Definition of Want (Bughead)

SKINNY DIP

Jughead was acting...weird.

As stated previously, Betty felt she was a near master on the weird quirks of Jughead Jones. She thought that there was no quip he had that was too bizarre or unexpected. She thought, between her friends, Jughead on some strange level was the most predictable person she knew.

She knew that his mind was deep, but on the surface level, it was usually flitting between food or writing. Veronica was the worst, always surprising her. Archie was a bit slow, bless his soul, so anything he did was always mildly a shock to her.

But Jughead?

Well, call her crazy, but she'd begun to put a certain sort of faith in his stalwart and stony repetition. He was a boy that liked steadiness, liked security. To act outside of this confounded her.

Yet she could not deny it...he was acting markedly different.

At first, she just thought maybe she hadn't been around him in the apartment. He seemed busy all the time, to be frank. It was only a few weeks later that Betty realized this was the weirdness. Jug was going out of his way to not be in the apartment.

She feared his family had taken a turn for the worse. Maybe they were fighting again. Maybe his parents were reconciling. Maybe his sister had said something? She worried about Jug constantly, his keys absent from their key wall like a bad omen deep in her stomach. She felt his absence in an unexpected way like something was entirely missing from her life.

And, well, after her revelation with Sweet Pea...that was probably true.

Betty hadn't dated much. There'd been one singular guy all through high school. He'd asked her to a dance, she'd said yes. They matched dresses to ties to flowers and let Alice take a thousand pictures near the Country Club. They'd had a couple of slow dances and by the end of the night, she'd caught him kissing another girl.

So, no knowledge to be gleaned there, except to not go for asshats.

With Sweet Pea, it had been more of a...a...instinctual thing. They'd been introduced by Jughead. They'd both been attracted to each other. They'd acted upon said attraction. He'd left.

Once again, nothing to go off of.

So, yes, this was practically the first guy Betty really and truly liked in that she thought she might have a chance with and she was dying.

She wasn't going to go to Veronica, however. That was simply asking for trouble.

As a result, in these weeks, she just internalized it. She didn't press her feelings down, per se, but she looked for a way to tell him. She wondered if it should be as casual as the coupons. She wondered if it should be a production. She wondered if she should at all because there was a very real risk he just didn't feel the same way back.

Yes, they sort of had sex, but Betty couldn't count the number of guys she'd seen at other college parties that she thought was utterly repugnant personality-wise, but in another life where she didn't have this thing with Jug, she might still bang them. Jug might see her as just a way to scratch an itch. That's how it had begun. There was no expectation that he had to like her back the way she now was sure she liked him.

Thus, her issue.

Jughead not being present in the apartment kept this secret inside of her from bursting free. You couldn't tell someone you liked them if they weren't around to hear it, right?

But this strangeness, from someone who she was pretty sure loved his own bedroom more than anything outside, was only the first realization in a group of three.