Chapter Text
Veronica knew she had a certain disposition for domination and for most parts, she liked it that way. She had her thumb in just about every pie – she was two-time premiership-winning captain of a state-level cheer team, a straight-A student despite being the only student member on the Central Park Conservancy’s gala and at the ripe age of 16, she was featured in the New York Times’ ‘A Day With…’ column – she really was the girl with all the pearls in the world. And so, it was understandable that Veronica Lodge didn’t anticipate that the day would come where she finally lost control.
Then she landed in Riverdale.
For all its dull and sleepy qualities, Riverdale would make for a charming stop along the way. The townies that failed to escape the crushing existentialism of being from a small town where nothing ever happens bustled about with their daily lives mundanely. Even so, it was always with a smile on. For example, the garbage man, no doubt, hated the putrid smell of last night’s dinner combined with old nappies, yet it was important to him that he carefully disguised his disgust with a jolly ‘good morning’ to Mister-Washed-Up-Jock-From-Class-of-’89, who was always rushing to get out the door and to his hollow nine-to-five job. It was a meaningless cycle that the people of Riverdale couldn’t free themselves of.
She ditched first period. She knew that her assigned student tour guide would be so disappointed but frankly, where Algebra would be taking place in fifth period was the least of her concern. She knew she could have asked Smithers to drive but upon revisiting some common sense, she decided a limo (albeit a mini-size one) would be too conspicuous in broad daylight. It was somewhat of a hike but she very well couldn’t have gone through with it under the pale moonlight. She did some basic research before rolling into town and Sweetwater river was swamped with teenage lovers and hence, seedy teenage affairs that can only occur in the dark. Some kids playing hooky were bound to catch her on the move and she didn’t need or want an audience for what she was about to do. Lunch hour was also risky. She had gathered from her brief stop at Pop’s Chock’lit Shoppe that a handful of construction workers enjoyed taking their order of burgers and fries down to the river-side for some fresh air. She was given strict instruction to leave no witness and she didn’t want it to have to come to that. There was already one body floating around the river, the town didn’t need another mysterious death to add to its growing list of tourist attractions.
So after twenty minutes of walking across town in her Mary Janes, Veronica finally decided it was about time to slip them off now that she’s reached her destination. Even without the weight of them, her feet felt heavy. She took a deep breath, ignoring the sharp scent of salt and moss, and undid the knot that held up the hood of her velvet cape. The breathing exercise she learned from hot yoga did little to quell her nerve as she began her treacherous journey down to the river. She had to keep reminding herself that it was completely natural to be ridden with anxiety; anyone in her position would be, anyone in their right mind should be. Still, she couldn’t help but be annoyed at herself for her minor oversight – the strenuous weather condition. The fog was heavy and unforgiving to her mission; she couldn’t see across the river and therefore, she couldn’t see if anyone was waiting on the other side. The sensible part of her tried to rationalise that if she couldn’t see them, chances were that they couldn’t see her. It wasn’t the persistent wind that was getting to her though, it was the uncomfortable eeriness of the woods that was proving difficult to ignore. The haunting silence was making her feel claustrophobic despite the vast amount of land surrounding her. The emptiness was easy to get lost in, she could see how one would fade into nothingness if they weren’t careful. It must have been only a few minutes later that she saw, in her peripheral, long, stringy, leafless branches that may as well have materialized out of thin air. It meant that she must be close now. Desperate to get this done and over with, Veronica hurried her steps and almost tripped over an unexpected pothole. She huffed as she regained her footing and ignored the throbbing ache that was beginning to travel up her left calf. She may as well have been the one who drowned in the river because the sheer thickness of the fog was quickly becoming suffocating. Unable to take the heaviness that was weighing down on her chest, she began to swat at nothing and everything all at once. Her feet were moving at its own accord and before she knew it, she had broken into a run. In a flurry of panic, she had lost sight of the Maplewood tree and somehow ended up on the other side of the fog. Veronica blinked away the stinging sensation and wiped away the liquid that was clouding her sight. She had somehow wound up at the very edge of Sweetwater River. Wonderful, she thought grimly as she gathered the extra material of her cape and wound it tighter around her shivering form. She glared down at the violent stream of liquid gushing beneath her bare feet. The water was so clear that Veronica could see her own reflection looking up at her, she felt her stomach do a flip at the sight. She looked haggard, exhausted and worst of all, bitter. She hated this godforsaken town and everyone in it. If it wasn’t for the very existence of Riverdale and its people, she would have been maxing out her credit card at Bloomingdale and feasting on champagne and caviar.
“I wouldn’t do that if I was you.”
Veronica froze, her spine straightening at once.
“I doubt the town’s sheriff would appreciate a second body count so close to the first one.”
The words flew out of Veronica’s mouth before she could think to suppress it. “They haven’t found his body.”
She internally bristled as she squeezed her eyes shut, her sharp-tipped nails digging into her sides. She really shouldn’t have done that; this was the second oversight in one day. Swallowing down her chagrin, Veronica swivelled around to confront whichever townie that was too nosy for his own good. Whoever it was must have not heard that curiosity killed the cat.
