Stuck With Me

7 | Time Doesn't Heal All Wounds

Jughead came shuffling down the stairs, as his rambling stomach had woken him up in the middle of the night. Even with taking seconds at dinner he managed to be hungry before the sun had even rose again.

With the sleep still in his eyes he tried to make his way to the living room without falling from the stairs or tripping on some pair of shoes. To his surprise he was welcomed by the light of the living room, which was very unusual considering it was 3am. 

When he slowly took a peak into the room he found Alice pacing back and forth with a glass of white wine in her hand that was sloshing close to the edge. 

''Ms. Smith, what you are doing up?'' He asked her concerned, feeling that this wasn't one of her late night work sessions. 

The woman stopped walking the second she heard the boy's voice, realizing that she wasn't alone anymore. As quickly as she could she wiped away the tears that had streamed down her face for the past hour to try to make it seem like it was just insomnia that kept her up. 

''It's nothing, Jughead. Go back to sleep.'' Alice tried to fake a smile, but Jughead knew her well enough now to know when she was putting on a brave face. 

''You're drinking in the middle of the night, that is not nothing.'' He pointed out, not impressed by her suggestion for him to leave. It wasn't in his nature to leave people when they were upset. 

''Leave it, please.'' Alice pleaded, which almost sounded like a desperate question. 

He fell silent for a few seconds, overthinking whether he should leave her alone or not. This was Alice he was looking at, a woman who had never been good at expressing her feelings. It wasn't his right to push her, but on the other end she'd never let him go sleep upset either. She had taken care of him when nobody else did.

''You listened to me when you took me in your home. Let me return the favor. Talk to me. Or should I wake Betty? or my Dad?'' 

Jughead could understand if she wasn't going to talk to a seventeen year old boy that wasn't her own child, but maybe she'd talk to an adult like his father or even to her daughter. He'd respect her choice to not tell him what was going on, but he figured it be good for her to at least talk to someone in this house.

''No! Don't wake FP. And let Betty sleep too.'' Alice warned him, feeling her temperature rise by only thinking about either Betty or FP knowing about her secret breakdown. Nobody was supposed to know and she mentally cursed herself for not taking her glass up her bedroom. 

''So, what is it?'' Jughead wasn't a quitter, instead he sat down at the dinner table, waiting for her to follow him. And she did. Hesitatingly she sat down across of him, placing her glass in front of her. It was almost empty now. And truth was, this wasn't her first one this night. 

The eyes of the boy radiated something calm and soft, that made her want to trust him. He had opened up multiple times too when he had been devastated about his father being away for too long. 

Betty and Alice always tried to cheer him up as much as possible and maybe now was the time for him to do the same for her. There was just one big difference. The one she was crying about wasn't coming back. 

''It's been three years since Hal passed. I still don't know exactly how to cope. I want to be there for Betty but I--'' Alice stuttered, feeling ashamed of being so broken after years when she always pretended to have gotten over it.

''I am so sorry. That must be hard.'' Jughead said quietly. 

She had kept her guard up about her feelings towards the death of her ex-husband all those years and it was for the very first time she confessed to someone that it was very hard for her to deal with.