’s the case at Southside High. And if I’m completely honest with myself, I don’t care. When I do care is when their polluted substances and life-ruining foliage drifts like an airborne disease into my actual home: Riverdale High.

It causes an irritation so intense that I can’t even get my opening paragraph written before I slam down the head of my laptop and adjust my hat; a force of habit I’m not planning to break. I bite my lip as I slowly pace around the storage room. If only Betty were here... My chest tightens. She said she was going to clean up a mess with Kevin. I sigh in guilt: right after I lied to her about being beat up by the thugs I wrote about at school. Defeated, I swallow and grab my laptop bag and shrug on my jacket. It’s probably for the best. She’s already got a lot on her plate, and she doesn’t need to concern herself with problems I create.

First period is about to start, and I make a mental note to ask her about Kevin as I head to math. The classes were easy the first day I transferred. Now they’re just a joke. “You’re a really smart kid, Jones,” Principal Weatherby told we as he was confirming papers I needed to submit to Southside. “I uh— hate to see you go.”

His eyes had darted away when he said that. Probably because he knew what lay ahead for me at my new school, and he felt a bit ashamed. It’s not hard to understand why. Hell, if I was sending a weird but promising kid to a school filled with drug addicts, underrated education and a gang who rules over every morsel of life, I’d feel a little sad too.

The potatoes I smear and shred with my fork on my black lunch tray remind me of the sloshy snow we had just a few months ago, although it feels like an eternity. I’m sitting by myself today near the window, and I’m glad, because I wouldn’t expect anyone to even approach the new antisocial guy who’s father is in prison for assisting in a murder. Might as well put that on a “Hello! My name is...” sticker. Talk about charming.

With just one taste of the cardboard mashed potatoes, it causes me to lose my appetite, and I resort to crossing every limb I can (legs, arms, and ankles) to take up as little space as possible. It’s an old habit from middle school, and even though the horrifying events in Riverdale have made me more strong-willed, it didn’t boost my self esteem, or posture for that matter. Betty pointed that out to me one time, and I was going to grumble that I couldn’t help it until I saw the humor shining in her eyes and I couldn’t help but smile. She always makes me smile, and it’s annoying.

“Hey Green Day, you should eat your lunch before you get skinnier. If that’s even possible.”

A junior with buzz cut blonde hair and a tongue ring shoves past me (pushing my plastic fork deep into the ugly brown potato abyss) while his buddies praise him on his insult, high-fiving each other and glancing over their shoulder at me. They slow down to take a table near me enough to hear me mutter,

“Take your own advice, Miley Cyrus.”

The blonde freezes, and his goonies pat his shoulder, daring him to retaliate. With no other hesitation but a slight side glance, he stands up, pushes his chair back loud enough to cause everyone in our part of the cafeteria to look our way, and starts walking toward me. I never look away (I learned that bullies think they’ve won if you break eye contact) and he’s about to open his mouth when—

“Butch. Give the new guy a break, would you? I didn’t think you were one to prey on things half your size.”

I recognize the purple highlights and black beanie, and my jaw clenches.

“Whatever Toni. I didn’t think you were the one to date puny serpents.” The blonde (apparently named Butch) with one last defiant glare, turns around and stalks back to his table. As Toni sits down in the chair across from me, I see Butch grab his tray (that doesn’t have anything on it) and say “Let’s move guys.”

That sentence alone is a victory in itself, and as a result, I smile. Toni thinks it was because she sat down, but I don’t correct her. “Wow,” she drawls. “I didn’t know your mouth could turn up like that. I thought smiles were an extremely rare circumstance.”

My face hardens when I remember that she told off the low-lives, and that as a result, she made me look weak. “You didn’t need to do that,” I retort, the words coming out harsher than I meant. “I had it handled.”

“You did,” she states, her eyes narrowing. “You also had it handled the other night when they left cuts and bruises above your eyebrow, on your cheekbones, and around your eye.” She takes a sip from her half-full crinkled water bottle before resuming her sarcasm. “I have to say,” Toni points out before swallowing, “if that’s your way of ‘handling things’ I’d find a new tactic.”

At my confused expression, she quickly adds, “For the sake of your girlfriend, of course. You can’t keep having motorcycle accidents every week ya’ know.”

I had planned to only respond with a glance up at her, but my curiosity gets the best of me, as it often does. “Why are you saying all this, Toni?”

“Because, Juggie,” she replies while standing up and grabbing her water, and a shiver runs down my spine as she uses the name Betty usually calls me. “Serpents look after their own, remember? And it might seem like it, but not everyone at this school despises you.”

The words, “That’s not true,” hang on my tongue as I watch her fade into the crowd of leather jackets, smoked vape, and inked skin. I also had a nagging feeling in my stomach that was telling me that there was another reason for her helping me other than me being a Serpent. And I needed to find out why.

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