“You’re a long way from home, Dorothy,” the boy quipped, barely glancing up from a battered copy of ‘The Lady in the Lake.’ It almost got a chuckle out of Veronica, because really, how much more ironic could it get?
“Why do you say that?” she baited, folding her arms over her chest.
“Your expensive get-up,” he replied, short and straight to the point, “No one around here but the Blossoms have the funds to afford anything that luxurious. Plus, it’s a small town,” he shrugged and flipped over a page, “You’re hard-pressed to find a face you haven’t seen before.”
Upon closer inspection, Veronica realized that the stranger didn’t exactly look like he belonged to the town of pep either. She had observed within the first few days of her arrival that the boy population exclusively wore the football team’s bombers or primary coloured sweaters and matching shirts. It was quite pedestrian, but so was everything else in this town. He, however, was sporting a worn-in leather jacket that looked like a James Deans’ hand-me-down and a pair of blue jeans that had too many holes in them to be fashionable. He didn’t look to be any older than she was either. Now that she thought about it, he should most definitely be in first period and not hanging by the riverside.
“I wasn’t planning on doing that, just you know,” she clarified for reasons unbeknownst to her, “I wasn’t trying to kill myself or whatever it is that you assumed I was trying to do.”
“No, I didn’t peg you as the type either,” the boy drawled, sounding almost bored, “Although it did cross my mind that the sheer monotony of this town may have gotten to you.”
Veronica frowned. “What? A girl can’t go for a stroll?”
Finally, he looked up long enough from his book to challenge her with a dubious quirk of the brow. “With no shoes?”
Coming from a guy who’s straddling a boulder by the river, was what she really wanted to say but instead, she found herself saying, “Designer heels pinch, but you wouldn’t know anything about that.”
“Scathing remarks, of course. Nice diversion technique,” he scoffed out a laugh, it was humourless and largely patronizing, “Would have worked too if I cared enough to get offended by you adding insult to my inferior economic status,” he abruptly snapped his book shut and gently placed it down on the small patch of dry grass between his legs, “So, how’d you know about Jason Blossom’s undiscovered body?”
Shit.
“I can tell just by that line of questioning that you’re overdoing it with Chandler’s work,” Veronica retorted, doing her best to muffle the defensive edge creeping up in her voice, “Who do you think you are anyway? Some kind of local Phillip Marlowe?”
“Nope,” he popped his ‘p’ loud enough that it echoed all around them, “Just a local snoop who wants to know why the most recent addition to town would be skirting around Sweetwater river barefoot and how said addition just happen to have the most recent scoop on Jason Blossom’s mysterious disappearance?”
She hated how smug he looked then. He was looking at her as if he had her trapped and her only choice was to crumble under his obvious investigative tactics. It had amused her then, how wrong he had been about that. She absentmindedly wondered how long it would take for anyone to notice that a boy like him had gone missing – three days, maybe a week if the police mishandled the case? She had seen pictures of the Blossom twins before and unlike this brooding number in front of her, they were the type of missing children people cared to see on the news.
“One, it’s none of your business why I’m here or if I’m missing footwear, but I do appreciate the concern. My pedicure appointment doesn’t come cheap,” she smirked as she sauntered over to him, “Two, as you said so yourself, I am new in town. Safety is very important to me, so forgive me if I like to be kept up to date with the most recent development in this town’s death.”
She could see it in the mischievous glint of his eyes then that he didn’t buy it, but it was enough to make him drop the subject – for now anyway. He was watching her, waiting for her to reveal more than necessary so he could scrutinize every syllable that rolled over her tongue and the twitch it would cause to the corner of her painted mouth. Unfortunately, she wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction.
Much to her surprise, he was the first to crack. “Jughead Jones,” he introduced with the cool casualness of someone who didn’t just moments ago try to pry her for information, “I’m going to take a stab in the dark and say you’re Veronica Lodge.”
“Won’t you look at that? I’ve been in town for two seconds and already, I have a stalker on my hands.”
The boy swept back the mop of dark brown curls and jumped onto his feet. He took several wide steps towards her and the closer he got, the more uneasy she felt. There was an indiscernible swirling at the pit of her stomach when he finally reached her, his lanky form towering over her. She didn’t expect him to be so tall, but then again, she didn’t expect to feel so overwhelmed by his sudden closeness.
“Don’t flatter yourself, Park Avenue,” he sounded cold but the amused smile told a contradicting story, “I saw you breeze into Pop’s the other night. You’re not exactly easy to miss.”
