“You’re jealous, aren’t you?”
( verseless!barchie x @noorasaetrewrites )
Lie. That was a lie. For a briefsecond, Archie wondered if she knew that. She had known him all her life,surely Betty knew when he was lying. He wasn’t that good of a liar and no onehad ever been good enough to fool Betty Cooper anyways. Shoving his hands intohis pockets, Archie began to think about how they had gotten to this in thefirst place. He knew that she was dating Jughead now – or at least that theyhad kissed once or twice – and that meant that whatever had been going onbetween them was over. At least, he was pretty sure it was over. No, it wasover. Betty was too good of a person to do that sort of thing, especially tosomeone like Jughead. Hell, he would like to think that he was too good aperson to do that sort of thing as well. Jughead was his best friend, though itwould have been nice if he had ever mentioned that he had feelings for Bettythat way.
Would that really have changedanything though? Archie hadn’t known what he wanted the night of the dance andhe still didn’t entirely know what he wanted. It was hard to say that knowingJughead wanted Betty would have changed anything or made him realize what hehad wanted any faster. Then again, it all seemed to become crystal clear oncehe realized that he had actually lost the blonde. He was happy for them,honestly. He was happy that two people as great as Betty and Jughead had foundeach other and they were making each other happy. That’s all he really wantedwas for the people he cared about to be happy. Then again, maybe he wasjealous. He was jealous. He was jealous of the thought of anyone else kissingBetty, of being able to hold her attention the way he used to.
That had been taken for grantedover and over and he felt stupid for it. He felt stupid for not seeing what hadbeen in front of him the whole time – Betty. Now she was with someone elsethough and he couldn’t mess with that. It wasn’t his place to toy with herhappiness nor was it his place to undermine his best friend who had the guts tonot only figure out what he wanted, but to say something about it. That was whyshe was with Jughead, he was the better man in this case. Archie shook his headyet again, though he didn’t know what to. There hadn’t been a follow upquestion, yet he felt the need to answer anyways.
“No, I’m not jealous. I’m happyfor you.”