her last breath · betty and jughead

i'll be here the whole time

"Mr. Jones?" My head shot up at the sound of my name. I stood up and faced the man in the white coat. Before he said anything, I knew what he was here to tell me. I didn't need him to say the words, I could tell by his facial expression. "She's asking for you."

Imagine being only twelve years old, watching your mother struggle to breathe. Tubes coming out of every part of her body. The kind nurse telling you the many machines set up behind her were keeping her alive, and after they were gone, so was she. 

I began to walk towards her room. I pushed the door open and heard it close behind me. She was looking at the monitor at her side. I knew she had heard me come in the room, but she didn't look at me.

"Okay, Mr. Jones, Jughead. We'll start by slowing turning off each monitor, then her heart will stop. After that, we take the tube out her throat. There'll be nothing left keeping her alive after that." The nurse went on and on about how his mother was already dead. He wasn't stupid, he knew what had happened. The car crash caused too much damage to her brain. Though she was awake every now and again, it wasn't really her, it was the machines. His mother was already dead. 

I walked towards the side of her bed, and intercepted her gaze on the clouds outside. She looked at me, and I saw how different she looked. Her skin was pale, her eyes were bloodshot, her cheeks were stained from tears, her hair was loose around her face.

Gladys Jones was buried a week later in a gorgeous setting. Jughead didn't cry, not once. Not because he didn't love his mother, quite the opposite actually. He loved her more than anyone else in the world. But his mother once told him not to shed any tears on her part. She would never be gone, even if she wasn't there physically. She told him that once she's gone, he needs to be the strong man that she knows he can be. 

So Jughead didn't cry. He didn't cry when she died, he didn't cry when she was buried. He didn't even cry two weeks later, when his father was rushed to the hospital for being so drunk he stopped breathing. He would be strong, just like his mother told him to be. He vowed that day to never cry when someone departures from this world. 

"Juggie." Her voice sounded broken, beaten until there was almost nothing left. I took her hands and laced my fingers with hers. They were ice cold, and shaking. "I'm scared."

"I know." I was surprised when I heard my voice. I heard it crack as I spoke to her. "But you don't need to be, okay? I'll be here the whole time. I'm not going anywhere."

His father died two years later when he'd drank so much, he never woke up again. Jughead was only fourteen years old and now had no one but his little sister left. His aunt Monica took them in and tried to raise them. Jughead never spoke to her, he acted as though he was raising Jellybean on his own. He told his mother he could be strong, but now he had to be stronger. He had no one left. He couldn't allow anyone else to die, not without fighting it first. He held in his tears. 

A tear rolled down her small face. I took my thumb and wiped it away, just like I had done so many times before. There was a knock at the door, and a nurse popped her head in. I motioned her in and she closed the door behind her, staying as quiet as she could. She stood on the other side of her bed and started to look over some paperwork. Afterwards, her eyes met mine, asking if we were ready. My eyes went back to the girl laying in the bed in front of me.

"We're going to get started, okay?" Her grip tightened on me as I spoke. I squeezed them back comfortingly. "Just look at me. Don't focus on anything else but me, alright?"

Jellybean was diagnosed with stage five cancer when Jughead was seventeen years old. The doctors told him and his aunt the cancer was too far progressed. At that point, all they could do was wait. Jughead hated waiting, he hated watching his sister die slowly. She asked when they'd get to go home every day. Jughead always told her the same thing "We'll be home soon, Jelly." 

Four months later, Jellybean wanted to go sit in front of the hospital, see the view, even if it was for one last time. Jughead begged the nurses to let him take her outside, and eventually everyone caved, allowing the little girl her last wish before she left this world. She and Jughead sat side-by-side, watching the sun set over the hills in front them. Jughead turned to ask her if she was ready to go back in, only to find Jellybean wasn't sitting with him anymore. Instead, all that was left was the body that once held the soul of his little sister. He shed a single tear that night as he lay in bed. 

The nurse started to move around the machines. She started to turn some of them off and I rubbed my thumb on the back of her cold, pale hands. The nurse reached the last machine and hesitated a moment before turning it off as well.

"I love you, Jughead Jones." She quietly spoke and I smiled sadly, feeling the tears line my eyes and fall down my face.

"I love you, Betty Cooper." Her breathing slowed and her eyes started to get heavy. Her eyes closed and her chest raised one last time and let out a single breath, before her body stilled. All the pain I had bottled up came to the surface and I buried my face in her chest. I sobbed, shaking the bed that she lay on. I would never love someone like I loved her, I would never be able to move on. But I knew for a fact that I would never forget about the perfect girl next door, Elizabeth Cooper.