Stuck With Me

11 | Don't Go

"You're both grounded. Two weeks." Alice stated firmly as she crossed her arms. The two teenagers had a bowl of cereal in front of them, but neither one had an appetite. Jughead opened his mouth to protest, but Betty beat him to it.

"That's not really fair, Mom. We still get good grades!" She defended both of them. Betty had a point there, even though they liked to go to a party every once in a while, both of them worked really hard for school too.

"Beyond the point, Betty. You lied to me." Alice shot back, not accepting anything else. This wasn't about their grades, this was about the way they had just ignored both herself and FP when they had asked if they could go to the party.

What was angering her way more was that her Dad knew very well that she didn't want this, but that he still managed to go behind her back and stab her right in it. But Betty and Jughead were old enough to handle their own consequences.

"What do you think, FP?" Betty turned herself to the father of her boyfriend who hadn't said a thing.

Lecturing wasn't really his thing, Alice seemed to have a born nature for that, so he had just stand there and watched the whole thing.

"Woah, don't drag me down with you, Betty." He held his hands up in defense as the young blonde tried to get her onto her side.

First he thought Alice had been exaggerating as he used to sneak out as a teen too, but as he heard her talking he knew she was right. It was about the lying, not about the party.

He had been angry about it last night, but all of that anger had fade away after he slept. That was how it usually went. Whenever he fought with his son it was a moment of explosion and things were quiet after that. But today it was about consequences and two parents backing each other up.

"I wanna hear it, Dad." Jughead crossed his arms, as he grew curious about what his father thought about this situation. Part of expected to say that Alice should calm down, but to his surprise he did the opposite.

"Alice is right. It's not about school, it's about not listening to what we told you not to do." FP pointed out.

Jughead was silent for a few seconds, staring at his father in disbelief and letting out a low scoff. This wasn't the Dad he was used to have. Suddenly he became a man of principles just because Alice thought so? He wasn't so sure to be happy with this living arrangement now.

"Since when did you decide to follow the rules? You didn't seem to care before." Jughead huffed and grabbed his school bag to leave out the front door without looking at any of them.

"Jug—" Betty called after him, but the door slam interrupted her.

FP tried to avoid the look from Betty and Alice on him, as everyone could feel the weight of his words. It was hard to keep his tears in as Jughead's comment had truly hurt him. It wasn't like his son to say something like this, especially not after they had been through such a rough time.

"I'll go after him, sorry. He just had a lack of sleep." Betty excused him and got a sad nod from FP. He wasn't sure going after Jughead was the best choice right now, but he'd understand that Betty wanted to check up with him.

Alice looked at her daughter as she left the house, hoping that she'd find him and calm him down. It was her job to do the same, but then with the man standing next to her.

"Everything alright?" She asked quietly, placing her hand on his shoulder to give him some kind of comfort. FP sighed and looked up at her, the pain noticeable in his eyes.

"I am fine, Alice. Don't blame him for thinking the father hasn't been around for seven months always will be a screw up." He scoffed and turned around to walk away.