plotted starter for @sluething
“I know, B… I know.” She sounds defeated when she says it, exhaling hard and fast against the tension in her ribs that has her strung up in her seat like a corset. Betty’s hand is on her knee and Veronica stares at it. It’s better to stare at that than the wide, soft gaze of Betty Cooper’s eyes, peering into her glossy and concerned with a thousand questions Veronica hasn’t been ready to answer. She’s a regular Hitchcock, Blonde – Betty Cooper. The kind that looks innocent and knows too much, the kind that shows the world a reflection of how terrible it can be because of the way reds and blacks and blues stain against her so boldly. That’s always been the thing that struck Veronica most about her. And now, it feels like some kind of weapon, wielded against her. People often said Hitchcock’s blondes were chosen that way because they unraveled the audience. Betty Cooper unravelled her.
It’s the most off her game Veronica Lodge has ever felt. Despite everything – with everything – she’s never once felt so much like the ground is shaking, prepared to collapse beneath every pointed click of her heels the way it feels now. Not her father’s arrest, not her move to Riverdale, not any of it. But now –
“It was Nick,” she starts to explain, still not entirely able to look Betty in the eyes. “Nick St. Claire. He came to town and something happened.” She realzies she’s a Hitchcock of her own, framing this story in the way that it slides out best and feels safest, instead of ripping out the grim reality as it sits, somewhere inside of her rotting her body from somewhere inside her ribs. She’s always been rotten just a little. It’s always leaked out.
Veronica tugs her knee away from Betty’s heavy hand on it. She hates to even do it but it feels better. Safer. Like maybe she won’t be able to rot anything else.
“It wasn’t only Cheryl. The reason I knew – he came on to me the night before. At the party…” she’s disjointed and her words feel heavy and fractured and she wishes for the nori version of this to come back, so that it all might come out smoother. If she were a classic heroine it’d be different. If she were Betty Cooper, it’d be different. “I tried to stop him. He was angry. I know it sounds crazy, Betty and – despite my usual love for a well planned metaphor I mean this entirely in the literal sense. I think Nick killed me.”
