𝐅𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐬 𝐖𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐁𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐟𝐢𝐭𝐬 ¹

|𝓒𝓱𝓪𝓹𝓽𝓮𝓻 𝓕𝓸𝓻𝓽𝔂 𝓝𝓲𝓷𝓮 | 𝓨𝓸𝓾'𝓵𝓵 𝓝𝓮𝓿𝓮𝓻 𝓑𝓮 𝓐𝓵𝓸𝓷𝓮|

Chapter Forty-Nine - You'll Never Be Alone

I need you more than words can say,

You save me in ways that I can’t explain,

Always been there for me, now I’ll do the same,

I need you more than words can say,

-Little Mix Ft. Kamille, “More Than Words,”

•••

Archie

“This is stupid,” Ronnie sighs shaking her head, as she messes with the long sleeves of the hoodie she’s wearing, she sits in the middle of her bed, buried in the multitude of pillows, the stuffed elephant she bought to replace Scarlett’s sits in her lap, her eyes are glued to it, they are red and puffy large dark circles surround them, her cheeks tear-stained, and a huge frown sits on her plump lips, her damp hair sticks to her equally moistened cheeks, there are red scratch marks on her left wrist which she attempts to hide with the material of her sweater but I know they’re there, it hurts to see her in such a state, I hate that there isn’t much I can do to change this, I wish nothing more than to take her pain away but I can’t, no one can, and I think that’s the worst part, 

“No it’s not,” Cheryl sighs, as she takes a seat on the bed beside Toni, Jughead, Tabitha, Katy, and Mike are also in the room, they’re all sprawled around the bed, I can tell their presence makes her uncomfortable, but she feels too bad to kick them out, I’d do it myself but I knew this was for her well being, even if she’d argue against it, “This will help,” she assures handing Veronica her old phone, 

“I really don’t want to do this,” her voice breaks as a tear slips from her eyes,

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” Mike comforts her as he pulls her into his chest, I look away attempting to hide the sudden jealousy I feel, 

“Yes she does, how is she supposed to heal if she can’t even hear herself talk about it?” Cheryl stresses, 

“Calm down,” Toni says squeezing her hand, “Take your time, honey, it’s ok,” she tells Ronnie,

“I–I just— I don’t want you guys to hate me,” she says her voice shaky, 

“Don’t say that, no one is going to hate you, we’re just trying to help,” Mike says, placing a kiss on her forehead, she nods inhaling as she reaches for the device, she clicks on her audio files, opening the folder titled, ‘Summer 2016’ she scrolls down to the bottom, pressing play on the first file, soon her voice fills the room, 

“Hello, Veronica, it’s me, Veronica, god, this is so fucking stupid, I shouldn’t have told mom, how is this going to help? H–how is reliving all my fucking trauma going to help me get over it? All it’s going to do is make it worse. I’ve spent my entire life blaming everyone around me for being this way, b–but what if it’s my fault? What if all these terrible things keep happening to me because I deserve it? I’m starting to think that maybe I’m not as good as I thought, I feel like I’m just a waste of air, sometimes I fantasize about ending it all, I know it sounds morbid, but I can’t help but find it peaceful, sometimes I wonder how it’d be for everyone around me, in fact they are the only thing stopping me from slitting my wrists wide open and watching consciousness leave me slowly until I’m no longer able to wake up, but then there are those days when I don’t care, there are those days when I think that maybe they deserve it, maybe if I was dead then they’d realize they don’t pay as much as attention as they think they do, I mean, it took my parents three fucking years to take my depression seriously, it wasn’t until Katy told them I tried to kill myself that they realized I wasn’t ok, I don’t blame them, but they should’ve believed me when I’d wake them up at three in the fucking morning every night saying I wanted to fucking die, it’s crazy how those words aren’t taken seriously until you scream them through tears, I told Cheryl the other day, that sometimes I find breathing exhausting, and she laughed it off, but I wasn’t joking, I told Jug the same thing, he was too caught up in his novel to even realize I was sitting right next to him sobbing, I would’ve told Archie the same thing but he was too busy fucking some random blonde to pick up the fucking phone, Reggie was too, so you see, I try to get help but it doesn’t work, so I just stop fucking trying because I know that once I show the smallest chance of healing then they’ll stop caring a–and it’s not like it just fucking stops, I was stuck in therapy for five fucking years and not once in those last five years have I ever felt better, but I pretended to because I knew that everyone else needed me to be, not because they care but because they fucking don’t, so one of these days, when I actually go through with it, no one is allowed to mourn me, because they were all aware of the fact that I’m a fucking disaster, and I don’t see a point to living anymore, because nothing I’ve ever done, and no one I’ve ever met has ever made life worth living,”