Veronica nodded, swallowing down the lump forming at the back of her throat. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”
She didn’t want the reminder but thanks to Jughead, it was starting to come together in her head. She distantly recalled having a chance encounter with a stranger who, now that she thought about it, looked just like him. It wasn’t anything memorable – she was leaving Pop’s and he was entering it, she nearly crashed face-first into his shoulder and he dodged it seamlessly enough that she slipped right past without so much as a pause to her exit. He had the same seafoam eyes and the same crooked nose. It was all same old, same old, except that night he had on clothes that were much more in tune with the Riverdale’s preppy spirit. She was then assaulted with flashes of suspenders, a wrinkled button-up, and some obscurely shaped beanie that she thought was quite ugly. Although it was a little early to pass judgement, she decided then that she didn’t like him covered in prep – it was just wrong.
“No beanie today?” she threw out, feeling bold.
A look of genuine surprise crossed his face. His stare lingered on her as he crouched down to pick up the book from the ground, taking a second to dust off the specks of dirt. “So you do remember.”
“Somewhat”
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” He echoed her previous sentiment with a smile. It still wasn’t gentle but it had lost some of its mocking edge from before.
A prolonged moment of silence fell upon them and she prayed that they had reached a mutual understanding – he would not press her any further about the Blossom boy or Sweetwater and in return, she would happily pretend that it wasn’t at all peculiar that he was sitting duck by the river edge at nine in the morning. She wasn’t going to crack first by looking away so it had to him. Jughead gave the changing tides a sidelong glance as he yanked up the zip of his jacket and tucked the Chandler novel under his arm. He released a heavy breath and Veronica watched with fleeting wistfulness as a cloud of condensation disappeared as quickly as it appeared. It was summertime in New York – she should be in New York.
“You shouldn’t be out here. It’s not safe,” Jughead declared and took a quick look around them.
It was like he was checking for unwanted company but she couldn’t tell if that was just her projecting her own paranoia onto him.
“Come on, I’ll give you a ride to school,” he announced through clenched teeth like it pained him to make that offer.
Admittedly, Veronica was elated that he had given her the perfect excuse to put off doing what she was sent here to do. It will have to wait till another day, she pacified herself and followed Jughead who already started to walk the other way. Still, her mind couldn’t shake the image of a red-headed boy sinking to the bottom of the lake. It wouldn’t be long now until someone stumbled across his corpse and dragged it onto shore. The hysteria will naturally follow; there will be ear piercing screams and ugly tears and then, people will start to forget. Veronica filed away the imminent terror under her list of ‘nefarious things to do’ so she could ponder over it at a more opportune time. She switched her focus to watching her steps and made sure to stay a couple of steps behind her new companion; close enough just so she didn’t lose him to the mist and far enough for her to track his every movement. First impression was important and her first impression of Jughead Jones was that he was harmless enough, but you could never be too sure given her situation. It was just as mother had warned her before she high-tailed out of the big apple: Never let your guard down, mija. They are out for blood.
Now that they were far enough from the river that she could make out the top of the hill and a pair lacquered heels she had left on it, she felt much better – lighter, more at ease with herself.
“So,” Sick of thinking and talking about the dead, Veronica took it upon herself to strike up a more light-hearted conversation, “Let me guess since you’re not stalking me, you know which school I attend too?”
Jughead rolled his eyes and shoved his hands deeper into his pockets. “If you did adequate research on Riverdale then you’d know that there’s only one school on this side of the tracks, and I could be wrong - although that’s a rarity - you don’t look like you’d enjoy the other side.”
That got her attention. “What’s on the other side of the tracks?” she asked, brow raised in intrigue.
He sucked in his bottom lip and snorted unprompted; it was as far as Veronica was aware anyway. “Everything this town doesn’t like about itself,” he replied cryptically as he kicked a moulding wine cork out of his path, “So you see, you wouldn’t be on the other side. You’re not really the kind of girl to be caught up on the wrong side of the tracks, are you, Princess?”
Even if a gun was to be pointed at her head, Veronica knew it with impenetrable certainty that she wouldn’t be able to describe in words the rumbling she felt deep inside her chest then. It was an anomalous emotion he had stirred within her when he called her ‘Princess.’ It was unlike anything else – it was poisonous, it was blistering, it was the clawing underneath her skin that she could never set free.
“Veronica,” He laid a hand on her shoulder and it was insanity that his touch burned even over the material of her cape, “Are you ok?”
She nearly laughed but not wanting to appear as if she was a complete loony, she stifled it with a cough and shrugged him off.
Her neck felt like concrete when she attempted to nod. “Just peachy,” she declared but the tremble in her voice would say otherwise, “Could you run ahead and grab me my shoes? My toes feel like they’re about to snap off.”
Jughead appraised her with a look that was half concern and half unresolved. She bit back a freakish scream that was threatening to burst out of her throat. Luckily for her, he had settled on being compliant and had gone ahead like she had requested. A second more and Veronica was sure her teeth would have dug deep enough into her flesh that blood would surface, effectively ruining her lipstick. By the time she had collected herself to an acceptable standard, he had reached the peak and the straps of her heels were dangling off his fingers. The violent wind drove Jughead’s dark curls wild and as Veronica regarded him from a safe distance, she came to the frightening conclusion that something inside of her had fallen out of place.