High School Musical (Riverdale)

The guy you knew from kindergarten

Back in the cafeteria, Betty and Veronica were still trying to recover from the chaos that had happened.

"Is Cheryl really, really mad?" Betty asked. "I said I was sorry."

"No one has beaten Cheryl for a musical since kindergarten." Veronica explained.

"I'm not tying to beat anyone out," Betty protested. "We weren't even auditioning. We were just . . . singing."

Veronica shook her head. "You won't convince Cheryl of that," she warned. "If that girl could play both Romeo and Juliet, her own brother would be axed out of a job."

"I told you, it just . . . happened." Then she admitted the real truth. "But . . . I liked it. A lot." She laughed and then asked Veronica the question she had been wondering about since New Year's Eve. "Do you ever feel there's this whole other person inside of you, just waiting for a way to come out?"

Veronica gave her a sharp look. "No." She said, decisively.

The bell rang to signal the end of lunch period. Cheryl stalked out of the cafeteria, but not before leveling a death-ray glare at Betty.

Then Reggie stepped up to stop Cheryl. He was frizzing with happiness, now that his sweet love of baking was out in the open.

"Hey, Cheryl." He said. "Now that Jughead's going to be in your show . . ."

"Jughead Jones is not in my show!" She snapped.

Reggie pushed on, undeterred. "I thought maybe you'd like to come see me play ball some time . . ."

Cheryl tossed her head and said grandly. "I'd rather stick pins in my eyes."

He frowned at her, puzzled. "Wouldn't that be awfully uncomfortable?"

She rolled her eyes in exasperation. "Evaporate tall person!" She said as she stormed off.

Crestfallen, Reggie called after her. "I bake . . . if that helps."
———————
The next day, Betty opened her locker and found a note. She read it quickly, then looked at a yellow door at the end of the hall. She was a little confused–and very intrigued.

She opened the door and found a staircase that led up to the roof. As she opened the door and stepped out into the beautiful, sunny day, rounded by lash plants, all being grown as hydroponic experiments.

"So this is your top secret hiding place?" She asked, smiling.

"Thanks to the Science Club," Jughead said. "Which means my buddies don't even know about it."

Betty wondered about that. His teammates didn't seem to be his only buddies.

"Looks to me like everyone on campus wants to be your friend." She pointed out.

"Unless we lose." He seemed to be a little down about that, she thought. The pressure must be intense, especially since . . .

"I'm sure it's tricky being the coach's son." She said.

Jughead shrugged. "It makes me practice a little harder, I guess. I don't know what he'll say when he hears about the singing thing."

"You worried?" She was surprised. Jughead seemed so cool, so confident. Not the type to worry. Ever.

But Jughead nodded. "My parents' friends are always saying, 'Your son is the basketball guy, you must be so proud.' Sometimes I don't want to be the basketball guy. I just want to be . . . a guy."

Betty smiled with understatement. He didn't want to be genius boy. They were both so much more than that.

"I saw how he treated Josie at the auditions yesterday," she said softly. "Do your friends know that guy?"

Jughead shook his head. "To them, I'm just the playmaker dude."

"Then they don't know enough about you, Jughead." Betty paused, then decided it was time to share a confession o her own. "At my other schools I was the freaky math girl. It's cool coming here and being . . . anyone I want to be. When I was singing with you, I felt like . . . a girl."

"You even look like one, too," he teased her.

Betty laughed, glad to have the seriousness of the moment lightened a bit. "Remember in kindergarten, you'd meet a kid, knowing nothing about them, then ten minutes later were best friends, because you didn't have to be anything but yourself?"

"Yeah . . ." Jughead's voice was wistful.

"Singing with you felt like that," Betty said sincerely.

"I never thought about singing, that's for sure," Jughead said. "Until you."

"So you really want to do the callback?" Betty asked.

He thought about it for a moment as he looked at her. Really looked at her. Then he smiled. "Hey, just call me freaky callback boy."

Betty smiled, a glowing smile of pure happiness. "You're a cool guy, Jughead. But not for reasons your friends think." Jughead looked down, a little embarrassed, and he moved on quickly. "Thanks for showing me your top secret hiding place. Like kindergarten."

Then the bell rang, breaking the mood and making Jughead realize he was late, and that meant detention!